Ripple's XRP has lost almost 40% of its value after the token price dropped from $0.51 on December 21 to $0.31 at the time of writing. The token's plunge appears to be the result of legal proceedings initiated against Ripple by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). At the time of writing, the fourth-ranked crypto token had seen traded volumes of $4.85 billion recorded in 24 hours.

$1.3 Billion Lawsuit
As data on markets.Bitcoin.com suggests, the sell-off of the XRP token appears to have been sparked by Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse's warning that the SEC was about to launch legal proceedings against the company. A day later, the SEC announced the $1.3 billion legal action against Ripple and two of its executives for allegedly conducting an unregistered security offering.

Meanwhile, as the XRP token continues to plummet, an angry Garlinghouse has accused the US regulator of being biased against Ripple while appearing to give a free pass to BTC and ETH. In its determination, the SEC says the XRP is a security and therefore is subject to the dictates of the US Securities Act. Garlinghouse, who has previously threatened to exit the United States due to its regulatory approach, rejects the characterization of XRP as a security.

In his many very public attempts to push back against the SEC, Garlinghouse says the XRP token is a fully functional currency that offers a better alternative. He adds that alongside bitcoin and ether, "the two Chinese controlled virtual currencies" according to the company, XRP ranks as one of the most capitalized cryptos.

Crypto Community Reacts
However, the latter comment appears to have prompted a swift response by some bitcoiners and the ETH creator Vitalik Buterin. In his tweet, Buterin accuses Garlinghouse and his team of "sinking to new levels of strangeness." The ETH creator adds:
They're claiming that their shitcoin should not be called a security for *public policy reasons*, namely because Bitcoin and Ethereum are 'Chinese-controlled.'

Also weighing in on the controversy is Mike Novogratz, the CEO of Galaxy who says he "finds it strange that Clayton waited years to do this."

On the other hand, Ryan Selkis thinks the SEC is going to lose this case because it is "outclassed on legal." He adds that the classification of XRP as a security "further hurts the U.S. businesses while global companies will continue to make these markets."

Meanwhile, at the time of writing reports emerged that the Hong Kong trading platform OSL had suspended XRP services as a result of the SEC lawsuit.

It is likely that the recent SolarWinds hack will become known as the worst cybersecurity breach in United States history—affecting the most sensitive government networks and critical U.S. infrastructure, including top agencies and thousands of the biggest international brands.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Since at least March 2020, an unknown hacking entity had gained access through an unsecured update server of a monitoring and management software made by SolarWinds called Orion IT. This allowed the attackers to gain access to any of the SolarWinds clients connected through the popular monitoring tool—including the National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.

Believe it or not, it is a familiar story, one that is all too common during this tumultuous past year of pandemic lockdowns and our heavy reliance of the internet. A year that has introduced new vernacular into our vocabulary such as zoom bombings, spearfishing and clickjacking.

Year-over-year, cybersecurity budgets and spending continue to increase for both the private and public sectors. According to Gartner, Information security spending is expected to grow 2.4% to reach $123.8 billion in 2020.

Technology manufacturers and service providers have also responded with new security-featured hardware and software offerings—yet these "upgrades" do not seem too capable to impede the frequency or success of the cyber-attacks.

The truth is that 90% of all cyber-attacks are the result of human error—whether it is visiting the wrong website, trusting the wrong email, using weak authentication, ignoring updates, misconfigurations, and patches. When someone gains unauthorized access to a network, it is typically through a human-made mistake.

But can the human element of data-security be mitigated to help prevent mistakes and outside interference from occurring in the future?

Enter blockchain

Up until early 2020, the "blockchain as a solution" answer to many of today's data challenges had been an unrealized promise. Issues with scalability, misunderstandings about privacy, high transaction fees, lack of interoperability and an ever-changing ruleset by tinkering blockchain developers who are prone to disagree about how to overcome the challenges has prevented any significant adoption or global standardized protocol.

On a broad development level, there have been many great ideas on how to solve today's cybersecurity flaws with blockchain, including focused efforts on mitigating the human element and reliance on centralized third-part certificate authorities.

Some of these efforts utilizing blockchain technology for cybersecurity solutions include:

Secure Private Messaging
Improved IoT and Edge Device Security
Boosting or even replacing current PKI
Reducing DDoS attacks
Decentralized and Encrypted Storage
Provenance of Software
Verification of Cyber-Physical Infrastructures
Data Transmission
Unfortunately, all of these semi-matured efforts are currently left without any real ability to scale and meet the demands and needs of today's enterprise cybersecurity applications—they are just too expensive and inefficient to implement due to the blockchains they have been built on.

The good news is that recent innovative scaling breakthroughs in the original Bitcoin protocol is making these solutions possible today!

In February of 2020, the Bitcoin SV (BSV) blockchain activated the Genesis update which ushered in the return to the original, limitless, unbounded Bitcoin Satoshi Vision.

It is now entirely possible to take on these cybersecurity challenges with the BSV blockchain.

Back to SolarWinds

As I previously mentioned, SolarWinds used a compromised open-source library that allowed hackers to imprint and access "God-View" privileges into any of the client networks that downloaded the standard security update of Orion monitoring software.

As unsuspecting customers installed the update and malicious payload, their network opened the door to further undetected compromise and unauthorized surveillance—for months. The damage may not have stopped there, any other unsecured outside networks that an infected company was connected to such as vendors or partners could also possibly be compromised.

Worse yet, further malicious time-based payloads could have been deployed and be dormant in all of these infected systems—even after a thorough "clean up."

The total cost and consequences of this specific hack is completely unknown and to be quite honest, unfathomable—but it will certainly be considered the most expensive cyber-incident in global history.

As Ark approachs the launch of MarketSquare, we want to give our community an inside look at some of the partnerships we have formed. These strategic partnerships will not only help make MarketSquare the new homepage for the decentralized web but will also create inroads between ARK and other projects looking to build and collaborate together. Today we would like to introduce you to Magic.Link!

What is Magic?
Magic is a developer SDK that can be integrated into applications to enable passwordless authentication using magic links - similar to systems used by Slack and Medium.

Once a developer integrates Magic into their application a user is able to sign up or log in by doing the following:

A user requests a magic link be sent to their email address.
The user clicks on the magic link
The user is securely logged into the application.
#Saying Goodbye to Passwords
You may have noticed that this process occurs without the need for signing in or registering with a password. The benefits of passwordless authentication in modern applications and services are becoming more apparent. Let's go over a few of them below:

Increased Security: Passwords are becoming obsolete. The resources required to manage user credentials and passwords are increasing. It is estimated that 81% of security breaches are due to poor passwords set by users. The problem is further complicated due to the fact that 59% of users reuse their passwords everywhere. By using Magic, password leaks can be prevented which reduces risk and liability for companies using passwordless authentication.

Less Overhead: Statistics show that nearly 50% of all support tickets are related to lost and forgotten passwords. The estimated cost for handling 10 support tickets a day is $128,000 annually. Magic takes a different approach. Magic leverages blockchain-based, standardized public-private key cryptography to achieve identity management. When a new user signs up for an application or service, a public-private key pair is generated for them. Private keys are used to sign cryptographic proofs of a user's identity.

Boost Conversion: By removing passwords, Magic creates a better user experience. The number of steps necessary to login and signup for a new platform or application is reduced by over 66%. This amounts to better conversion rates and happier users.

Magic & MarketSquare
One of the main goals of MarketSquare is to be an industry leader in providing educational and informative content centered around blockchain. By working closely together with Magic we have an opportunity to explore integrating their robust SDK, create content around decentralized identification management, and more.

Other areas of collaboration include:
Creating MarketSquare content centered around Magic.
Explore integrating Magic's SDK for ARK's products.
Exploring other areas where working together would make sense and be beneficial for both projects.
As we expand the number of developer tools that we are featuring on MarketSquare, we believe that Magic is a great fit and are looking forward to having them as a partner.

The Waves Association announced on Wednesday a new grant program for cross-chain interoperability development.

The pool consists of 1 million Waves tokens, worth approximately $3 million as of press time. Projects will be eligible for grants of up to 300,000 Waves to develop solutions for interoperability and cross-chain communication.

There will be three separate types of grants: open grants, grants distributed through hackathons and Waves-focused grants. Sten Laureyssens, strategic advisor at the Waves Association, explained to Cointelegraph that open grants will have a wide scope:

"For the open grant category, the grants are open to a wide variety of interoperability projects, that don't necessarily have to be connected to Waves. We're looking for creative solutions to connect existing blockchains and dApps."
The latter two types of grants will have to adhere to certain requirements, which makes it likely that the Waves blockchain will be involved in some form. Nevertheless, Laureyssens said that the association is planning to sponsor blockchain-agnostic solutions as well.

Sasha Ivanov, president of the Waves Association, threw a subtle jab at certain types of interoperability solutions offered today:

"Waves Association aims to support independent developers working on interoperability solutions — especially those thinking outside the box. Solving interoperability by adding a dedicated blockchain and native token as an additional layer would only lead to more complexity, undercutting the potential of the proposed solution."
Grants will be stipulated and decided on by members of the Waves Association, though the disbursement of funds will be automated through a decentralized application.

Waves is a smart contract-enabled blockchain platform competing with the likes of Ethereum and EOS. Its developers have often criticized the mainstream approaches to certain tenets of blockchain technology, notably misleading claims of transactional capacity.

The Waves blockchain was recently used with apparent success in a Russian local election, following a disappointing performance by a similar system developed by BitFury.

Joint work will be focused on developing a broader DeFi ecosystem using the Gravity cross-chain communication protocol.
We are excited to announce a collaboration between Waves and Fantom. Waves and Fantom are committed to building an open ecosystem between different chains, based on the Gravity protocol, which is essential to the DeFi industry's wider success.

Under the collaboration deal, WAVES, the native utility token of the Waves ecosystem, will join Fantom's DeFi ecosystem as collateral for minting synthetic assets, including fUSD, Fantom's stablecoin pegged to the US dollar.
WAVES holders will be able to use fMint to access fUSD and other synthetic assets, which can be used with other Fantom DeFi products. Specifically, fLend allows users to lend and borrow assets, while fTrade allows users to trade them.

For instance, If you want to go long BTC (without losing exposure to your WAVES collateral), mint fUSD against your WAVES in fMint and use the fUSD to buy fBTC (synthetic BTC) in fTrade. Sell the fBTC for fUSD later to repay the minted debt. Once you've repaid any outstanding minted debt, you can unlock your collateral to withdraw.

About Gravity
Gravity is a decentralized cross-chain and oracle network based on a truly blockchain-agnostic protocol for communication between blockchains and with the outside world, working with the native token economies.
Gravity provides multi-purpose cross-chain interaction without introducing a native token. The true blockchain agnostic no-token approach creates a more inclusive, open ecosystem, while addressing future scaling/stability issues.

About Fantom
The Fantom Foundation is committed to building technology that is open-source, decentralized, DAG-based distributed ledgers with aBFT consensus. Fantom aims to create fast, secure and scalable technologies across various industries, allowing organizations, businesses, and individuals to develop decentralized and secure applications, solving real-world problems.

Cross border payment remittance company Ripple has been part-granted a motion to dismiss some of the claims brought against it by investors, as the firm battles an ongoing class-action lawsuit over alleged securities fraud.

Investors claim Ripple and the company's CEO Brad Garlinghouse failed to register XRP with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and then went on to make misleading statements about the token, leading to the eventual class action suit.

In the U.S. District Court of Northern California last Friday, Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton granted two legs of Ripple's motion for dismissal, with 10 claims total outstanding against the firm.

The judge said that plaintiff Bradley Sostack had provided insufficient evidence to support two of the claims, which relate in particular to purportedly false statements made by the firm back in 2017.

However, for the most part, the judge refused to dismiss the claims against the company, including over misleading advertisements for XRP and allegations of an illegal securities issue.

One particular claim found that Garlinghouse had misrepresented his personal investments in XRP to investors, telling prospective customers that he was personally "very, very long XRP as a percentage of my personal balance sheet." In reality, Garlinghouse had sold off substantial parts of his investment in XRP, adding up to millions of dollars.

Other claims alleged to be misleading included that banks were using XRP for liquidity, and that token demand was being driven by its "value proposition."

Based on this and other of the claims still standing, Sostack now has leave to proceed with the action against Ripple and Garlinghouse.

While the decision by Judge Hamilton leaves Ripple in a marginally better position, the firm will now be expected to account for the remaining claims in the class action lawsuit.

A Technology Delivered
We're happy to announce that we've officially launched Lamden mainnet! Today marks a day of independence and new beginnings. Three years in the making, this milestone represents a culmination of intense efforts to deliver a novel blockchain with a revolutionary leap in performance, scalability and usability. Blockchain of today is one of complexity, high congestion, and outrageous fees. Lamden's mission is to unleash a disruptive solution to these challenges and make blockchain fast, user-friendly, and cost-effective.

What is Lamden Mainnet?
Lamden's engineers aimed to not only deliver on the original promises of blockchain but to revolutionize it. Lamden tackles the fundamental challenges of blockchain head-on, from high barriers to entry to poor performance and scalability.

Easy to Use
Lamden's open-source, Python-native platform empowers developers to focus on quickly building blockchain applications, instead of learning new programming languages and messing around with complex syntax and system architecture. This means easier development and faster revenue generation on Lamden.

Highly Performant and Scalable
Lamden uses an array of advanced algorithms to remain highly performant and scalable as demand increases for on-chain activity and large-scale applications. Lamden is engineered to achieve sub-second transaction finality and to scale linearly with additional CPU cores, as described here. There are no Ethereum-style "gas-wars" on Lamden because the system uses a first-in-first-out queuing algorithm which prevents people from paying more to get ahead of the line and further congest the network.

A Developer Incentives System
Lamden has a built-in rewards distribution system with voteable and configurable parameters. Developers who create applications on Lamden will be awarded a percentage of transaction fees processed through their smart contracts, thereby earning revenue automatically from their applications without relying on third-party payment services. Incentives are made with Lamden's native coin TAU and sent straight to the developer's wallet. Because revenue is tied to transaction volume, developers will earn more revenue as their DApps become more popular.
For an introductory period, developers will automatically earn 90% of all TAU used to transact against their smart contracts.

A Self-Regulating System
Lamden has a self-regulating governance system where the community nodes have direct voting rights on key decisions including rewards distribution, transaction rates, and platform functionality upgrades. The system naturally strives for an equilibrium where each network participant will act in their best interest to maximize their reward. No single party controls the Lamden network and no single party can monopolize it.

Mainnet Token Swap
Now that mainnet is live, a token swap from Ethereum ERC20 TAU to Lamden Mainnet TAU will commence. The swap period will be open for approximately 6 months and is mandatory. If you do not swap your ERC20 TAU tokens during the 6 month swap window, you will be unable to do so afterwards.

IMPORTANT: Do not send ERC20 tokens to the Lamden wallet or they will be lost forever! ERC20 tokens are not compatible with the Lamden network. The only way to get your ERC20 TAU onto the Lamden network is by following the wallet token swap process.

The swap process is built directly into the Lamden wallet, which you can download on the Lamden website..

Bloomberg News reporter Mathew Leising's new book, "Out of the Ether: The Amazing Story of Ethereum and the $55 Million Heist That Almost Destroyed It All", tells the story of the infamous DAO hack that almost brought down the world's second-largest blockchain.

In June 2016, a here-to-now unknown assailant (or assailants) began syphoning off funds from Ethereum's first decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, a bit of software that functions like a corporation. Weeks earlier the DAO went live, following a $150 million crowd sale.

"[T]he DAO had a huge part to play in the early history of Ethereum," Leising writes. "It's not overstating it to say that the DAO made Ethereum." That's because it was one of the earliest examples that Ethereum's network of computers was resilient enough to support complex applications.

While the attack never broke Ethereum's code – it merely exploited a loophole in The DAO's smart contract – it cast doubt over the viability of a blockchain-based "world computer." It was also the beginning of Ethereum's two Ethereums.

Leising, who has been covering the crypto industry for the better half of a decade, had called out sick from work the day a hacker absconded with $55 million in stolen ETH. But he didn't let the story die. Over the past four years he has been reporting out the story told in the book, examining blockchain data, following through on cryptic tips and ultimately tracing a path towards his leading suspect.

In the excerpt below, readers find themselves in eastern Germany along with Christoph Jentzsch, one of The DAO's principle architects, who woke up to realize the project he has spent months building is being robbed "at the rate of about $8 million an hour."

A religious family man, Jentzsch takes this extemporaneous moment to reflect on the challenges that faced the DAO's creation – from securities worries that still plague token projects to the critical opinions of the early Ethereum community – before taking action. – Dan Kuhn

Chapter 7
The town of Mittweida in the state of Saxony in Germany escaped being bombed in the Second World War. In the middle of town, old stone streets divide rows of brightly colored buildings. If you leave the town square and walk for about 10 minutes you'll come to a quiet street with a police station; next door is a mint-green house with brown trim and shutters. On Friday, June 17, 2016, just after 8 a.m., Christoph Jentzsch lay on the beige carpet of the first-floor office inside. He tried to still his breathing, to take deep breaths, to not let the world get away from him. Thieves were inside the DAO, his creation, robbing it at the rate of about $8 million an hour.

One of the first things Christoph felt was relief: finally the DAO saga would come to an end. It had overtaken his life for the past six months.

He'd battled anxiety and depression and exhaustion; he'd neglected his wife and five kids. There had been moments when he froze at the thought of releasing the DAO code, because once it was out in the world it couldn't be changed. There could be a bug in the software, or maybe terrorists could figure out how to use it to fund an attack he'd be power- less to stop. The pressure made him physically ill several times. He'd puked under the strain. God, please, let this be the end of all that.

But Christoph also felt a strong sense of responsibility. It shook him that he'd messed up so badly and that people were losing money because of it. He believed in the ideas underpinning DAOs. (The language gets a bit confusing here as there were other DAOs around at this point, MakerDAO among them. DAO is a generic term for the structure that smart contracts fit into, but because of its eventual size and high profile, Jentzsch's DAO became the DAO.)

THERE WERE SO MANY FEARS," GRIFF SAID."DOES THIS DESTROY ETHEREUM? DOES THIS DESTROY DAOS? WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO ALL THIS MONEY?

A DAO is what got him into Ethereum in the first place, the moment he realized its potential. Vitalik's white paper had outlined a vision for how DAOs could democratize corporate structures to replace owners, employees, and investors with users who directly managed the firm's affairs with smart contracts encoded on the blockchain. That breakthrough is what made Christoph pause his PhD studies and start working for Ethereum in 2015. And then, improbably, he built one: the biggest DAO ever built, in fact, which made it a fat target. After all the security checks, Christoph couldn't understand why no one had found the right bug in time.

He got up from the floor of the office and went back to his IBM ThinkPad laptop. Christoph knew the cops next door couldn't help him. No, this was his mess and he'd have to clean it up.

In one sense, if toasters and door locks were allowed to have bank accounts the DAO never would have happened.

The Moment of Truth
The wait is almost over; Lamden's mainnet launch is fast approaching. September 16th, 2020 will be an inflection point, marking the transition from a technology promised to a technology delivered.

We at Lamden have been working nonstop to deliver on the unfulfilled promises of blockchain. Instead of modifying an existing technology, we decided to design and build a novel blockchain architecture from scratch. As a result, our Python-native modular blockchain delivers a revolutionary leap in performance, efficiency, and usability.

The moment of truth and the reveal is drawing near. Blockchain of today is one of complexity, high congestion, and outrageous fees. Lamden's mission is to unleash a disruptive solution upon these challenges and make blockchain fast, user-friendly, and cost-effective. One day, we will look back and remember September 16th, 2020 as a pivotal moment for blockchain and its revival.

The Road Traveled
We at Lamden took the road less traveled and it made all the difference. The imminent release of Lamden blockchain is the culmination of two and a half years of nonstop development and testing, and pushing the limits of what blockchain can do. We have worked hard to make life easier for developers by creating a Python-native platform that simplifies development and testing, and accelerates product deployment and monetization.

We have set our goals sky-high and refused to take a shortcut or compromise, and achieved results beyond our wildest expectations. We are deeply grateful to our amazing community for their unfailingly generous and enthusiastic support over the years. The mainnet would not have been possible without our team of developers and their unwavering commitment to deliver something extraordinary.

The Road Ahead
In the coming weeks, we will share more details on mainnet and exciting new plans with our community members. Our roadmap includes a developer on-boarding campaign, exciting new DeFi products, and a specification for Lamden version 2.0.

Lamden mainnet is just around the corner, but community members can start developing their ideas now using Lamden's Python-based smart contracting system. For an introductory period, developers will earn 90% of all TAU used to transact against their smart contract.

To our existing community members and those new to Lamden, we extend our warmest welcome to the Lamden Legion.

For more information, please visit:
https://lamden.io/  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFLtqJQ5LRc  

Mitiga, an incident readiness and response company, has discovered that a product available on Amazon Web Services Marketplace contained Monero mining malware. Mitiga published their findings, noting that they discovered the malware when conducting a security audit for a financial services company.

"Mitiga's security research team has identified an AWS Community AMI containing malicious code running an unidentified Monero crypto miner," according to the Mitiga's blog post. "We have concerns this may be a phenomenon, rather than an isolated occurrence."

Malware on AWS Marketplace
Unfortunately, the AWS marketplace allows anyone to sell virtual services on its marketplace. Although the marketplace is full of verified vendors, it also contains offerings from unverified community members.

Mitiga discovered that one community member was selling a Windows 2008 virtual server that secretly used the computing power of anyone who downloaded it to mine Monero in the background. Although it may come as a surprise that Monero mining malware was present on Amazon's AWS Marketplace, Amazon's policy clearly states that:

"Amazon can't vouch for the integrity or security of AMIs shared by other Amazon EC2 users. Therefore, you should treat shared AMIs as you would any foreign code that you might consider deploying in your own data center and perform the appropriate due diligence. We recommend that you get an AMI from a trusted source."

Reducing the attack vector
To avoid falling victim to malware that might live within community offerings on the AWS marketplace, Mitiga recommends "verifying or terminating these instances [unverified offerings], and seeking AMIs from trusted sources"

"As AWS customer usage is obfuscated, we can't know how far and wide this phenomenon stretches without AWS's own investigation," said Mitiga. "We do however believe that the potential risk is high enough to issue a security advisory to all AWS customers using Community AMIs."

Digital currency tax reporting service CryptoTrader.Tax suffered a breach, resulting in 13,000 rows of data and 1,082 unique customer email addresses stolen.

The breach reportedly took place on April 7, but the platform did not make an official announcement at the time. Instead, it contacted the individuals affected directly. The incident only came to light after CryptoTrader.Tax co-founder and CEO David Kemmerer confirmed that the data breach happened.

How it happened
An individual familiar with the matter was quoted by CoinDesk saying the hacker was able to gain access to a CryptoTrader.Tax employee's account. The employee worked in marketing and customer service, which allowed the hacker to access customer names, emails, payment processor profiles, and messages to customer service on the platform. Once the hacker accessed this information, they allegedly took screenshots of the data, and subsequently posted them on a dark net forum to show others that they had personal identification data for sale.

Why are we just finding out?
Although CryptoTrader.Tax did act relatively responsible after learning of the breach, it comes as a surprise that the April 7th hack is officially being made public for the very first time four months later in August.

Kemmerer told the new outlet that shortly after CryptoTrader became aware of the breach, they alerted the customers that were affected and took steps to improve security measures and monitoring systems across internal and third-party applications. Yet, it remains unclear why there was no official announcement, such as a blog that announced the data breach or even a post on a social media network alerting their users.

Although their team did take appropriate steps to warn customers and upgrade their system security after the breach took place, they did so in a rather intransparent way, which should make any individual that does business with CryptoTrader.Tax a bit weary of how the platform decided to operate.

A number of congressional lawmakers have written to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), urging a proactive policy for taxing digital currency that avoids hampering proof of stake technology.

In a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, Representatives David Schweikert, Bill Foster, Tom Emmer and Darren Soto set out how current policy is holding back progress in the sector.

Explaining how taxing staking rewards as income could lead to excessive tax burdens, the lawmakers appeal for an alternative approach that supports and encourages innovation.

"It is possible the taxation of 'staking' rewards as income may overstate taxpayers' actual gains from participating in this new technology. It could also result in a reporting and compliance nightmare, for taxpayers and the Service alike."

According to the letter, staking rewards can be more effectively taxed when they are sold, with those validating transactions rewarded by creating new tokens. The lawmakers argue that staking rewards should be treated like other kinds of taxpayer-created assets, which attract liability at the point of sale.

The language of the letter was drafted with support from the Proof of Stake Alliance (POSA), an industry organization established to promoting staking. Alison Mangiero, President of TQ Tezos and a member of the Proof of Stake Alliance, welcomed the proposals as a "common-sense solution."

"Staking rewards, similar to a farmer cultivating produce and selling it at market, should be assessed for taxation when they are sold: we don't tax an apple when it is plucked from a tree or a tomato fresh off the vine."

The signatories to the letter are members of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus, a bipartisan group committed to advancing policy around blockchain.

Amid online rumors of internal strife amongst company leadership circles over long-term direction, ASIC hardware manufacturer Canaan Creative reportedly removed four executives from its listing last week.

Co-Chairman Kong Jianping, Non-Executive Director Sun Qifeng, Founder and CFO Li Jiaxuan, and Public Affairs Director Tu Songhua were removed from the publicly listed company's registry according to changelog entries on July 6, 2020. The business registry now lists company CEO Nangeng Zhang as the organization's sole director.

The registry still lists both Kong and Li as part of Canaan's "core team." Zhang was given the new official role of executive director and general manager, dropping the chairman title. Canaan added Meng Lu as the new supervisor.

Canaan has not commented publicly on the reasoning behind the abrupt change to the listing of these senior executives. Chinese media outlets were swift to point out the parallels between the internal power struggles at Canaan with the bitter infighting at rival Chinese hardware manufacturer Bitmain Technologies Ltd.

The latter has had no shortage of controversies as co-founders battle publicly over control of the company.

In both situations, the CEO removed a company founder from a public leadership position within the organization because of disputes over internal management and the company's long-term strategy. This recent dust-up at Canaan follows reports from earlier this year in February when Xiangfu Liu resigned from his role as a board member over disputes with the firm's strategy. Liu was one of the three co-founders of Canaan.

The company has yet to publicly file paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), acknowledging the management restructuring. The removal comes during a time where the company's NASDAQ share price is down significantly since the BTC halving event.

If rumors are right, it might indicate Canaan's CEO started to believe his own spin to the point he's having trouble recognizing when some ideas aren't good and shouldn't be pursued. Power struggles often arises when leaders struggle to adapt when they encounter contradictory evidence. They then tend to ignore evidence that conflicts with their worldview and seek proof that agrees with it.

Whether this upheaval is a precursor to Canaan's imminent meltdown or a hiccup as it rights itself towards a wise business strategy remains to be seen. If financial losses start to mount, it will reunite shareholders with their conscience forcing even more changes at the struggling hardware giant.

The block reward mining world is about to reset itself. Canaan would be wise to stay ahead of the curve. 

The FBI is leading an investigation into the July 15 Twitter hack, in which 31 high-profile Twitter accounts were compromised by a hacker and used to promote a digital currency investment scam.

According to Reuters, U.S. lawmakers that are concerned about future attacks on Twitter prompted the FBI's investigation.

"While this scheme appears financially motivated…imagine if these bad actors had a different intent to use powerful voices to spread disinformation to potentially interfere with our elections, disrupt the stock market, or upset our international relations," said U.S. Senator Ed Markey.

The hacker had the ability to take over any Twitter account, yet, used their power to promote a digital currency scam. The scam consisted of the hacker telling the millions of followers of the compromised accounts to send them digital currency, promising to send them double the amount that they were being sent.

However, it was a scam—the attacker did not send double the amount of digital currency to any of the individuals who participated. The attacker currently has a total of 7.411 BTC across the three wallet addresses they used to scam others (address 1, address 2, and address 3).

Timeline of attack
The hacker's first account takeover occurred at 2:16 p.m. EST when the hackers compromised @AngeloBTC, a well-known BitMEX trader's Twitter account.

In their first account takeover, the hackers requested that AngeloBTC's 150,000 followers send him a direct message, and send 0.1 BTC so that they could join his private Telegram group. However, there was no private Telegram group, and sender's got scammed out of their money.

Shortly afterward, the attacker began targeting Twitter accounts associated with well-known companies, executives, and celebrities, such as Apple, Jeff Bezos, and Kanye West.

Ultimately, the hacker was able to broadcast their digital currency investment scam to tens of millions of users and rake in more than $100,000.

We got lucky
We were honestly lucky that all the hackers did was promote a digital currency scam. Imagine if they used the compromised accounts, such as that of former U.S. President Barack Obama, or former Vice President Joe Biden, to start some sort of political conflict in which a foreign country retaliated.

When you consider all of the things the hacker could have done with the power that they had, it becomes concerning and alarming that they were able to breach Twitter in a way that gave them this power. That being said, it makes sense that the FBI is investigating Twitter, because if this were to happen again who knows what would happen.

Japan's blockchain industry has been growing rapidly in 2020 despite the economic struggles and the global pandemic. A new report by one of the country's largest digital currency companies revealed that the sector has grown by over 30% since 2019.

Japan has been a trailblazer in the blockchain industry for years, being one of the first countries to formulate and implement a regulatory framework for the industry. Its blockchain-friendly approach has led to a rapid growth of the industry, a new report now shows.

In the past year, the industry has grown by 30%, the report by the Monex Crypto Bank showed. The bank is a subsidiary of the Monex Group, the operator of Coincheck exchange which it acquired in 2018.

The report revealed that as of May this year, there were 430 blockchain companies in Japan. This is a 30.7% rise from the 329 companies reported in July last year.

64% of these companies focus primarily on blockchain technology, the report showed, with the rest being involved in a secondary capacity. The report further revealed that blockchain technology is not limited to startups, with 193 of the companies being labeled as large corporations. Of these, over half focus primarily on blockchain technology.

Moreover, there are 31 publicly-listed companies in Japan that are pursuing blockchain technology.

On the available blockchain products, the study found that finance had the highest share, accounting for 19% of the 422 active products. Entertainment accounts for 10%, with service, infrastructure, real estate and retail all accounting for less than 3%.

The digital currency exchange and mining sectors are still the biggest in the industry, the report notes. However, the gaming sector is quickly rising to prominence, using blockchain to change the experience for both the operators and the gamers.

While the Japanese blockchain and digital currency exchange industry has come a long way, it still faces challenges that have hindered its growth. Hacks and data breaches have been one of its biggest threats.

Zimbabwe's currency struggles don't seem to be coming to an end any time soon. In the latest update, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has announced a ban on mobile money transactions. According to the regulator, mobile money operators have been taking advantage of the financial instability to overcharge the users.

Zimbabwe has been undergoing a currency crisis for the better part of the past two decades. The Southern African country has tried a number of solutions, from banning the local currency to using the U.S. dollar and introducing bond notes as a surrogate currency. However, none of them has given the country the monetary stability that the people so desperately need.

In its latest effort, Zimbabwe's central bank has cut off one of the most widely used payment methods. A majority of Zimbabweans have turned to mobile money for day-to-day transactions due to the shortage of cash in the banks. However, according to the regulator, the mobile money operators have been exploiting the people and overcharging them.

In its press statement, the bank announced that it had suspended all mobile money agents. It also suspended all bulk payer transactions as well as merchant transactions, except for utility payments.

Miner outflows of bitcoin have dropped to decade lows, with analysts suggesting a hoarding mentality is partly responsible.

The seven-day average of the total amount of bitcoin transferred out of miners' addresses declined to 987 on Thursday, hitting the lowest level since Feb. 3, 2010, according to data source Glassnode. The previous decade low of 988 was registered on May 23.

glassnode-studio_bitcoin-miners-outflow-volume-7-d-moving-average
Source: Glassnode
The number of coins being sent by miners to exchanges is also at its lowest point in over a year, as noted by Glassnode in its weekly report.

"It is a sign of efficient miners continuing to hoard (only selling a proportion of BTC)," said Asim Ahmad, co-chief investment officer at London-based Eterna Capital.

The increase in miner holding does not necessarily have long-term bullish implications for the cryptocurrency's price. Miners tend to operate mainly on cash and liquidate their holdings almost on a daily basis to fund operations.

As such, miner hoarding could be termed as temporary deferral of BTC sales, possibly due to fears that the market lacks the strength to absorb the regular amount of supply. Essentially, they may be waiting for the market to show strength and prices to rise before realizing their profits.

The market, therefore, could face an above-normal miner supply during the next meaningful price rise. That, in turn, could put the brakes on a price rally.

Hoarding aside, the other main reason for the decline in outflows is the reduction in bitcoin being mined since May's reward halving, said Ahmad.

Indeed, transfer volume from miner addresses fell from 2,334 BTC to 1,034 BTC in the nine days following the May 11 reward halving, which reduced the per block emission by 50% to 6.25 BTC.

That sharp decline in profitability forced out less inefficient miners, as evidenced by a drop in the seven-day average of the hash rate – the total computing power dedicated to mining blocks on the blockchain. That fell from 120 tera hashes per second (TH/s) to 90 TH/s in the two weeks following halving (though it's since climbed as more efficient machines were switched on).

Forced out miners, however, may return to bitcoin's blockchain if prices rise sharply, making older hardware once again profitable.

Bitcoin is currently trading largely unchanged on the day near $9,370, according to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index.

The cryptocurrency has been largely restricted to a narrow range of $9,000 to $10,000 since mid May. The direction in which the range is breached will likely set the tone for the next big move. 

A South Korean university has announced that it's building a blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) campus in the city of Daegu. The campus will take a year to construct, with admission set to begin in 2021.

Suseong University partnered on the initiative with the Korea Artificial Intelligence Association (KORAIA). In an announcement on local outlet Money Today, the university revealed that the campus will also focus on other emerging technologies such as big data and cloud computing.

A number of technology companies based in Daegu have already signed up to be part of the project. They will provide training to the students, as well as practical experience. They include Wooshin Co. Ltd, an AI company based in Daegu.

The COVID-19 crisis has created a need for more robust systems, and combining blockchain with AI is the best way to respond to this need, according to Kim Kun-woo, the university's Planning and Coordination Division director.

Kun-woo further revealed that the university intends on giving students at the campus firsthand experience in the blockchain and AI industries by pairing them up with experts in these fields.

South Korea has been a global hub for blockchain technology, with the government playing a key role in the industry's development. As CoinGeek reported recently, the country launched a fintech sandbox that has promoted the growth of several blockchain startups. In its latest report, the Financial Services Commission revealed that the sandbox has attracted $111 million in the last year and created 380 jobs.

Elsewhere, the country's central bank published a report that touted the use of blockchain-based digital currencies. The Bank of Korea pointed to the decline of cash use and the advancement of digital payment technologies as key reasons why central banks are increasingly developing CBDCs. The report further claimed that several central banks have developed IT systems that rely on DLT to record digital currency transactions.

U.S. banking giant JPMorgan Chase Bank has agreed to a settlement in the amount of $2.5 million to end an ongoing class action lawsuit over digital currency fees.

The case was raised by bank customers after it emerged the bank had decided to charge digital currency transactions as if they were cash advances, attracting higher fees than other types of transactions.

Such transactions were historically charged as purchases until 2018, when the bank unexpectedly switched to treating digital transactions as advances. The case was raised by Brady Tucker, who was joined shortly thereafter by Ryan Hilton, Stanton Smith, and other Chase customers.

While the settlement sees no acknowledgement of wrongdoing, the plaintiffs have welcomed the flexibility of the bank in reaching a conclusion to the matter.

In a statement on behalf of the plaintiffs, Tucker said the settlement was a good outcome to the case.

"This settlement represents an outstanding result for settlement class members. Plaintiffs estimate that the $2.5 million settlement fund constitutes more than 95% of the [damages allegedly sustained by] settlement class members. Such a high-percentage recovery stands far above the typical recovery for class actions such as this one."

The settlement brings the legal action to a close, and brings an end to the matter for the thousands of bank customers previously affected by higher card fees for their digital currency transactions.

In February 2018, JPMorgan Chase was among several major banks to announce it was no longer allowing its credit cards to be used to purchase digital currency. During the case, the bank claimed this was not a breach of consumer protection laws.

More recently, the bank has appeared to soften its stance towards digital currency, with JPMorgan even extending banking services to digital currency firms including Coinbase and Gemini.

Happy Pizza Day! And this year, please make mine extra spicy. Yes, it's May 22 again, the day all Bitcoiners celebrate by ordering a pizza. Any pizza is good, but to make it special you'll need to buy it with Bitcoin—don't make the mistake of using BTC these days though, because at the time of writing the average transaction fee on the BTC network is US$6.28.

What is Pizza Day and why is it significant?
Today is actually the 10th anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day. It's significant because it marks the first (or at least, the first documented) purchase of real-world goods with Bitcoin. Before then, mining and transacting with Bitcoin was largely a hobbyist pursuit, so the purchase proved that Bitcoin could have a real-world dollar value. This in turn sent a price signal to the nascent "market" for Bitcoin, and became the first benchmark for BTC value. The rest, as they say, is history.

On May 18, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz of Jacksonville, Florida, posted on the Bitcoin Talk forums:
"I'll pay 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas.. like maybe 2 large ones so I have some left over for the next day. I like having left over pizza to nibble on later. You can make the pizza yourself and bring it to my house or order it for me from a delivery place, but what I'm aiming for is getting food delivered in exchange for bitcoins where I don't have to order or prepare it myself, kind of like ordering a 'breakfast platter' at a hotel or something, they just bring you something to eat and you're happy!"

It took a few days to finally get a taker—user "jercos" (Jeremy Sturdivant) ordered two large pizzas from Papa John's for delivery to Hanyecz's home, paid in USD and collected the 10,000 BTC. The pizzas themselves cost US$41.

You can see photos of the now-famous Bitcoin pizzas here.
Technically, Hanyecz didn't buy the pizzas directly for Bitcoin so you could say the price included Sturdivant's service fee. Since the Bitcoin price in May 2010 was officially $0, he did take on a $41 risk.

As we now know, that risk paid off—the current market value of BTC is $9053, meaning either owner of the 10,000 coins would now have US$90,530,000. If BTC's all-time-high price stands at $19,891 then 10,000 coins would've been worth $198,910,000. Had they kept those coins in time for the two forks that shifted Bitcoin protocol development to BCH and finally to Bitcoin SV (BSV), it would be millions more.

Only BSV now is Bitcoin according to the Satoshi Nakamoto whitepaper and the original protocol, and 10,000 BSV is currently US$1,915,900.

Million-dollar pizzas, but value is priceless
Yes, that's an expensive pair of pizzas (for pedantic reasons, remember it was two large pizzas instead of the single "198 million dollar pizza" often mentioned in the media). Naturally, Hanyecz often finds himself in demand for a quote on whether he regrets his purchase. He's on the record as saying he doesn't at all, since his move kickstarted the Bitcoin economy. Had he not sent those 10,000 coins, and had no-one else taken the plunge either, Bitcoin's value could still be $0 today.

It's a sign that, unless people are willing to take risks and do something to give Bitcoin value, it doesn't have any. What if Hanyecz had abided by BTC's "HODL" mentality, or cared about all the people who called him crazy over the years, reminding him of his (theoretically) lost millions?

Most people who've been in the Bitcoin community for many years have "Bitcoin Pizza" stories of their own to tell. This writer likes to show off his "thousand dollar" Bitcoin keychain; everyone hates to be reminded of how much money they'd have now if they'd never spent those coins.

But again, if no one had ever spent Bitcoin then the value of Bitcoin would be $0. Bitcoin only has value if it's used in the real world. And thanks to the people who invested time, effort and money building user-friendly services so more people could use Bitcoin, that value has increased even more over time.

Think about all that next time you hear someone say "HODL" (ie: save your Bitcoins, don't spend them). HODLing creates no value whatsoever. BTC wouldn't even have speculative-gambling value if no-one sold them, and that's about the only utility BTC has nowadays. If you know any committed BTC HODLers, remind them how much that $6.28 transaction fee they just paid could be worth at some random point in the future. That's extra spicy.

BSV, on the other hand, recognizes real-world usage as the main value driver and its people build services that aim to solve real-world problems. The large-volume, low-fee model is creating a global immutable ledger for enterprises, and yet remains cheap enough to send individual transactions for cents, or much less.

But enough of that—Happy Pizza Day once again, and enjoy the food!

A new report by Crystal Blockchain, the cryptocurrency analytic and transaction tracing platform created by Bitfury, reveals a number of statistics regarding darknet transaction flows between BTC mixing services, digital currency exchanges, and other darknet entities.

The Data
Crystal Blockchain's report "reviews the use of BTC by darknet entities; [as well as] analyzes darknet interactions with exchanges and other entities throughout the first quarter of 2020 and compares it to historical darknet activity from the past three years."

Ultimately, Crystal Blockchain found that the total number of BTC being sent and received by these exchanges has decreased, however, the total amount of USD has grown significantly.

Key findings
The report found that the amount of BTC sent to digital currency mixing services—services that mix digital currency funds from different sources together to obscure the trail back to the original source—rose by over 2000%. In Q1 2019, only $3 million (790 BTC) was sent to mixing services by darknet entities, but in Q1 2019, that number rose to $67 million (7,946 BTC).

The research found that the amount of BTC received by darknet entities from mixing services had also increased by about 3x. Darknet entities received roughly $2 million in BTC (288 BTC) from mixers in Q1 2020, compared to the $400,000 (106 BTC) received from mixers in Q1 2019.

BTC sent to exchanges from darknet entities
From Q1 2019 to Q1 2020, the amount of BTC sent to digital currency exchanges from darknet entities decreased from 24% of all BTC to 13%.

"This is likely in response to increased regulation and verification processes for exchanges, leading darknet bitcoin owners toward other services to obfuscate the source of their coins," according to the report.

Darknet entities were using digital currency exchanges to liquidate their dirty money, but as more exchanges required users to verify personal identification information, and as more regulatory agencies kept an eye on digital currency companies that fall under their jurisdiction, exchanges became a less attractive option for darknet entities to convert their digital currencies for fiat.

The report found that the amount of BTC transferred between darknet entities increased by 161% from Q1 2019 to Q1 2020. In Q1 2019, only $21 million was transferred between darknet entities, while in Q1 2020, $55 million was transferred.

In conclusion
Crystal Blockchain's research shows that darknet entities are alive and active and that they are using BTC as a tool to maneuver their illicitly earned money.

"These statistics indicate that BTC continues to be a financial tool for darknet entities," says the report. "While more exchanges implement the FATF requirements, darknet users are trying to avoid the risk of unveiling of their activity by those exchanges. To hide darknet activities, they started to prefer mixing services to exchanges for withdrawal of cryptocurrency."

BTC remains a crucial tool and currency on darknet marketplaces—and government agencies know it. This has prompted authorities to crack down on digital currency exchanges and tracing funds back to their point of origin, which is causing darknet entities to use mixing services to mask their activity. Regardless, more and more money is being sent and received by darknet entities each year.

ABTCoin, a digital currency startup that was found guilty of violating federal securities laws, has just told New York federal judge Vernon S. Broderick that they cannot pay the $250,000 settlement that they agreed to pay plaintiffs.

$20 million ICO but financially struggling
On May 12, ABTCoins lawyers from Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt LLC wrote a letter to U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick saying the company was not able to pay the settlement cost that they proposed "due to a change in circumstances." The lawyers also added that ABTCoin was not able to cover their legal costs, and therefore, Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt LLC lawyers were requesting to withdraw from the case.

This news comes as a surprise considering that ABTCoin raised more than $20 million in its 2017 initial coin offering (ICO). Before hosting a token sale, ABTCoin told potential investors that it was going to use the funds that they raise to create "the fastest blockchain in the world." However, upon release, the ABTCoin blockchain was not able to accomplish the technological achievements they had marketed. In addition, the ABT blockchain did not see very much user adoption and decreased in value by 85% by March 2018.

The lawsuit
After experiencing ABTCoin's technological shortcomings, investors in the project took action against the company.

Raymond Balestra, the lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit, sued ABTCoin, claiming that they had conducted an unregistered securities sale in 2017. ABTCoin attempted to have the case dismissed, but in March 2019, Judge Broderick rejected ABTCoin's dismissal bid, saying that the plaintiffs had adequately shown that ABTCoin had violated federal securities laws.

ABTCoin may have done this because they are making a legal chess-move, or maybe ABTCoin is out of money. It looks like the ABTCoin case is coming to a close—but backtracking on the settlement that they proposed themselves was unexpected. 

The founder of an alleged digital currency Ponzi scheme alleged to have scammed $9 million from unsuspecting investors has been denied a reprieve from custody, after citing health concerns over COVID-19.

Judge John Tuchi rejected an emergency motion for release from prison submitted on behalf of alleged digital currency scammer John Caruso of Zima Digital Assets, as he awaits trial on charges that could result in a five-year prison sentence.

Caruso said that the risks of COVID-19 meant that there was a health risk to his ongoing detention, in a motion considered by the court this week. Judge Tuchi denied the motion on the grounds that Caruso poses a significant flight risk, as well as highlighting the potentially larger risks of contracting COVID-19 in the outside world.

The denial is the second time the argument has been heard by a judge. Previously, Judge Michelle Burns pointed out that 28-year-old Caruso was healthy and unlikely to suffer adverse effects from coronavirus in any event.

The COVID-19 defense has been brought forward by a number of high profile prisoners in recent weeks, with legal representatives arguing over the risks to health for those detained in prisons.

However, in the Caruso case, both judges have independently opted to retain the accused in custody, pointing to his significant criminal history among other factors.

Caruso is accused of establishing the Ponzi scheme with his business partner Zachary Salter, offering investors the chance to secure market-beating returns from investing in digital currency.

While the scheme paid out an initial $1.9 million of the $9 million total taken in, the pair are accused of then using client money for personal gain, including racking up gambling debts $830,000, private jet and vehicle rentals of $540,000 and $670,000 in credit card bills.

Caruso is now awaiting trial, scheduled for July 2020.  

Blockchain intelligence company Chainalysis has announced a new initiative aimed at highlighting its work in identifying digital currency based crime.

The New York-based firm has published three installments of its new Crypto Intelligence Briefs, which is designed to cast light on the mechanisms used for illegal transactions in digital currency.

While none of the firms are currently under investigation, Chainalysis said it was publishing the information to support the activities of law enforcement agencies investigating digital currency crime.

In its first brief, Chainalysis spotlights Black Host, a hosting provider which describes itself as "bulletproof," by offering secure hosting anonymously. As part of its offer, Black Host supports crypto payments for its services, which in itself is another factor of pseudonymity for users.

The brief demonstrates that Black Host has been used by an individual or group linked to a BTC address known to be associated with the Lazarus Group, a well-known cybercrime gang with links to the North Korean state.

The second brief identifies Iranian exchange Farhad Exchange, which offers digital currency transactions in Iran and Russia, despite sanctions. Some 20,000 BTC addresses have been identified by Chainalysis, which are linked to the exchange, and could be involved in sanction breaking—including the potential for involvement in other criminal activity.

The third briefing looks at FutureNet, a Polish based company alleged to be a Ponzi scheme. Chainalysis shows a web of companies that have been set up to disguise the operations of FutureNet, and to provide what the briefing calls a "veneer of legitimacy" to the scam.

Each of the briefs provides extensive detail of Chainalysis research, which law enforcement and other compliance agencies will be able to use in any forthcoming investigations into the firms.

According to Chainalysis, the decision to publish was based on a desire to show its working in identifying those companies that may be engaged in digital currency crime.

Chinese processing hardware manufacturer Bitmain has admitted there are problems with its Antminer S17, following a growing number of complaints posted to social media.

The company acknowledged that some users were experiencing problems, the first time it has acknowledged the difficulties many of their customers had been reporting online. According to a spokesperson for the company, Bitmain was beginning to negotiate with customers who had run into difficulties with their hardware.

Antminer is paying close attention to the issues of some products from the 17 series, which has recently been mentioned by the media.

The issue first raised its head earlier this month, after an entrepreneur started a Telegram group to highlight what he described as a "bad batch" of S17 units. According to the group, some 30% of the models delivered had experienced serious glitches or failed within a single month of operation.

Having grown to some 160 members, the group now contains several other mentions of users experiencing problems with their units.

The reports echo similar findings published by blockchain infrastructure company Blockstream, which suggested 20-30% of S17 customers were experiencing problems with their technology. CoinGeek has also spoken to several to large transaction processing companies in the space that have confirmed this news, saying that they've also experienced "failure rates of 2-3x for the T17 units compared with the S9s" while "Bitmain have reduced and closed repair centers in various global locations."

The embarrassing acknowledgement comes as Bitmain prepares to ship out its latest batch of S19 units, which are expected to be delivered from May 11.

The S19 has been designed to process digital currencies more productively, ahead of the BTC halving due to take place soon.

According to the Bitmain representative, the company has "begun to negotiate solutions with customers who have encountered issues from the product. Antminer has always been adhering to the concept of placing customers first. If any customer has any product issues, please contact the official customer service of Antminer at any time."