Ethereum Price Falls Below $300 Again

Everyone in the world is seemingly keeping a close eye on the cryptocurrency markets right now. One of the currencies for which many people have high expectations is Ethereum. While still the world's second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, things are not exactly going as planned. With a 3.51% loss since yesterday, the Ethereum price has dipped below US$290 at the time of writing. This trend will not last all that long, though; that much is certain.

When the Bitcoin price dips briefly, the rest of the cryptocurrency markets will do the exact same thing. In the case of Ethereum, the price of this token has taken a tumble over the past few hours. While the Ethereum price was well above US$300 not too long ago, maintaining that high price point has proven problematic. Volatility is the second nature of all cryptocurrencies, and it clearly shows as of right now.

As far as the Ethereum price is concerned, it's now hovering close to US$290 for the time being. That is still a more than respectable price, all things considered, but it remains to be seen if a return to US$300 will happen before, during or after this weekend. We saw a sharp price increase for Ethereum from US$250 to US$306 earlier this week, which means a correction was due at some point.

Although the Ethereum price has dropped by 3.51%, there is no reason to be concerned whatsoever. It is a bigger dip than most people would have liked to see right now, but things will recover eventually. Particularly when the Bitcoin price recovers in a few hours from now, the Ethereum price will see some upward momentum accordingly. Despite what some people may claim, all cryptocurrencies derive value based on the Bitcoin price momentum, and Ethereum is no exception in this regard.

One thing that is somewhat disconcerting, however, is the low Ethereum trading volume. Relative to a few weeks ago, the Ethereum trading volume has dropped from well over US$1 billion to about half a billion USD right now. More specifically, there was US$532 million in volume over the past 24 hours, which is not bad, but nothing spectacular either by any means. Then again, this lower trading volume is no big surprise whatsoever, nor should it affect the currency in the long run.

Looking over the Ethereum trading markets ranked by volume, Bithumb is in the lead by a small margin over Bitfinex. GDAX is a surprise in the number three slot, but it is good to see some more competition in the Ethereum marketplace these days. With three fiat currency trading pairs dominating the Ethereum trading volume right now, the popular altcoin follows the same path as Bitcoin. More fiat currency-based trading is always a positive sign, though, as it confirms the global demand for cryptocurrency is still there.

As of right now, it appears to be only a matter of time until the Ethereum price surpasses $300 once again. However, with the weekend almost upon us, no one can say for sure what the future may hold, which is always somewhat troubling. Ethereum is a cryptocurrency to be reckoned with, as it does things very differently from Bitcoin or any other top cryptocurrency. A bright future lies ahead, regardless of the current price movements.

Roger Ver bets $1M that Bitcoin Cash will not be ‘short-lived’

Bitcoin.com chief executive Roger Ver has issued a $1 million challenge to F2Pool owner Wang Chun, who has claimed at a blockchain conference in Hong Kong that Bitcoin Cash "will be short-lived."

The two executives were part of a roundtable discussion at the Bitkan-hosted 2017 Shape the Future Blockchain Global Summit, debating on the potentials of Bitcoin Cash versus the original Bitcoin. For his part, Wang said Bitcoin Cash will be abandoned soon, or as early as November, when another hard fork is expected to happen.

Roger Ver bets $1M that Bitcoin Cash will not be 'short-lived'"Bitcoin Cash will be short-lived compared with earlier attempts because we will soon have another one coming very soon… after SegWit2X is introduced," Wang said.

The F2Pool co-owner's comment caught the ire of Ver, a confessed fan of Bitcoin Cash, prompting him to issue a bet.

"How short-lived do you think Bitcoin Cash will be and would you be interested in making a wager about that?" Ver asked. "I'd like to bet $1 million on that and I'll give you two-year time frame."

Ver, an early Bitcoin investor, said he is a fan of Bitcoin Cash due to its low fees and fast confirmations, which makes it much more in line with the original vision of true decentralized, peer-to-peer electronic cash with more efficient transaction capacity.

"Anybody who use Bitcoin I think you know… the network's completely full and caused a horrible user experience, so I think everybody else in this stage wants Bitcoin to have a good user experience for people, and Mr. Wang Chun here thinks [the] Bitcoin network is not full and it's not a problem at all… He's blaming it on spammers, spammers are just people who use the Bitcoin network… so you can decide for yourself whose stand seems more reasonable here," Ver said.

In an interview on the sidelines of the event, Ver said Bitcoin Cash is the answer to Bitcoin's scaling problem.

"From day one, the plan was always to allow the blocks to become as big as they needed to be in order to accommodate people using Bitcoin, so the fact that this has become a problem with Bitcoin now is actually a sign of its success. Bitcoin Cash is the answer to that problem," Ver told CoinGeek. "Blockstream and these other guys that want to intentionally make the fees high and the confirmations of Bitcoin transactions slow or indeterminate, like, of course people don't want to use that. Bitcoin Cash is much more useful for people that actually want to use it as money."

Top 10 Cryptocurrency ICOs of 2017

ICOs have rapidly become the new standard method of raising funds for cryptocurrency startups and enthusiasts. Although not every ICO raises its minimum goal, most projects have had no problem selling all the available tokens quickly. Throughout 2017, we have seen some major cryptocurrency ICO projects raise a lot of money. Below is a brief overview of the most successful ICO projects in terms of funding throughout 2017 so far.

10. MONETHA

Although this project was only launched a short while ago, the amount of money raised surprised a lot of people. Monetha aims to provide a globally trusted commerce solution powered by the Ethereum blockchain to merchants in all industries. By raising US$36.6 million during the crowdsale, the ICO showed that people have high expectations for this project moving forward.

9. AETERNITY

Bringing smart contract technology to the masses will not be easy by any stretch of the imagination. Aeternity aims to do exactly that by making smart contracts interface with real-world data.  Whether or not the company will be successful in doing so remains to be seen. However, with US$36.96 million raised during the ICO, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about this concept.

8. SONM

The world of supercomputing can benefit from more decentralization. Although SONM is competing against other projects in this industry, it also has a tremendous amount of potential. Its ICO raised US$42 million, which is a modest amount compared to how highly-valued this project can become, given enough time. There is not much hype surrounding SONM, as the team mainly focuses on developing a working ecosystem rather than making empty promises.

7. MOBILEGO

One of the more fascinating projects to date goes by the name of MobileGO. Bringing the world of cryptocurrency and mobile gaming together is quite a major undertaking. However, the project has seen its fair share of successes so far. This also explains how it raised US$53.069 million during its initial crowdsale. It's definitely a project worth keeping an eye on moving forward.

6. TENX

In the world of cryptocurrency-related debit cards, one can never have enough competition. TenX is one of the ICO projects launching in 2017 which aims to make a big impact in this regard. By raising US$64 million during the ICO, there has been a lot of initial interest in this project. However, that amount of money is no guarantee for success whatsoever.

5. STATUS

Many people will recall the Status ICO for the wrong reasons. It's not because the project is bad, as some real progress has been made. Unfortunately, the Status ICO highlighted major scalability issues for the Ethereum network, which got stuck due to the number of people trying to invest. When everything was said and done, Status raised US$90 million rather quickly.

4. BANCOR

The Bancor ICO has received a lot of initial interest due to the involvement of Tim Draper. This project is also one of those ICOs which sold out very quickly, for obvious reasons. Raising US$153 million is not shabby. It will be interesting to see what the team will do with this money, as the expectations of them are incredibly high.

3. EOS 

The EOS project has turned a lot of heads even though no one knows for sure if the team can deliver on its promises. There is a lot of interest in the concept, though, which has already translated into successfully raising US$185 million during its ICO. Putting that money to good use will be the number one priority right now.

2. TEZOS

Creating a decentralized blockchain capable of governing itself through a digital commonwealth sounds pretty interesting on paper. Bringing this technology to the masses will be something else entirely, though. Tezos successfully raised US$232.319 million to bring this blockchain to fruition. Whether or not the product will succeed in the end still remains to be determined.

1. FILECOIN

A lot of people were legitimately surprised by the Filecoin ICO, for obvious reasons. This project raised US$257 million out of the blue, even though the concept appears to be solid. A decentralized file storage network will certainly have major implications. Users will also earn Filecoin for hosting files, which is something a lot of enthusiasts will look forward to.

The Pirate Bay Tests Cryptocurrency Miner as Alternative Revenue Stream

Recently a story broke on TorrentFreak outlining a test that The Pirate Bay ran for a short period of time. The Pirate Bay team is looking to see if skimming the computational resources of site visitors is a better way to raise revenue than displaying advertisements. Some users are not happy about this, but I see it as an interesting opportunity.

MINING INSTEAD OF ADVERTISING

Users who visited the Pirate Bay's site on September 16th may have noticed a spike in their CPU usage. Only certain pages would spike the CPU, and some users decided to look into what was going on. Apparently, the Pirate Bay had inserted a few lines of Javascript code – developed by Coinhive – into selected pages on the site that would utilize visitors' computing resources to mine cryptocurrencies, specifically Monero.

The effect is detrimental to the overall user experience, apparently. Some users complained that it was immediately noticeable and off-putting. This makes sense, as the miner was variously throttled at 0.6 and 0.8. Disabling Javascript was sufficient to stop the miner, however. This short-term test likely lasted around 24 hours in total, but it has already upset many users.

AN INTERESTING IDEA THAT NEEDS BETTER EXECUTION

For the most part, I love this idea. Consumers today are inundated with ads for products and services. Flashy banners, the dreaded pop up, and – worst of all – ads that auto-play with sound can be incredibly disruptive to users. If I am reading an article or looking for some information on a website, there is nothing more infuriating than wading through ads.

I can already hear what some of you are saying: "Why not put on an ad blocker then?" Honestly, I have given it some thought, but realize that these media platforms do deserve some sort of compensation for providing me with content. If ads are their main form of revenue, blocking their ads and denying them revenue seems wrong to me.

However, there is a tacit agreement that I allow companies to collect big data from me in order to make their ad campaigns successful. This means my data is stored in a large, centralized location and is then accessible to malicious attackers looking for vulnerabilities in those systems.

Having a site dedicate some of one's computer power to mine cryptocurrencies while using their product or service might be a smart way to move forward. They would not need to show ads, which means ad companies would not need to collect big and vulnerable data to create better ad campaigns, and the companies would still get paid in the form of computational power required to find a block. All parties would seemingly benefit from this kind of arrangement.

It would need a few tweaks however. Firstly, not announcing a test like this – even if only for 24 hours – strikes me as a little cavalier. While companies do not need to announce every business test they perform, something that directly affects the CPU performance of a user's computer probably deserves some upfront explanation. I also think that perhaps the miner should be throttled down a bit. No one will make any money if accessing a site is clunky and slow enough that users decide to go elsewhere. This is only a first test, but I think the idea – if modified – could be a great approach moving forward.

South Korean Court Rules Confiscation of Bitcoin to Be Illegal

There are many different opinions among government officials worldwide on what can and cannot be done with Bitcoin. Although most countries still claim Bitcoin is not a currency, some states are looking at ways to confiscate the cryptocurrency. However, that may not be the case much longer in South Korea, where a local court ruled that Bitcoin cannot be confiscated. It is a very interesting precedent, to say the least.

It is quite interesting to keep an eye on the Bitcoin situation in South Korea. As most people are well aware, South Korean exchanges are the main sources of trading volume for quite a few different major cryptocurrencies. Bithumb in particular is bringing in a lot of trading volume, although Coinone and Korbit should not be overlooked either. Despite growth in the legitimate use of Bitcoin, it appears criminals are also flocking to Bitcoin in the country.

Local police recently seized 216 bitcoins from an individual who was considered to be involved with criminal activity. Interestingly enough, it appears this seizure of assets was not legitimate according to a local district court. The Suwon District Court ruled that Bitcoin is not subject to confiscation, according to local sources. This is a rather surprising precedent that could send shockwaves throughout the world. After all, it only takes one precedent like this one to change regulation in the future.

In this particular case, the arrested individual was charged with running an illegal pornography site. Although the site in question had quite a lot of members, the operator never reported much in the way of membership fees collected. It is unclear whether the membership fees were paid in Bitcoin or if the money was converted later on. If the latter were the case, it was only a matter of time before this individual got arrested.

While the charges against the individual himself were not dismissed, the confiscation of his Bitcoin assets has been deemed illegal. It is evidently "not appropriate to confiscate Bitcoins as they cannot assume an objective standard value." That is a rather clear and interesting statement by the Suwon district court. It does not claim that Bitcoin does not have a value, but rather that it is electronic money with no physical representation. It is a bit unclear if this means we may soon see dedicated legislation for Bitcoin in South Korea.

This does mean that, even if bitcoins were to be seized as criminal profits, the value calculation of these assets would prove pretty difficult. Bitcoin does not have a fixed value whatsoever, and one would need to calculate the corresponding amount instead of simply confiscating it. There will likely be some opposition to this judgment, as not everyone will see eye to eye regarding this decision.

The bigger question here is whether cryptocurrencies will ever gain legal recognition in South Korea. There are plans to introduce some form of legislation in the coming months, but nothing has been set in stone just yet. This may very well be the only case in which the confiscation of bitcoins is deemed illegal. The government will try to prevent rulings like this one from happening in the future; that much is evident.

 

Carefull Closing a Word Document Could Infect Your Computer

Cybercriminals have not given up on the idea of distributing Locky ransomware. Although most of the distribution methods in place today are being used by virtually everyone, there is a new solution being utilized by a few criminals. They now distribute the Locky ransomware payload through a modified Microsoft Word file, which will only be triggered once the document is closed. This is a new spin on the traditional "Word macro" distribution method we have seen used so often in recent years.

A NEW WAY TO DISTRIBUTE LOCKY RANSOMWARE

The Microsoft Word software suite allows criminals to execute many things that should not be theoretically possible. Installing malware by forcing users to enable specific macros to view content in a document and distributing the malicious payload that way seems to work just fine. However, since almost every ransomware distributor is using this method, the average consumer is slowly becoming aware of this problem and the threat it poses.

The latest Locky ransomware distribution campaign still relies on Microsoft Word documents. That in itself will not change anytime soon, as criminals have come up with a new way to successfully exploit a few other options at their disposal. The newest method uses Word documents laden with Locky malware which will only trigger the payload download and execution once the documents are closed. This is a pretty unique way to deliver a payload since it is not something that has been explored up to this point.

Similar to the previous distribution method, this Microsoft Word campaign still relies on macros. It seems these macros are of particular concern to Microsoft, as the criminals have found a way to make them useful to execute code when a document closes. It still relies on executing a macro within Word itself, and the user still needs to enable macros in order for it to succeed. However, it has nothing to do with displaying content per se, as the document itself displays information.

This also makes a major difference for any security software that may be installed on the victim's computer. Since most software now blocks malicious macros in Word documents when it comes to displaying content, an on-close Macro is the new go-to solution. A lot of sandboxed environments allow Word macros by default. Now that these new types of documents appear to be completely harmless, they can still infect computers by flying under the radar.

This new Microsoft Word campaign is not the only Locky distribution method to keep an eye on. Another researcher has discovered that there is a fake Dropbox email phishing method being employed right now. Once a user clicks on the link in an email, he or she is redirected to a spoofed website which will install the Locky payload on the target computer. Criminals will continue distributing Locky for quite some time to come; that much is obvious.

With so many "affiliates" distributing one of the more destructive types of malware, the future is looking pretty bleak. It seems as if the war against ransomware is not evolving in favor of the potential victims. Criminals remain at least two steps ahead of security researchers in this ongoing cat-and-mouse game. Locky has been one of the top ransomware types for quite some time and it will not necessarily go away overnight. With this new Microsoft Word macro trick, things will only get more confusing and dangerous for computer users.