Lamden Mainnet is Coming. Lamden Mainnet will be launching on…16 september 2020

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  

TECH 26 AUGUST 2020 Patrick Thompson 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 downloa

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."

Over 1,000 customer data missing in CryptoTrader.Tax breach

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.

Story from News Goldman Sachs Eyes Own Token as Bank Appoints New Head of Digital Assets

Goldman Sachs is seriously considering its own cryptocurrency, possibly a stablecoin, as it significantly expands its digital assets team and appoints a new head to spearhead efforts.

1. Matthew McDermott, Goldman's new digital asset global head, confirmed the U.S. investment bank was exploring whether to launch its own digital asset, CNBC reported Thursday.
2. "We are exploring the commercial viability of creating our own fiat digital token, but it's early days as we continue to work through the potential use cases," he said.
3. Last month McDermott hired Oli Harris as head of strategy. Harris was instrumental in JPMorgan's blockchain, Quroum, as well as its settlement coin, JPMCoin.
4. McDermott said he is already looking at how blockchain can make savings in the inefficient repurchase, or "repo", market used by banks to lend money to one another, as well as credit and mortgage markets.
5. He also said Goldman might consider collaborating with its rival, JPM, as well as Facebook on future digital asset initiatives.
6. McDermott said he plans to significantly expand Goldman's digital asset team, including doubling headcount in both Asia and Europe.

Previously on Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs held an investor call Wednesday to discuss current policies for bitcoin, gold and inflation in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. The big takeaway? The stalwart investment bank is still no fan of bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.

A slideshow released before the call cited hacks and other losses related to cryptocurrencies as well as their use to "abet illicit activities" as some potential liabilities.  

Seven of Goldman's 35 slides mention bitcoin, but the people on the call only discussed bitcoin for roughly five minutes at the end, with no questions taken after.

In the call materials, Goldman notes that while cryptocurrencies like bitcoin "have received enormous attention," they "are not an asset class."

Why? The reasons include bitcoin's inherent lack of cash flow, unlike bonds, and its inability to generate earnings through exposure to global economic growth, according to the presentation. Goldman also notes bitcoin's volatility, citing the recent drop to 12-month lows in early March. The price spiked nearly 5% to $9,200 a few hours before the call.

Some professional cryptocurrency analysts were less than impressed by Goldman's analysis. "The criticisms were very cookie cutter, the type you'd expect if someone just read mainstream headlines," said Ryan Watkins, bitcoin analyst at Messari and former investment banking analyst at Moelis & Company. "It's like they didn't fully diligence the asset."

Goldman's cash flow argument was particularly odd to Tom Masojada, co-founder of OVEX Digital Asset Exchange.

"Many investments that Goldman labels as 'suitable for clients' do not generate cash flows and are primarily dependent on whether someone is willing to pay a higher price at a later date," he said on Twitter.

"One could argue bitcoin isn't backed by anything, but to liken it to a game of hot potato ignores the subjective value such a novel asset provides," said Kevin Kelly, former equity analyst at Bloomberg and co-founder of Delphi Digital, a cryptocurrency research firm that recently published a comprehensive report on bitcoin.

Bitcoin's current value, according to Kelly, is backed by "the demand for an apolitical speculative asset that may or may not turn out to be one of the world's most valuable safe havens."

The two Goldman speakers on the call, its head of research and a Harvard economics professor, said several bitcoin forks, which they refer to as "nearly identical clones," occupy three of the six largest cryptocurrencies by market value. With this, Goldman inferred that cryptocurrencies as a whole "are not a scarce resource," according to the presentation.

Lawmakers urge ‘proactive policy’ for taxing digital currency staking rewards

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.