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.

Another shakeup inside Canaan Creative leads to 4 execs ouster

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. 

FBI called to probe Twitter amid fears of future hacks

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 grows by 30% in 2020

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 central bank halts mobile money transactions

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.

Story from Markets Outflow of Bitcoin From Miners at Lows Not Seen Since 2010

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. 

New York Times blockchain has a long way to go

The New York Times believed that blockchain technology could serve as a solution to fight fake news and disinformation. They admired that a public blockchain could serve as a shared source of truth and that could be referenced if there was a piece of news or a photograph, whose origin or legitimacy was questionable.

In July 2019, The New York Times unveiled News Provenance Project—an initiative that used blockchain to fight misinformation. However, after a year of research and development, the News Provenance Project team admits that they are still very far away from having a fully functional product that is ready for the world.

"This prototype was an experiment that taught us a lot about the power of credible, contextual information in social media feeds, but there is a long way to go before something like this can be fully realized," said Pooja Reddy, a product manager at The New York Times.

Although the team at the New York Times was able to make advances when it comes to using a blockchain to fight misinformation, by the end of their first run, the team ended up far from the finish line.

News Provenance Project
In its initial phase, The New York Times blockchain focused on photography. The blockchain was able to track a photo from the time it was captured, to the time it was edited, to the time that it was published. The metadata of the photo was stored on their blockchain and could be shared across the blockchain network's members who they envisioned would be news publications and social media platforms.

After conducting research interviews, the NYT team learned that individuals who were interested in verifying this sort of data were looking to see, who took the photo, where it was taken, how many changes/edits were made to the photo, and where the photo had been published. Although the New York Times R&D team was able to create a blockchain that did that successfully, the NYT team still felt as though they had missed the mark, or were far away from the goal line.

The obstacle
The New York Times research and development team found that there needed to be a better, easier way to check the photos that appear on social media against the photos on the blockchain.
"Bhaskar Ghosh, a student at Columbia University who conducted research for the News Provenance Project, investigated perceptual hashing and computer vision as potential mechanisms for associating photos on social media with photos on the blockchain. However, Ghosh noted that those mechanisms would require further refinement," according to the New York Times blog post. For blockchain to be used across both news publications and social media networks to battle misinformation when it comes to photographs, improvements need to be made that make it easier for all parties involved to use the blockchain to verify the data they are seeing.

For the next phase of the News Provenance Project, the NYT is looking for collaborators to build standards, rating systems, and enable detection of misinformation. If you believe you assist the News Provenance Project in that regard, you should head over newsprovenanceproject.com to learn more.

Korea university to build blockchain and AI campus

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.