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How To Keep Your Crypto Safe Against Exchange Hackers

• Exchange hacks appear to be one of the critical problems without any kind of a solution in sight. 
• This year alone, there have been several high-profile attacks.

By Adrian Barkley

Despite all the developments and innovations in the cryptocurrency space over recent years, exchange hacks appear to be one of the critical problems without any kind of a solution in sight. These days, cryptocurrencies are far more distributed across hundreds of exchanges than they were back in 2014 when Mt.Gox was hit, derailing the price of Bitcoin overnight. Nevertheless, exchanges remain prime targets for hackers. 

This year alone, there have been several high-profile attacks. Cryptopia was one of the first, subject two separate incidents that ultimately crippled the New Zealand-based exchange, causing it to close its doors for good.

After that, Singaporean DragonEx and Korean Bithumb were both targeted, before trading behemoth Binance was hit in May this year. Although the company was quick to reassure users that their account balances were protected by its insurance fund, the attack left a smear on Binance’s previously unblemished record of security. 

The latest exchange to fall prey to hackers is Upbit, which lost $50 million worth of ETH in late November. 

So, what are crypto users to do, to keep their funds safe? In light of the ongoing hacking issues, many exchanges are now starting to sell themselves on their enhanced security measures. 

Going the Extra Mile to Prevent Attacks

For a while, two-factor authentication was the established means of ensuring user account. However, many exchanges are now taking additional measures, such as IP binding. This means that you can restrict access to your exchange accounts to only a single IP address. If someone attempts to log in from another machine than your own, you’ll be notified. 

Singaporean exchange ecxx is one example of an exchange following this practice, along with other measures to help keep your funds safe from theft. The exchange keeps user funds in cold wallets, requiring multiple signatures from the company to access. 

Earlier this year, QuadrigaCX users found their funds had gone missing after the exchange founder died abroad as the only person holding the private keys to access his company’s wallet. Multi-signature wallets are a way of protecting against this risk. 

Furthermore, ecxx has integrated with MyInfo, the government of Singapore’s user portal. It enables Singaporean citizens and residents to interact with government agencies and private companies online. The integration offers local users in Singapore a trusted means of logging on to the ecxx platform with their existing MyInfo credentials. 

For institutions, ecxx has also partnered with Ledger, one of the global leaders in digital asset cold storage. Professional traders and investors can choose to have their funds stored in a Ledger Vault, meaning that ecxx doesn’t take custody of funds at all. 

Decentralized Exchanges – a Non-Custodial Solution

Another option for exchanging tokens without incurring the security risks of hacking is to use a decentralized exchange (DEX.) A DEX generally doesn’t take custody of your accounts, meaning that you’re solely responsible for fund security. 

At this point in the evolution of cryptocurrency, users have their pick of DEXs, with various different models for enabling trading. However, a critical challenge of peer-to-peer DEXs is that many are underused, meaning they suffer from low liquidity. Unless you’re trading Bitcoin or one of the major alts, you may find your trade left hanging while the matching engine searches for a counterpart with whom to trade. Therefore, it makes sense to find a DEX with high liquidity. 

IDEX is one of the more popular DEXs, meaning that liquidity is less of a challenge. Users manage their funds via the platform’s Ethereum-based smart contract. Users can access the smart contract via four methods – a Metamask wallet, a Ledger Nano S cold storage wallet, a Keystore file, or a manual private key entry. 

Another safe option is to use a liquidity protocol, which is a kind of DEX using a third token to enable swaps between a wide variety of tokens. Bancor and Uniswap are both examples of liquidity protocols. 

Wallets

If you do prefer to stick with centralized exchanges, then conventional wisdom says that you should only keep your funds in your exchange account when you’re actively trading. Therefore, if you’re planning on keeping your investments in crypto, get yourself a wallet. Hot storage wallets such as Atomic or Edge are very easy to get started using only a smartphone app. 

An even safer option for long-term HODLers is to use a cold storage wallet such as a Ledger Nano S or Trezor. Just make sure you have a safe method of storing your recovery seed.

Source: https://cryptodaily.co.uk/2019/12/how-to-keep-your-crypto-safe-against-exchange-hackers

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

Gaming Is Key to the Mass Adoption of Crypto

• A whole new exciting world of value is being coded into life right now by gamers
• While it may be a far cry from the lofty ideals of banking the unbanked and taking down the global banking system, gaming is gearing up to be a massive force in the crypto space

By Lark Davis

A whole new exciting world of value is being coded into life right now by gamers. While it may be a far cry from the lofty ideals of banking the unbanked and taking down the global banking system, gaming is gearing up to be a massive force in the crypto space.

Addictively fun games will draw a whole new base of users into the crypto economy. Gamers are an excellent target market for adoption because many gamers are a touch more tech savvy than the average internet user and tend to be a bit more open to new ideas.

Just imagine this — a gamer beating a monster, picking up a rare item, selling that item for Ether (ETH) on a secondary market, and then using that Ether to buy a new hat online. This creates a whole new network of value that is liquid, fast and global — and most importantly, taps into gamers’ existing behavior: playing games.

But for this exciting future to transpire, games need to be fun… addictively fun. Up until now, most crypto games have been little more than retro 1980s throwbacks — with very simple graphics and limited playability — which is nice for nostalgia but will not add anything significant to the crypto economy. However, a new class of games is changing this scenario and is set to take crypto games into the leagues of the truly great online games.

NFTs pave the way

Before looking at some examples, it is important to note that all of this has been enabled by nonfungible token technology, which allows for the proliferation of in-game digital assets on public blockchains.

Gaming could possibly be one of the major contributors to the crypto economy, with game developers making new token standards and technical developments that benefit the entire ecosystem — as well as the players of these games generating significant on-chain activity that helps to feed the miners. So, let us not make the mistake of thinking that crypto games are not lifting their weight in terms of ecosystem development.

Here are a couple of examples of what is being built and played.

Gods Unchained is bringing the wonder and excitement of a collectible card game like Magic: The Gathering to Ethereum. Gods Unchained is graphically enticing and has a great in-game flow of animations that keep the action rolling. The game has already attracted thousands of players to tournaments and continues to find a growing community of enthusiasts. Under the hood, players own the cards that they play with, storing the unique nonfungible tokens in their Ethereum wallet. Rarity is provable on-chain, and swaps on the secondary market are seamless. In February, a card sold for $62,000, which is astonishing for such a new game and really underlines the excitement building around crypto games.

Related: Blizzard Bans Hearthstone Player, Blockchain Comes to Rescue

Then, there is the Enjinverse, which is a growing multi-game experience that allows for in-game items to be used and moved seamlessly between dozens of games. Enjin itself is one of the most important cryptocurrencies in the gaming realm. One of the most interesting games in the Enjinverse is Age of Rust, which is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure with stunning graphics and an enticing story. Looking at the popularity of games like Dead Space or Fallout, it becomes clear that Age of Rust stands a good chance of gaining significant popularity.

While the game itself is exciting, it is the underlying tech that really makes Age of Rust stand out: Not only are Enjin assets interoperable between games, but they also have value baked into them. So, regardless of the long-term outcome of the game itself, the items you acquire in the game all are forged with Enjin tokens melted into the in-game asset. These assets can be melted back down at any time, enabling you to claim the tokens underpinning the value of the item — as well as creating increased scarcity for the item class, as once it is melted, that item it gone forever.

Here are some major players to watch. Enjin is working closely with Unity, which accounts for nearly half of all game developers globally. Cocos has 1.4 million game developers using its engine, and the launch of its blockchain is likely to bring many of those developers over. Loom is focused on interchain operability and on enabling fun, user-facing games that will draw more users into crypto — with such titles as Neon District, which is a Blade Runner-esque RPG.

According to the recent research conducted by a gaming and e-sport analytics provider, the gaming industry as a whole is expected to be worth $180 billion by 2021, so the opportunity for crypto gaming is massive. For players, there will be better experiences; for developers, there will be more tools to attract players to their games; and for investors, there will be the ability to own the cryptos that will be at the forefront of a major trend — but that has not yet taken off.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/gaming-is-key-to-the-mass-adoption-of-crypto

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

London Startup Aurus Launches Gold-Backed Crypto Token, Possibly Opening The Gold Market To New Investors

• Stablecoins offer the potential for crypto to be used as day-to-day payments because their value is pegged to an underlying asset, where price stability is more consistent. 
• Still, the middleman sitting in-between buyer and seller exists to exchange digital assets into traditional fiat currency

By: Robert Anzalone

The idea that crypto coins can be used for everyday goods and services is not a reality, yet. Stablecoins offer the potential for crypto to be used as day-to-day payments because their value is pegged to an underlying asset, where price stability is more consistent. Still, the middleman sitting in-between buyer and seller exists to exchange digital assets into traditional fiat currency. Typically, stablecoins, like Paxos or USDT, are used in the crypto market as hedging instruments or as value stores. Payment pipelines for everyday purchases are essential, and only when seamless integration is a reality can the public reap the benefits of a more streamlined infrastructure, as some blockchain purists promise. When we examine what is under the hood of our payment systems, we can see where blockchain innovation could transform older infrastructure into something better. 

If we look at the evolution of stablecoins as an innovation in payments, how they are regulated and hold value creates new risks for investors. Stablecoins have been criticized over the past year as potentially not being as price stable as believed. However, the market for this type of security has grown significantly and is becoming more crowded with new coins. Are stablecoins something worth integrating into our economy? How does the crypto industry design a way where decentralized technology creates an independent and non-controlled currency that can be used for everyday transactions? Can the reality of digital gold be achieved and utilized as a form of payment? 

Aurus – newly launched – has created a form of tokenized gold, and represents an actual ownership stake in physical gold. This adaptation is an innovation from existing stablecoins that could decrease the middleman footprint and could expand the traditional gold market.

I interviewed Guido Van Stijn, who is the CEO of Aurus. Aurus is a software company that provides tokenization-as-a-service (TaaS) that enables the gold market to autonomously tokenize their gold into AurusGOLD (AWG). Mr. Van Stijn explained that each AWG token is collateralized and redeemable for 1 gram of physical gold. As described to me, AWG will not be controlled by a government and exists as an ERC-20 token. The claim being regardless if Aurus survives as a company, the gold-backed token will survive on as an asset, just as a gold bar would. This is a unique approach to tokenization because each coin is traceable to a specific gold bar registration. Unlike ownership in a gold exchange-traded fund, which is an equity and does not represent physical gold ownership, AWG states that it is actual gold ownership.

Using a tokenized asset like a gold-backed token could be a benefit to the traditional gold buyer. The AWG tokens are sold at just a fraction above the gold spot price. Mr. Van Stijn explained, “Our processes are different than other gold-backed projects. All gold-backed stablecoins currently on the market have a centralized minting process. Meaning the company itself will, at some point, hold the gold. By digitally replicating the traditional gold market, Aurus is the first project to create a self-sustaining ecosystem made up of gold providers, vaults, and distributors that work together to produce a semi-decentralized gold-backed cryptocurrency.”

To allow the self-sustaining ecosystem to exist, Aurus circulates a second hybrid utility token, AurusCOIN (AWX). Mr. Mark Gesterkamp, the Business Development Director for Aurus, said, “AWX is limited to a total supply of 30,000,000 units, deriving transactional fees from the usage of AWG. AWX offers investors the opportunity to buy into the future growth of Aurus.” Mr. Van Stijn said, “As people around the world trade AWG, 70% of all the generated transaction fees are proportionally distributed across all AWX holders (paid in AWG). The remaining 30% of the generated fees are allocated towards the ecosystems’ operational costs as follows: 15% to gold providers, 15% to vault partners.” For the first time, market participants can generate a passive income stream on the bullion they sell.  

Who wants gold when you can have Bitcoin?

There is nothing special about gold-backed stablecoins in crypto. But Aurus has created something different that bridges the gap between traditional gold trading and the crypto world. More importantly, access to the gold market can be achieved without the need for gold brokers. The claim made by Mr. Van Stijn is that his method lowers the barriers of entry for public gold investment.

Tony Dobra, who sits on the Aurus advisory board, formally a general manager of Baird & Co., believes that AWG is unique. Mr. Dobra said, “While it is not the only gold on the blockchain, it is the most truly gold-based trade available in crypto. Via the AWG cryptocurrency, producers, refiners, and traders can tokenize their gold in multiple locations of their choice and trade the underlying gold on several platforms and exchanges. Because there are multiple locations, providers, and traders, the best price can be obtained. You are not limited to just one location or one price provider.”

Aurus expects and is working to achieve a state where AWG will create more liquidity in the gold market. More importantly, the team at Aurus explained their main goal is for AWG to be used for everyday transactions, i.e., have AWG be used like cash for everyday purchases. While there is a long way to go before this is a reality, the Aurus project seems to be a shift in the direction of asset-backed digital currency. If this works, commodity and precious metal trading could be influenced to follow suit. As for use in payments, stablecoins like AWG, still require an exchange mechanism at the point of sale. Time will tell if this style will become publicly adopted.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertanzalone/2019/12/09/london-start-up-aurus-launches-gold-backed-crypto-token-possibly-opening-the-gold-market-to-new-investors/#1049f0027a98

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

5 Crypto Projects That Crushed It in 2019

• Crypto startups that shrugged off bearish market conditions, community apathy and industry in-fighting, and focused on shipping clean code and great products.
• There’s a lot of noise in the cryptosphere, but the following projects cut through it like a knife, delivering original solutions with genuine utility.

As 2019 nears its apex, it’s time to take a look back at the projects that crushed it this year. Crypto startups that shrugged off bearish market conditions, community apathy and industry in-fighting, and focused on shipping clean code and great products. There’s a lot of noise in the cryptosphere, but the following projects cut through it like a knife, delivering original solutions with genuine utility. Having killed it all year, you wouldn’t bet against this quintet doing it all over again in 2020.

1. LiquidApps

EOS scaling project LiquidApps emerged out of nowhere to garner industry-wide plaudits as 2019 reached its crescendo. A lot of this was due to the success of its DAPP Network, which demonstrated that it’s possible to provision off-chain/sidechain scaling without compromising on decentralization. The DAPP Network’s vRAM enables EOS dApp developers to access cheap virtual storage, giving them the ability to scale their decentralized applications without being stung by prohibitive resource costs. That alone would be enough to sustain most crypto projects for a year, but LiquidApps accompanied this breakthrough with a tool for seamlessly onboarding new dApp users, another for linking blockchains into a single dApp, and an oracle service. Impressive stuff.

1. Remme

Distributed Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) project Remme boasts one of the hardest working teams in crypto. After realizing that its PKI-enabled blockchain simply wouldn’t cut it on Hyperledger Sawtooth, the Remme team made the difficult decision to switch chains deep into the project, transitioning to the EOSIO codebase and rolling out its testnet. Rather than letting this throw them off their stride, Remme has charged ahead with its mainnet launch, taking time out to propose improvements to EOSIO where errors were encountered in the codebase, and fine-tuning the workings of its custom Block Producer program.

This year, Remme also succeeded in onboarding hundreds of enterprises to Keyhub, its all-in-one platform for managing SSL/TLS certificates. With its mainnet just weeks away, 2020 is shaping up to be a big year for the Ukrainian blockchain startup.

1. Matic Network

It would be impossible to review 2019’s biggest breakout successes without including Matic. While the meteoric rise of its token in recent weeks, following its April IEO on Binance, has kept investors happy, that’s merely a symptom of its success in becoming the industry’s blockchain scaling solution of choice.

While Ethereum remains mired in ETH problems, Matic has emerged as a genuinely scalable and production-ready chain that can take the strain. Its adaptation of Plasma enables instant on-chain payments and transactions, making it suitable for everything from dApps to DEXs. Dozens of crypto projects have announced their migration to Matic Network including a number specializing in NFTs such as Battle Racers. In 2020, expect this trickle to transform into a torrent as crypto projects migrate en masse.

1. Chainlink

If there’s any token, outside of exchange tokens, that investors wish they’d stacked up on in January, it’s LINK. Up 570% in 12 months, LINK will go down as one of 2019’s best buys. As with Matic, however, focusing on price misses out on the broader story. Much of Chainlink’s success comes down to mastering the other P – partnerships. This year, crypto and non-crypto businesses alike rushed to team up with Chainlink, utilizing the smart contract and oracle network for connecting off-chain data feeds and enabling tamper-proof inputs and outputs.

With names such as SWIFT, Google, Gartner, and IC3 all working with Chainlink, the project founded by Sergey Nazarov has become the first crypto startup to transcend the industry and embed itself in the broader business world.

1. Synthetix

Warranting the accolade of most innovative defi project of 2019, Synthetix is a smart solution whose best is yet to come. Decentralized synthetic assets have long been the holy grail of many decentralized finance advocates, unlocking the ability to permissionlessly trade commodities, forex and cryptocurrency on DEXs. Synthetix is the first project to realize this goal through its pioneering use of ‘synths,’ tokens that provide exposure to assets such as gold, TESLA stock, and AAPL, without liquidity limitations. Up an incredible 1,715% to date, despite being absent from tier one exchanges, the SNX token looks like it has more room to grow – as does the Synthetix Network it powers.

Source: https://www.newsbtc.com/2019/12/03/5-crypto-projects-that-crushed-it-in-2019/