News
15
Nov
bitcoin news
bitcoinadmin November 15, 2021 No comments News permalink

This website has affiliate links. We may receive compensation if you visit partners we recommend. Read more about our advertising principles from the About Us page.

News Summary 11/15: Taproot, SEC, Cybercrime, Coinbase

Bitcoin’s Taproot update has been implemented without problems. SEC is interested in Terraform Labs. Cybercriminals are trying to empty people’s cryptocurrency wallets via phishing sites. Coinbase released its third-quarter results, which fell slightly short of expectations.

Taproot has been activated

Bitcoin’s Taproot update has been successfully implemented on November 14, 2021. Though, some of us like to follow the history of Bitcoin in blocks instead of days. The Taproot update was performed on block 709632.

Taproot is the most significant update on Bitcoin since SegWit (2017). There was a lot of buzz surrounding Taproot in the summer during the so-called signaling phase. There hasn’t been any major news about the update since that.

Taproot hardly appeared in news headlines after its implementation. It didn’t move the price of Bitcoin either, which was expected.

Taproot is a soft fork update. This means Bitcoin nodes are not required to implement it. Almost half of the known nodes are yet to run the update.

The Twitter account @taproot_signal monitors the update rate of nodes on the network. At the time of writing, about 52 percent have applied the Taproot update.

The benefits of Taproot will be seen in the long run. Taproot is a very important update, but its effects are not directly visible to a regular user. The network didn’t immediately come any faster or cheaper to use.

The update was well received by the Bitcoin community. There were no disputes like in 2017. Activation did not cause any technical issues either.

The SEC is interested in Terraform Labs

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a well-known entity in the world of cryptocurrencies. SEC is the instance that monitors cryptocurrencies in the United States. SEC, for example, approves Bitcoin ETF products. SEC has also sued many crypto projects over the years.

Right now SEC is arguing with Terraform Labs. This is a company responsible for the development of the Terra platform, best known for its LUNA and UST tokens.

Do Kwon, founder of Terraform Labs, was sued by SEC just before he took the stage at the Mainnet 2021 conference. This was a surprising course of action, to say the least. Do Kwon did not accept the action taken by SEC and struck back. Terraform Labs sued SEC last month. The video below covers the topic.

SEC wants Terraform Labs and Do Kwon at the negotiating table by court order. SEC’s investigation focuses on the Mirror Protocol application and its governance tokens.

Terraform Labs may face a similar process as Ripple. SEC sued Ripple executives on suspicion of illegal securities trading. This dispute hasn’t been resolved yet.

If you plan to invest in a Luna token or other Terraform Labs products, it is recommended to follow the situation closely.

Cybercrime on Google

There has been widespread news in recent days about phishing attacks on crypto investors. This is a classic method of cybercrime. Details of such scams vary, but the concept is usually the same.

Users are tricked into giving criminals access to their wallets through a fake site. These phishing sites appear in Google above search results and entice users to click.

In Finland, one cryptocurrency investor lost more than 13,000 euros through a SpookySwap scam site. The site had been featured in Google search results.

spooky finance

The victim was tricked into giving his wallet passphrase. After that, he was redirected to the real SpookySwap site, which is why the user was not alarmed. Redirecting to the actual site gives criminals time to clear the wallet even on the next day.

The best way to avoid these scams is to be careful with Google and other search engines. It’s a good idea to bookmark all your important sites. Also, you should never enter a wallet recovery phrase on unknown sites.

Practically all cryptocurrency wallets give the user a recovery phrase during the wallet creation. These are usually ten to twenty common English words.

Recovery phrases are usually only required if you want to deploy an existing cryptocurrency wallet, for example, on a new device. The recovery phrase must always be written on paper – never keep these details on your computer or mobile device.

Coinbase released Q3 results

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is a closely-monitored company among crypto investors. This is because Coinbase was listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange about six months ago.

Publicly listed companies are required to release figures on the company’s revenue after each quarter. Coinbase released its Q3-2021 report last week.

All key figures fell from the second quarter. However, this was predictable as the third quarter included July, August, and September, which were quiet months in the market. The second quarter, on the other hand, included the peak of this year’s crypto boom.

Coinbase’s stock fell about ten percent after the Q3 report. The stock price is now around $343, which is still more than 50 percent above the summer bottom ($220).

Coinbase made a massive profit in the third quarter: $1.31 billion. However, this was not enough for investors, who expected $1.57 billion. Trading volume saw a clear drop from 462 billion to 327 billion between the second and third quarters. Of this volume, Bitcoin had a 19% share and Ether 22%.

A year ago, BTC trading volume was almost twice as high as ETH. The popularity of altcoins has clearly eaten the trading volume share of both Bitcoin and Ether.

Coinbase reports an increase in the number of verified users to more than 73 million people. This is colossal growth, as the number was 56 million in the previous quarter.

The Coinbase stock (COIN) can be a good investment if you want to add crypto exposure to your portfolio without actually buying cryptocurrencies. Other similar options can be found at bitcointreasuries.net. You can find publicly listed mining companies and, of course, Microstrategy.

Photo: Clifford Photography on Unsplash