Coinbase sought to reassure investors on Thursday over concerns that customer accounts may have been targeted in an attack that exploited a recent Firefox zero-day.

The San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange said that the attack, discovered on Monday, had targeted Coinbase employees and that the exchange and its customers' accounts were untouched.

Software Vulnerabilities

A zero-day is a vulnerability in computer software that can remain unknown to those who provide and use that software for several days or weeks, yet - if discovered by hackers - can provide the opportunity to exploit that weakness for mischief or profit.

Coinbase's cyber security team, led by Philip Martin, discovered the zero-day vulnerability in Mozilla's Firefox software and reported it immediately to the web browser provider, which then issued a patch to rectify the fault.

However, the zero-day event may have lasted for weeks, according to Google engineer Samuel Gross who helped develop the patch. He reported on Twitter that he had reported a bug in Firefox to Mozilla in mid-April.

I don't have any insights into the active exploitation part. I found and then reported the bug on April 15. The first public fix then landed about a week ago (sec fixes are held back until close to the next release): https://t.co/O34f9dou3E https://t.co/K6GfZN1XkH

— Samuel Groß (@5aelo) June 19, 2019

Coinbase Security on the Alert

While it remains unclear how soon attackers noticed the vulnerability and how extensively the bug was exploited, Coinbase detected the attack on its staff before the hackers could dig deeper into the back-end network from where they could have stolen funds from the exchange.

Philip Martin explained on Twitter that the security team "walked back" the entire attack and reported the zero-day to Firefox. He added the team was working with other organizations to "continue burning down attacker infrastructure and digging into the attacker involved".

He continued: "We’ve seen no evidence of exploitation targeting customers. We were not the only crypto org targeted in this campaign. We are working to notify other orgs we believe were also targeted.

Martin concluded: "If you believe you have been impacted by this attack or you have more intel to share and want to collaborate with us on a response, please reach out to [email protected]"

1/ A little more context on the Firefox 0-day reports. On Monday, Coinbase detected & blocked an attempt by an attacker to leverage the reported 0-day, along with a separate 0-day firefox sandbox escape, to target Coinbase employees.

— Philip Martin (@SecurityGuyPhil) June 19, 2019

Growing Problem

Zero-day attacks are on the increase. A 2018 survey by the Ponemon Institute called the State of Endpoint Security Risk report, said respondents reported that 37% of cyber attacks launched against their companies were zero-day events. This was a 48% increase from 2017.

Meanwhile, 63% of the survey's respondents said that the frequency of zero-day attacks had increased over the previous 12 months.

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Coinbase is introducing a new push notification feature to alert mobile app users of price swings and market fluctuations in cryptocurrencies supported by the exchange startup.

These automatically generated messages are intended to assist investors and Coinbase clients of real-time market performance without the hassle of shifting between different websites and apps. The startup previously offered price alerts for a limited number of assets.

“Customers asked for real-time price alerts natively in the Coinbase app to address the inconvenience of having to check multiple sources for crypto market information,” a Coinbase representative told CoinDesk. “Real-time price alerts available natively in the Coinbase app streamlines access to information that helps customers make more informed investment decisions.”

The alerts will be succinct, according to Coinbase. Only including information regarding the percentage change of price swings, the time duration of the fluctuation and the current token valuation.

The feature will be combined with the in-app news and asset pages, Coinbase said, and users can opt in or out of the feature and choose which assets to track. It was developed internally.

In the past, Coinbase has introduced services such as its watchlist, which allows users to customize how market data is presented.

Coinbase expects to expand price alerts to include assets that aren’t currently tradeable on the exchange. The San Francisco-based unicorn currently supports 22 digital assets.

Coinbase image via OpturaDesign / Shutterstock.com

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The twelfth largest cryptocurrency according to CoinMarketCap, Tron [TRX], might have missed making a mark with respect to its price. However, its DApps have taken over the task of contributing significantly to its environment. Tron, in their latest announcement about the Odyssey 3.6 upgrade, had prioritized entertainment-focused decentralized applications [DApps].

Tron’s Chief Executive Officer, Justin Sun, recently announced that Tron’s DApps were beating EOS and Ethereum [ETH] DApps, with a 24-hour volume of $15.9 million. The CEO tweeted,


“According to @dapp_review, #TRON 24h volume is $15.9 M(475M) with 24h users 50.9k, which already surpassed that of($9M) and($12.3M).”

Source: Twitter

Apart from registering the highest 24-hour volume, Tron DApps also noted the highest volume over the past week with $97.085 million. Tron was closely followed by EOS with $95.778 million and Ethereum [ETH] with $51.665 million. However, in terms of transactions, EOS led the market with 4 million on June 19, followed by Tron reporting 73,997.

With Odyssey 3.6 bringing in hordes of changes in the ecosystem, it will allow contract deployers to clear the contract’s existing ABI and add enhancement protocol data-checks, in order to prevent any foul play on the chain. The update will also implement a more lightweight built-in event server to provide convenience to DApp developers, allowing them to customize their own event service.

At press time, Tron was valued at $0.0332 with a market cap of $2.217 billion. The 24-hour trading volume of the coin was noted to be $529.58 million, as it plunged by 0.55% over the day. Over the past week, TRX noted a fall of 0.02% and continued to tumble by 0.52% within the hour, at press time.

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The gaming industry has grown dramatically in recent years, partially because the world of video games is keeping up with the latest technological advances and even tries to get ahead of them. As such, it couldn’t bypass the blockchain. It’s not surprising that, from time to time, gaming companies announce the development of games based on this technology. So, the French gaming giant Ubisoft, known for the Assassin's Creed and Far Cry franchises, has announced that a blockchain will be integrated into its games. So, what can a blockchain give to the world of games and does it even need to be included at all?

Game monetization

The video game industry is currently alluring for any entrepreneur. So, it is no wonder that initial coin offerings (ICOs) are very popular among video games developers. But why exactly is the blockchain so useful that it is now becoming so attractive to the gaming industry?

Gaming apps that use blockchain began to emerge back in 2014, when players started to earn money with HunterCoin or CryptoKitties, the latter of which managed to become extremely popular in its first year. Their popularity was due to the main component of blockchain: the immutable ledger, in which players are unable to change the data. This means there is an established trust between all industry participants, from developers to players.

In addition, this trust has also been monetized. Using a blockchain in a video game implies issuing and supporting cryptocurrencies. A game token is a single currency used to express the value of all items traded within the game and smoothes out the problems of transaction systems with multiple currencies. The purchase and sale of in-game items in cryptocurrencies is secured by a smart contract, which significantly increases its transaction reliability and security.

On the back of the success of such minigames, developers and companies that develop bigger games began to pay attention to the new technology. In early 2017, online store Gameflip launched a platform on which anyone could buy and sell digital goods. This platform gives players true ownership and flexibility to trade their goods in the ecosystem without any fraud.

At the end of October 2017, OPSkins, which developed the world's largest centralized marketplace of virtual goods for computer games, announced the creation of a decentralized platform called WAX for exchanging in-game items. The platform is a repository of virtual values ​​containing a catalog of all items available for sale that is updated in real time. It is based on a blockchain protocol that allows the use of an unlimited number of scalable trading platforms.

And in the end of October, Brian Fargo, the CEO of inXile Entertainment — one of the creators of Fallout, Wasteland and Baldur's Gate — announced the launch of Robot Cache, a platform for video game distribution. The platform uses its own cryptocurrency, called IRON, which is based on the ERC-20 standard. IRON can be directly issued, bought or sold on the Robot Cache platform. Users can spend the cryptocurrency on games or exchange them for fiat money.

Some companies that offer not only an in-game exchange but also a separate intra-game cryptocurrency have begun to make use of the blockchain as well. In October 2018, the gaming platform MobileGO, in collaboration with Xsolla, presented its own altcoin that is available to all players on the platform. According to the company, it intends to increase the level of honesty so that players at esports competitions are guaranteed to receive their prize money.

Global alliance

The giants of the gaming industry are not standing on the sidelines but neither are they rushing in to launch blockchain-based projects, as they continue studying the possibility of using the technology in their development.

In 2018, there was news that Ubisoft, one of the world's largest game developers, had been considering ways to use blockchain technology in its gaming strategy. In February 2018, Blockchain Initiative Manager Nicolas Pouard and Senior R&D Programmer Robert Falce at Ubisoft announced that they were working on a blockchain-based game called HashCraft in the company’s Strategic Innovation Lab and even explained what it means for Ubisoft:

“The mission of the lab is to explore social, technical and business trends that will shape the future of entertainment. On this basis, we are trying to help Ubisoft to be prepared to these changes. We strongly believe that blockchain is a huge thing, something that will change the gaming industry.”

The game will allow players to develop quests and tasks, the details of which are to be stored in a public blockchain. HashCraft will be built on the private blockchain MultiChain. Each player will fulfill the role of a miner in the network — all the player’s actions will be visually represented as an island. This island is generated by the player’s computer and, after its creation, the island is stored in the blockchain. The island will be represented as a property that the player owns and can change or reshape by their own will. With the help of blockchain, each player will acquire the true ownership of the characters. But Ubisoft has not yet announced the release date of the game.

In the fall of 2018, Ubisoft took another step closer to the blockchain industry by becoming a member of the Blockchain Game Alliance, which promotes a universal standard in the blockchain gaming space. Among the participants of the alliance are such major industry players as Fig, the company that created the platform for players and has launched its own cryptocurrency Enjin; Alto, the developer of tools for integrating blockchain into games based on Ultra blockchain platform; and EverdreamSoft, the developer of one of the earliest blockchain-based games called Spells of Genesis.

Nothing is perfect

There are a few reasons why some might be sceptical about utilizing blockchains, such as slow processes and long verification times — claims that are often made by those against the use of blockchain technology — and not to mention the complicated keys for cryptocurrency wallets that can easily be lost.

The next arguable weakness of blockchain is that, in the scenarios in which it is used to establish a marketplace, it has to rely on a cryptocurrency, which may be highly volatile. Periods of unbridled price growth are replaced by the same sharp falls,which results in investors showing great restraint from investing in crypto assets.

In addition, the leading providers of fiat payments — such as PayPal and Apple Pay — are strong in the gaming industry. Whether it is a big game or a low-budget phone app, the payment methods that exist today, in many ways, are focused on impulsive shopping and small transactions that characterize modern players. And of course, no one in gaming is completely protected from hacking attacks, but blockchain can help to solve this problem.

Also, according to the CEO and game producer of Blockchain Cuties, Vladimir Tomko, the lack of regulation in this sphere and the risk to image are the main barriers for companies such as Ubisoft:

“Cryptocurrencies are not fully regulated, there is a lot of ‘unofficial’ cryptocurrencies and this simultaneously carries strong reputational and legal risks. For big companies like Ubisoft, these are serious limiting factors. If they make a mistake somewhere or they are accused of accepting money that was later turned out unofficial, it will affect their PR position and the price of their shares.”

But Vladimir is optimistic about the joint future of blockchain and gaming:

“The fact that large companies are on blockchain market and participate in everything, communicate with everyone, gives them an important strategic position. They know the actual ins and outs of the market, and if necessary, will be able to react faster than competitors. Moreover, the ‘react’ means not only developing their own titles — Ubisoft will be able to become one of the first big companies to start making M&A deals as soon as they realize that the market has become interesting enough to enter it seriously. I expect the first deals at the end of this — the middle of next year.”

Thus, if developers manage to find a way around the weak points of blockchain technology, then gamers all over the world will likely soon receive a completely unique gaming product.

The founder of the Crypto Games Conference, Andriy Sharanevych, believes that big gaming companies think, first of all, about monetizing blockchain:

“Speaking of big developers and publishers, it all depends on money that can be earned from using blockchain. Now everyone is in the process of experimenting and trying to figure out what to do with it and how. Just like in 2008 when everybody was sceptical about iOS platform. So small developers are checking this path.The big ones stand by and watch. As soon as they see the worthiness of blockchain and understand how to make money on it, they will immediately break in and start dividing the market.”

A discussion worthy of the worldwide stage?

The increasing tendency to use blockchain in gaming is becoming apparent, regardless of whether it is a way to promote a game developer’s own content or a desire to protect the rights of consumers. More and more, makers of big-title games are thinking about integrating this technology, and this interest is not only coming from game developers, but also global brands such as Sony, which patented a digital gaming access system in the spring of 2018. Sony’s blockchain platform will allow users to monitor their digital rights and reduce the amount of “pirated” content.

Will blockchain bring big gaming companies the opportunity to develop their capabilities or set up a whole new direction in the gaming industry? The answer could come in the nearest future. But the fact is that this technology has already been applicable in gaming and is encouraging for the blockchain industry. The other issue is, will it be applicable just for facilitating currency transfers or will it add to the gameplay experience?

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The controversial cryptocurrency exchange, Bitfinex, announced its initiative to buy back and burn its in-house token, LEO. The exchange claimed that the UNUS SED LEO Transparency Initiative will allow users to see iFinex, the parent company of Bitfinex, purchase LEO at market rates on an hourly basis, equal to a minimum of 27% of the consolidated revenues of iFinex.

However, Paolo Ardoino, Chief Technology Officer of Bitfinex, answered the question on most users minds, tweeting,

“How Unus Sed $LEO holders and wanna-be holders can check if @bitfinex will use really 27% of its revenues to buy back LEO.”

Ardoino played the ‘devil’s advocate’ and asked users to imagine a scenario where Bitfinex reports a lower volume to buy the token, but they would have to explain this to traders. The CTO added,

“why their trades are not reported in the public feed <- so it would not work”

He further gave an illustration to calm the users’ paranoia, stating,

“- report more (fake) volume but we would commit more money in the process consuming our reserves <- it won’t last”

Giving these two instances, the CTO said that Bitfinex’s buyback mechanism was transparent.

“So in my opinion our buy back mechanisms is super-transparent and protective of LEO holders. That is why I claimed we made an unprecedented move among exchanges. Now our revenues are under everyone’s eyes.”

However, Bitfinex’s recent hiccup with the New York Attorney General’s office, along with the Tether Treasury, caused a major stir and has led to a degree of skepticism among its investors.

As for the token LEO, CoinMarketCap ranked the coin at the thirteenth position, right under Tron [TRX]. The token was valued at $1.85, with a market cap of $1.85 billion. The 24-hour trading volume of the coin was reported to be $3.13 million, as it reported a growth of 0.43% over the day. Over the past seven days, LEO fell by 5.39%, but was rising by 0.16% within the hour.

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Changpeng Zhao aka CZ, CEO of Binance, organized an AMA and addressed rumors regarding the recent shutdown of Binance for U.S.-based users, while also talking about the announcement of Binance U.S.

Binance recently updated its internal policy which made U.S. users and any other users violating these terms unable to deposit funds or cryptocurrencies on the exchange. It reported that all users who do not comply with these policies by September 12 “will not be able to trade or deposit funds on Binance.com.”

This issue caused a lot of rumors to erupt as people speculated that other countries might also be under the risk of getting their accounts banned due to government policies. CZ addressed these rumors in his AMA, stating that this was just a rumor and should be treated as such.

“I think you can use common sense to judge the situation. As I said we always want to be compliant with most jurisdiction, so if you live in countries that have aggressive limitations on its citizens, then you are at risk, but if you live in countries that is relatively open and historically does not have this kind of issues with other websites then you are okay.”

He further added that if users reside in a country that attacks companies for providing services to its citizens, then they are at the risk of a shutdown whereas others have no reason to be worried about.

Since this remark is very vague and far-fetched and in light of recent rumors which speculate that an alleged draft bill in India is set to ban cryptocurrency trading, Binance could in the future impose the same restrictions on Indian users. However, this is a very big “if” and a massive speculation, one that should be taken with a pinch of salt.

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Towards the end of last week, Binance, a leading cryptocurrency exchange in the world, announced that it would be blocking its US users. The move was manifested by a change in the exchange’s terms of service.

Photo: Shutterstock

The change picked 28 other countries that its users will not be able to access Binance.com. Among countries restricted from using Binance.com include those that have economic sanctions.

Prohibition of Use Clause

As per the ‘Prohibition of use’ clause on the updated terms of service, Binance notes:

“By accessing and using the Services, you represent and warrant that you are not on any trade or economic lists such as the UN Security Council Sanctions list, … or placed on the US Commerce Department’s ‘Denied Persons List.’ Binance is unable to provide services to any US persons. Binance maintains to select its markets and jurisdictions to operate and may restrict or deny the Services in certain countries at its discretion.”

It’s a shock that the exchange is closing its doors for users in the United States, considering that approximately 20 percent of its users originate from the US. For example, in the past six months, more than 40 million users from the United States visited Binance.com. The US was followed by India, Japan, Germany, and Turkey.

There’s a Way Around the Restriction, But not for Everyone

While the news are likely to dampen the crypto mood in the US market, US residents may still have a way to bypass the blockage; by using a virtual private network (VPN). Unfortunately, only those that are not verified can successfully use a VPN. However, Binance users who are not verified can only withdraw a maximum of 2 Bitcoins.

Changpeng Zhao (CZ), Binance’s CEO, had earlier anticipated the restrictions. But, the CEO expressed optimism saying that “some short terms pains may be necessary for long term goals.”

From Centralized to Decentralized, the SEC Gets Involved

With the exchange shifting from being centralized to decentralized, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) must be involved. To prevent being caught in a regulatory standoff with the SEC, Binance announced that they would geo-fence their decentralized exchange to wade off users from the US among other countries such as Central Africa Republic, Cuba, Ukraine, Libya, Liberia, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, among others.

After Coburn, CZ May Be Next

CZ possibly fears being arrested following what happened to Zachary Coburn. Coburn, the CEO of EtherDelta, a decentralized crypto platform, was charged by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for running an unregistered crypto platform. As per the SEC, EtherDelta has handled over 3.6 million orders which included tokens that the SEC classifies as securities.

A Twitter user, veltre_nick, while contributing to the news regarding Coburn’s predicaments, noted:

“These are just the SEC charges. The money laundering charges for being an unlicensed money transmitter come next. Then there will be more. And every DEX. DEX’s are money laundering machines.”

If the SEC holds the same views as veltre_nick, then CZ may have just avoided being charged or even an arrest. Luckily, another Twitter user has a solution, “DEX makers tip: don’t start in the USA.”

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MetLife subsidiary LumenLab is using blockchain technology to automate life insurance claims, according to a news release published on June 17.

Known as “Lifechain,” the collaboration with Singapore Press Holdings and NTUC Income will enable bereaved families who place obituaries in a local newspaper to instantly trigger searches to see whether their loved one had a life insurance policy.

This month, 1,000 Income policyholders will be randomly selected to take part in a pilot scheme.

The technology works by submitting the deceased’s National Registration Identity Card to Lifechain as hashed data once consent from the family has been obtained. Families are notified within one business day when a matching policy is found, and a notification is automatically sent to the insurer so the claims process can commence.

Julian Tan, the chief of digital business at Singapore Press Holdings (SPH,) said:

“SPH hopes to expand Lifechain to include more insurers in time to come to bring greater convenience to family members attending to the deceased’s administrative matters securely.”

Insurance companies are increasingly turning to blockchain technology. Earlier this week, tech firm BlockClaim received $627,000 in funding for a platform that uses blockchain to automate car insurance claims.

Meanwhile, British insurance agency Legal & General recently announced it has teamed up with Amazon to create a blockchain system for managing pension deals.

At the Synchronize Europe conference in London on June 18, attended by a Cointelegraph correspondent, Accenture managing director Sarah Hazzledine said there were “huge opportunities for digitization” in the paper-based sector. She also confirmed that the global accounting giant is part of an insurance consortium building a distributed ledger (DLT) platform with two use cases that are scheduled to launch within the next six to 12 months.

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