Bitcoin (BTC) trading in Zimbabwe has continued to surge after the government banned the use of foreign currencies on June 24, business news agency Quartz Africa reported on July 10. The country is reportedly seeing a rise in peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto trading. There are no local exchanges offering cryptocurrency transactions due to the existing ban on providing such services enacted by Zimbabwe’s central bank in May 2018. Since Zimbabwe recently re-introduced its local currency, the Zimbabwe dollar (ZWD), after abandoning it in 2009, Bitcoin has apparently become a more attractive store of value than the new fiat currency, associated as …

Trading volume on Finnish peer-to-peer (P2P) bitcoin (BTC) exchange Localbitcoins hit a high not seen since November 2018, reveals data shown on cryptocurrency analytics website CoinDance. According to data from CoinDance, LocalBitcoins global weekly bitcoin trading volume hit $65.6 million in the week ending on Sunday, July 7. This is the highest level since November last year when the weekly trading volume of the platform hit $67.7 million in the week ending on Sunday, November 24, 2018. LocalBitcoins Global Weekly Trading Volume | Courtesy of CoinDance In some countries, last week represented an all-time high LocalBitcoins volume. For instance, in …

P2P bitcoin (BTC) trading platform Bisq is seeing record trading volumes as users drop Localbitcoins, data from monitoring resource Coin Dance confirmed this week. Bisq, the DEX formerly known as Bitsquare, is a decentralized application facilitating crypto-to-fiat trades without a formal intermediary. For the week ending June 22, the most recent period for which data is available, the platform handled $6.1 million, its best performance on record. Noticeable upticks came from markets as diverse and the United Kingdom and Brazil, the former seeing its second-biggest volumes. The increased activity comes weeks after Localbitcoins, traditionally the go-to P2P trading platform, abruptly …

Peer-to-peer cryptocurrency solutions project Liquality has launched its interface for cross-chain atomic swaps between bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and stablecoin dai (DAi) on the mainnet. The news was revealed in an official company blog post on June 24. Atomic swaps are a solution that enables the exchange of one cryptocurrency for another without the need for a trusted third party or centralized exchange infrastructure. Liquality is contributor-led, open-source project that focuses on developing trust-minimized and peer-to-peer crypto exchange solutions. Its launch of the Liquality Atomic Swap Interface alpha will now enable users to swap BTC, ETH and DAI directly between …

Update: The article has been corrected to clarify that the funds in question were not ‘lost’ but inflated by an incorrect price feed. The Ethereum-based synthetic asset issuance platform Synthetix has reportedly misplaced over 37 million synthetic ETH (sETH) in an oracle attack, according to a report by The Block on June 24. However, Garth Travers at Synthex told Cointelegraph that "no funds have been 'lost.'” “One bot owner's balance was inflated due to an incorrect sKRW price feed, which he then converted into an inflated amount of sETH.” “We have recovered the sETH and are close to fully resolving …

Alior Bank, a bank based in Warsaw, Poland, is using the public Ethereum blockchain to authenticate its clients’ documents, according to a report by Forbes on June 17. According to the report, when a client at Alior receives a document, they can now verify its authenticity by following a website link to its spot on the public blockchain. This means that customers can verify that the document in question was in fact issued, in the exact wording provided, when the bank claims. The blockchain technology lead at Alior, Piotr Adamczyk, explains: “We know exactly in which block of Ethereum the …

This article has been updated to correct that BitMEX is not Hong Kong-based. Peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX has reported an influx of attacks on user account credentials, according to an official blog post on June 11. In addition to covering a litany of best practices for user security, the cryptocurrency exchange stressed the importance of using two-factor authentication (2FA) in particular. The report summarizes 2FA as follows: “2FA, sometimes referred to as ‘two-step verification’ or ‘multi-factor authentication’, adds an additional layer of security to your account by requiring not only your username and password at login, but also the …

On June 1, Finnish peer-to-peer (p2p) bitcoin (BTC) trading platform LocalBitcoins quietly removed in-person cash trading from its service. Three days later, the company publicly confirmed the ban on Twitter. As per the accompanying statement, LocalBitcoins had to renounce local cash trading to “adapt to the current regulatory environment.” The removal of the option has angered users, who seemingly began looking for decentralized platforms with more room for anonymity. However, as the Wild West-like unregulated days of crypto might be coming to an end, the more p2p services might have to apply Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) …

Non-custodial peer-to-peer (P2P) bitcoin (BTC) exchange HodlHodl announced Lightning Network support in a Medium article published on June 5. The announcement claims that now “everyone is able to buy bitcoins and receive them directly into their Lightning wallet & sell bitcoins directly from their Lightning wallet.” The post also notes that the platform has previously tested Lightning Network support on the test network. The company reportedly only implemented Lightning Network support after successful testing. The post further highlights that the actual procedure will not be much different when compared to the usual HodlHodl transaction: “The only difference is that for …

Global peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto exchange LocalBitcoins has officially confirmed the removal of trading in local fiat currencies, the firm announced in a tweet on June 4. As previously reported, the Finland-based exchange silently removed cash trading on June 1, which immediately caused some outrage in crypto community. In the official statement, LocalBitcoins noted that its liabilities are determined by the Act on Detecting and Preventing Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing, which requires the exchange to follow certain sanctions. LocalBitcoins wrote: “In order to adapt to the current regulatory environment, we had to reconsider our policy on local cash trades as …

Eos (EOS) parent company Block.one has announced a blockchain-based social media platform called Voice, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on June 1. The firm claims that the platform will use the Eos blockchain to provide transparency on how it operates, without hidden algorithms or content-pushing mechanisms of which the user is unaware. In the press release, the CEO of Block.one, Brendan Blumer, compared Voice with traditional social media platforms, saying: “The truth is, current social media platforms are designed to use their users. Just look at the business model. Our content. Our data. Our attention. These are …

Blockchain platform Tron, which is behind the decentralized, web focused cryptocurrency tron TRX, announced plans to develop a BitTorrent-based version of decentralized file system InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). The development was shared in a press release with Cointelegraph on May 30. Per the release, the BitTorrent File System (BTFS) is a variant of the aforementioned open source IPFS software and will “allow users to receive and host storage on their computers with other individuals and businesses.” Internal testing of the BTFS protocol reportedly already started in late May. Justin Sun, founder of Tron and — since the acquisition in June …