Kelly Loeffler, the former CEO of Intercontinental Exchange subsidiary Bakkt and current Republican senator from Georgia, reportedly sold millions in stock within days of a Senate Health Committee hearing on the novel coronavirus. According to a report from Daily Beast on March 20, the Republican senator reported the first instance of stock jointly owned by her and her husband on Jan. 24 — the same day of the private briefing to United States Senators. Former Bakkt CEO dumps stock after Senate Health Committee hearing In total, she and her husband reportedly executed 27 sales of various stocks throughout February, including …

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned two Chinese nationals accused of laundering cryptocurrency that was stolen in a 2018 crypto exchange hack. At the same time, the Department of Justice announced an indictment for money laundering against the same two individuals. Their activity is linked to Lazarus Group, a hacking group allegedly connected to the North Korean government. OFAC accuses Yinyin Tian and Juiadong Li of assisting “a malicious cyber-enabled activity.” Secretary Steven Mnuchin gave the following statement: “The North Korean regime has continued its widespread campaign of extensive cyber-attacks on financial institutions …

India’s citizens will soon be able to cast votes from outside their city of registration thanks to a blockchain-based system. According to The Times of India on Feb. 13, India’s Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora said that the country hopes to increase voter turnout with a blockchain-based voting solution. Using blockchain to prevent “lost votes” Arora said that, in the 2019 elections, 300 million eligible voters did not vote because they were either not politically engaged or were far from where their registered voting district on election day. The Times of India states that the country has over 450 million …

Since the 2017 mania, every year in the crypto and blockchain space has been increasingly eventful. 2019 was no exception: Along with Facebook’s Libra project and China’s digital yuan endeavors, Intercontinental Exchange’s digital assets platform Bakkt was finally launched. Its CEO, Kelly Loeffler, ensured a smooth start for the exchange, then swiftly left her business to pursue a political career by the end of the year. She now represents the state of Georgia in the United States Senate, and as one of the most influential people affiliated with the crypto industry, she could potentially pave the way for Bitcoin and …

The United States intelligence community is seeking a researcher to model risk scenarios for how and why the dollar could lose its global supremacy, and how best to respond. The role was advertised on Feb. 14 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The successful candidate will be tasked with evaluating threats to the dollar’s status as world reserve currency — most notably cryptocurrencies and the rise of major new economies such as China and India. Candidates have until Feb. 28 to apply for the role, which forms part of an intelligence community (IC) postdoctoral research fellowship …

E-voting is gaining its place in the growing discussion over the use of blockchain. In our view, when technology addresses such socially sensitive issues, values step forward to the fore, together with the differences and clashes that they imply. Such democratic values convey the identity, pathologies and fears of the context from which they come. In that sense, the technical operation of designing and developing a voting system entails political and legal effects that make the matter case-sensitive, depending on the different territorial and constitutional traditions. Thus, we believe that the debate needs to be free of the idea that …

As the United Kingdom exits the European Union, a new ad campaign by French crypto hardware wallet firm Ledger is reviving one of the most divisive pro-Brexit slogans, “Take Back Control,” to ambiguous effect. An email shared with Cointelegraph on Jan. 30 revealed Ledger’s mock-up of a planned billboard for an installation in London’s Canary Wharf, one of the capital’s prime financial districts. Ledger’s plans for a digital billboard in London’s Canary Wharf. Shared with Cointelegraph via email The billboard reads ”Let’s Take Back Control For Real” — a modified version of the 2016 pro-Brexit campaign’s notorious “Take Back Control” …

In an era of scams and fake news, so-called “deepfakes” are the latest assault on our relationship with reality. If you’re unfamiliar, deepfakes are videos generated with help from artificial intelligence that show a recognizable figure (like Barack Obama or Mark Zuckerberg, for example) saying things that they’ve never actually said. By putting false words in the mouths of prominent, powerful people, deepfakes are a perceived threat purportedly true information. But if there’s one thing we know about blockchain, the database technology that props up popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, we know that it excels at verifying and confirming …

Upstart crypto company Saga wants to issue a new global currency on the blockchain. Just don’t call it a stablecoin. Saga’s SGA digital currency relies on an international reserve asset called Special Drawing Rights (SDR), which was introduced by the International Monetary Fund in 1969. This is a conventional basket of major world currencies — the US dollar, the euro, the British pound sterling, the Japanese yen, and the Chinese renminbi — that central banks around the world use to hedge against fluctuations in their own local currency. SGA borrows this model for a financial instrument and puts it on …

The 21st century world is connected, but not centered. These are both good things. Connections link people, cultures and ideas. Indeed, all the great advances in human history have been the result of social and economic networks. Without the trade routes of the Indian Ocean, the Islamic world would never have acquired the numerals of India that now form the foundation of our mathematics of science. Without the coffeehouses of 17th and 18th century Britain, the Enlightenment probably wouldn’t have materialized. Genius dies in isolation; connection is the engine that drives human progress. By contrast, the centralization of power is …

Harvard University’s Kennedy School carried out a live simulation of a White House National Security Council meeting on Nov. 19, featuring former senior administration officials and thought leaders. The “Digital Currency Wars” event examined a potential future scenario, following a North Korean missile test, potentially enabled by China’s proposed digital yuan. If economic sanctions fail, how will the U.S. wield power? The simulation was set two years in the future, with China’s digital yuan having theoretically been launched 20 months previously. The digital yuan has risen to not only dominate the Chinese domestic payments space, but its ease of use …

A group of students from an Indian university has created a blockchain-based voting system that enables voters to cast their ballots online. The voting system was developed by three students from Malla Reddy Engineering College for Women, local business and finance publication The Hindu BusinessLine reported on Oct. 21. The impetus behind the idea is to eliminate voting challenges in urban areas like long queues at polling centers. The system was tested in gated communities — walled communities that consist of small residential streets and include shared amenities — and reportedly demonstrated a high level of security and resistance to …