The United States Treasury Department's now-infamous proposal to require information on crypto transfers from exchanges to self-hosted wallets is back in motion. Per a Tuesday announcement from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, stakeholders will have another 60 days to respond to the proposal. While a marked improvement from the 15-day comment period of the original proposal, unfortunately for the crypto industry, it doesn't look like the actual terms of the proposal have changed along with the administration. The news follows Janet Yellen's confirmation as secretary of the Treasury last night. Shortly after his inauguration, President Joe Biden ordered …

Privacy-focused messaging app Signal is reportedly devoting resources toward the development of a cryptocurrency payments service for its users. According to a report by Casey Newton, the founder of the technology newsletter service Platformer, Signal is mulling crypto payments integration in the app. The report claims that Signal reportedly ran pilot tests for such a token on the Binance-backed, Stellar-based privacy cryptocurrency platform MobileCoin. Moxie Marlinspike, CEO of Signal, serves as an adviser on the MobileCoin project, heightening speculation that the test could be a trial run for subsequent deployment in the messaging app. The Platformer report also notes that …

The cryptocurrency community has been doubling down on its support to privacy-centric applications like Tor Browser in 2020, according to new data. The Tor Project, a non-profit organization behind the anonymous Tor Browser, saw a 23% increase in cryptocurrency donations in 2020. A spokesperson at the Tor Project told Cointelegraph that crypto-powered donations surged from $189,637 in 2019 to $233,019 in 2020. According to a Jan. 25 announcement by the project, crypto donations made up nearly 26% of total individual donations, which amounted to $913,110. According to a Tor Project representative, Bitcoin (BTC) was the most popular cryptocurrency for their …

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey thinks it is unlikely that the current generation of crypto assets lack the design and structure needed to ensure long term regulatory survival. Speaking during the World Economic Forum’s Jan. 25 online panel “Resetting Digital Currencies” Bailey responded to a question on whether cryptocurrencies are here to stay for the long term with skepticism: “Are crypto-currencies here to stay? Digital innovation in payments – yes. Have we landed on what I would call the design, governance and arrangements for a lasting digital currency? No, I don't think we're there yet [...] I don’t think …

A year unlike any other, when much of life went online, created a compelling case for digital identity. Talk of “immunity passports,” privacy-protecting contact tracing apps and even a potential move to online voting systems all speak to the need for robust digital identities. In July 2020, the World Economic Forum published a briefing paper covering the risks and opportunities around “the internet of bodies.” From wearable technology to connected medical implants, it’s evident that our future digital identities could comprise more data than we ever thought possible. But the push for digital identity is also provoking strong pushback. The …

Data is becoming one of society’s most valuable resources. And yet, our existing approaches fail to unleash its massive intrinsic value. Why is this the case? The issue is that our data — who we are, and what is relevant about us — is defined and collected by corporations and governments. Consumers were alarmed to find their phones were being tracked by the government , for example. These organizations, whether private or governmental, seem interested primarily in using your personal identity and your data streams to enhance their power. If you are an average user, this means you are missing …

As the first vaccines against COVID-19 roll out, governments and institutions across the world are scrambling to figure out how to provide proof that someone has been vaccinated. Paper certificates, PDFs, wristbands and mobile apps have all been suggested — and the former director of the Centers for Disease Control, Tom Frieden, and international human rights attorney Aaron Schwid urged the adoption of digital “immunity passports” as a way to reopen the world. In theory, their idea is great. In practice, it’s terrible. Or, as the Daily Beast put it: “Vaccine Passports Are Big Tech’s Latest Dystopian Nightmare.” As a …

Anonymous cryptocurrency Firo — formerly known as Zcoin— is the latest Proof-of-Work coin to suffer a 51% attack. Tweeting on Wednesday, Firo revealed that the protocol had come under a 51% attack and advised holders to pause all transactions until the network returns to a normal state. We are under 51% attack at the moment. We recommend not to make transactions during this time until the network returns to a normal state. We will post updates when we have them. Note this is not a coding error but a nature of PoW. $XZC $FIRO — Firo (formerly Zcoin) (@firoorg) January …

Brave Browser, a popular blockchain-enabled web browser, has integrated native support of InterPlanetary File System, or IPFS, to strengthen the access to the decentralized web. According to a Jan. 19 announcement, Brave has integrated IPFS into its desktop web browser for Windows, macOS and Linux, enabling users to install the protocol in a couple of clicks. IPFS is a peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol designed to make the web faster, safer, and more open. The protocol aims to supplement or possibly even replace the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP, which is a major client-based protocol used to transfer web pages across a …

The number of Bitcoin nodes is at an all-time high, with 11,558 reachable nodes currently active, according to Bitnodes.io. Another Bitcoin network statistics tracker, coin.dance, calculates the total number of Bitcoin nodes at 11,613, which is just above the previous high of 11,250 set one year ago this month. The Bitcoin Core software update 0.21.0 was released for public download on Jan. 14 2021 and is currently the fourth most utilized version of the software among nodes There are currently 619 nodes running this version of the software, which represents about 5.5% of all nodes running some version of Bitcoin …

Every Friday, Law Decoded delivers analysis on the week’s critical stories in the realms of policy, regulation and law. Editor’s note Armed National Guardsmen are building up concentric perimeters of black barricades around the U.S. Capitol and its whole neighborhood of federal buildings in preparation for the Biden inauguration and protests against it on Wednesday. Which inspires some déjà vu, whether to last week or last summer. As much as history is said to repeat itself, the present day seems to be stuck on its own loop. Remember how last week’s Law Decoded was mostly about the handover of presidential …

The Bitcoin (BTC) network has been steadily recovering in terms of running BTC nodes after a major outage on the Tor network. According to the latest data from node monitoring resource Bitnodes, Tor-enabled Bitcoin (BTC) nodes are back to normal following almost a full-swing crash in early January 2021. As of Jan. 13, the number of reachable Tor-based BTC nodes amounted to 2,581, up from as few as 122 nodes on Jan. 9. Based on Bitnodes data, Tor-enabled Bitcoin nodes make up a significant part of the Bitcoin network, normally accounting for about 25% of totally reachable running nodes. According …