An Italian airport staff member took advantage of his workplace computer systems illegal mining of Ethereum (ETH).

According to Rai News report, a man who was in charge of managing the computer system at Lamezia Terme International Airport in the southwest region of Calabria was caught illegally mining Ethereum (ETH). Moreover, the authorities caught the culprit through security footage cam.

Ethereum is the second biggest cryptocurrency in the market. It is a blockchain-based open-source, decentralized software platform. According to CoinGecko, Ether price is at $384, with a 24-hour trading volume of $13.73 billion, at the time of writing.

ETH Price Chart (Source: TradingView)

The miner was employed by Sacal SpA, the firm that is responsible for maintaining the Lamezia airport. The report states that he exploited the computer infrastructure of Sacal SpA by infecting it with crypto-mining malware. On noticing some issues in the system, other Sacal workers informed border police.

The investigation involves both police officers and airport officials. In addition, there were five Ethereum mining rigs in two separate control rooms. Moreover, the analysis of IP addresses associated with the equipment helped to find the mining pool.

Report said,

The investigations, coordinated by the Lamezia Terme Public Prosecutor’s Office, were conducted with technical activities that made it possible to examine the IP addresses associated with the machines installed, to identify the site of the ‘Ethermine’ pool (used for ‘mining’ of the Ethereum cryptocurrency) and monitor the site.

Recently, 100 smuggled cryptocurrency miners were seized by authorities in Abkhazia earlier this week. As reported by U.Today, earlier this month a Hungarian politician also initiated controversy after being busted for stealing electricity from his office to mine Bitcoin.

Stax, an Australian crypto-friendly capital raising platform announced that West Coast Aquaculture (WCA) will conduct its first Initial Public Offering (IPO).

WCA is a company that operates an aquaculture farm in Australia. It will allow investors to participate in its IPO purchase equity using the cryptocurrency Tether (USDT) or Australian Dollars. However, STAX chose Tether (USDT) over Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) because of the stability of USDT. 

In addition, STAX only supports Tether. STAX CEO Kenny Lee mentioned that they are planning to add support for more stablecoins in the future. 

Kenny said, 

The acceptance of USDT in an IPO is a transformative move in Australia and a significant step forward for cryptocurrency adoption in general. It paves the way for the future of capital markets down under.

Moreover, WCA mainly produces fresh Grouper fish for retailers and wholesalers in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. Purportedly, the firm intends to utilize the funds raised through the IPO for expansions. Among its expansion, it plans to purchase new hatchery and nursery facilities.

WCA is offering between 10 and 14 million shares, representing nearly 8.7% and 11.8% of the total shares. The firm is selling each share at £0.38, planning to reach a minimum target of £3.84 million. 

After the IPO, WCA allegedly intends for its shares to float on the Sydney Stock Exchange (SSX). As per the group’s plans, share trading is set to begin on November 19, 2020. SSX chief executive Michael Go praised Stax for facilitating a capital raise supporting USDT.

Go said,

This is a first, and historic development in the Australian market which will dictate the future of capital raising, particularly for growth companies.

Furthermore, in the first week of August, SSX had delivered its first listing. Mr. Go said the listing of junior gold miner Torque Metals was the first under the exchange’s new plan that was unveiled in December last year. He promised that SSX would list more firms before the year ends amid plenty of challenges presented in 2020.

In early May, STAX  helped beverage company Australian Product Research,  raise over $5 million to fund its expansion of its everlast branded products in the Australian market.

Marathon Patent Group made an announcement that it has stepped into a contract with Bitmain to buy an additional 10,000 next-generation Antminer S-19 Pro ASIC Miners.

2021 Will Be a Year For Bitcoin Mining

Marathon, a Nasdaq-listed digital asset technology and biggest publicly traded self-mining firm. On the other hand, Bitmain is the largest producer of specialized bitcoin mining hardware. In addition, that sells machines using its application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chip technology.

The release of the new 10,000 S-19 Pro miners is scheduled to begin in January 2021. Moreover, the firm adds 23,560 next-generation miners, upon delivery and installation of all purchased miners. Thereby, bringing the total hashrate to 2.56 Eh/s.

Bitmain Sales Director Irene Gao said,

We are pleased to have provided Marathon with another 10,000 of Bitmain’s latest generation of Antminer S-19 Pro mining hardware…This collaboration continues to strengthen our cooperation and will extend to future work together.

Other orders of Bitmain S19 Antminers 

Marathon announced a joint venture agreement with Beowulf Energy. Consequently, the collaboration will see Marathon build a Bitcoin mining and data hub close to Beowulf’s Hardin Generating Station. Recently, Marathon purchased 10,500 miners for $23 million. This agreement allowed the firm to expand its operations to 13,520 next-generation miners.

Similarly, Core Scientific, a US-based Bitcoin mining company, bought 17,000 Bitmain S19 Antminers. Furthermore, Riot Blockchain, a Nasdaq-listed crypto mining firm ordered 8,000 Bitmain Antminers S19 Pros in August. This includes a delivery schedule of 2,000 units on a monthly basis beginning in January 2021.

However, the demand for the latest mining equipment is outpacing supply significantly, and every firm is on a lengthy waiting list. It all bodes well for the security of Bitcoin, which relies on the Bitcoin hashrate. And with regular all-time highs, the Bitcoin hashrate is likely going to keep increasing.

A decentralized finance protocol Harvest Finance seemingly issued a $100,000 bounty reportedly after a $24 million attack from its pool.

Harvest Finance is a DeFi yield aggregator. FARM is its native cryptocurrency. It has one admin key for making changes to the smart contract. Essentially, the holder of this key can perform a variety of changes, from strategies to orchestrating a rug pull. 

Over $25 million in value has been exhausted from Harvest Finance pools. And swapped for renBTC (rBTC) by an unknown attacker. However, according to CoinGecko, FARM’s price is at $101 with a 24-hour trading volume of over $20 million, at the time of writing. 

Moreover, TVL of the aggregator has dipped from $1 billion to 400 million, as per DeFiPulse. Accordingly, with the profitable returns of over 200% on FARM tokens, communication on Discord and Twitter have managed to keep most users. 

DeFi projects like yEarn, SushiSwap, Serum, and others have entrusted their multisig keys to DeFi and crypto community leaders. Moreover, Investment in these projects requires thorough understanding of the smart contracts that run these applications. In addition, prominent influencers have signaled their approval. This should by no means be reason to invest in a project.

Bitcoin (BTC) price surges above $13,000 for the first time in over two years following positive news on the leading crypto over the week.

BTC was the first cryptocurrency to successfully record transactions on a secure, decentralized blockchain-based platform. BTC reached above $13,000 in January 2018, six weeks after it reached an all-time high of over $19,000.

Recently, BTC got attention from many publicly-traded companies like Microstrategy and Square, stating Bitcoin as a reserve asset. At the time of writing, BTC price is at $12,976 with a 24-hour trading volume of 19 billion, according to Coingecko. 

Bitcoin Price Chart 1-Month (Source: TradingView)

Moreover, PayPal’s announcement on the launch of a new service enabled its customers to buy, hold, and sell digital currency with its 26 million merchants worldwide. This announcement also triggered the surge of BTC’s price.

In a July report, Bloomberg Intelligence set $13,000 as a breakout price target for bitcoin.  Called the leading digital currency ad a caged bull. Bitcoin has gained 82 percent, year to date. 

Bitcoin was also seen to be competitive against other cryptocurrencies such as the S&P 500 and gold. Today, the S&P 500 is traded at $3,465, while gold currently amounts to $1,733. Moreover, BTC is globally considered the sixth most valuable currency, with a higher value than all UK Pound Sterling notes and coins in circulation. 

Despite the global COVID-19 pandemic, BTC has managed to withstand all the crypto market trials and volatility. Particularly in countries like Japan and Turkey as well as the leading companies.

KSK Honda Coin was launched by soccer star Keisuke Honda through a blockchain platform Rally.io to allow fans with coins to interact with Honda.

Rally.io is a blockchain platform for creators building businesses and provides engagement between creators and the fans. Creators can issue their own cryptocurrency on this platform. Moreover, Keisuke Honda is a former Japan midfielder and presently a captain of the Brazilian professional league team Botafogo. 

Keisuke said,

I decided to create my social token to build new connections with my most loyal fans…This is a new type of innovative ‘fan club’ that I will be experimenting with. With Rally so that my fans can benefit and be connected anywhere in the world.

KSK Honda coin holders will be able to get videos that Honda updates. In addition, interaction with Honda through Discord’s private chat. Honda explained on Youtube that “We decided to create a social token to build new connections with our most loyal fans.” 

Recently, Zenit St. Petersburg, a top soccer club in Russia’s Premier League signed on to the blockchain-based gaming platform Sorare. To issue collectible and tradeable digital cards on October 15. 

Through the crypto trading platform StormGain, Italian professional sports club SS Lazio signed a multiyear deal, enabling new fan engagement options through crypto in September 2020. However,  the world-wide soccer community is moving deeper into the crypto and blockchain space. In search of new ways of connecting stars with their fans.

WaterDrop (WDP) is a decentralized token platform built on the Ethereum blockchain network. WDP is the native token of the cryptocurrency decentralized exchange Water which will be launched by 2021. 

WaterDrop token is generally blockchain-based, with the same functionality as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash. The main difference between WDP token and other crypto token is that it is created on Ethereum blockchain. But Bitcoin and Bitcoin cash was built on their own blockchain.

Moreover, WDP promises to solve the decentralized problems faced by new users. In addition, the WDP token has successfully completed its pre-sale launch affording early investors the opportunity to get more tokens for less price. 

WaterDrop Presale 

WDP token presale happened from October 15 to October 21. However, the token supports all ERC-20 wallets, using other wallets could result in futility for the sender. Moreover, WDP token total supply is 3950, from which 1000 WDP is available for ICO presale. 

At the time of the ICO Presale, the WDP price is $29 with minimum and maximum investment set at 0.1 ETH, and 10 ETH, respectively. In addition, the price of WDP on the ETH price scale is 1 ETH equals 13 WDP. 

Additionally, 200 WDP are allocated as airdrop, and 1250 WDP tokens are locked to enhance the demand. This will be released 10% each month. The remaining 1500 WDP tokens are for controlling the market and also to provide liquidity.

WDP Listing & Rewards

WaterDrop (WDP) token is listed on cryptocurrency exchange Bitsten. However, the exchange provides an easy to use interface, supports all browsers, and charges a low transaction fee on the platform.

Moreover, WDP is also listed on UNISWAP exchange, a decentralized automated token exchange on Ethereum. WDP also plans to be listed on many popular exchanges like Hotbit, Probit, Bamboorelay, and other cryptocurrency exchanges.

In addition, top 5 WDP token holders are rewarded in celebration of listing on the new exchange. However, 5 WDP tokens have been kept aside in a ratio of 5:1. Holders use tokens /.to stake, buy and sell any digital products ranging from softcopy materials, ebooks, games, web services, and much more.

WaterDrop Future 

WaterDrop plans to list the token in many popular exchanges. It will be listed on the crypto market data sites like Coinmarketcap, and Coingecko before the end of October 2020. However, by the first quarter of 2021, the platform is planning to develop, and test Water Dex.

The WaterDrop team also plans to add some features like a Connect wallet, search WDP on Dex, and Buy with an ATM. It also aims to provide users a great interface and convenience on using the Dex platform.

Furthermore, the growing versatility, acceptability, and popularity of the token can be seen through the token trading or exchanging with popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, ETH, Tether, and others.

WDP Etherscan explorer link: https://etherscan.io/token/0xd61b60ccbdaf09c2e036c72734adb3270ed27192

WaterDrop Community

Website: https://waterdrop.business

Github: https://github.com/WaterDropDWP

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WaterDropTeam

Telegram Group: https://t.me/waterdropproject

Telegram Community: https://t.me/waterdropcommunityy

Disclaimer: This is a paid Press Release. Any information contained in this website is not proposed to be and doesn’t constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice. TheNewsCrypto is not responsible to anyone for any decision made or action taken in conjunction with the information and/or statements in this press release.

Bitstamp made an announcement that Julian Sawyer has been joined as Chief Executive Officer of the company, as it’s co-founder and former CEO Nejc Kodrič moves into a new advisory role on the company’s Board of Directors.

Julian Sawyer, who currently serves as the managing director of the UK and Europe. At major global crypto exchange Gemini, however becomes the second Bitstamp’s CEO in history. The replacement is reportedly a response to the dynamic growth of the exchange over the past nine years.

In addition, Sawyer has over 20 years of banking and fintech experience. In May 2015, Sawyer co-founded Starling Bank, where he served as CEO until 2019. The exec also served as a consultant and advisor to other banks and founded Bluerock Consulting.

Moreover, Bitstamp is ranked the eighth biggest crypto exchange by daily trading volume, which is around $332 million, according to data from CoinGecko. The exchange provides trading services for over seven major cryptocurrencies.

Bitstamp has reached many milestones in just the past 12 months under Kodrič’s strategic guidance. The company introduced a new matching engine from Nasdaq Technologies, adding a level of speed and reliability. That puts the company on-par with the world’s greatest exchanges. 

Kodrič said,

Based on the direction of the company, Julian’s expertise in the complexities of global banking. Makes him the right choice to lead Bitstamp into its next phase. He understands the possibilities that cryptocurrency holds for our world and how to integrate it with existing financial structures.

Furthermore, Bitstamp was the first exchange to go live on BCB Group’s BLINC network. And the launch partner for Silvergate’s SEN Bitcoin leverage product. 

DeFiChain, a blockchain specifically dedicated to decentralized financial applications, has announced their listing on Bittrex Global. DeFiChain’s native coin “DFI” is now trading live on Bittrex’s robust and secure platform.

The DeFi space has been growing immensely in terms of value, functionalities, and attention from both the media and public. It is DeFiChain’s mission to bring seamless and unrestricted access to a wide range of financial services in a purely decentralized system. The listing on Bittrex’s innovative exchange further accelerates this goal. DeFiChain aims to leverage Bittrex’s extensive community and longstanding experience as a tier one exchange.

The announcement comes just a week after its successful hard fork “AMK”, bringing about tokenization support for DeFi custom tokens (DCTs), and DeFi asset tokens (DATs). The hard fork also included upgrades from the DFIPs (DeFi Improvement Proposals) 1 & 2.

“DeFiChain intends to be the platform for everyone to access all possible DeFi transactions,” said Dr. Julian Hosp, DeFiChain Foundation Chairman. “We’re extremely excited to be listing on our first tier one exchange. Partnering with Bittrex will be significant for our community!”

DeFiChain’s function set includes among others:

• Yield Farming
• Decentralized Lending
• Decentralized Wrapping of Tokens
• Decentralized Pricing Oracles
• Decentralized Exchanges
• Transferable Debts and Receivables
• Decentralized Non-Collateralized Debt

Following the listing on Bittrex, DeFiChain is launching its liquidity pool functionality in November 2020. This will bring about the first yield farming capabilities on a UTXO network.

DeFiChain Foundation Chairman Dr. Julian Hosp, will be appearing live on a video AMA (Ask Me Anything) with Bittrex on 21 Oct 08:00 AM PDT.

For latest updates, follow DeFiChain’s social platforms on Telegram and Twitter.

About DeFiChain

The DeFiChain Foundation’s mission is to bring DeFi to the bitcoin ecosystem.

DeFiChain is a blockchain platform dedicated to enable fast, intelligent, and transparent decentralized financial services.

Unlike most of the other DeFi projects that are built on the Ethereum network, DeFiChain is built as a software fork on bitcoin, and leverages Bitcoin’s security by anchoring to the bitcoin blockchain (via Merkle root) every few minutes.

By dedicating the functionality of a blockchain specifically to decentralized finance, DeFiChain is able to provide high transaction throughput, reduced risk of errors, and intelligent feature development.

For full information including roadmap and upcoming features, visit https://defichain.com/

About Bittrex Global

Bittrex Global has one of the most secure trading platforms and digital wallet infrastructures in the world where customers can access exciting new products. Built on Bittrex’s cutting-edge technology, Bittrex Global provides a high-level experience for professional and novice customers alike. Bittrex Global is headquartered in the Principality of Liechtenstein near the financial centre of Zürich.

Learn more at: https://global.bittrex.com/

Media Contact

David Lin

media@DeFiChain.com

PayPal has partnered with Paxos to join the cryptocurrency market, and allow US customers to buy, sell, and hold bitcoin and other digital coins using the digital payments company’s online wallets.

PayPal is one of the largest global payment providers based in San Jose, California. It has 346 million active accounts around the world and processed $222 billion in payments in the second quarter.

Moreover, PayPal has got a conditional cryptocurrency license. From the New York State Department of Financial Services, commonly called the BitLicense. From early 2021, PayPal customers will be able to use crypto to shop. With 26 million dealers on its network using its app.

However, in an interview, PayPal President and Chief Executive Dan Schulman explained that the company encourages global use of cryptocurrency. Also, central banks and corporations prepare their network digital currencies.

Schulman said,

“We are working with central banks and thinking of all forms of digital currencies and how PayPal can play a role.” 

Furthermore, the company has updated its fees with more details on cryptocurrency exchange fees. However, the company will charge high fees on fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat exchange transactions.

In Spite of PayPal’s noteworthy launch. Other mainstream fintech firms, like mobile payments provider Square Inc and stock trading app company Robinhood Markets Inc, also allow users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. 

Many central banks have also expressed their intention to create digital currencies in the coming years, while Facebook Inc-led the development of a cryptocurrency project called Libra in 2019. However, PayPal was a creating member but dropped out after a few months.