Today’s Edition Of Bitcoin In Brief

On today’s edition of bitcoin, in brief, we are going to talk about fake trezor wallet website, floods in China and a couple of new investments in the field.

• Trezor, a bitcoin hardware manufacturer, has issued a warning to clients, apparently, there’s been against its users. In an attempt to access the real website address, some users saw themselves directed to a counterfeit address (wallet.trezor.io). The developers, as they explain, do not yet know the vectors used for this ‘attack’, but all accusing fingers point at DNS poisoning or BGP hijacking. The fake wallet has eventually been taken down by the hosting provider. Trezor still asked its clients to be aware and report all fishy sites; this method could be used again in future for another attack.
• In the southwest of China, more precisely in the province of Sichuan, there is a mecca for cryptocurrency mining, thanks to the region’s plentiful and cheap hydro-power electricity. The region’s abundance of rivers and rainfalls is an advantage as well as an inconvenient as it makes Sichuan exposed to floods. Dozens of people died as victims of large floods in July 2013. An estimated six million people in the region were forced to interrupt their daily life routines, one way or the other. Reports from the country say that many local miners are affected by the return of the floods season. This is mostly due to the communication and power interruption as well as mining farms buried in water. The global BTC hash rate shows a drop in late June, which is the period coinciding with the floods. The drop, however, is not up to unprecedented levels.
• Qiwi is a Russian payment service. A report says that a team of its employees is setting up a separate company that is meant to be a crypto investment bank. A crypto investment bank has the same function with traditional investment banks, which is to help startups attract strategically and venture capital investors. In the case of crypto investment banks, they ICOs secure investments from crypto funds. Financial director of Qiwi Blockchain Technologies, Yakov Barinsky told Kommersant that, “We help companies go through the stage of fundraising. Monetization is classic: we get our commission after the company with our help raised funds in the market.” Mr. Barinsky says that the company now cooperates with ten such funds and the largest of them is worth about $100 million.
• The crypto subsidiary of Overstock, Tzero, has announced the signing of a letter with GSR Capital. GSR Capital is a private firm, registered in Hong Kong and which participates in its Security Token Offering (STO). GSR is to purchase $160 million in security tokens following the Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE), at a price of $10 per token. Building US-regulated security token exchange will be one of the things proceeds will be used for. Executive Chairman Patrick M. Byrne (the CEO Overstock) said, “Years ago we saw the world-shaking potential of the blockchain, and since then we have been methodical in building tZERO into a company that will bring great efficiency and transparency to capital markets domestically and abroad. I truly believe what we are doing is historic and, while there is still much to be done, our success in this STO has given us the resources we need to see it through.”