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Tokyo District Court has issued a protective order in anticipation of the confiscation of cryptocurrency assets believed to have been stolen in a cyberattack on Coincheck Inc., a Tokyo-based virtual currency exchange operator, it was learned Wednesday.

The court ordered a company set up by Takayoshi Doi, who was indicted over allegedly obtaining the leaked cryptocurrency NEM, to protect the assets for future confiscation based on the organized crimes punishment law, according to investigative sources.

It is believed to be the first such order issued for cryptocurrency assets in Japan.

Doi, a 30-year-old doctor from the city of Obihiro in Hokkaido, was arrested in March for allegedly obtaining NEM while knowing it had been stolen in the 2018 cyberattack. Some 58 million worth of NEM in total was stolen in the hack.

The sources said that Tokyos Metropolitan Police Department had requested the district courts issuance of the protective order. The court accepted the request on March 30.

The order covers NEM owned under the name of Dois company in domestic cryptocurrency exchanges. If the suspect is found guilty and the verdict is finalized, the NEM will be confiscated.

On Jan. 26, 2018, almost all NEM owned by Coinchecks clients was fraudulently accessed and stolen. The perpetrator of the hack has not been identified, but the MPD is continuing its investigation.

Read the original:
Cryptocurrency from Coincheck cyberattack to be confiscated - The Japan Times

Bitcoins value has risen by 3 per cent over the last 24 hours, taking the cryptocurrency above $12,000 for the first time in over a year.

The latest gains mean the price of bitcoin has nearly trebled since March, despite a global economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Other cryptocurrencies have mirrored bitcoins fortunes, with ether (ethereum) rising from just above $100 in March to todays price of $430.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

Bitcoin remains a long way off its record high of $20,000, which it reached in late 2017, but the recovery is a sign that cryptocurrency is increasingly being viewed as a safe haven asset.

During times of economic uncertainty, investors tend to turn to assets with a fixed supply, such as gold, as they are not subject to inflationary measures like quantitative easing.

The finite supply of bitcoin there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins in circulation means it shares similar properties and is sometimes referred to as digital gold.

Earlier this month, business analytics firm MicroStrategy announced that it had become the first Nasdaq-listed company to adopt bitcoin as a primary treasury reserve asset - using as much as $250 million of its cash pile to invest in bitcoin.

"This investment reflects our belief that bitcoin, as the world's most widely adopted cryptocurrency, is a dependable store of value and an attractive investment asset with more long-term appreciation potential than holding cash," MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor said in a statement.

MicroStrategy's stock has since surged over 20 per cent following the announcement.

On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled 'Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System'

Reuters

On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins the equivalent of $90 million at today's prices

Lazlo Hanyecz

Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin

On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash

REUTERS/Dimitris Michalakis

The world's biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed

Getty Images

In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim

Getty Images

On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash

REUTERS

Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year

Reuters

On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled 'Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System'

Reuters

On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins the equivalent of $90 million at today's prices

Lazlo Hanyecz

Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin

On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash

REUTERS/Dimitris Michalakis

The world's biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed

Getty Images

In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim

Getty Images

On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash

REUTERS

Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year

Reuters

Such investment may have contributed to the recent gains but could ultimately cause the price to stall, market analysts have warned.

As bitcoins steady push higher continues, it is worth bearing in mind that a high bitcoin price can sometimes create a psychological barrier for the retail investor, Simon Peters, from the online investment platform eToro, told The Independent.

Just like investors can get fractional shares, cryptocurrency investors can hold fractions of bitcoins. Yet the fact remains that many retail investors will want whole bitcoins and the price of attaining them is moving further out of reach.

View post:
Bitcoin price hits 2020 record as investors turn to cryptocurrency during pandemic - The Independent

The Boston Fed is toying with a digital dollar.

The Hubs Federal Reserve Bank is teaming up with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study the blockchain technology that enables cryptocurrency to be traded. And, based on the latest figures, the currency is red hot.

Were not building this for tomorrow, were building this for future years, said Jim Cunha, senior vice president at the Boston Fed.

Boston Fed Assistant Vice President Robert Bench is working for Cunha to rip apart what makes cryptocurrency sold as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and more be so successful.

The idea, both explained, is to leverage the cutting-edge technology and determine if government-backed currency can be dollars, cents and Bitcoin.

Were really trying to understand what the technology can offer and if its a path wed like to go down, Cunha told the Herald. I liken it to the early days of the internet when opinions varied on the longevity of the medium.

We know how that story played out.

Now cryptocurrency is on the upswing as some questions about the dollar bill spread with fears of the coronavirus. As of Friday evening, one Bitcoin was selling for $11,785 up 27.51% over the past month, according to the Coinbase app.

But dont toss your paper money just yet, Bench said.

When youre dealing with something as high stakes as the U.S. dollar, you cant break it, Bench said. Part of the great success of the U.S. technology sector has been its ability to move fast and break things, ideally at fairly low stakes. Within something as important as the U.S. dollar, we need to move fast, but deliberately, because this is the highest possible stakes.

China and Sweden are also investigating cryptocurrency. Facebooks Libra project is also generating a lot of buzz.

Cunha and Bench say the positives compel them to look deeper into the technology. For starters, nobody has hacked Bitcoin, its very simple to use and shows the power of technology. Plus, both see a future where currency and cryptocurrency can co-exist.

We need to think of a futuristic goal, said Cunha, who added Boston is leading the way.

Other benefits, Bench said, would be transferring money overseas would be cheaper, and it could also speed government transfers of money to individuals and prevent private sector monopolies on digital currencies.

Boston Fed Bank President Eric Rosengren is also backing the research.

Other members of the team include capital markets expert Tyler Frederick, Anders Brownworth, who taught MITs first blockchain course, and James Lovejoy, a blockchain engineer from MITs Digital Currency Initiative.

Read the original here:
Boston Fed Bank explores cryptocurrency with MIT - Boston Herald

BusinessBanks are an important element of how we live.

Wednesday, 19th August 2020, 7:30 am

For the last 50 years, they have dominated our high streets. They have been the linchpins in local communities ensuring we can bank our money, save, take loans or sort out financial issues. We have to trust banks to keep our money safe, to stay solvent and to offer services that help us.

Banking has had tough times as there have been a few bad actors and some financial crashes that have left them in tatters. But, they remain, for now, intact. Because we still trust them.

Part of that trust is the fiat currency they trade in. These currencies comprising for example, a 10 note or a $100 bill, are exactly what money is all about. We can buy groceries, a newspaper, petrol and even a three-piece suite if we have the cash.

You, the buyer, have cash in hand, while the newsagent, the vendor, accepts that your cash is worth something and it can be banked. Its all about trust. So, while this is all working, we as a society can function.

But, what happens when that trust is eroded to the point of breaking? What happens when we view cash as having little or no value? Many of you who read these pages will know I am an advocate of cryptocurrencies. I invest in things like Bitcoin, Cardano, Reserve and VeChain. Along with many my age and with the younger crowd, working with cryptocurrencies no longer feels alien or weird.

I would use the analogy of the cash machine. When ATMs were first introduced to Scotland, that was ground-breaking technology. Punching a code into a machine that recognised you, trusted you and provided you with your cash quickly and with a receipt was pioneering within banking.

Cryptocurrency is the next iteration of this old bank technology. But, hey, it will never catch on, right? Businesses will never want to deal in such hocus pocus. Right up until now

Wall Street in New York City is all about banking, cash, money, investments, and wealth. Stock market updates swirl around neon banners on the corners of big buildings. The Dow, The Nasdaq, commodities all matter in this city. Banking and trading is at the core of this global financial district. The US dollar is king and as the global reserve currency it knows it.

Big banks like JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America dominate. Yes, it has been safe to say that cash is king here. Well, that may not be strictly true as a tremor rocked the Big Apple last week. A Nasdaq-quoted business analytics company decided it wanted to change how it banked. In short, it swapped its $250 million cash reserves from US dollars into Bitcoin.

What this signalled is that the trust in the US Dollar, banking or fiat currency is under threat. MicroStrategy is the largest independent publicly traded business intelligence company in the USA. Three months of strategising on gold, silver or Bitcoin resulted in this pioneering company buying 21,454 Bitcoins or 0.1 per cent of all available Bitcoin.

There will only ever be 21 million bitcoin minted. And this helped this Goliath decide to repurpose its corporate treasury programme from cash on its balance sheet to cryptocurrency. This is huge in the crypto and traditional banking world. Not least for the investors in MicroStrategy. It trusted Bitcoin over cash as macroeconomic factors such as the Feds money printing and banking uncertainties were taken into account.

This will not be the last big corporation to consider and execute a cryptocurrency move. I predict major announcements in coming months as confidence in the trust we place in banks and cash dwindles. Historically for bankers, cryptocurrency was the devil.

But consider this. JP Morgan is now providing banking for the one of the largest cryptocurrency changes in the world Coinbase. So, while our banks still look after our cash, there is a sea change taking place in some spaces in corporate America. Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin just got a big leg-up. Perhaps Scotland should now have a real good think about where it wants to be positioned in the next 25 years.

Jim Duffy MBE, Create Special

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Cryptocurrency gaining traction in mainstream - Jim Duffy comment - The Scotsman