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$3.6B in Bitcoin vanishes in ‘hack’ along with owners of South African crypto platform

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Around 69,000 Bitcoin has vanished from a South African investment platform along with two brothers who owned the crypto firm.

Although the facts are yet to be proven in court, if it turns to be an exit scam rather than a hack, it would be the biggest in history according to Bloomberg. There were warning signs for investors either way, with users reportedly promised returns of up to 10% a day.

AfriCrypt was founded in 2019 and operated by brothers Ameer and Raees Cajee. It had reportedly amassed around 54 billion rands worth of BTC, or $3.6 billion USD at the time, when it sent a message to investors on April 13 claiming the platform had been hacked.

The firm said it would halt operations while it began the process of “attempting to retrieve stolen funds and compromised information.”

South African law firm Hanekom Attorneys, which has taken the case on behalf of affected users, said suspicions were aroused as the message included the warning that: “clients may proceed the legal route, but we ask clients to please acknowledge that this will only delay the recovery process.”

“We were immediately suspicious as the announcement implored investors not to take legal action,” Hanekom Attorneys said. The law firm also claimed that “Africrypt employees lost access to the back-end platforms seven days before the alleged hack.”

Hanekom Attorneys alleges that the brothers transferred the 69,000 BTC — which is now worth $2.2 billion after the recent price tumble — from AfriCrypt’s accounts and client wallets, and subjected the funds “to various dark web tumblers and mixers, resulting in severe fragmentation” to make the funds untraceable.

The brothers have been unreachable, with calls going directly to voicemail, while the AfriCrypt website is also down. The law firm has reported the case to an elite unit of the national police dubbed the “Hawks.”

South Africa’s Gauteng South High Court has granted a provisional liquidation order against the Cajee brothers, and they have been given until July 19 2021 to respond to the order.

Related: Scams are driving South African authorities to regulate crypto trading

According to African online crypto news outlet BitcoinKe, AfriCrypt drew in clients by targeting high net worth investors and urging them to refer their friends, while also offering returns of up to 10% daily.

The eye watering daily return puts the 10% monthly return promised to users of South African crypto Ponzi scheme Mirror Trading International (MTI) into the shade.

MTI has been described as the biggest Ponzi-scheme the country had ever seen, pulling in 23,000 BTC from investors ($774 million at today’s prices) with MTI’s CEO, Johann Steynberg reportedly fleeing to Brazil to escape punishment when the firm was placed under provisional liquidation in 2020.

$3.6B in Bitcoin vanishes in \’hack\’ along with owners of South African crypto platform

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How to verify DeFi tokens?

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The recent rise of the DeFi industry has attracted the attention of many investors while the lack of solid regulations has resulted in numerous scams. In this article, we are going to discuss DeFi tokens and give some advice on what investors can do to avoid money losses.

What is a DeFi token?

In a nutshell, a DeFi token is an asset or a utility token residing on blockchain and fueling its parent service or a platform. The spike in popularity of the decentralized industry has initiated numerous DeFi protocols developed for different goals and implemented in the environment of decentralized finance. The key practical use cases of DeFi tokens include:

  • Lending and borrowing
  • Creation, transfer, and exchange of value
  • Securitization, assetization, and equitization
  • Financial options and other types of betting based on smart contracts

The value of some famous protocol tokens has increased considerably and therefore attracted the attention of investors. If we look at the Polkadot project, for instance, we can see that its DeFi token price has increased by 900% over the course of the last 5 years. 900%, and that’s no joke!

However, with the growth of the DeFi token list, it becomes more challenging to select trustworthy projects for beginning investors. In the conditions of the decentralized industry boom, dozens of new cryptocurrency tokens appear every day, 90% of which may cease to exist soon after the launch. Liquidity is another problem of crypto coins as they are created with the only purpose of quick profits.

How to choose the right assets not to get into the trap? The understanding of basic notions helps to determine more reliable DeFi crypto coins for a secure investment.

DeFi Pulse: the total value locked in DeFi has been steadily growing over the past year

What is DeFi?

So what is DeFi crypto? DeFi is a short term for decentralized finance, which is an umbrella term for decentralized financial applications or blockchain projects issuing their own cryptocurrency tokens. Their main feature is that they function without involving a third party in their work.

The DeFi platforms exclude the necessity of financial intermediaries thus forming an alternative financial infrastructure with DeFi instruments. In fact, DeFi is a reconstruction of the traditional financial system but in a decentralized environment. DeFi is based on smart contracts that will be discussed below.

What are smart contracts?

Smart contracts represent pieces of code that are used to alleviate the exchange of services, goods, funds, data, etc. The use of smart contracts is the main difference between decentralized facilities and centralized financial institutions where transactions are controlled by intermediaries.

The external data is processed without a centralized source so different mechanisms are employed for its verification. For example, reliable price feeds can be used to prove the accuracy of the DeFi tokens’ value. Smart contracts can pick up this data in an automated way and process the programmed activities accordingly.

To fuel the execution of smart contracts, tokens are used. As it’s been mentioned above, tokens are tricky as the whole industry provides fruitful ground for fraudsters of all kinds. Here’s what you can do about it.

How to verify DeFi tokens

While it’s rather challenging to enlist your token on centralized platforms, the DeFi platforms have made it simple. Thus, the most popular DeFi platform Uniswap enables the creation of open, free listings making the launch of new DeFi projects simple as 1-2-3.

On the other hand, there is no strict threshold keeping scammers away from the system, hence numerous fraud projects have emerged and flooded the industry. For instance, scammers can take a real, legitimate asset and launch a token with an identical ticker on a decentralized platform to mislead users and make them buy their worthless assets.

Those who don’t want to suffer losses invest in what is called ‘blue crypts’, which are recognized, well-established, and financially sound assets from the top DeFi coins. Numerous reputable resources come up with a list of DeFi coins that deserve to be trusted. At the time of writing, the DeFi leaderboard includes such decentralized platforms as Maker, Compound, Uniswap, Aave, and Chainlink that issue the best DeFi coins.

Here are some tips on how to select the best assets for investment and protect yourself against scams:

  • There is a high probability of losing money when there is no solid technology behind the project, especially in the case of long-term investment. Check the project’s white paper to see if there is any innovation or if the document is simply copy-pasted from somewhere else.
  • It is preferable to invest in projects that were highly assessed by reputable experts in the industry.
  • Check how big is the portion of tokens allocated for the team. A too-large percentage (20%+) may lead to centralization while the total lack of vesting is not good either. Why would not the project reward its faithful workers?
  • Explore the code or read the results of third-party smart contracts audits before investing. The failure in the code can lead to a hack and massive losses for users.
  • Analyze the whitepaper and litepaper of the project to learn more about it and assess its potential. A project with thoroughly developed documentation is less prone to be a scam.
  • There should be a team of non-shady people behind the project. The transparency of the team allows performing relevant checks on its members’ backgrounds to estimate their experience and skill set in their LinkedIn profiles, reputable publications, etc.
  • It is essential to double-check the address of the project’s website and the contract address on a DEX. Analyze such details as the total liquidity, volume, and recent transactions.
  • Use Tokenguard to read ICO reviews of the projects and verify the security of cryptocurrency tokens before adding them to your investment portfolio.

Following these guidelines wouldn’t fully protect you against losses. However, they can significantly reduce their chances. Remember: forewarned is forearmed.

How to verify DeFi tokens?

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Blockchain in Action — 16 Inspirational Examples

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Codezeros

If you want to have a decentralized record of digital data accessible by all, then better fix your gaze towards blockchain technology. To break a single word into two, Blockchain has information in which the data (i.e., the block) is deposited inside a communal database (i.e., the chain).

This digital technology is primarily made to rave up banking security, as unsecured parties fail to hack it. However, Blockchain has various applications; you might have heard of them, so below are their names.

1. Bitcoin

Bitcoin is known to be the most prominent application of Blockchain, which is also termed as a cryptocurrency because it is a virtual currency. Things get completely simplified here, as money transferring gets easier because of the absence of intermediaries like banks or administrators.

Similar to Bitcoin, Bitcoin Atom is also a part of it, used for transferring funds in a simplified way with no trading charges and no possibilities of hacks during exchanges.

Blockchain in Action — 16 Inspirational Examples

2. MediLedger

With Blockchain, MediLedger, a pharmaceutical company, has a decentralized network that can record transactions and data to establish worth and improve security.

3. Spotify

A popular name in the music world, Spotify, opted for the procurement of Mediachain Labs and took help from a blockchain development service provider to switch to blockchain technology. This helps them to associate with an artist who has licensed tracks and agreements.

This move has led to more transparent and clear ownership of records. This move also helped the small artist to get proper recognition, which they were denied before.

4. BitGive

BitGive, which also implemented Blockchain technology, has its sole mission to benefit charities worldwide. It has a project that provides transparent data and financial information to donors.

5. Maersk

Maersk and IDM combined to generate a new supportive Blockchain effort known as TradeLens, which is supported by blockchain software development companies and other leading brands.

TradeLens is exclusive for its customized smart-contract services that execute complicated shipping orders, which lowers the presence of mediators in the whole process.

6. Circle

The peer-to-peer payment technology of Circle, which is also termed Circle Pay, is primarily used for buying and selling bitcoins. Circle uses open, Blockchain-based protocols to build products.

7. Aeternity

Another example of Blockchain development can be found in Aeternity. It serves a great role in performing rapid transactions. The brand has adopted several new things like IoV, IoT, FinTech, Unbanked, Video gaming, Trust-free Exchanges, etc.

8. Matchpool

To stay in association and generate new connections, a platform named Matchpool utilizes cryptocurrencies. It provides bonuses on linking the associates of different communities such as Uber, Airbnb, or dating services.

Here the cryptocurrency comes in the form of Guppy tokens, which is better known as GUP. These are mainly used for making payments within the app.

9. Siemens

Blockchain development services have led Siemens Digital Grid and its start-up financier, named next47, to work in collaboration with LO3 for a new project. The project is related to Blockchain technology, which lets local people generate and use and buy power through it.

10. BASF

BASF Corporation took help from a blockchain development company to scrutinize the value of livestock. The information can be used to see full transparency about the food they eat.

11. Loyyal

Loyyal, which is a cross-sector rewards and loyalty platform, reinvented how customers will get incentives.

It makes use of smart contracts and Blockchain technology to manage travel and hospitality. It also correctly looks over the incentives of all employees and their corresponding credit card rewards.

12. SimplyVital Health

With the added cost of aligning different technologies and issues due to sharing of data for security and privacy issues, the health sector hasn’t yet upgraded a lot from the past.

However, with the help of blockchain app development, SimplyVital Health has granted the authority to patients to share and access their healthcare information.

13. Guts

Guts which also works on blockchain technology, reduces the opportunity of ticket fraud and overcharging. Its algorithm maintains similar ticket prices and locks the prices by linking them to the mobile number.

14. De Beers

By tying up with 5 various other diamond manufacturers, De Beers has developed Tracr. It is a first-level Blockchain platform, which aids in securely tracking a diamond. The platform is designed to deliver untampered data whenever there is any suspicion revolving around it.

15. Ubiquity

Ubiquity, also a part of the blockchain platform, provides records of property information with a clean record of ownership. The consumer can input their data and store it on a blockchain with its Patent Pending API and SaaS Platform.

16. AIA Insurance

The bancassurance network, i.e., AIA Insurance, has led its bank partners to share data in real-time, reducing the processing time. It perceives new starts to have insurance with the blockchain accelerator.

Conclusion

Thus, through this, we hope that it is clear to you that blockchain development is a vast system with a vast scope in every sector. So, align your brand with it to upgrade and earn better revenue.

Blockchain in Action — 16 Inspirational Examples

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Investing Tips For Cryptocurrency Newcomers

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Anytime you are a new entrant in a particular investing space or asset class, there are some things you should be doing to ensure you don’t, as they say, take a bath. Crypto is a complex asset for many reasons, both because of the market forces it is subject to as well as the nature of the underlying blockchain technology. This shouldn’t discourage you from making it part of your portfolio, but it should spur caution and careful initial investing. With that said, below are some important investing tips for cryptocurrency newcomers. 

Start Small

Whenever you start investing in a new assets class, especially if you are just testing the waters and learning the fundamentals, is to start conservatively. This means allocating only a small percentage of your portfolio to it. While cryptocurrencies have gone up considerably over the last year, and are widely considered much more stable and predictable assets than they were a few years ago, they are still relatively unpredictable. 

Many portfolio allocation models suggest starting as small as 0.5% of your total holdings in cryptocurrencies. You are obviously free to deviate from this as much or as little as you would like, but riskier assets like derivative products, fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies should always be treated with caution and carefully monitored, and even more so when you are just starting out. Additionally, any time you are getting acquainted with a new asset class or market, it is always good to subscribe to an investment research service to see what the experts are saying about a particular investment opportunity before making any allocation decisions. 

Use a Simulator

If you are not quite ready to start putting real money into cryptocurrencies and would like a little more hand-holding before taking the final leap, you might consider spending some time experimenting with a trading simulator. There are many free simulators online that allow you to trade and observe the markets in real-time without having to risk actual capital. Many exchanges have their own, but there are good stand-alone programs as well. 

A good way to get a lot out of these simulators is by using them to watch how the currencies you are interested in move in real-time. As the prices of your preferred currencies fluctuate, you can map those movements onto announcements and conversations you see taking place in the major cryptocurrency publications as well as on investor forums and comment sections of popular podcasts. This is how you get a feel for the markets, the forces driving crypto price movements, how to anticipate buy and sell opportunities and ultimately how to make the most out of your initial investment. 

Look Beyond Bitcoin

Many new crypto investors make the mistake of assuming that Bitcoin is the only worthwhile crypto investment and some are even discouraged by the now stratospheric price of BTC, writing it off under the impression that it is no use investing in something that costs over $50,000 per coin. These sentiments are mistaken on two levels. You can, in fact, buy fractions of Bitcoins, so it is still possible to invest in BTC even if you don’t have tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on entire coins. Secondly, there is now a litany of high-performing, well-respected coins on the market that can be purchased. These include Ether, Ripple, Cardano and others.

Bitcoin is still the most widely-accepted cryptocurrency at businesses and institutions around the world, has the largest market cap and is the most commonly held coin by big investors, but there is money to be made in many of the other up-and-coming and competitor currencies as well. Part of being a good crypto investor is knowing how to spot the deals, including the potential diamonds in the rough, and learning to recognize value outside of the mainstream coins. 

Consider a Cold Wallet

Your crypto wallet is where you store your various coins and it is the gateway to your holdings. Many exchanges come with their own proprietary wallets and there are plenty of third-party wallet providers out there as well. One of the biggest downsides with cryptocurrencies is that they are not insured, which means should someone hack into an exchange and drain investors’ wallets of their holdings–which has happened and continues to do so–there is not much recourse for them. 

For this reason, many investors choose to store their assets in what is known as a “cold” wallet, or a hardware wallet. These are physical devices akin to USBs that keep your crypto data offline, which means it is no longer vulnerable to digital theft. It is, however, still vulnerable to physical threats, since a cold wallet can be lost, stolen or destroyed. If you lose a hardware wallet, it and its contents technically now belong to whoever finds it, and if it falls out of your pocket in the middle of nowhere, any assets it holds are lost for good.

Spread Your Investments Out Across Exchanges and Wallets 

There are two main reasons why it is not a good idea to keep your cryptocurrencies in a single wallet. The first is that because the transactions of any single wallet are always visible to other investors, any time a wallet starts to accumulate significant holdings, it draws attention, and often from the kind of people you would rather not know how much money you have. Additionally, and as previously mentioned, if someone has access to your wallet, they essentially own your funds. Secondly, if you forget your key for whatever reason, and end up locked out of your wallet, those funds are essentially irretrievable. 

Conclusion 

There is every reason to believe that we are witnessing a pivotal moment in the history of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. What was once possible to dismiss as a fad is no longer the case and both retail and institutional investors the world over have been forced to take digital currencies seriously. There is still time and plenty of opportunities to enjoy capital gains with many of these assets, but making your foray requires careful planning, caution and understanding. Keep the above cryptocurrency investing tips in mind and ensure that you make the best financial decisions possible. 

Investing Tips For Cryptocurrency Newcomers

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Alpha Homora defies market slump, bolsters TVL and token price on v2 relaunch

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After a rocky first quarter, decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Alpha Homora announced the relaunch of its v2 leveraged yield farming program today — and so far both traders and users are celebrating as both total value locked (TVL) and ALPHA token prices soar. 

The version 2 of the platform, which allows for leverage up to 7x on popular yield farming positions on protocols such as Sushi, Curve, and Balancer, notably had to shut down to new positions after a devastating hack in February. The protocol suffered $37 million in losses, which counts among the most devastating exploits in DeFi history.

However, the relaunch so far has gone swimmingly by multiple metrics. The ALPHA token — which underwent a revamped tokeneconomic design during the downtime — is up 11.1% to $2.28 on the day, and TVL has increased by nearly $100 million since the relaunch to a total of $675 million.

It now remains to be seen how long the protocol will remain stable. In addition to the February exploit, the platform was tied to Rari Capital’s $11 million loss earlier this week, though that particular exploit was due to no fault on Alpha Finance Lab’s part. 

The relaunched v2 also came with a new set of audits, but ultimately the greatest test of a DeFi protocol is time — the longer it’s survived scrutiny from would-be exploiters, the more users can trust its longevity.

Some observers are additionally off-put by Alpha’s unusual model, which has little precedent in Tradfi. However Leo Cheng of C.R.E.A.M. Finance, whose Iron Bank protocol-to-protocol lending platform enables v2’s leveraged yield farming, argued in an interview with Cointelegraph that if flash loans can be a key cog in DeFi’s capital efficiency, leveraged lending is a logical next step.

By nature, says Cheng, a smart contract “doesn’t quite care, and it doesn’t quite see the borders with the smart contract projects” with regards to where funds are coming from. As long as a transaction will end with the various protocols involved in the green, the transaction will go through.

Alpha Finance Labs did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Alpha Homora defies market slump, bolsters TVL and token price on v2 relaunch

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5 Applications for Blockchain in Your Business

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Codezeros

Cryptocurrency has been through a roller coaster ride, i.e., with ups and downs ever since Bitcoin was introduced. And since the introduction of Bitcoin, it is always referred to as something that is specially meant for black market activity and endless possibilities of something wicked in the present times. But then comes the Blockchain, which is the public ledger that records every bitcoin transaction.

5 Applications for Blockchain in Your Business

After the advent of Blockchain, every blockchain development company around the globe is trying to evolve more so that they can firmly stand as an alternative to traditional banking. It has now got the potential to have a centralized banking setup and also can bring a new set of transaction methods, which can change the way we do banking nowadays.

So, let’s find out the 5 best blockchain applications for business.

1. Smart Contracts

The term has a long history, but in recent years it is under the mouth of many technologies since it was released by the Ethereum Project in 2013. The whole Ethereum project comes in the form of a decentralized platform, which has smart contracts applications that are automated to run without having downtime, censorship, fraud, or third-party interference.

Many people have even suggested that smart contracts are pre-programmed algorithms that hold the capability to carry out the terms of any contract. Therefore, with smart contracts, businesses can bypass regulations and can reduce the cost of the subset.

A good example of smart contracts can be found in companies like Slock, which is also an Ethereum based platform. Through it, the company can rent a bicycle to the customers. The cycle gets unlocked to use only when both parties agree with the terms and conditions. Thus, making it a worthy Blockchain app for business development.

2. Cloud Storage

Another application on the list that provides blockchain development services is Cloud Storage. In 2021, many businesses or even general users are taking advantage of it. Storing things on the cloud makes it easier for any person to access them. Thus, they don’t have to carry external, tangible pen drives or hard drives everywhere they go.

For instance, Storj, a company, is also offering cloud storage and thereby decreasing the dependency. Even the founder of the company believes that the age of hard drives is long gone. People can now store 300 times more data and files than they can on an average hard drive.

Many people foresee that spending over 2 billion on cloud storage can not only deliver revenue to most users but will also reduce the cost of storing data in hard drives.

3. Supply-Chain Communications

The creation and the marketing of a product don’t involve only a single brand in the process, and therefore there are several brands involved in the process. There is a chain of suppliers who are involved in the final output of a product by a brand (e.g., graphite for pencil).

The biggest pre-existing problem is that if a supplier fails to provide components or funds at the right time, the primary final brand gets the backlash. Therefore, this Blockchain app development helps in simplifying the issue.

It helps in proactively delivering digital permanence and audit-able records that can easily be audited and scrutinized. Companies like Provenance and SkuChain are already on the verge of solving such issues.

4. Electronic Voting

According to BitShares, which is a worldwide distributed database, Delegated Proof of Stake (DPOS) has emerged as the most compatible and fast consensus model available, which is well-organized, highly distributed.

DPOS fairly resolves consensus issues by leveraging the power of stakeholder approval voting. Through the elected delegates, it can schedule fees and tweak the transactions. Its consensus protocol helps in safeguarding the users from getting involved in regulatory interference.

5. Paying Employees

Most of us already know that Blockchain has its connection with cryptocurrency, and hence it can be used to compensate the employees. Many people in the past have pointed out that if a company pays internationally regularly to its clients or employees, it will result in transaction fees and added time.

So, here Bitcoin can be a cost-saver, as with payroll services like Bitwage, you can save money from transaction fees, and the transfer process is also faster. As it takes much time to move funds from banks to banks, therefore this prolonging process can be cut short.

Even the founder of Bitwage has stated that chronologically doing transactions helps in seeing where the money is going. This process not only saves time for the employers but also the employees get their wages faster.

Conclusion

Now, as the expert teams of top-notch Blockchain app development companies provide enhanced security, it has almost made banking tougher to hack. So, you can take the help of Blockchain to upgrade your business app to the next level.

5 Applications for Blockchain in Your Business

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