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Study: Samsung Named Most Active Investor in Crypto and Blockchain Startups

Study: Samsung Named Most Active Investor in Crypto and Blockchain StartupsBetween September 2021 and mid-June 2022, Samsung invested in 13 crypto/blockchain companies thus making the South Korean corporation the most active among the top 40 corporations. Google’s parent Alphabet firm, on the other hand, tops the category of top corporations that participated in the biggest funding rounds. 40 Corporations Invest $6 Billion According to the […]

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K

LG to Launch Crypto Wallet Wallypto Later This Year

LG to Launch Crypto Wallet Wallypto Later This YearLG, the South Korean electronics giant, is currently developing a cryptocurrency wallet app that will be launched later this year. The wallet, called Wallypto, will be part of a new business phase for the company, which recently abandoned its mobile hardware business and pivoted to software solutions. Wallypto will support only Hedera Hashgraph assets at […]

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K

Tech Giant Samsung Planning Launch of Its Own Crypto Exchange: Report

Tech Giant Samsung Planning Launch of Its Own Crypto Exchange: Report

The investment arm of South Korean tech giant Samsung is reportedly looking to launch a crypto exchange platform along with several other prominent securities firms. According to local media outlet Newspim, Samsung Securities attempted to headhunt for individuals who can take charge of a crypto trading platform and develop blockchain smart contracts last year. The […]

The post Tech Giant Samsung Planning Launch of Its Own Crypto Exchange: Report appeared first on The Daily Hodl.

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K

Metaverse Startup Ready Player Me Raises $56 Million in Series B Led by Andreessen Horowitz

Metaverse Startup Ready Player Me Raises  Million in Series B Led by Andreessen HorowitzThe AI-generated avatar creation cross-platform for the metaverse, Ready Player Me, has raised $56 million in a Series B funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The startup’s co-founder and CEO Timmu Tõke says the funding will be used to scale the cross-platform metaverse avatar system. Investors Inject Ready Player Me With Fresh Capital, CEO […]

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K

Report: Investment Management Giant Invesco Launches Metaverse Fund

Report: Investment Management Giant Invesco Launches Metaverse FundThe investment management giant Invesco has launched a metaverse fund that will invest in a myriad of startups focused on metaverse technology, a Citywire report detailed on Monday. “We will seek to capitalise on these opportunities through a highly selective, valuation-conscious approach,” Tony Roberts, Invesco’s fund manager, explained. Invesco Reveals Metaverse Fund — Investment Manager […]

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K

Google invested a whopping $1.5B into blockchain companies since September

Other notable corporate investors include BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, Samsung, and Goldman Sachs, according to a report from Blockdata.

Google parent company Alphabet poured the most amount of capital into the blockchain industry compared to any other public company, investing $1.5 billion between Sep. 2021 and Jun. 2022, a new report shows. 

In an updated blog published by Blockdata on Aug. 17, Alphabet (Google) was revealed as the investor with the deepest pockets compared to the top 40 public corporations investing in blockchain and crypto companies during the period.

The company invested $1.5 billion into the space, concentrating on four blockchain companies including digital asset custody platform Fireblocks, Web3 gaming company Dapper Labs, Bitcoin infrastructure tool Voltage, and venture capital company Digital Currency Group.

This is in stark contrast to last year, where Google diversified its much smaller $601.4 million funding effort across 17 blockchain-based companies, which again included Dapper Labs, along with Alchemy, Blockchain.com, Celo, Helium and Ripple.

Google’s increased investment into the blockchain industry is consistent with the other top 40 publicly traded companies, with $6 billion in total being invested during this time, compared to $1.9 billion between Jan. 2021 to Sep. 2021 and $506 million in all of 2020.

Source: Blockdata

The other big corporate investors include asset management company BlackRock, which invested $1.17 billion, investment banking corporation Morgan Stanley, investing $1.11 billion, and electronics company Samsung, with investments totaling $979.2 million.

Like Google, Morgan Stanley and BlackRock adopted a more concentrated approach investing in only two to three companies during the period. However, Samsung was by far the most active investor having invested in 13 different companies.

The data also found that companies offering some form of non-fungible token (NFT) solutions have been the most popular investment.

“Many of these belong to industries such as gaming, arts & entertainment, and distributed ledger technology (DLT).”

The remaining investments have been split between companies that provide Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS), infrastructure, smart contract platforms, scaling solutions and digital asset custody platforms.

Related: Beyond the hype: NFTs can lead the way in transforming business experiences

The data also found that banks have started to increase their exposure to crypto and blockchain companies, driven by an increase in client demand for crypto services. Among the banks finding themselves on the top list of crypto investors are United Overseas Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and BNY Mellon.

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K

Samsung Launches ‘Space Tycoon’ Metaverse Experience

Samsung Launches ‘Space Tycoon’ Metaverse ExperienceElectronics giant Samsung has announced the launch of Space Tycoon, a metaverse-based experience built as part of the Roblox world. The gaming metaverse, which is directed to entertain Gen Z users, will feature a world in which Samsung products can be constructed by picking their fundamental components. The experience will also include a shop for […]

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K

White hat hacker attempts to recover ‘millions’ in lost Bitcoin, finds only $105

“We didn’t make money, but we definitely made new friends," said Lavar Sanders, who originally purchased the Bitcoin in 2016.

Joe Grand, a computer engineer and hardware hacker known by many for recovering crypto from hard-to-reach places, spent hours breaking into a phone only to find a fraction of a Bitcoin.

In a YouTube video released on Thursday, Grand traveled from Portland to Seattle in an effort to potentially recover “millions of dollars” in Bitcoin (BTC) from a Samsung Galaxy SIII phone owned by Lavar Sanders, a local bus operator. Sanders originally purchased the BTC in July 2016 in a “super sketchy” way, paying a person at a cafe and storing the crypto in a wallet on the phone before putting it in storage and losing track of the device.

After finding the phone in 2021, Sanders couldn’t recall the swipe password, but remembered setting up the option of erasing the data if too many incorrect attempts were made. He and a friend connected with Grand after discovering his YouTube videos, allowing the white hat hacker to make several attempts to get into the phone’s memory and recover the crypto.

Following some micro soldering, downloading the memory and discovering the Samsung’s swipe pattern for access — which turned out to be the letter “L” — Sanders opened his MyCelium Bitcoin wallet and discovered only 0.00300861 BTC — worth $105 USD at the time, down to roughly $63 USD at the time of publication. Grand was later able to determine the bus operator purchased $400 worth of BTC in 2016, most of which went to a crypto mixing service called BitBlender, which was shut down in 2019.

“I’m a little devastated,” said Sanders. “We didn’t make money, but we definitely made new friends.”

Related: Engineer hacks Trezor wallet, recovers $2M in 'lost' crypto

Many crypto users have been locked out of their wallets or otherwise lost access to physical devices holding BTC over the years — one of the most famous examples being a Welsh man who in 2013 threw out a hard drive containing 7,500 Bitcoins, now worth more than $150 million. However, many hackers and engineers specializing in crypto recovery services have appeared in response.

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K

Samsung Asset Management to launch blockchain ETF in Hong Kong

Samsung Asset Management acquired a 20% equity stake in the U.S. ETF provider Amplify Holding Company in March 2022.

Hong Kong-based Samsung Asset Management (SAMHK), a local subsidiary of Samsung’s investment arm, is moving forward with a blockchain-themed exchange-traded fund (ETF).

The firm expects to launch its Samsung Blockchain Technologies ETF on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on June 23, SAMHK announced on Thursday.

The ETF seeks to achieve long-term capital growth by investing in stocks of companies actively involved in the development and adoption of blockchain technologies, the fund prospectus reads. The fund will invest in blockchain-related research and development firms, data providers, industry investment firms and others.

The ETF’s composition will be managed by SAMHK’s portfolio management team, responsible for filtering out firms with “small market capitalization or low trading volume.” The Samsung Blockchain Technologies ETF is a sub-fund of Samsung ETFs Trust, an umbrella unit trust established under Hong Kong law, the firm said.

According to the announcement, SAMHK positions the new investment product as the “first ever global blockchain-related ETF in Hong Kong” as well as Asia.

Carmen Cheung, head of ETF and passive investment at SAMHK, notd the increasing demand for blockchain technology-based applications, forecasting the industry’s growth in the future, stating:

“The demand of data processing and storage will expedite with the evolution of our digital world. Blockchain technologies will further be widely used for different businesses to improve data efficiency, security and shorten the accessibility time. We see this as one of the future trends on digital transformation.”

SAMHK is one of several global subsidiaries of Samsung Asset Management, a wholly-owned subsidiary under the umbrella of the Samsung Group. According to official company data, Samsung Asset Management was one of the first companies in South Korea to surpass a milestone of 100 trillion Korean won ($79 billion) in assets under management in 2011.

The ETF launch comes soon after Samsung Asset Management acquired a 20% equity stake in the United States’ ETF sponsor Amplify Holding Company in March 2022, reportedly becoming the second-largest shareholder.

Related: ‘Bitcoin-thematic’ ETF lists on Italian stock exchange Borsa Italiana

The Samsung Group has been actively exploring the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry in recent years, supporting crypto transactions on its flagman Samsung smartphones and investing in major crypto wallets. The South Korean tech giant has also been experimenting with nonfungible tokens, launching a smart TV lineup with an integrated NFT platform in January 2022.

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K

Warning: Smartphone text prediction guesses crypto hodler’s seed phrase

Redditor Andre highlighted the ease with which hackers can use the text prediction feature to drain a user’s funds just by being able to first word out of the BIP 39 list.

Seed phrases, a random combination of words from the BIP 39 list of 2048 words, act as one of the primary layers of security against unauthorized access to a user’s crypto holdings. But what happens when your ‘smart’ phone’s predictive typing remembers and suggests the words next time you try to access your digital wallet?

Andre, a 33-year-old IT professional from Germany, recently posted on the r/CryptoCurrency subreddit after discovering his mobile phone’s ability to predict the entire recovery seed phrase as soon as he typed down the first word.

As a fair warning to fellow Redditors and crypto enthusiasts, Andre’s post highlighted the ease with which hackers can use the feature to drain a user’s funds just by being able to type the first word out of the BIP 39 list:

“This makes it easy to attack, get your hands on a phone, start any chat app, and start typing any words off the BIP39 list, and see what the phone suggests.”

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Andre, a.k.a. u/Divinux on Reddit, shared his shock when he first experienced his phone literally guessing the (12-24 word) seed phrase — “First I was stunned - the first couple words could be a coincidence, right?”

As a tech-savvy individual, the German crypto investor was able to reproduce the scenario wherein his mobile phone could accurately predict the seed phrases. After realizing the possible impact of this information if it went out to the wrong hands, “I thought I should tell people about it; I'm sure there are others who also have typed seeds into their phone.”

Andre’s experiments confirmed that Google’s GBoard was the least vulnerable as the software did not predict every word in the correct order. However, Microsoft’s Swiftkey keyboard was able to predict the seed phrase right out of the box. The Samsung keyboard, too, can predict the words if ‘Auto replace’ and ‘Suggest text corrections’ have been manually turned on.

Andre’s initial stint with crypto dates back to 2015, when he momentarily lost interest until he realized he could buy goods and services using Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies. His investment strategy involves purchasing and staking BTC and altcoins such as Terra (LUNA), Algorand (ALGO) and Tezos (XTZ) and “then dollar-cost averaging (DCA) out into BTC when/if they moon.” The IT professional also develops his own coins and tokens as a hobby.

A safety measure against possible hacks, according to Andre, is to store significant and long-term holdings in a hardware wallet. To Redditors across the world, OP’s advice includes — not your keys, not your coins, DYOR, don't FOMO, never invest more than you are willing to lose, always double-check the address you are sending to, always send a small amount beforehand, and disable your PMs in Settings, concluding:

“Do yourself a solid and prevent that from happening by clearing your predictive type cache.”

Related: STEPN impersonators stealing users' seed phrases, warn security experts

Blockchain security firm PeckShield warned the crypto community about a large number of phishing websites targeting users of the Web3 lifestyle app STEPN.

As Cointelegraph reported, based on PechShield’s findings, hackers insert a forged MetaMask browser plugin through which they can steal seed phrases from unsuspecting STEPN users.

Access to seed phrase guarantees complete control over the user’s crypto funds via the STEPN dashboard.

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K