OpenAI’s latest upgrade essentially lets users livestream with ChatGPT

May 14, 2024 Coin Telegraph

Ledger co-founder clarifies “there is no backdoor” in Recover firmware update

May 20, 2023 Coin Telegraph

" title="

Ledger co-founder clarifies "there is no backdoor" in Recover firmware update

"/>

Coin Telegraph

Ledger Recover is an OTA firmware update, which would allow users to back up their seed phrases by third-party entities only if a user chooses to opt-in to the new service.

The launch of Ledger Recover, a service that allows users of the Ledger hardware wallet to back up their secret recovery phrases, met with immense resistance from the crypto community. Ledger co-founder and ex-CEO Éric Larchevêque took the criticism against Ledger as “a total PR failure, but absolutely not a technical one.”

Ledger Recover is an OTA firmware update, which would allow users to back up their seed phrases by third-party entities. If a user chooses to opt-in to the new service, the recovery phrase fragments get encrypted and are stored by 3 different parties, which can be used to recover the phrase in the future. However, the idea of the seed phrase leaving the hardware wallet did not resonate with users that considered Ledger as a trustless service for storing cryptocurrencies.

Addressing the rising concerns of users worldwide, Larchevêque posted on Reddit clarifying that Ledger was never a trustless solution:

“Some amount of trust must be placed into Ledger to use their product. If you don't trust Ledger, meaning you treat your HW manufacturer as an adversary, that can't work at all.”

He argued that the Ledger Recover update has no impact on the hardware wallet’s security model. He added:

“My mistake as a CEO during my tenure was probably not be relentless enough about explaining the security model, but at some point you just give up as people don't care at all. Until they care again, like now.”

Larchevêque believed that the only thing that changed is the general user’s perspective on trustlessness and that the Recover code in the firmware is not a malicious code:

“Ledger is still safe, there is no backdoor, the Ledger Recover is not a conspiracy, no one will ever force anyone to use Recover.”

Trusting Ledger with sharding the seed phrase is just like trusting Ledger with signing a transaction, he added. Addressing a user’s recommendation about having two different firmware to eradicate ‘backdoor’ concerns, Larchevêque said that “it wouldn't change anything” and would be saddening for him personally.

The firmware update in question is not available for Nano S — Ledger’s cheapest hardware wallet offering — as the chipset does not have enough memory to store the new firmware.

Amid the rollout of Ledger’s controversial firmware update, competing hardware wallet provider GridPlus decided to open-source its firmware for its users.

The most trusted name in cryptography, relied upon by the world's governments for their highest security applications for decades, sold products backdoored by the CIA. How can we ensure this won't happen again? Open-source software.

GridPlus will open-source its firmware in Q3. pic.twitter.com/889OnqXd20
— GridPlus (@gridplus) May 18, 2023

Turning the Ledger controversy into a marketing opportunity, GridPlus announced plans to open source its device firmware in the third quarter of 2023 to deliver greater transparency.

Circle clears ‘substantially all’ minting and redemption backlog for USDC

March 16, 2023 Coin Telegraph

backlog

The stablecoin issuer says that from March 13 and March 15, it redeemed $3.8 billion USDC and minted $0.8 billion USDC.

Stablecoin issuer Circle says it has cleared “substantially all” of the redemption and minting requests for its stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC).

In a March 15 operational update, Circle said between the morning of March 13 to the close of banking business in the United States on March 15, it had redeemed $3.8 billion USDC and minted $0.8 billion USDC.

Update: As of close of U.S. banking operations Wednesday, March 15, we have cleared substantially all of the backlog of minting and redemption requests for USDC. Get the details: https://t.co/5WEAgPps0E
— Circle (@circle) March 16, 2023

Last week, Circle was hit with a bank run after disclosing it had $3.3 billion worth of stablecoin reserves in the now-collapsed Silicon Valley Bank which resulted in USDC losing its dollar peg.

“The events of the past week have impacted the liquidity operations for USDC,” Circle wrote in its update. It added it worked to “re-initiate services with alternative banking partners, particularly payment and USDC redemption services.”

Circle said it went live with a new banking partner for U.S. wires on March 14 and used the same partner “for international wires to and from 19 countries” on March 15. It expects “to bring more capabilities” online by March 16.

Cross River Bank, which also services Circle's peer firm Coinbase, was disclosed as the firm's new commercial banking partner for producing and redeeming USDC on March 13. Circle also expanded ties with its existing custodian, the Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon).

The announcement comes after a turbulent period for USDC that caused many to lose funds amid a flight to perceived safety from what was, at the time, a rapidly declining asset.

One unfortunate crypto user paid over $2 million to receive $0.05 of USDT in their apparent panic to cash out of the crash. An analysis revealed they possibly forgot to set slippage on their transaction, allowing a bot to net a significant profit.

Update (March 16, 3:30 AM UTC): This article has been updated to include further information on recent USDC-related events.

China’s Wechat Adds Support for Digital Yuan Payments

March 8, 2023 Bitcoin.com

Darknet Forum Dread to Relaunch After Month-Long Downtime Due to DDOS Attack

January 6, 2023 Bitcoin.com

Ukraine to Revise Virtual Assets Law in Line With EU Crypto Rules

September 20, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Bitcoin Lightning Network developer updates node software with Taproot support

June 29, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin Community

The latest software release, named lnd 0.15 beta (v0.15-beta), aims to empower developers to create solutions for more use cases by leveraging the Bitcoin network’s capabilities.

Lightning Labs, a developer of the Bitcoin (BTC) Lightning Network (LN), released a beta version of the Lightning Network Daemon (lnd) — a complete implementation of the LN node — with added support to the latest protocol upgrades including Taproot and Musig2 among other improvements.

lnd is a software component that handles various aspects within the LN including managing a database, generating payment invoices and revoking payments to name a few. The latest software release, named lnd 0.15 beta (v0.15-beta), aims to empower developers to create solutions for more use cases by leveraging the Bitcoin network’s latest capabilities.

Announcing lnd 0.15 beta: To Taproot and Beyond! ♾️

Featuring:
Taproot + Musig2 support for better privacy + efficiency, Taro soon™
~95% database space reduction for new data
️ New pathfinding tool to choose speed vs. cost of payments

Read more: https://t.co/5pavMcpxBg
— Lightning Labs⚡️ (@lightning) June 28, 2022

In the announcement, Lightning Labs’ product growth lead Michael Levin revealed that over 50 contributors participated in launching the company’s first release in the year 2022, adding that:

“This release gives complete Taproot support for the internal lnd wallet, making it one of the most advanced Taproot wallets today. Further, this release has support for an experimental Musig2 API compliant with the latest BIP draft.”

The primary goal of MuSig2, a multi-signature scheme, is to allow the creation of aggregate public keys that can be used in Taproot outputs, thus, introducing the ability to authorize transactions with Schnorr signatures.

Unlike previous versions, the beta release also removes the redundant data from the revocation log bucket, which showed a reduction of 95% in database size during initial testing. While the update does not reclaim space for existing states, Levin envisioned that a follow-up release may include a migration feature that could reclaim old disk space.

Staying true to their commitment to make the LN more reliable, robust, and secure, Lightning Labs introduced greater control over pathfinding preferences — ultimately helping to reduce the transaction fees by identifying the lowest cost route.

The Bitcoin network recorded the year 2022’s lowest power demand of 10.65 gigawatts (GW) on June 25. As a result, the computing power for mining BTC blocks came down to 199.225 exahash per second (EH/s).

*Bitcoin network power demand from 2018-2022. Source: ccaf.io*

The sudden reduction in Bitcoin’s power demand is directly correlated to the falling hash rate. The mining hash rate corresponds to the computing power required by BTC miners to successfully mine a block — a key security metric.

Mozilla to Reinstate Crypto Donations — Organization Will Not Accept Proof-of-Work Cryptocurrencies

April 13, 2022 Bitcoin.com

MetaMask rolls out Apple Pay integration and other iOS updates

March 29, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Starting with iPhone users, MetaMask is adding integrations with payment gateways on its mobile wallet to increase options for buying crypto.

ConsenSys-owned MetaMask tweeted a thread of updates on Tuesday for iPhone and Apple Pay users. The main feature is the ability to buy cryptocurrency using a debit or credit card through the mobile application, eliminating the need to transfer Ethereum (ETH) from a centralized exchange like Coinbase into the app.

MetaMask Mobile v4.3.1 is LIVE with some exciting updates:

Buy crypto on iOS with Apple Pay (@sendwyre), more transparency when interacting with sites, & support for gasless transactions where relevant.

Does it get any better? Yes it does! We now have dark mode!

1/
— MetaMask (@MetaMask) March 28, 2022

MetaMask uses two payment gateways, Wyre and Transak, to support debit card and credit card transactions. Users can now use their Visas and Mastercards stored in Apple Pay to buy ETH and deposit a daily maximum of $400 into their wallets, thanks to the Wyre API. Gas fees are reportedly lower, and according to MetaMask's tweets, some transactions may even be gasless if done on a private blockchain or if a project pays for the gas on the user's behalf. When completing an ETH purchase, MetaMask discloses that it does not profit from gas fess.

Via Transak, it's been possible to buy the stablecoins USDT, USDC and DAI on the Ethereum mainnet in MetaMask for some time now. The latest update allows users to make bank transfers and use credit/debit cards to buy crypto using over 60 global currencies. U.S. users can also buy Fantom and Avalanche native tokens now, according to the comapany. Exact payment methods and fees vary depending on the location.

James Beck, Director of Communications and Content at ConsenSys, told Cointelegraph that the purpose of the updates is to increase accessibility and reduce friction. "We wanted to expand the way in which users can convert crypto within the app itself and not have to leave it," he said. He also revealed that more integrations that "maximize" options and "streamline" buying crypto are coming soon.

MetaMask tweeted about another "important" security update when it comes to sending tokens. Unlike sending ETH simply to a recipient address, tokens are sent to a contract address and instructions are included to send a specified amount of tokens to the recipient address. Users can now "clearly see which contract is requesting" permission and to label and save that contract.

An earlier Twitter thread warned MetaMask users "to be careful when interacting with contracts" and approving a certain address to move those tokens. They claimed that the token approving action could result in assets being stolen and that the only way to be protected is to revoke token allowances.

The same applies when you swap/mint/sell/stake/farm on all the fancy stuff built by amazing devs the past few years.

When tokens need to be moved by a contract to facilitate an action, you must first *approve* that address to access/move those tokens.

This is important.

7/ pic.twitter.com/FNZH8Xdl3C
— MetaMask (@MetaMask) March 4, 2022

Additionally, MetaMask has introduced the Apple Dark Mode feature as per popular demand. Beck claimed that "wen dark mode?" and "wen token" have been the most anticipated requests by their users. Dark mode will automatically enable in the app if a user's iPhone Operating System has dark mode enabled system-wide. The company tweeted that dark mode for the MetaMask Extension "is coming soon."

Recently, MetaMask acquired the Ethereum wallet interface provider MyCrypto with the intent of combining technologies and eventually merging MyCrypto with the MetaMask wallet to improve the security of all their products.

Bitcoin bulls take aim at $45K while some analysts warn of possible correction

March 22, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin bulls take aim at K while some analysts warn of possible correction

Bitcoin Price

BTC price spikes above $43,000 as bulls look to push for $45,000 while some analysts warn about the formation of a bearish flag that could lead to a price correction.

The bullish narrative is beginning to build across the cryptocurrency ecosystem on March 22 as the price of Bitcoin (BTC) briefly spiked above $43,000 while Ether (ETH) has reclaimed support at $3,000 following a deposit of $110 million worth of ETH into Lido's liquidity pools.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the price of Bitcoin rallied 6.15% from a low of $40,884 in the early hours of Tuesday to an intraday high at $43,380 before consolidating around support at $42,300.

*BTC/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView*

Here’s what several analysts are saying about Bitcoin's recent price action and which support and resistance levels to keep an eye on moving forward.

BTC price could correct lower

A foreshadowing of Bitcoin’s move on March 22 was provided by market analyst and pseudonymous Twitter user "Rekt Captial," who posted the following chart noting that “If Bitcoin successfully retests the green dashed diagonal as new support," then it “will spring towards the green ~$43100 resistance ahead.”

According to the trader, this was a notable development because it “confirmed” the end of the “multi-month series of lower highs” for Bitcoin and suggests we could soon head higher.

Despite this bullish turn of events, fellow trader and pseudonymous Twitter user “Ed_NL” warned that it may still be a bit premature to open a BTC long based on price action following the pump.

*BTC/USD 15-minute chart. Source: Twitter*

“BTC forming a bearish flag after the initial drop, but this feels like a typical trap where we first take out the early shorters before going down to correct," the analyst opined.

Potential squeeze higher

The upward trend for BTC was also highlighted by crypto trader and host of The Wolf of All Streets podcast Scott Melker, who posted the following chart noting that Bitcoin is “still making higher lows, consolidating towards the key level around $45,500.”

Options trader and pseudonymous Twitter user "Joh Wick" also noted this upward drift on the BTC chart, suggesting that there is a potential squeeze in play that could lead to further price gains.

Wick further explained:

“Remember we have squeeze shading zone that looks like it wants to breakout! Could be the technical catalyst to get us past $45,000 - $46,000 resistance.”

Needs to hold support at $42,300

A final bit of insight was provided by crypto trader and Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe, who posted the following chart highlighting the run-up in Bitcoin, which has managed to hold on to a “crucial support.”

*BTC/USDT 2-hour chart. Source: Twitter*

“If Bitcoin can sustain those levels, it seems to me that we're getting a period of some relief rallies across markets. Would be good,” van de Poppe explained.

The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.923 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 42%.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

update

BTC price could correct lower

Potential squeeze higher

Needs to hold support at $42,300

Share this video