Category Archives: Cryptocurrency

For too long, the Hollywood system has been closed to outsiders; its challenging to get anything made without already making something successful. Thats why founders Ben Rosenblatt and Micho Rutare created$FLIXto solve that chicken-or-egg problem.

By leveraging the creativity of its community members and producing partners, $FLIX can generate revenue for film projects while at the same time increasing the token value for investors. And because $FLIX isnt beholden to the old system of gatekeepers, they have the freedom to take creative risks, ultimately making the kinds of movies Hollywood is too afraid to make.

So, how does it work?

$FLIX uses a percentage of every transaction to fund movie projects, then successful projects fuel interest in the coin, interest fuels volume, and volume funds the film wallet. Once a film, script, or concept is sold, money from that sale is used to buy back tokens and burn them. This makes the token deflationary: over time, there will be fewer and fewer tokens worth more and more.

At $FLIX, we believe that Web 3.0 is the meaning economy: community replaces clicks, and storytelling trumps algorithms. Co-Founder Micho Rutare continues, Crypto investors arent just looking at their bottom lines; in this era of the Great Resignation, people are looking to align their investments with their passions. So $FLIX is all about the story: the storytelling of the films, the story of the coin, and the story of how a community of film lovers, filmmakers, and crypto investors comes together to change the way.

$FLIX began as a meme coin, a hyped-up cryptocurrency. But while most meme coins are pump and dump schemes, Rutare and Rosenblatt intend to pump and not dump. Instead, they are building long-term value with our film projects and our community. And while they are prioritizing long-term value, they want to generate enough activity to make the coin an attractive short-term investment.

In the short run, $FLIX is focused on developing a slate of projects, building value with the product rather than hype. Secondly, they plan to produce and release films, with community involvement along the way. Lastly, they want $FLIX to become a real currency, both in the metaverse and at brick-and-mortar theater chains.

How does this change the landscape of crypto in general? With the recent contraction of the market, the speculative bubble of meme tokens and NFTs is coming to a close. As a result, investors are looking for real value and are more reluctant to throw money at whatever coin is mooning on a given day. We believe that this current contraction is a lot like the Dot Com Bubble of the early 00sit took the crash to clear the underbrush, paving the way for the FANG companies to define the Web2 era, said Rutare. $FLIX is well-positioned to be one of the giants of the Web3 economy, harnessing the power of the blockchain and using it to create real-world consumer experiences.

Rutare added, Ultimately, $FLIX will be a vertical filmmaking platform, generating revenue at every phase, from development through exhibition. For film finance, we want to do what Apple did for personal computingto create a user-friendly consumer brand that eventually builds its own walled garden ecosystem.

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The "Sharknado" Creator Developed a Cryptocurrency Token Revolutionizing Film Financing - Grit Daily

With privacy, its like, once its out, its out, Professor Meiklejohn said.

Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, a physician and the director of Women on Waves, a nonprofit that provides resources for abortion seekers, found this to be the case when she tried setting up her own crypto wallet. It had exactly the same diligence requests as a normal bank account, where you have to provide IDs and other information, she said.

She could see how anonymous transactions might appeal to abortion providers, whose work could soon turn them into legal targets. But, she said, I havent found a cryptocurrency where you can do that.

Legal scholars are not convinced that cryptocurrencies would shield patients in most cases. Abortion bans will cover everything, whether you pay with cash or crypto, said Rachel Rebouch, the interim dean at the Temple University Beasley School of Law and an author of a forthcoming paper called The New Abortion Battleground.

If abortion is illegal in your state it doesnt matter whether you get a surgical abortion, a medication abortion, whether you self-manage your abortion if its illegal, its illegal, said Kimberly Mutcherson, a dean and professor of law at Rutgers Law School who has focused on reproductive rights. (In the first three months of this year, 22 states introduced more than 100 restrictions on abortion pills approved by the Food and Drug Administration, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research group that supports abortion rights.)

Still, organizations like Planned Parenthood are keeping an open mind about how they might raise and distribute funds.

Alexis McGill Johnson, the organizations president and chief executive, said Planned Parenthood was looking into a number of things in the realm of cryptocurrencies but would not divulge details.

The bottom line is all of the options are on the table, she said.

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Will Crypto Play a Role in Funding Abortion Access? - The New York Times

Zilliqa or ZIL is a cryptocurrency based in Singapore. Its value is pegged at 1:1 to the SGD or Singapore Dollar. Since its inception, it has garnered much attention since it incorporated three primary attributes: high scalability, eco-friendly, and low costs. These features made it on par with the other cryptocurrencies in the market. Learn more about cryptocurrencies here.

Many people have noticed that the value has surged over the months. The news in May 2022 said that it went up to 42%, so what exactly triggered ZILs value? Know that the developers and the ecosystem were busy forming partnerships with others, and there are a lot of announcements on social media platforms that have aided its traction. Most of the gaming gurus have participated in studio launches like Valentin and Tom, and more enthusiasts are expected to come up.

What is Zilliqa?

This is an ERC-20 token that originated in Southeast Asia, specifically in Singapore. The ecosystem is currently using the ZIL coin as one of its mediums of exchange for incentives and transaction fees. The rewards come from the cryptos service as one of the blockchain node validators through the process of staking.

Its powered by the ERC-20 public blockchain and Ethereum, and it can perform about 2,488 transactions per second. This is about a thousand times faster than the entire network of Ethereum. You may want to know more about this cryptocurrency through Zilliqa Wire, bringing you the most recent activities and news about this specific cryptocurrency. Other prominent features of the cryptocurrency include the developers building smart contract languages like Scilla that enabled them to develop services and applications on the entire network.

The project was first initiated by a former CEO, Xinshu Don, an expert on blockchain and cybersecurity technology. He has teamed up with various specialists and tech professionals in many fields to stabilize the ecosystem. Other partners are experts in the financial and fundraising sector, so it is no surprise that the coin has become popular in a short amount of time.

About the Sharding Process

The goal of creating another blockchain that is like Ethereum is to make improvements and enhance efficiency in the cryptocurrency niche. The Zilliqa was the first one to utilize sharding technology, which is the method of boosting the scalability of the transactions.

It distributes storage and computational burdens on various validator nodes, so it is easy to do a lot of transactions in a short amount of time. Bitcoin can only do 4.6 transactions per second, which is a scalability problem for many people. This is where the Zilliqa excelled since it also had many capabilities comparable to other blockchains like Solana, Cardano, and Ethereum.

The goal is to become the greatest digital asset that many large-scale companies will choose. Its developers are now looking into entertainment, advertising, gaming, and other technologies to improve the overall ecosystem of the ZIL. Further ambitious projects include being able to replace Mastercard and Visa for payments and be a valuable platform for big data research and machine learning development down the road.

How Does it Work?

The cryptocurrency is currently using sharding technology to improve its capability and scalability. Here are the other details that you need to know about:

The sharding happens by dividing a groups processing powers and sending them to various nodes on the network. When there is a new issuance of transactions, the information tends to be split into smaller pieces which are called shards.

After completing the transaction, it will be recorded on the database for verification. The sharding is a computational effort shared across computers, resulting in more transactions being processed every second. This will cut the overall transaction costs and result in more scalability.

Consensus

Validating the transactions will require leveraging the proof-of-work, which is also present in bitcoins. Another consensus algorithm used is the practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (pBFT) which offers a prominent level of cybersecurity. Get more info about the pBFT at this link: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/practical-byzantine-fault-tolerancepbft/.

Completing the nodes will give an individual a chance to earn ZIL coins. For the pBFT to work, there should be approved to the algorithm from every node for the new addition of the new blocks into the chain. This will be challenging for the hackers, who must need to control all the nodes before starting their attacks.

Other Things to Know

If you want to acquire or buy Zilliqa, you will have to buy the ZIL tokens, a native cryptocurrency token. You can use them to pay transaction fees when you are in the Zilliqa ecosystem, and most of the dApps that were developed by the founders were built on them.

There are also rewards and earnings when you stake your ZIL tokens. The process of staking includes pledging them to the blockchain network as collateral, and you become part of the thousands of users who are validating transaction processes every second. The return is that you will receive more tokens afterward.

As mentioned, Scilla was created as a native programming language to make it easier for the developers to add to the applications when the need arises. The word means Smart Contract Intermediate-Level Language, which was created by engineers.

The Scilla is essentially securing the smart contracts of the entire blockchain, and the language was developed in such a way that it helps minimize any security risks that may be present in the ecosystem. The creators and developers are always aiming to write bug-free codes and identify security vulnerabilities in their systems to ensure maximum security. Automated mathematical proofs also allow the demonstration of smart contracts, so it is pretty safe.

The value of the Zilliqa significantly increased in March when it launched into the Metapolis metaverse. This was powered by Zilliqa itself, but it still might not be available to the public at this time. Nevertheless, a VIP launch was made in April, and the metaverse tokens are the ones that are drawing a lot of investors in. So far, technological advancement has proven to be a hit and has been great news to the current investors.

CryptoMode produces high quality content for cryptocurrency companies. We have provided brand exposure for dozens of companies to date, and you can be one of them. All of our clients appreciate our value/pricing ratio.Contact us if you have any questions: [emailprotected] None of the information on this website is investment or financial advice. CryptoMode is not responsible for any financial losses sustained by acting on information provided on this website by its authors or clients. No reviews should be taken at face value, always conduct your research before making financial commitments.

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Zilliqa Crypto News and All You Need to Know About Cryptocurrency - Crypto Mode

Cryptocurrencies, according to their most ardent supporters, are supposed to supplant nations existing currencies and end central banks control over the money supply. Instead, individuals will be able to trade with each other in a decentralised, digital financial ecosystem. This is a good thing, they promise, because unlike states and their central banks, technology is incorruptible. Crypto-evangelists imagine technology as a replacement for social and political institutions.

But technology never replaces social and political behaviour; it merely alters the rules and norms we follow. To see this in action, one need only look at the plummeting value of Terra Luna, a crypto token that crashed by 98% in a day, causing some investors to lose their life savings; the plunging value of Bitcoin and Ethereum; or the countless scam victims whose non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been stolen. NFTs use the same blockchain technology as cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, to trade algorithmically generated illustrations that riff on a theme. On offer are cartoony Bored Apes, Lazy Lions and CryptoDickButts. Although NFTs are aesthetically uninspiring, they can sell for as much as $91.8m and as they have grown in value, scams involving stolen NFTs have abounded. Just last month the Bored Ape Yacht Clubs Instagram account was hacked, and the perpetrators stole about $3m worth of NFTs by directing followers to a fraudulent site.

When a scammer steals a CryptoDickButt, all the ecstatic manifestos about the decentralised power of the blockchain disappear, as scam victims plead with the handful of crypto exchanges to block the sale of their stolen NFT. The underlying technology and its tokens might be decentralised (and even that claim is questionable, given that cryptomarkets are wildly concentrated in the hands of a few hundred people), but where you can actually buy, use and sell these things is still limited to a few services and exchanges. This forces crypto fans to recognise a hard truth: currencies and contracts are only as valuable or enforceable as the people and institutions that recognise their legitimacy. Blockchain technology does not change this fact whatsoever.

In turn, states and institutions have begun to treat crypto as a potentially destabilising geopolitical force, capping and taxing the ravenous amounts of energy that crypto mines consume. The crypto mining industry already consumes 0.55% of global energy production about as much as a small country. Some have gone so far as to put the kibosh on blockchain technology altogether. China effectively banned the mining and use of cryptocurrencies in late 2021; prior to that, the country was far and away the largest bitcoin miner by volume, accounting for as much as 75% of global volume in September 2019. Its reasons for banning crypto are likely a combination of curbing the power consumption of crypto mines, protecting citizens from scams and controlling the flow of money both within the country and with Chinas trading partners. To date, China is the only government that has made an aggressive move towards ridding itself of this technology, but other nations face similar problems.

Russia has been learning this lesson in the last few months, starting in January when crypto miners set up shop in nearby Kazakhstan after getting kicked out of China. Their mining servers took a heavy toll on the central Asian nations electricity grid, using as much as 8% of its total energy-generating capacity as they swiftly became the second-biggest crypto producer behind the United States. Despite efforts to control the industry through energy taxation, citizens in Kazakhstan rioted over high fuel prices and unreliable electricity. Russian and neighbouring nations troops were called in to quell the violence in January, even as most of their attention was focused on Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine is proving to be different but an equally decisive moment for the geopolitics of crypto. The vice prime minister of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov, announced on 3 March that his government would issue an NFT to raise money for the war effort. So far, the Ukrainian government has raised $50m-worth of crypto since the war began, though there has been little reporting on exactly who is raising money for arms in Ukraine this way. Alex Bornyakov, deputy minister of digital transformation of Ukraine, has only said that most donations come from people, while others come from companies.

Russia itself is a big player in crypto, supplying 11% of the worlds Bitcoin mining capacity. Oligarchs in the country must be grateful, given that trading between the Russian rouble and crypto assets has doubled since the assault on Ukraine began. Getting around sanctions by converting rouble to crypto assets seems to be working for now, but that might end soon. Just as scam victims are quick to request that NFT trading sites blacklist a stolen Ape, crypto exchanges are under pressure to bar Russians from their platforms. Theres been robust debate in the industry as to whether this is antithetical to the whole idea of the technology, but the point is this: crypto has not brought about a financial revolution, its just given states and scam artists a new piece to play on the grand chessboard.

This is only the beginning. Churning out inscrutable financial assets using coal-powered electrical grids is contributing to a rapidly warming planet that is already experiencing the worst droughts seen in more than 1,000 years in California and supercharged monsoon seasons in India. All the ethereal imagery associated with crypto obscures the fact that it is made up of millions of tons of coal, copper, rare earth metals and plastic. The servers that mine crypto exist on the planet in real countries with laws, wars and resource shortages which are governed by politicians that have real commitments and interests. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we are beginning to see an emerging geopolitics of crypto that looks very much like the old world of banking and finance.

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NFT scams, toxic mines and lost life savings: the cryptocurrency dream is fading fast - The Guardian

Algorand's ALGO/USD price has increased 5.8% over the past 24 hours to $0.48, which is in the opposite direction of its trend over the past week, where it has experienced a 21.0% loss, moving from $0.61 to its current price. As it stands right now, the coin's all-time high is $3.56.

The chart below compares the price movement and volatility for Algorand over the past 24 hours (left) to its price movement over the past week (right). The gray bands are Bollinger Bands, measuring the volatility for both the daily and weekly price movements. The wider the bands are, or the larger the gray area is at any given moment, the larger the volatility.

The trading volume for the coin has decreased 70.0% over the past week, while the overall circulating supply of the coin has decreased 0.75% to over 6.81 billion. This puts its current circulating supply at an estimated 68.12% of its max supply, which is 10.00 billion. The current market cap ranking for ALGO is #27 at $3.31 billion.

Powered by CoinGecko API

This article was generated by Benzinga's automated content engine and reviewed by an editor.

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Cryptocurrency Algorand Up More Than 5% In 24 hours - Benzinga

Picture Credits: Local 10 News

In August, Miami marked an important day for the citizens of the city Miami and the crypto market, as the city mayor Francis Suarez rolled out a new cryptocurrency called MiamiCoin. Miamicoin was created by an organization called city coins. The step has come with the intension to portray cryptocurrencies as a community driven revenue stream. Not only Miami, multiple cities have come up with their cryptocurrency to empower the crypto market. Introduction of new cryptocurrencies in the market, will surely work as a fuel to run the market and take the market in the necessary direction.

Lets look at a tweet below.

Im so excited to announce that the @CityofMiami has received its first-ever disbursement from @mineCityCoins totaling $5.25M.

This is a historic moment for our city to collaborate with an innovative project that creates resources for our city through innovation not taxation.

Mayor Francis Suarez (@FrancisSuarez) February 2, 2022

From the tweet it is understood that Miamicoins worth $5.25 million was disbursed into the city funds. The mayor of Miami called it as a historic day. He also mentioned that, hes thrilled to know that, the city is marching towards development but by innovation and not by taxation.

Crypto crash and its effect on Miami Coin

Last week, on Thursday, the crypto market imploded in the most unexpected circumstances. After the crash all the cryptocurrencies from Bitcoins to Ethereum lost its value by at least 50%. Miamicoins was no different. Miamicoin lost almost 95% of its value from its September peak. The value of Miamicoins was around $0.0032 as of May 13. Miamicoins loss in value is surely turned out to be the worst news for the investors and has caused a lot of panic among the citizens of Miami.

Current status of Miamicoins

Miamicoins are now a speculative asset. The city and individual retailers do not appear to accept cryptocurrencies as payment for goods or services. However, Miamicoin has operated as a volatile asset that generates revenue for the government based on its valuation among cryptocurrency dealers.

Furture of Miamicoin.

Cryptocurrencies like Miamicoins require a lot of publicity and awareness creation. To aid this part, city mayor had taken a lot of steps to endorse Miamicoins in the right direction. There were a lot investors also interested in going with Miamicoins. But, the market crash has certainly brought in a lot of doubts in the minds of the investors. Moving forward, if Miamicoins had to stand a chance, endorsement, more and more awareness, stability in terms of usability and all other factors would play a quintessential role in bringing back Miamicoin to its peak and maybe achieve even greater heights.

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Cryptocurrency's revolution from the mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez Miamicoins! - Techstory

Cryptocurrency scam: Over 95 per cent of crypto-associated frauds reported on WazirX between October 2021 and March 2022 were based outside of the Blockchain ecosystem, the exchange said in a report today (May 17, 2022). Majority of these scams were traditional money market scams.

According to the second edition of its bi-annual WazirX Transparency Report, 40 percent of the frauds reported were ponzi schemes and social engineering scams. Twenty five percent frauds were related to impersonation and further 25 percent were phising/airdrop scams.

The report provides an overview of initiatives and partnerships that the company took in the last 6 months to safeguard investors.

The findings suggest an increase in the number of accounts getting locked due to legal action from the company in comparison to the last report.

Commenting on the report, WazirX CEO and founder Nischal Shetty said, The insights of the report indicate that even now the vast majority of scams are due to misinformation. They occur due to lack of awareness amongst users and indicate a requirement of large scale education and awareness programs to safeguard user interests.

ALSO READ | How to identify a dubious crypto project and protect your money, time

Aritra Sarkhel, Director of Public Policy at WazirX said, We are taking active steps to ensure smooth transitioning of our users to Web3.0 while providing user centric experience and data privacy. We have also been conducting trainings for law enforcement establishments across the country to make sure we support them to identify and track any such frauds.

(Crypto and other virtual digital assets are unregulated in India. Investing in them is risky. Please consult your financial advisor before investing in cryptocurrency)

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Trading crypto on WazirX? These are the most common cryptocurrency scams you should know to protect your money - The Financial Express

Venus Protocol, a decentralized money market, announced on Thursday evening that about $11 million had been lost due to people exploiting the historic collapse of the Luna cryptocurrency and its sister stablecoin UST.

The team behind the Venus Protocol released a statement confirming suspicions that had been floating around for hours about the potential mishandling of the fiasco around Luna.

Today, we became aware of errant price behavior for LUNA on Venus Protocol. Upon investigation, it was learned that the price feed had been paused by Chainlink due to extreme market conditions, Venus Protocol explained.

The price on Venus was last listed at about $0.107 while the market price was $0.01. In order to de-risk this situation, the protocol was paused using PauseGuardian via multisig. Upon this desyncing event, it was discovered that 2 accounts had suspiciously deposited a sum of 230,000,000 LUNA valued at over $24,000,000. Assets were borrowed totalling around $13,500,000.

Venus Protocol and several other platforms use Chainlink to provide its users with real-time price estimations of the tokens on its platform that are available for lending and borrowing.

But the tool began having issues with Luna on Thursday as the price continued to fall precipitously.

why does chainlink price oracle have min price setting? luna dropped below $0.1 but the chainlink oracle's min price is $0.1 https://t.co/kplZ66Ei54

As a result, it was possible to deposit UST and LUNA as collateral and borrow other tokens, with an underpriced collateral valuation. Liquidable accounts also depend on the Chainlink oracles, decentralized finance researcher Vali Dyor explained.

Chainlink released its own statement on the issues with its oracles, saying that the minimum value circuit breaker for the LUNA/USD Price Feeds was automatically triggered due to the unprecedented volatility across the cryptocurrency markets.

They explained that the circuit breaker is one component of their security efforts that is used to protect against flash crashes and other forms of market manipulation.

The attack on Venus Protocol was the reverse of a popular hack used to attack decentralized finance platforms.

Flash loan attacks which involve hackers borrowing funds that do not require collateral, buying a significant amount of a cryptocurrency to artificially raise its price and then offloading the coins before the loan is paid back and the borrower keeps any profit have been used to attack several platforms in recent months.

But Chainlink noted that the triggering of the circuit breaker was not a a manual intervention by node operators, Chainlink Labs, or other third parties.

Some users proactively paused their applications, while other users were informed of the impacted feeds and reminded to immediately pause their applications use of the feeds in accordance with best practices outlined in the Chainlink documentation, Chainlink said.

The LUNA/USD Price Feeds are now operational, but not recommended based on the assets risk profile. We will be learning from this set of market events to continually improve the protocols approach to circuit breaker parameters and other layers of security across various oracle networks.

Venus Protocol has decided to suspend the LUNA market effective immediately at the request of its users and has a Risk Fund that will be used to cover the shortfall caused.

All wallets that have a position with Luna will be disabled temporarily as they disable the market.

Subsequently, a VIP will be prepared asking the community to set the collateral factor for LUNA to 0, after which the Chainlink price feed will be re-enabled which will allow withdrawals and liquidations. Venus is also assessing the UST Situation carefully and will take further actions as necessary, they explained.

Early on Friday morning, the protocol announced that it was pausing for 48 hours and that no liquidations would be allowed.

Venus will unpause in 48 hours (per the time lock).

All liquidity is still contained within the protocol and no liquidations will take place during this period.

We will continue to provide updates until Venus is unpaused.

As the price of Luna cratered overnight, exchanges and markets were forced to make difficult choices on how to approach the cryptocurrency.

Binance stopped all trading of Luna and UST on its platform but the moves have done little to stop all cryptocurrency values from being depressed across the board.

DeFi platform Blizz Finance announced that it was attacked in the same way Venus Protocol was and will be shutting down because of the attack.

They said the protocol was drained before it could stop the process. More than $8.3 million was lost.

We have built on the AVAX ecosystem in good faith with the expectation that @chainlink oracles would behave as expected. Sorry to those affected.

Blizz has no treasury or development fund and a significant portion of the stolen assets belonged to our team. As such we regret to announce the protocol has been paused and we do not intend to resume operations, the protocol said in a statement.

We will be shutting down the front-end and closing official communication channels in the coming days. Funds held by the protocol in LUNA (around $1.5M or 25% or the protocol holding pre-exploit) will be distributed to users using a snapshot prior to when the attacks began.

Jonathan has worked across the globe as a journalist since 2014. Before moving back to New York City, he worked for news outlets in South Africa, Jordan and Cambodia. He previously covered cybersecurity at ZDNet and TechRepublic.

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Collapse of Luna cryptocurrency leads to $11 million exploit on Venus Protocol - The Record by Recorded Future

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Unfortunately, this also makes cryptocurrencies a target for scammers. In this article, we will take a look at the 10 biggest cryptocurrency scams and why they happen. We will also provide some tips on how to avoid being scammed yourself.

Crypto scams are becoming more and more common as the popularity of digital currencies grows. While there are many legitimate uses for cryptocurrency, scammers are increasingly using them to take advantage of unsuspecting victims. Heres a look at some of the most common crypto scams and how to avoid them.

In 2014, was one of the biggest scams. The worlds largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, collapsed after it was revealed that 850,000 Bitcoins had been stolen. The hack caused a major setback for the cryptocurrency community, and it took years for Mt. Gox to finally be able to pay back its creditors.

Bitconnect was a cryptocurrency lending platform that promised incredible returns to its investors. However, it turned out to be a Ponzi scheme, and when the platform finally collapsed, many people lost their life savings.

The DAO was a decentralized autonomous organization built on Ethereum that raised over $150 million in funding. However, due to a flaw in its code, it was hacked and 3.6 million ETH were stolen. This led to a hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain.

In 2017, a hacker exploited a flaw in the Parity wallet software to steal 150,000 ETH. This was a major setback for the Ethereum community, and it led to Parity wallets being blacklisted by many exchanges.

In 2016, the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex was hacked and 120,000 BTC were stolen. This was one of the largest cryptocurrency hacks at the time, and it caused the price of Bitcoin to drop by 20%.

In 2018, the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck was hacked and over $500 million worth of NEM tokens were stolen. This was one of the largest cryptocurrency hacks in history, and it led to stricter regulations being imposed on cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan.

In 2014, after the Mt. Gox hack was revealed, the exchange attempted to sell off its remaining Bitcoin to pay back its creditors. However, due to the low price of Bitcoin at the time, this only caused the price to drop further.

In 2017, it was revealed that The Pirate Bay had been secretly using its visitors CPUs to mine cryptocurrency. This led to a lot of anger from users, and The Pirate Bay was eventually forced to remove the mining software.

OneCoin was one of the biggest scams that promised incredible returns to its investors. However, it turned out to be a Ponzi scheme, and when the platform finally collapsed, many people lost their life savings.

In 2018, the cryptocurrency exchange BitGrail was hacked and over $170 million worth of Nano tokens were stolen. This was one of the largest cryptocurrency hacks at the time, and it caused the price of Nano to drop by over 50%.

If youre thinking about investing in cryptocurrency, its important to do your research and only invest in reputable currencies. Be sure to check out reviews of any cryptocurrency exchange or wallet before using it, and beware of any emails or websites that look suspicious. By taking these precautions, you can help protect yourself from becoming a victim of a scam.

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The 10 Biggest Cryptocurrency Scams: Why They Happen - Crixeo

Cryptocurrency has moved into the mainstream as an investment asset class. If you're looking to add some to your portfolio, it may be difficult to figure out how to get started. Crypto is currently unregulated, and investing in it can feel more Wild West than Wall Street.

Read on to learn the basics of cryptocurrency and how to get started investing in it.

Cryptocurrency is a type of digital currency that doesn't rely on a central authority to verify transactions or create new units. Instead, it relies on cryptography to prevent counterfeiting.

Blockchain technology supports cryptocurrency. A blockchain consists of individual blocks of data that can contain information about anything, such as transactions made in a specific cryptocurrency. Each block of data makes a reference to the previous block, creating a chain of blocks. The reference uses cryptography to ensure the chain remains immutable so hackers are unable to change data.

There are thousands of cryptocurrencies in existence right now. That's largely due to the ease of creating a new currency by using smart contracts. New coins can simply piggyback on an existing blockchain that already has a well-established network of computers verifying blocks.

Before you go ahead and buy some coins or tokens just because somebody says it's a good investment, it will pay to do some research.

First of all, it's important to understand that picking a good cryptocurrency is not like picking a good stock. A stock represents ownership in a company that creates profits for its shareholders, or at least has the potential to do so. Owning a cryptocurrency represents ownership in a digital asset with zero intrinsic value.

What makes a cryptocurrency increase or decrease in price is simple supply and demand. If there's increased demand and a limited supply increase, the price goes up. If supply becomes constrained, price goes up, and vice versa. So, when evaluating a cryptocurrency, the most important questions to answer are how the supply increases, and what will drive demand for the coin higher.

You can answer those questions by reading the white paper that a cryptocurrency team publishes to attract interest in their project. Look at the roadmap for a project and see if anything could spark an increase in demand. Research the team behind a project and see if they have the skills to execute their vision. Try to find a community of people already investing in the cryptocurrency and gauge their sentiment.

It's also important to consider how much money has already flowed into a cryptocurrency. If the market cap is already very high, there may not be much potential growth left. A high price will curb demand and increase supply as early investors look to take money off the table.

Image source: Getty Images.

Once you've found a cryptocurrency you think will make a good investment, it's time to start buying.

The first step is to open an account with a cryptocurrency exchange. Most stock brokers don't support trading in cryptocurrency. Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) is one of the most popular and beginner-friendly exchanges in the U.S. Other options include Gemini, and newer brokers such as Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD) and SoFi (NASDAQ:SOFI) support crypto. Just be sure the exchange you want to use also supports the cryptocurrency you want to buy.

Once you've funded your account with fiat currency, you can make an order to buy your cryptocurrency. Orders on an exchange work the same way as orders in the stock market. The exchange will match your buy order with someone making a sell order at the same price and make the trade.

Once your trade is complete, the exchange will hold your cryptocurrency for you in a custodial wallet.

Buying cryptocurrency is the easy part. As a crypto investor, you have to be prepared for volatility. Crypto, in general, is more volatile than traditional asset classes such as stocks. Price swings of 10% or more in just a few hours are very common.

Additionally, you should consider how much of your portfolio you ultimately want to allocate to a specific cryptocurrency and to the asset class in general. With the volatility of crypto, be sure to give yourself wide bands of acceptable allocations. If your investments fall out of those bands, be sure to rebalance.

Investing in cryptocurrency has a few advantages:

But there are some big disadvantages for investors as well:

As a beginning cryptocurrency investor, you shouldn't try to find a diamond in the rough. You should get your feet wet with more established cryptocurrencies that have built-out networks to support them. That will allow you to get more familiar with the mechanics of cryptocurrency investing, as well as how it fits into your portfolio.

Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) is an easy place to start. Every cryptocurrency exchange will support trading in Bitcoin. It's well-established, and you know what you're getting with Bitcoin. It's nothing fancy, just digital cash, but it has a first-mover advantage that had made it widely adopted. That gives Bitcoin a competitive advantage when it comes to being actually usable as a medium of exchange.

Ether (CRYPTO:ETH) is also a good choice for beginner investors. Ethereum's technology is behind most DeFi projects, which use the Ethereum blockchain to execute smart contracts and provide financial services without a central authority. Anytime a user wants to write a smart contract to the blockchain, they'll have to pay Ether to do so. Increased adoption of DeFi applications will lead to greater demand for Ether.

A third option for beginner investors is Cardano (CRYPTO:ADA). Cardano offers an alternative to Ethereum that's designed to be more energy efficient by using a proof-of-stake system to verify blocks on the blockchain. As such, it currently has much lower transaction fees than Ethereum. Additionally, Cardano has a hard cap on the total supply of the token similar to Bitcoin. That means the supply could become constrained in the future, which will drive the price higher.

Investing in crypto requires you to do your research and be confident enough in your investment to hang on during what's sure to be a wild ride. If you can do that, the payoff could be worth it as the expected returns are higher than most other asset classes.

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How to Invest in Cryptocurrency | The Motley Fool