Coinbase Announces Phone Support for Account Takeovers

On Thursday, crypto exchange Coinbase announced phone support in the event of an account takeover.

Today, we’re beginning to roll out phone support for ATOs, to provide customers with a live agent to kick off an investigation. If you believe you’re a victim of an ATO, please call +1 888 908–7930 or visit our support page to protect your account and get help.

United Wholesale Mortgage to Accept Bitcoin Payments by End of 2021

United Wholesale Mortgage is the second-largest mortgage lender in the U.S., and it will begin to accept cryptocurrency payments by the end of this year.

“I think we’re starting with Bitcoin, but we’re looking at Ethereum and others. We’re going to walk before we run, but at the same time, we are definitely a leader in technology and innovation and we are always trying to be the best and the leader in everything we do.

Mac Gaming, Crypto Credit Cards, iOS 15, with Jeff Butts - ACM 553

Bryan Chaffin and Jeff Butts talk about the current state of Mac gaming, with Jeff focusing on improved Mac support at Steam. They also dive deeper into crypto credit cards where you can either spend your crypto and/or earn cryptocurrency rewards like Bitcoin on your purchases. And, Jeff has been deep into iOS 15 betas, and he talks about some of his favorite new features.

Ledger Crypto Wallet Now Supports Staking ETH With Lido

Owners of the Ledger hardware wallet can now stake their ETH through Lido as it transitions to Ethereum 2.0.

By staking ETH with Lido, you don’t need to own 32 ETH to become a network validator. Lido allows users to participate in the network with any amount of ETH. You don’t need to maintain complex infrastructure whilst preserving the liquidity of your ETH. Indeed, for each Ether you’ll stake through LIDO you’ll receive stETH in exchange.

USDC Co-Creator ‘Circle’ Wants to Become a Traditional Bank

Circle, along with Coinbase, operates USD Coin (USDC) a cryptocurrency that has its valued pegged to the US dollar. Coins of this nature are known as stablecoins. Circle has announced its intentions to become a traditional, FDIC-insured bank. Could this pave the way for USDC to become the de facto digital currency of the U.S.? Axios has a good summary.

Circle chief strategy officer Dante Disparte tells Axios that the company hasn’t yet even properly initiated the process of applying to become a bank; it’s just announced its intention to do so. Disparte says they’re willing to do “whatever the policymakers want.”

DeFi Platform ‘Poly Network’ Hacked, $600 Million in Crypto Stolen

Poly Network is a cross-chain decentralized finance platform and operates on the Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. It suffered a hack recently in which approximately US$600 million in crypto was stolen.

About one hour after Poly announced the hack on Twitter, the hacker tried to move assets including USDT through the Ethereum address into liquidity pool Curve.fi, records show. The transaction was rejected. Meanwhile, close to $100 million has been moved out of the Binance Smart Chain address in the past 30 minutes and deposited into liquidity pool Ellipsis Finance.

Malware Dubbed ‘Raccoon Stealer’ Targets Crypto Wallets

Researchers at Sophos have been tracking a piece of malware called Raccoon Stealer. A recent update means it can target cryptocurrency wallets.

Raccoon can collect passwords, cookies, and the “autofill” text for websites, including credit card data and other personal identifying information that may be stored by the browser. Thanks to a recent “clipper” update, Raccoon Stealer also now targets cryptocurrency wallets, and can retrieve or drop files on infected systems.

Ethereum’s EIP 1559 Upgrade Goes Live on August 4

A major update to the Ethereum blockchain known as EIP 1159 will go live on August 4. Reuters explains what it means.

EIP-1559 is a software upgrade that fundamentally changes the way transactions are processed on Ethereum by providing clear pricing on transaction fees in ether paid to miners to validate transactions and “burning” a small amount of those tokens. The burned tokens will be permanently taken out of circulation.

By reducing the number of tokens, the currencies that remain in circulation become rarer and more valuable.

Oil Producer ‘Wesco’ Uses Excess Natural Gas to Mine Bitcoin

Utah-based oil company Wesco Operating Co. is using excess gas (natural, not Ethereum) to power a Bitcoin mining operation.

Rather than being “flared,” or burned, to eliminate it, the natural gas is burned to run electrical generators, which in turn power two mobile data centers that process Bitcoin transactions, Wesco representative Steve Degenfelder explained.

The company has connected with a Chicago-based firm, EZ Blockchain, to acquire the two Bitcoin “miners,” portable data processors tied to the Internet.

Anonymous Wars With China With Crypto Token ‘Anon Inu’

Hackivist collective Anonymous is back, and its warring with China and possibly Elon Musk with a cryptocurrency token dubbed “Anon Inu.”

In a recently released video, Anonymous started by touching upon the ongoing crackdown on Bitcoin mining in China. The “sudden flip” by Chinese authorities regarding mining was not only shocking but also bloody for the Bitcoin market.

Apart from China, Anonymous did not mention specifics about waging a war against Elon Musk, but looks like the #Dogefather may meet his match soon in this so-called “meme-war” against “Anon Inu token.”

Over 170 Android Cryptocurrency Apps are Scams

A recent report shows that Android has a cryptocurrency scam problem. These apps claim to help you mine Bitcoin “in the cloud.”

The apps work by offering a virtual dashboard that lets you monitor the cryptocurrency mining rate. The same dashboard shows you how much virtual coin has been generated. However, Lookout examined the computer code in the apps along with the network traffic, and found the coin balance displayed was actually fictitious.