Category: Europe

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Australia Europe Gold Coast Scams

Modern Assets Australia Sued For 800K After Deal Gone Bad

Modern Assets Australia, a cryptocurrency advisory and research company based on the Gold Coast, is being sued in the Federal Court of Australia for $800k plus damages by a French man by the name of Alexandre Raffin, following a cryptocurrency buying deal that fell through and ultimately ended up with him getting scammed.

Agreement Not Reached, Direct Contact Established

Alexandre Raffin, who runs the cryptocurrency brokerage firm GAINS Associates out of Paris, was originally supposed to receive $800k worth of the cryptocurrency Klaytn from Mordern Assets, in exchange for fiat. However, the deal went nowhere for an undisclosed reason – and as a result, Raffin was introduced directly to the supplier.

A new deal was reached with the mysterious supplier, who was allegedly supposed to provide 937,500 Klaytn in exchange for about $93k.

Unfortunately, the mysterious contact made off with the money, and went off the grid, deleting his messaging accounts.

At the time, Klaytn was only worth about 10 cents – but the cryptocurrency has increased in value 30 times over. In other words, if the deal had not fallen through, Mr. Raffin and his associates would have been nearly 2 million in the green, seeing as $93k worth of Klaytn at the time is now worth around $2.8 million.

Mr. Raffin says that although he’s been in the crypto world for a while – and as a result, is no stranger to losses and risky moves – this was a huge loss, even for him. He’s paid investors for the loss out of his own pocket, which was a big blow to his assets.

“I’m a pretty tough guy. I’ve become quite desensitised to money through these years in crypto. You lose some, you win some. But this was hard, even for me. We thought they did their due diligence. It seems they didn’t do research on their own contact. Maybe they’re just very good at marketing.”

Mr. Raffin originally enlisted a blockchain investigation company to help him get his assets back – but when that failed, he took it up with the courts.

On their end, Modern Assets have denied the allegations and have stated via a spokesman that they would be “vigorously defending” themselves in the Federal Court (which is yet to determine the claim).

Categories
Bitcoin Blockchain Europe

Estonia And Colombia Decide To Host Bitcoin Whitepaper

Last week, Craig Wright – who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto – had his lawyers send takedown requests to multiple hosts of the Bitcoin Whitepaper, including Bitcoincore and Bitcoin.org.

Dispute Regarding Identity

Although Bitcoincore complied with the takedown request, Bitcoin.org refused to, stating that there is no proof that he really is Satoshi – although if he were, he could prove himself to be him.

In fact, Satoshi Nakamoto has a publicly-known PGP key that Mr. Wright could use to verify his claim, if he truly is Satoshi Nakamoto.

“We will continue hosting the Bitcoin whitepaper and won’t be silenced or intimidated. Others hosting the whitepaper should follow our lead in resisting these false allegations. We believe these claims are without merit, and refuse to [take it down]. By surrendering in this way, the Bitcoin Core project has lent ammunition to Bitcoin’s enemies, engaged in self-censorship, and compromised its integrity.”

Since then, multiple other websites and entities have made the decision to host the Bitcoin whitepaper, considering that Craig Wright – who is the chief scientist at nChain – is demanding something that goes against the principles Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general have been founded on.

Among these entities, the governments of Colombia and Estonia have chosen to host the whitepaper on their servers.

Estonia has been climbing their way to the top of the fintech world for quite some time now, so this decision should not come as a surprise.

Although not on behalf of the government, Patrick McHenry of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee has also decided to host the whitepaper on his official congressional government webpage.

The original whitepaper was published under a free and permissive MIT liscence, and many believe that the copyright claims go against everything blockchain technology was founded upon.

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Australia Crypto News Europe Payments

Native Support For AUD Coming Soon To Neobank Strike

A Chicago-based neobank startup capitalizing on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, Zap Inc. has launched native support for EUR, GBP, and CHF on their banking and wallet service Strike – and announced that native support for AUD and CAD will be coming soon.

Smaller Fees For International Currency Exchange

As the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin is starting to show it’s age, technologically speaking – which is why the Lightning Network was proposed as a solution to the number 1 cryptocurrencies’ scalability issues. It  is a “layer 2” payment protocol that operates through a peer-to-peer system in order to make micropayments of cryptocurrency using a network of bidirectional payment channels without delegating custody of funds.

The neobank intends to take advantage of this in order to eliminate the often arbitrary exchange rates used to send money through banks – or fast payment processors like PayPal. Although countries that are part of the SEPA network can often perform banking transactions almost instantly, long delays are part and parcel for many dealing with international transfers.

Jack Mallers – the Chicago-based founder of Zap – stated that the goal of his company remains in line with the original vision of Bitcoin, namely to allow large numbers of people to access the financial system quickly and cheaply.

“This will allow billions of people around the world to access the financial system in a simple low-cost way, fulfilling the original vision and promise of Bitcoin. [..] We can move any physical value anywhere in the world for no variable cost. Transaction finality from one point to another for free.”

Zap are not the first company using blockchain for quicker and easier money transfers. MoneyGram uses Ripple’s On Demand Liquidity (ODL) solutions for some money transfers, although they have denied using it for direct transfer of consumer funds, digital or not.

However, the current predicament Ripple Labs find themselves in may give other blockchain-powered payment methods some time in the spotlight – and it may be Zap’s time to shine.

Categories
Blockchain Europe Stablecoins

Libra Aiming To Launch In January

The Libra Association – based in Geneva, Switzerland and made up of 27 members – is expecting approval from Swiss financial authorities to launch their stablecoin project.

Backed By Facebook

Although the Libra Association is made up of 27 members, the most notorious member of the group is none other than Facebook – who revealed the project last year.

According to the Financial Times, The new stablecoin digital token Libra will be backed by the US Dollar and hopes to better the world of payments. It’s also reasonable to assume it will become a widely used payment option for advertisements run on Facebook, as well as Instagram.

Other noteworthy members of the Libra Association such as Visa have since ditched the project.

The Facebook-backed digital currency was meant to do more than it probably will when it launches, as financial regulators – especially those of European Union member states raised concerns about a stablecoin backed by one of the world’s largest corporations.

Fearing that Libra could erode financial stability across the globe, a torrent of backlash forced Facebook and its associates to scale back the project to its tentative current form.

Bruno Le Maire – the French Finance Minister – is one of the principal detractors of the project, arguing that Facebook has such a far-reaching influence all over the globe that allowing the cryptocurrency to be traded in the European Union would have serious consequences.

“All these concerns around libra are serious. So I want to say this with a lot of clarity: In these conditions, we cannot authorize the development of libra on European soil.”

It remains to be seen if Libra will now be allowed to launch within the European Union and worldwide in its scaled-back form. Even if it is, it will now have to compete with CBDCs being tentatively developed In China, Australia, the USA, and elsewhere.

Categories
Australia Crypto News Europe Payments

Digital Payment Platform Azimo Launches In Australia

Azimo – a payment platform headquartered in Amsterdam – has recently launched in Australia.

 A country known for it’s thriving payment platform industry, Holland is well-known across Europe for its innovative banking solutions such as iDEAL or bunq.

A Cryptocurrency-Friendly Platform For Payments

Although not as well-known in the industry as the aforementioned platforms, Azimo has been operating in Europe for the past 8 years with little to no hitches – and bring something special to the market.

Azimo is a user of Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity Solution (ODL).

Ripple’s ODL service uses the XRP cryptocurrency asset to provide instant payments in over 45 countries and can reduce liquidity costs by up to 60% when compared to old-school banking practices.

Dora Ziambra – the Chief Operations Officer of Azimo – stated that Azimo identified Australia and the APAC region in general as a more attractive market than the USA, likely owing to the fact that the Australian public and private sectors as a whole have proven far more interested in blockchain technology than their NA counterparts.

According to Richard Ambrose – the CEO of Azimo – the use of digital assets to reduce payment SLAs has interested them for quite some time.

“We’ve been interested for a long time in the potential of digital assets like XRP to make cross-border payments better for customers. Ripple’s ODL solution has significantly reduced the cost and delivery time for cross-border transfers, and our customers are seeing the benefits. As more banks and financial institutions use ODL, we believe it has the potential to replace current methods of foreign exchange trading and to reduce settlement time to close to zero.”

Boasting a money transfer SLA of under 24 hours, Azimo seems poised to be a competitive choice for Australians looking to send and receive quick payments worldwide. 

Categories
Cryptocurrencies Cryptocurrency Law Europe

Europol Crypto Raids Result In Aussie Arrest

On the 15th of October, a Europol sting operation led by Portuguese law enforcement with some help from the US Department of Justice resulted in over 40 warrants and subsequent arrests.

Assets were seized, however, at the moment the exact sum has not been confirmed by the law enforcement agencies of the countries involved. Computers used for the operations and other hardware —  including cryptocurrency mining rigs in Bulgaria —  have also been seized.

International Cooperation

In the wake of the operation that saw cooperation between 14 countries, an arrest has also been made on Australian soil. At the moment, however, there are no additional details pertaining to the arrest, due to privacy laws. 

The sting operation — named Operation 2BaGoldMule —  was carried out on members of the QQAAZZ cybercrime group.

Comprised of several layers of members mainly operating out of Latvia, Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania, the UK, Spain, and Belgium, the QQAAZZ network ran and maintained hundreds of corporate and personal bank accounts — as well as crypto wallets —  from all over the world to receive money from cybercriminals who gained the funds from illicit activities, whether through classic theft, identity theft or scamming.  

The funds were then bounced around through the QQAAZZ-controlled account network and sometimes converted to cryptocurrency using ‘tumbling’ services in order to launder the illicit funds — before returning the now clean funds to the thieves, minus a fee of up to 50%.  

QQAAZZ advertised themselves as a “global, complicit bank drops service” on Russian hacking where cybercriminals, hackers, and networkers would gather to offer their skills — or find the right person for an online heist. The teams behind some of the world’s most harmful malware in recent years — such as Dridex, Trickbot, and GozNym — are some of QQAAZZ’s many clients.

Edvardas Šileris — the Head of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre — stated that the 2BaGoldMule operation was just one of many examples of how a coordinated response from strategic partners worldwide can stop millions from being stolen by bad actors. 

“Cybercriminals are constantly exploring new possibilities to abuse technology and financial frameworks to victimize millions of users in a moment from anywhere in the world. Today’s operation shows how through a proper law enforcement international coordination we can turn the table on these criminals and bring them to justice.”

The first exact charges should be confirmed in the near future by the United States Attorney Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania.