Bitcoin (BTC)

Major Darknet Marketplace for Stolen Cards Shuts Down After Making Over $1 Billion in Bitcoin

20/01/2021 by Idelto Editor

Major Stolen Card Darknet Marketplace Joker's Stash Shuts Down After Making a Bitcoin Billionaire Fortune in Revenues

The longest-running marketplace for stolen credit cards on the darknet has announced the shutting down of its services. The administrator of Joker’s Stash, founded in 2014, stated that the site would be taken down in February.

Site Generated Over $1 Billion in BTC ‘Over the Past Years,’ Claims a Security Research Firm

According to the announcement made through its forum, the admin known as “Jokerstash” stated that “it’s time for us to leave forever.” Stash’s users could spend their account balances until Feb. 15, before the admin proceeds to “wipe all our servers and backups.”

Jokerstash made it clear that they will “never ever open again.” However, the admin didn’t provide more details on the motivation behind the closure.

According to the figures revealed by Gemini Advisory, the site has been one of the most profitable marketplaces on the darknet. Over the past years, Joker’s Stash generated more than $1 billion in bitcoin (BTC) revenue, said the report.

Possible Reasons Behind the Marketplace’s Closure

Although the closure’s announcement didn’t reveal details on the reasons behind the decision, Gemini Advisory has some hypotheses. One of them is the recent bitcoin’s price spike across the markets, as Jokerstash is an early bitcoin advocate. The firm detailed:

This actor was already likely to be among the wealthiest cybercriminals, and the spike may have multiplied their fortune, earning them enough money to retire. However, the true reason behind this shutdown remains unclear.

However, the FBI and Interpol’s pressure on the marketplace could have added some weight to the admin’s decision. In 2020, law enforcement seized the web domains and blockchain addresses tied to Joker’s Stash. The admin also claimed to have caught coronavirus in October.

Over the past year, Gemini Advisory stated that the darknet marketplace added more than 40 million new stolen card records, most of them from physical transactions at a point-of-sale. Meanwhile, stolen online payment data came from Magecart breaches or phishing incidents.

On Jan. 12, news.Bitcoin.com reported that the authorities in seven countries and Europol jointly took down Darkmarket, one of the largest darknet marketplaces. The action was taken after the marketplace’s alleged operator was arrested in Germany.

What do you think about the revenues accumulated by this darknet marketplace? Let us know in the comments section below.

Crypto Prices Consolidate, Handful of Altcoin Markets Pop, Bitcoin Accumulation Addresses Rise

18/01/2021 by Idelto Editor

The price of bitcoin and a number of digital assets have been consolidating this week, after a number of crypto markets dropped over 25% the week prior. The entire crypto-economy is hovering just below the $1 trillion mark at $987 billion, gaining 1.3% during the last 24 hours.

Crypto Asset Markets Consolidate

A good number of crypto-asset markets have been meandering about in a state of consolidation, while a few tokens have seen significant gains in recent days. At the time of publication, bitcoin (BTC) has been exchanging hands for $36,400 per unit with an overall market valuation of around $677 billion. BTC’s market cap gives the crypto asset a 66% dominance rating in comparison to all the alternative digital currency valuations in existence. At the current price BTC is up 4% during the last seven days, 54% for the 30-day span, 209% during the last three months, and 324% over 12 months.

Ethereum (ETH) is trading for $1,236 per ether and holds a market valuation of around $141 billion today. ETH traders are still in the green with a gain of 15% during the week, 90% for the month, 239% for the 90-day span, and over 651% during the last year. The stablecoin tether (USDT) holds the third-largest market cap today, but below the tether market is the digital asset polkadot (DOT).

Polkadot now holds the fourth largest market cap today as each token swaps for $17 per unit. Below the DOT market cap is XRP which is currently trading for $0.28 per coin. XRP is down less than a percentage for the week but also down over 50% during the 30-day span.

Cardano (ADA) follows XRP, and each ADA token is trading for $0.37 per unit. ADA has performed considerably well in recent weeks gathering 36% this week. Over the month ADA prices have improved by 108% and 266% during the 90-day span. Litecoin (LTC) is currently trading for $148 per coin and the crypto asset is up over 9% during the seven-day span. Bitcoin cash (BCH) is swapping for $492 per unit at the time of publication jumping over 5% this week. BCH has an overall market cap of around $9.19 billion and has gained 58% in the last 30 days.

‘No Surprise to See Bitcoin Recover Relatively Easily Last Week,’ Accumulation Addresses Rise

While the price of a great number of crypto assets dropped last week, mainstream pundits said that the crypto economy was headed for a bear market. However, crypto analysts disagree with the bear market assessment and BTC’s recovery last week highlighted that things are still very bullish. “Instead of a tumultuous week with talks of crashes and bubbles, last week was relatively steady for bitcoin for the most part,” Etoro’s Simon Peters explained in a note to investors. “Starting at just $30,000, bitcoin rose to $40,000 on Thursday, before dipping again over the weekend. It currently sits at $36,389,” the market analyst added.

Peters continued:

Whilst some commentators have pointed out that, from a technical standpoint, we are currently in a bear market, I don’t personally ascribe to that view. This level of volatility is no different from what we have seen in previous bull runs, but because bitcoin is at such a substantial price, the fluctuations in dollar terms appear much more significant. In percentage terms, they are not. The backdrop for bitcoin remains supportive and so, to myself and to many in the community, it was not a surprise to see bitcoin recover relatively easily last week from its setback.

Meanwhile, one analyst said that BTC has a few days of consolidation and in the interim altcoins will probably see some action. “Three days until bitcoin reaches any ‘relevant’ apex – this means three more days of having fun with altcoins,” Teddy Cleps said to his 51,000 Twitter followers on Saturday.

The CTO at Glassnode explained to his Twitter followers that a large amount of BTC is being sent to “accumulation addresses.”

“2.7 million BTC are held in accumulation addresses– that’s an increase of 17% in the past year,” the Glassnode CTO, Rafael Schultze-Kraft, recently tweeted. “These are addresses that have received at least 2 incoming transactions and have never spend funds. Miner and exchange addresses are excluded,” the researcher added.

Want to check out all the crypto market action with prices in real-time? Check out our crypto market aggregator at markets.Bitcoin.com.

What do you think about cryptocurrency market movements on Monday? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Dollar-Cost Averaging Crypto Profits: Low-Risk Bitcoin Investing Without All the Stress

17/01/2021 by Idelto Editor

Bitcoin prices and a number of other digital assets have grown significantly in value during the last decade. Some people have made millions and even billions throwing down everything they have during the cryptocurrency’s earliest days of price discovery. However, there’s another method of investing called dollar-cost averaging or DCA, a scheme that’s considered far less risky and can still bring a cryptocurrency investor decent profits over the long term.

Ever since bitcoin jumped over the crypto asset’s all-time high (ATH) recorded in 2017, the digital currency has continued to gather a higher value after surpassing the $20k zone. Then bitcoin (BTC) tapped a new ATH ten days ago, after the crypto asset jumped over the $42k range. Additionally, a number of alternative digital assets are nearing their 2017 ATHs and some newer coins like Polkadot and Chainlink also touched price highs.

Now there are many people who were able to invest in bitcoin, ethereum, bitcoin cash, and many other coins early, and this has produced significant gains for these risk-takers. But there is another method of investment that people have been leveraging for a very long time called dollar-cost averaging or DCA.

The most important #Bitcoin advice you’ll ever get. pic.twitter.com/hFU7t3gYPJ

— Documenting Bitcoin 📄 (@DocumentBitcoin) January 14, 2021

Essentially, the DCA method of purchasing involves buying a set sum of cryptocurrency at regularly scheduled intervals. This contrast is quite different than throwing all the funds down at once and waiting for profits. An example of DCA buying would be to purchase $10 in bitcoin per week, for a three year or longer period of time.

Buying in this manner is considered less of a strain on emotions and far less risky as well. The scheduled intervals of buying take place no matter what the cost of bitcoin (BTC) or the other cryptocurrency costs at that moment in time. Then if you aggregate the number of purchases per week, and standard price from the purchases over the three-year period, the investment cost will be measured in a mean average.

Moreover, depending on the crypto asset’s market performance a DCA investor can do extremely well for themselves in a much slower and less risky manner.

There’s also a website that can help you estimate the interval of purchases over time and the mean average over the course of the time period. The web portal dcabtc.com offers a calculator in order to figure out your DCA metrics over time, and if you’ve already been leveraging the DCA scheme you can check the profits of your current BTC investment.

Here’s a great example of DCA purchasing over time with an investment of $1 per week into BTC during the last nine years. Dcabtc.com explains that purchasing $1 of BTC since January 2012, every week for nine years starting nine years ago, would have turned $470 into $289,295 using today’s exchange rates. That’s a whopping 61,452% gain in value over the course of a nine-year span.

Now if the person started three years ago, and invested $10 per week into BTC every week for the last three years would have seen a 361% increase. That method of DCA purchasing would have made $1,570 turn into $7,249 during the three-year timeframe. Of course, the period when you start investing does make a difference for both DCA and just throwing down all the funds at once.

Timing is key and sometimes earlier doesn’t make a difference either, because of bitcoin’s price fluctuations. A good example of this is if someone invested one large sum into BTC on March 12, 2020, at a low of $3,800 per unit. Using today’s BTC exchange rate shows that investment would produce a whopping 821% over the course of time up until January 17, 2021.

Dollar-cost averaging is still far less stressful, because a person can invest without putting much emotional energy into playing the lows and highs like the aforementioned lump-sum investment. DCA investors don’t have to put a lot of time and effort into studying market charts, keeping an eye on breaking crypto-related news stories, and keeping tabs with industry heavyweights. The funds are simply invested without many time-consuming activities, and the investment can be calculated over extended periods of time without much worry.

The crypto investor who calculates with a DCA approach doesn’t care that the market is not predictable and the stress relieved from trying to time crypto markets is insurmountable. Throwing it all down at once and trading cryptocurrencies successfully takes time and research, things that some people just don’t have the time to apply.

A DCA investor understands that the price of bitcoin changes very often, and catching highs and lows can be difficult. But long term perspectives, logarithmic growth curves, and overall rising interest shows holding digital assets for a long period of time has so far, been an extremely profitable means of investing.

What do you think about dollar-cost averaging? Do you use this method of investment or do you day trade highs and lows? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

A Russian Operation Is Mining Bitcoin in the Arctic Circle for Cheap Electricity

16/01/2021 by Idelto Editor

A Russian company is leveraging the Siberian city of Norilsk located above the Arctic Circle in order to mine bitcoins. Bitcluster, the owner of the crypto mining operation, plans to expand the firm’s activities after launching the facility in late 2020. According to the company’s website, the datacenter is getting electricity rates as low as $0.03 per kilowatt-hour (kWh).

Mining Precious Crypto Assets in the Arctic Circle

This week the Russian mining operation Bitcluster was featured in a Bloomberg video-report that highlights the company’s Norilsk bitcoin mine. The city of Norilsk is considered one of the world’s most northerly settlements and it is known for hosting the metal mining company MMC Norilsk Nickel PJSC. MMC Norilsk Nickel is the world’s largest palladium producer and it also produces colossal amounts of nickel, copper, and platinum.

Now Bitcluster is bringing the polar region a new type of precious-asset mining by setting up shop mining cryptocurrency in Norilsk.

A Russian Operation Is Mining Bitcoin in the — The Siberian city of Norilsk is home to a permanent population of 175,000 and during nickel and palladium mining season the Arctic Circle area can have around 220,000 people.

Bitcluster’s cofounder Vitaly Borschenko detailed in an interview that the Norilsk bitcoin mine is being contracted by international interests located all around the world. Despite the fact that the arctic region of Norilsk is extremely cold, the temperatures benefit the bitcoin mining operations according to Bitcluster as it helps the cooling aspect of the process.

Bitcluster’s webpage details that the company uses a special canopy in order to protect the facility from the cold corridor. “The warm air from the miners is mixed to prevent the snow from falling,” Bitcluster notes.

Polar Region Power Is 25% Cheaper Than Russia’s Grid, Norilsk Creates Its Own Electricity Via Natural Gas and Hydropower

The Russian firm says it also leverages Antminer S19s and they constructed modular data centers in order to accommodate the ASIC devices. The Bloomberg video-report also shows that the company is getting very cheap electricity by mining in Norilsk.

According to the recent report, Electric is 25% cheaper than anywhere else in Russia, as Norilsk creates its own electricity. Natural gas and hydropower is the most dominant source of electricity in the Arctic Circle territory. Bitcluster’s site notes that the firm is obtaining electricity for as low as 2.75 rubles or $0.039 per kWh.

The report also indicates that the bitcoin mining operation is using an abandoned Norilsk Nickel plant that was closed in 2016. “The place is perfect for crypto mining: it’s cold and the area has [a] power supply that’s not linked to any of Russia’s power grids,” Borschenko detailed.

Bitcluster also claims, that next to the metal mining firm Norilsk Nickel, the bitcoin mining operation will be the Norilsk region’s second-largest power consumer. The company uses repurposed shipping containers to house the Antminers dedicating hashpower to the Bitcoin network. At current exchange rates, the network’s difficulty, and $0.039 per kWh, an Antminer S19 (110 Th/s) will produce $25 per day in bitcoin.

What do you think about the bitcoin mining operation in the Arctic Circle region of Norilsk? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Bahamas-Based Deltec Bank Holds a ‘Large’ Bitcoin Position

16/01/2021 by Idelto Editor

Bahamas-based Deltec Bank & Trust said during a recent video review that it’s holding a “large position” in bitcoin. The information was given by their chief investment officer, Hugo Rogers.

Deltec Executive Discusses Bitcoin Position

According to the video uploaded to the bank’s Youtube channel, Deltec’s large position in bitcoin (BTC) has brought “a lot of attention recently.”

Rogers further explained the move:

We bought bitcoin for our clients at about $9,300, so that worked very well through 2020. And we expect it to work well in 2021 as the liquidity crisis continues to run hot.

Earlier this year, Rogers told Bloomberg about what represents a bitcoin position from a strategical point of view:

A small position in Bitcoin can go a long way. There’s a lack of an alternative in real assets that can show a comparable return. If you’re going to diversify your portfolio anyway, this is a good place to go.

The stablecoin issuer Tether is a client of Deltec. In fact, the relationship between both parties dates back to atleast 2018, after Tether released a letter confirming a transaction with the bank.

To clarify the separation between Tether and the bank’s holdings, Stuart Hoegner, general counsel of the crypto trading platform Bitfinex and Tether, commented on the matter:

We are aware of recent statements by Deltec Bank & Trust Limited about the purchase of digital tokens for and on behalf of their customers. Tether does not outsource decisions about its reserves. Deltec does not purchase digital tokens for and on Tether’s behalf.

Private Banks, Advisors Are Looking for Crypto-Related Investment Opportunities

The recent crypto market’s bull-run has been fueled interest among private banks and investment advisors towards crypto.

German private bank Hauck & Aufhäuser announced that they would launch a crypto investment fund this year. Such a move will allow institutional and semi-institutional investors to invest in digital assets including, bitcoin, ether, and stellar.

Also, news.Bitcoin.com reported on a survey that revealed that the number of U.S. financial advisors allocating to crypto in their clients’ portfolios surged significantly in 2020.

What are your thoughts on Deltec’s bitcoin position disclosure? Let us know in the comments section below.