Crypto News: Venezuelan Petro ban can be fatal for cryptocurrency market, HTC to support BCH in a new blockchain phone, Browser extensions pose a risk for BTC users
Petro ban can ruin cryptocurrency market
Today, September, 16, American Congress must approve the bill signed by Donald Trump on banning Petro crypto coin. Experts and digital assets market players are discussing, how Venezuelan coin ban can influence the industry and cryptocurrency regulation mechanism. Jason Brett, CEO of the law firm “Value Foundation Technology,” thinks that restrictions in regard to Petro may act as the groundwork for absolute ban on digital currencies in the United States.
The bill says that Petro is a borderless cryptocurrency and that it’s backed by the state. Bitcoin and other altcoins fall under these characteristics as well, which may become a stumbling block in the process of determining the rules for regulating the entire crypto industry in the future.
HTC to introduce built-in support for bitcoin cash in a new blockchain phone
September, 16 HTC announced that it has partnered up with Bitcoin.com to add bitcoin cash support for its Exodus 1 blockchain phone. The new function will come with Bitcoin.com’s wallet built into the device and will be rolled into the phone’s software update. Prior to that, HTC only accepted bitcoin and ethereum.
HTC’s chief decentralization officer Phil Chen is quoted as saying: “The Zion Vault is happy to support BCH natively in hardware so security goes hand-in-hand in the BCH blockchain as an alternative to dominant payment rails and platforms.”
At the moment, the telephone is priced at $699.
Another interesting feature of Expodus 1 is a cryptocurrency-based game called CryptoKitties. In this game users can breed kittens and sell them for cryptocurrency.
Expodus 1s is announced to appear in Q3 of 2019 and being the newer and cheaper phone (maximum price of $300), it may soon replace Expodus 1.
Beware: Browser Add-ons pose a risk to your BTC
Jeremy Welch, founder and CEO of Casa, has noted that malicious browser extensions can pose a risk to users’ funds in bitcoin.
At the Honeybadger conference which is now taking place in Riga, Latvia, Welch said: “Browser extensions impose major risks, and these risks haven’t been discussed until this point… Make sure you don’t expose your bitcoin addresses anywhere.”
Browser add-ons are one the most dangerous element when working on the Internet, as they monitor user information and gather data. In itself it does not have to have an evil purpose, but scammers can get through them a lot of information to use against users.
Welch mentioned several examples, for example a seemingly harmless add-on that provides wallpapers with motivational quotes. In reality, this extension is actually malware stealing KYC data as you fill in online compliance forms. Such threats can appropriate identification such as passports via code which is later portrayed as a graphic depiction.
Moreover, Welch said some extensions can change a receiving address in a transaction into the scammer’s one.
Among dangerous extension Welch name popular ones such as Grammarly and Joule.
Welch says that in order to protect themselves, users should simply update software on a regular basis.
