News circulated last month that Facebook had been meeting with credit card schemes, marketplaces, and other major companies in the hopes of raising a billion dollars in investments for its digital money project, Libra. Facebook’s hard work paid off. Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency, which the social media heavyweight announced this week will debut in early 2020, has gained a firm backing...
Facebook’s stablecoin, Libra, allows people to shop and send money to others for nearly zero transaction fees. A person buys or cashes out the cryptocurrency online or a local exchange points, like convenience stores, while under a pseudonym of the individual’s choosing. Purchases can be made through Facebook’s Calibra wallet, which will be built into Messenger and WhatsApp, or other...
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued an advisory to assist financial institutions in identifying and reporting suspicious activity concerning convertible virtual currencies (CVCs). The advisory includes ways in which criminals exploit convertible virtual currencies for money laundering, sanctions evasion, and other illicit financing purposes, particularly those involving dark web markets, peer-to-peer (P2P) exchangers, and CVC kiosks. As people to...
Where there’s a market, there’s a way. That appears to be the approach dark web sites, which sell illegal drugs and prescription narcotics, takes. Law enforcement agents in the United States and Europe recently have swept in and shut down online drug markets, including two major dark web sites, Wall Street Market and Valhalla, but after a few arrests and...
Though some believe blockchain technology can rescue businesses from chargebacks and ecommerce fraud, it may not completely solve the problem. True and friendly fraud hurt all businesses, especially mobile and online merchants. Unauthorized use of credit cards triggers cardholders to implement chargebacks, resulting expensive refunds and other penalties for businesses. As blockchain technology evolves, merchants can expect it to reduce...
Though global law enforcement officials took down two of the world’s largest dark web drug websites in the past few weeks, another site continues to peddle thousands of painkillers and other narcotics. Empire, the dark web site that sells 18,000 drugs, including oxycodone and the powerful synthetic opioid, fentanyl, continues to operate. In such a buzzworthy market, it’s not completely...
Fraud continues to be a headache for businesses of all sizes, especially midsized and large online retailers. They saw on average a 35% in fraud during 2017, according to the recently released 2018 “True Cost of Fraud” study by LexixNexis Risk Solutions. The cost of fraud is definitely expensive for these firms – every $1 of fraud costs midsized and...
Though blockchain technology has the potential to create a universal currency and revolutionize the ways people do business, expect its progress to move at a much more measured pace. Even though the technology brings about excitement for its place its eventual role in society, experts caution that the technology, which was built with a combination of encryption and transparency, should...
The concept of wireless payments isn’t something new. The professionals in the field have been working on delivering financial services that offer more convenience and ease of use to people all over the world. So, the market is growing and evolving with rapid advances. Have you heard about OnlyCoin? If you want to know how payment technology companies are looking...
The domain name “bitcoin.org” was registered on 18 August 2008. In November 2008, a link to a paper authored by Satoshi Nakamoto titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System was posted to a cryptography mailing list. Nakamoto put the Bitcoin software into implementation as open source code. It was released in January 2009. The identity of Nakamoto remains unknown. More...
