Today in Crypto: 5-Country Joint Advisory Report Warns About Russian Malware Targeting Crypto Users, IBM Shares 5 Points for Success of Digital Euro

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
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Security news

• A joint advisory report by several agencies from the UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia warned that the Russian Infamous Chisel malware is being used to target crypto wallet and exchange applications. It searches for specific application directories on a device, such as those connected to the Brave browser, Binance and Coinbase exchange apps, the Trust wallet, the Android Keystore system, as well as Discord and Telegram. Per the report, “Infamous Chisel is a collection of components which enable persistent access to an infected Android device over the Tor network, and which periodically collates and exfiltrates victim information from compromised devices.”

CBDC news

• IBM shared five points for the makers of the European Central Bank‘s (ECB) digital euro to increase its chances of being successful within “the highly competitive, multifaceted, and heterogeneous payments landscape in the Eurozone.” These are: build on existing rails and provide enhancements for the digital euro; extend PSD2(3) with a standard digital euro API for incumbents, FinTechs, TPPs; allow strong privacy for low-value proximity payments, independent of technical connectivity; include a centrally governed distributed ledger as an enabler for digital processes, virtual worlds and tokenized economies; and build the digital euro system by starting with a minimum viable digital euro within a sandbox.

Blockchain news

• Web3 development platform Alchemy announced it added support for Base, an L2 incubated by Coinbase, built on Optimism’s OP Stack. “Base and Alchemy will give developers the necessary tools, products, and services to build the onchain future,” according to the press release. Alchemy developers can now start building their applications on Base Mainnet and the Base-Goerli testnet. Alchemy’s Gas Manager APIs, Bundler API services, and aa-sdk are all available on Base, the team added.

Mining news

• US Bitcoin Corp (USBTC), an operator of large-scale data centers for new-age workloads such as digital asset mining, secured a deal with Celsius Network to host an initial 8,500 miners with an estimated sticker hashrate of 820 petahash (PH) at the USBTC Alpha Site. According to the press release, “this significant agreement represents a robust advancement in the Bitcoin mining industry and continues the strong collaboration” between USBTC and Celsius, with support from the Fahrenheit coalition, which includes USBTC, Arrington Capital, Proof Group Capital Management, Steven Kokinos, and Ravi Kaza.

Exchange news

• KuCoin released the 15th report in its “Understanding Crypto Users in Turkey” series, finding a significant increase in crypto investors among Turkish adults, with more than half of the population participating in crypto investments, it said. The percentage of crypto investors aged 18 to 60 increased by 12% in the last 18 months, rising from 40% in November 2021 to 52% in May 2023, despite the market condition. “This indicates an increasing interest and acceptance of crypto as a hedge against inflation, especially with the Turkish lira losing over 50% of its value against the US dollar,” the report said.
• BingX announced the introduction of Copy Trading to the spot market. “This new feature empowers BingX users to replicate spot orders from seasoned traders, providing a convenient and efficient way to engage in spot trading,” the press release stated. Users can view the traders’ profiles, choose a trader that suits their preferences based on their profit and loss, ranking and trading portfolio, and then observe the trades being executed to potentially gain profits, it added.
• Bitget announced its strategic integration with CCData, a provider of institutional-grade digital asset data. In response to the growing demands of this sector, Bitget now gives institutional investors access to both real-time and historical market data, powered by an FCA-authorized benchmark administrator, the press release said. The partnership grants Bitget users seamless access to CCData’s data infrastructure, linked with financial data providers, including the LSEG Data (formerly Refinitiv).

Wallet news

• Non-custodial crypto wallet suite SafePal revealed a limited edition phygital wallet initiative with Klaytn Foundation, the non-profit entity dedicated to driving global adoption of Layer 1 blockchain Klaytn. A press release said that the limited edition wallets are priced identically to the standard S1 at $49.99, with free standard global shipping. These wallets will be available via official SafePal distribution channels until all 300 are sold. Each wallet comes with a unique code for the owner to redeem and mint the accompanying NFT via the SafePal App on the Klaytn network.

Web3 news

• KryptoGO announced the launch of its new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered cloud solution for diverse Web3 enterprise scenarios – KryptoGO Studio (KG Studio). The solution offers a one-stop, secure, and compliant peer-to-peer marketplace application, said the press release. It addresses the three key challenges faced by global Web2 businesses entering the Web3 domain: identity interoperability, technical security, and user experience, it added.