Today in Crypto: Malware Disguised as Tor Used to Steal $400,000 in Crypto in 2023, Telegram Premium Can be Purchased with TON, Boerse Stuttgart Digital Licensed by BaFin for Crypto Custody Business

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 new clipper malware disguised as the Tor browser has been used to steal about $400,000 in crypto from more than 15,000 users across 52 countries so far in 2023, according to Kaspersky researchers. The malware operates by replacing a portion of the entered clipboard contents with the cybercriminal’s own wallet address once it detects a wallet address in the clipboard, they explained.

Investing news

• The TON Foundation, a non-profit association of developers and enthusiasts working to advance The Open Network (TON), announced that Telegram Premium can now be purchased with Toncoin (TON), the native digital token of the TON blockchain. The purchase is available via Fragment, a platform that supports direct and anonymous sales and public auctions. Users will be able to purchase three, six, or 12-month subscriptions via the non-custodial crypto wallet Tonkeeper, said the announcement.

Exchange news

• Blocknox, a part of Boerse Stuttgart Digital, said it received the final license for its business operations as a crypto custodian from the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin). This allows Boerse Stuttgart Digital to provide institutional investors with services for crypto trading and fiduciary custody.
• Bitget announced the launch of Index Futures, a native futures contracts trading service designed to attract investors seeking relatively low-risk yield-earning instruments based on aggregated market indicators. The announcement said that the Index Futures differ from the Coin-margined or USDT-margined contract counterparts by tracking a bundle of assets rather than a single one. “When investors buy or sell index futures, the operation is equivalent to buying and selling a bundle of tokens that track a certain index and can thus help reduce risk exposure and diversify portfolios,” it said.  
• Bitget announced that it rolled out the One-Click Copy Trading concept to English-speaking countries. It also introduced the Bitget Protection Fund, valued at $300 million and backed by BTC and USDT reserves.
• KuCoin announced the launch of a cloud mining partner recruitment program in collaboration with KuCoin Pool. “It aims to hunt for the most talented and driven individuals in the Bitcoin mining industry to join KuCoin’s exclusive club and make some serious waves in the world of cryptocurrency mining,” said the press release.

Blockchain news

• Injective, a blockchain built for decentralized finance applications, announced a Solana rollup launch for Cosmos, powered by customizable rollup provider Eclipse. The new Solana Sealevel Virtual Machine (SVM) rollup will enable Solana smart contracts to be seamlessly deployed within the Cosmos universe, paving the path towards Solana applications to interact directly with IBC, said the press release. “Injective’s recent integration with Wormhole made it the first chain in the Cosmos ecosystem to support Solana assets,” it added.
• Solve.Care, a healthcare platform company that leverages blockchain technology, announced the launch of Care.Chain, a decentralized Layer-2 network infrastructure, describing it as “a significant step towards Solve.Care’s mission to improve healthcare access, delivery, management, and payments for both healthcare institutions and consumers through the benefits that blockchain technology provides.” Care.Chain also introduced new healthcare computing primitives with the introduction of ZK (Zero-Knowledge) verifiable runtime for events, said the announcement.

NFT news

• Non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Rarible announced the launch of multi-collection support for Ethereum and Polygon community marketplaces that are powered by Rarible Protocol. “Creators will now be able to add an infinite number of collections to their community marketplace, allowing all collections to live under one roof, creating a single home for their community to buy and sell all their favorite NFTs,” the team said.

Investment news

• Econia Labs, the company building a hyper-parallelized on-chain order book for the Aptos blockchain, secured $6.5 million in seed funding, led by Dragonfly, with participation from Lightspeed Faction, Wintermute Ventures, Hudson River Trading, Flow Traders, Aptos Labs, and others, said an announcement. “Amidst continued turbulence for CEXs, the need for decentralized order books is clear,” commented Kadin Donohoe, who led the investment at Dragonfly.

Web3 news

• RECUR, a Web3 platform driving enterprise-level NFT adoption, announced a partnership with Web3 company Tafi, enabling the latter to use RECUR Builder to bring fan experiences to life in the world of Web3. “With Tafi’s experience developing metaverse-ready IP content and the streamlined nature of RECUR Builder, they’re raising the bar of possibilities to usher in the future of Web3,” said the announcement.
• Web3 platform Vatom announced its collaboration with Google Cloud for the brand’s first-ever “Beyondverse” event experience. Per the announcement, hosting 22,000 people worldwide, Beyondverse is a customized virtual space that “incentives team engagement and learning, while creating opportunities for spontaneous networking as attendees can “bump” into one another.”