Blockchain Report — 11/15/2018
Summary: Four Malicious Cryptocurrency Apps Found On Google Play Store; Coinbase-Backed Company Releases $799 Cryptocurrency Miner; Ethereum Co-Founder Says Blockchain Will Shift Society From A “Scarcity To Abundance Mindset”
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Four Malicious Cryptocurrency Apps Found On Google Play Store
According to The Next Web, four more fraudulent cryptocurrency apps have been found on the Google Play Store this week. The apps were pretending to be digital cryptocurrency wallets for Neo, Tether, and MetaMask. These wallets have gotten several hundred installs since mid-October.
Although these apps have now been reported and removed from the Play Store, it makes some wonder whether people have lost money using these fraudulent apps and what Google will do to prevent these sorts of apps from popping up again.
The apps acted as either phishing apps or as fake wallets. The fraudulent MetaMask app asked users to enter their private key and digital wallet password. This would then allow the creators of the app to steal the users’ funds to their own personal wallet.
The fake wallet apps all had the same public key and private key. That essentially means that any cryptocurrency funds deposited into the wallet address would be sent directly to the scammer’s cryptocurrency wallet.
To avoid these scams, make sure a cryptocurrency wallet is offering you your own private key. If it doesn’t, then you don’t own the wallet.
Coinbase-Backed Company Releases $799 Cryptocurrency Miner
According to Fortune, a device called Coinmine One is being sold for $799 and was built to be a simple cryptocurrency mining system that can be used at home. Although the system’s GPU isn’t powerful enough to mine Bitcoin, it is powerful enough to mine Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Monero, and Zcash. Furthermore, Coinmine One has its own operating system.
Farb Nivi and Justin Lambert worked together to create the Coinmine company and the Coinmine One system. Although you probably don’t recognize Justin Lambert’s name, you might recognize another product he created: Pebble smartwatches.
Interestingly enough, however, users of Coinmine One must place significant trust into the system. Coinmine stores the cryptocurrencies on its own corporate servers and takes a 5% cut of all cryptocurrencies mined.
So far Coinbase Ventures, Arrington Ventures, and Coinbase’s CTO have all invested into Coinmine, helping them raise $2 million.
Ethereum Co-Founder Says Blockchain Will Shift Society From A “Scarcity To Abundance Mindset”
According to CCN, Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin said that blockchain technology will create a “monumental shift” in society that will move people from a “scarcity to an abundance mindset”. Lubin made these comments at the Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal.
Lubin believes that Ethereum will play an important part in changing the internet into a fully decentralized ecosystem. Lubin made some other eye-brow raising comments at the summit, such as saying that blockchain technology will fuel innovation at every level of human society by allowing people to have a “self-determined, sovereign identity.” Lubin stated:
“It may be a few years before our ecosystem achieves profound interoperability and decentralization in the base and higher layers. But that is okay. We can grow into the radical future we imagine as we take care of adoption, use case exploration, user interface and user experience definition — all of which will keep us busy for years.”
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