The Interpol team, based in Singapore, will assist different countries’ law enforcement agencies. Assistance will be provided in investigations related to cryptocurrencies. Crypto-Upvotes expert review

Interpol has created a specialized unit to combat crimes related to cryptocurrency and other virtual assets, reports Business-Standard. The creation of the unit was announced by Secretary General of the International Police Jürgen Stock. This was said at a press conference before the start of Interpol’s 90th jubilee General Assembly. It takes place in Delhi from 18 to 21 October.

The main problem faced by law enforcement agencies of different countries in their investigations, the head of Interpol called the lack of a legal framework with regard to assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. The new team, formed in Singapore, will help fight crimes in this area in different countries. Currently, the international police force has more than 190 member states.

Interpol has helped investigate cryptocurrency crimes many times before. Not long ago, the international police issued their “red notice” against Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon. He is facing charges in connection with the $60 billion collapse of cryptocurrencies he created.

Tornado Cash is under attack again. Most MEV bots do not handle addresses of this service.

Ethereum validators have begun rejecting most transactions related to the Tornado Cash service. As well as addresses on the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions list. So according to the MEV Watch tool from blockchain company Labrys. About 52% of blocks on the Ethereum network are validated through MEV bots that comply with U.S. sanctions. Another 6% of validators use bots that do not enforce sanctions. And about 42% of nodes on the network do not use such programs.

MEV bots are centralized software designed to extract maximum extractable value (MEV). Such software has become popular among validators because it efficiently selects those transactions that can generate the most profit.

MEV Watch shows which bots have been adhering to OFAC sanctions since Ethereum switched to Proof-of-Stake. These bots “discard” blocks with transactions associated with sub-sanctioned addresses. And this leads to an inability to put these transactions into the blockchain, no matter how high the fee would be.

According to platform data, there are currently 7 popular MEV bots. They are: Flashbots, BloXroute Max Profit, BloXroute Ethical, BloXroute Regulated, BlockNative, Manifold and Eden. Of those, only 3 do not censor transactions as required by OFAC. They are: BloXroute Max Profit, BloxRoute Ethical and Manifold.

Remember that on August 8, the U.S. Treasury Department published an update to the sanctions list (SDN). They included Tornado Cash cryptocurrency protocol and associated digital wallet addresses. The reason for blocking was that this service is used by hackers to launder illicit proceeds.

The attack on confidential Tornado Cash service continues. Our experts believe that in the near future the pressure on this service will only grow. We hope that they will be able to withstand all these blows.

Our experts told us about possible price movements for cryptocurrencies in coming weeks. And gave forecast for their prices in accordance with different variants of events development

On October 13, after the publication of inflation data in the U.S., leading cryptocurrencies updated their price lows. Bitcoin rate fell to $18.3 thousand, less than the last time it was worth on June 20, when it was trading about $18.2 thousand. Also Ethereum showed decline – it fell to $1.2 thousand, updating its minimum since mid-July.

But by October 14 Bitcoin had recovered to the level of $19.8 thousand, the daily growth was 5.4%. Аnd Ethereum also rose in price by 7.2%. And the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies is $980 billion, which is 5.5% more than a day ago.

Current situation on crypto market

Macroeconomics is the leading factor for cryptocurrency markets right now. Our experts notice that after the new release of inflation data in the U.S., there was a rare volatility in leading indices. But at the same time, the sharp drop was just as sharply bought back by investors. Cryptocurrencies reacted in a similar way.

Crypto market heavyweights such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are hardly reacting to events in the cryptosphere right now. However, there are not many negative factors. The main factor “confusing crypto-enthusiasts” is the trend toward tighter regulation in many countries. Because this brings cryptocurrencies closer to traditional asset classes.

Also, cryptocommunity is concerned about the decline of decentralization. Or the lack of growth of this indicator in many blockchains. In addition, the outflow of capital from GameFi, NFT and Metaverses markets looks logical against the background of energy crisis and risks of recession in economics.

Negative forecast scenarios

In case of a prolonged fall in Bitcoin, it is possible that those miners who have been working at a loss for a long time will capitulate. This is likely to lead to a decrease in the level of support. And it will bring Bitcoin’s price down to around $14,000 or $10,000.

Large capital is now panicking and seeking to withdraw funds in stablecoins and US dollar. The most likely scenario is that bitcoin will drop to $17,800 in coming weeks.

In addition, the fall in Bitcoin is accompanied by the biggest sell-offs of miners in the last 2 years – about 8,000 BTC per month (according to Glassnode). This has also influenced the rate of BTC decline and overall current market sentiment, our Crypto-Upvotes experts say.

Positive forecast scenarios

Crypto-Upvotes experts called a scenario in which cryptocurrency rates will start growing in the near future unlikely. However, if Bitcoin breaks through resistance level of $20.4 thousand, it will be possible to see movement to $22.5 thousand, our expert believes.

Positive factors that could support cryptocurrency rates are hard to find right now. At the same time, the option to increase prices of cryptocurrencies should not be discarded either. Because investors are eager to redeem assets at lower prices right now.

According to our expert, it could lead to overcoming the level of $1.4 ths for Ethereum. Bitcoin may initially reach a psychologically important level of $20,000. And its overcoming will lead to increase of BTC price up to $22 ths.

BNY Mellon licensed from New York state regulator to handle two cryptocurrencies. Review by Crypto-Upvotes experts

The oldest U.S. bank BNY Mellon began to provide services for cryptocurrency storage, writes The Wall Street Journal. For this purpose, the company received a license from the financial regulator of New York.

Bank will store the keys needed to access and transfer the cryptocurrency. It will also provide accounting services for Bitcoin and Ethereum.

BNY Mellon claims to be the first of eight systemically important U.S. banks to provide custody services for digital currencies. And it allows customers to use one custody platform for both traditional and cryptocurrency assets.

The platform will go live with select investment-fund firms this week. The bank said it expects to expand its crypto custody offerings to additional clients in the future, pending regulatory approvals.

In the summer of 2021, BNY  joined a group of six banks that plan to launch Pure Digital, a digital asset trading platform. At the time, the bank said it would roll out cryptocurrency infrastructure as the legal and regulatory framework emerged.

Thanks to the integration of services of one of largest cryptocurrency exchanges. Some Google customers will be able to pay with cryptocurrency for cloud services, Crypto-Upvotes expert review

Some Google customers will be able to pay for cloud services in cryptocurrency at early 2023. This was announced by representatives of corporation at conference Google Cloud Next, reports CNBC. This will be possible due to cooperation of corporation with one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase.

First, corporation will accept payments in cryptocurrency from a limited number of customers through its integrated service Coinbase Commerce. Amit Zaveri, vice president and general manager and head of the Google Cloud platform, told CNBC. Currently, Coinbase Commerce supports 10 currencies, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin, Ethereum and Litecoin.

As time goes on, corporation will allow many more customers to use cryptocurrency. Also, corporation is considering using Coinbase Prime service to store cryptocurrency and conduct transactions in it.

At the same time, Coinbase said it will use Google cloud infrastructure for storage. Additionally, Coinbase will migrate its applications from Amazon Web Services cloud service. Also, when making cryptocurrency payments Coinbase will receive a percent of transactions.

Scammer was offered a reward of 1% of the stolen money from arbitrage bot mev-bot. For return of the remaining amount within 24 hours.

Hacking of arbitrage mev-bot led to the loss of 1.1 K ETH (about $1.45 million). It was reported on Twitter by PeckShield, a cybersecurity company. Analysis of this transaction showed that cybercriminals used a code vulnerability to substitute an arbitrary address for the funds transfer.

Mev-bots (also called flash bots) search for transactions suitable for arbitrage trading. The use of such programs makes it possible to profit from price differences on different exchanges.

Funds stolen in an attack on a bot called 0xbad belonged to many of its users. PeckShield reports that the community has announced that it is willing to consider the hack as the work of a “white hacker.” If the stolen funds are returned by the end of the day on Sept. 28. It has also been offered to fence 1% of the stolen money. Otherwise, an investigation will be initiated.

Our experts note that usually, if a hacker is recognized as a “white hacker”. Affected companies leave him as a reward of 10% of the funds stolen by him. But in this situation they offered only 1%.

White hacker known as Riptide discovered a bug in the Arbitrum protocol code. This error could have resulted in loss of millions of dollars

“White hacker” under nickname Riptide received 400 ETH (about $531 K) from Arbitrum protocol for finding vulnerability in the code, about which he wrote in his blog. Because of the critical bug he found, scammers could make millions of dollars. They could divert funds between Ethereum and the new version of the Arbitrum Nitro protocol, which launched a few weeks ago.

“White hacker” Riptide is in business of identifying bugs in codes whose developers offer rewards for doing so on the ImmuneFi platform. According to Riptide, there is a 100% certainty that developers will make a mistake when writing contracts. Or deploying or updating smart contracts.

Riptide knew that Arbitrum Nitro, Ethereum network scalability solution, was running an update and scrutinized the code. And as a result, he discovered a place in the program where the scammer could set up his own address to accept all incoming deposits in ETH.

Riptide reported vulnerability to Arbitrum developers and was rewarded with 400 ETH. However he wasn’t satisfied with his reward. Because the maximum reward for finding the bug, given by the protocol team, was $2 million. He commented on his reward negatively. Riptide stated that it is a bad idea to pay little for such mistakes. This way companies make “white hackers” think about joining ranks of “black hackers”.

A hacker took advantage of a vulnerability in OmniBridge protocol. Hacked and withdrew funds from it in new Ethereum PoW network tokens

The first hack of a smart contract in the new Ethereum PoW network brought a scammer 200 ETHW (about $1,000). Theft of funds was possible because OmniBridge protocol (a bridge to transfer funds between different blockchains) in PoW network. He received a second message about transaction already made in Ethereum network. This was reported on Twitter by BlockSec, a cybersecurity company.

On morning of September 15, The Merge update took place on Ethereum’s main network. It switched altcoin from Proof-of-Work protocol to Proof-of-Stake (PoS). The token of the old version of this network received symbol ETHW.

On September 18, a scammer transferred 200 WETH via the OmniBridge protocol of Ethereum blockchain to Gnosis network. And then he repeated the same transaction message on the new PoW blockchain. To get 200 ETHW from a copy of the OmniBridge smart contract on this network.

Our experts explained that this attack was made possible by a vulnerability in the OmniBridge smart contract. It uses an incorrect unique blockchain identifier. The OmniBridge smart contract mixed up the networks and mistakenly paid a scammer.

The Ethereum PoW network itself was not hacked. The stolen funds belonged to the OmniBridge protocol. However, our experts warn a crypto community. That similar attacks using PoW blockchain and ETHW tokens can happen to other interconnect bridges.

ETHW rate has been falling on centralized exchanges since the start of hardfork. But its price in the old version of the network rose on Friday September 16 to 16,400 USDT on decentralized exchanges.

SEC filed a lawsuit against Ian Balina, a famous member of cryptocurrency community. The lawsuit states that all Ethereum blockchain transactions take place in USA territory

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) claims that transactions on Ethereum are made in United States. Because blockchain validators (network nodes) are clustered more tightly in the United States than in any other country. This claim was made in a lawsuit against famous member of cryptocurrency community Ian Balina.

The lawsuit was filed Monday, Sept. 19. Balina is accused of breaking law while promoting Sparkster Cryptocurrency ICO (SPRK) in 2018. Which raised about $30 million from 4,000 investors.

This is not the first time the agency has initiated such litigation. However, paragraph 69 of this lawsuit states : ” At that point, their ETH contributions were validated by a network of nodes on the Ethereum blockchain,
which are clustered more densely in the United States than in any other country. As a result, those
transactions took place in the United States.”

According to Etherscan, more than 46% of all Ethereum nodes are now operating in the US.

What this means for Ethereum

Our experts think that mentions of transaction processing by US-based nodes in a lawsuit against blogger Ian Balina. It can also be interpreted as the SEC  attempt to extend its jurisdiction over any transactions in Ethereum network according to geographical principle. And in the future, this could become a precedent and reinforce the current fears of transaction censorship. Which have arisen since sanctions were imposed on Tornado Cash mixer.

Following the Ethereum move to Proof-of-Stake. And given its high level of centralization, Coinbase, Kraken and Binance are estimated by Nansen to account for 30.25% of ETH blocked in stacking. The U.S. government could seriously consider bringing this space under its control.

In future case law, similar lawsuits from the SEC may await other cryptocurrencies. Which work on the Proof-of-Stake algorithm.

New White House directives are aimed at developing financial services industry. As well as to simplify unlimited transactions and fight against scammers in cryptocurrency world

The White House presented first ever concept of regulation of cryptocurrency market in USA, writes CNBC. The new proposals had been under development for six months. This came after President Joe Biden called on authorities in March to study risks and benefits of cryptocurrencies and submit official reports.

One of points of concept is aimed at combating illegal activities in cryptocurrencies. In particular, it is proposed to consider amendments to Bank Secrecy Law. These are laws prohibiting disclosure of information and against money transfers without a license. It is necessary that they are directly related to providers of cryptocurrency services.

The White House proposals also specifically mention potential for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC). The concept states that digital dollars can make the U.S. payment system more efficient. And creating a basis for further technological innovations that will allow for faster trans-border transactions.

Our experts also noted that the U.S. government believes that digital currencies, especially stablecoins, need to be strictly regulated. Otherwise, they can lead to “devastating effects. This concept points to a collapse of cryptocurrency TerraUSD, which resulted in a series of bankruptcies. And cumulative damage of which amounted to almost $600 billion.