"If the eCNY is successful, it will give the central bank new powers, including novel types of monetary policy to help the economy grow. In one possibility that economists have discussed, a central bank could program its digital currency to slowly lose value so that consumers are encouraged to spend it immediately."
"In theory, when the conventional financial system is experiencing turbulence, alternative currencies such as bitcoin should have their time to shine. The decentralised nature of the currency means that it's impossible for any central bank to impose controls on it, while the pseudonymity at its core could make it the perfect vehicle to get money into and out of the country while avoiding legal reprisals."
"Everyone in the cryptocurrency world has heard of Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious inventor of Bitcoin. But not many have heard of Peter Bushnell, the not-so-mysterious inventor of Feathercoin. On 20 April, he announced his alternative currency to a gaggle of online followers. One month later, nearly 7m of them have been mined"
"The proto-currency known as RSCoin has vastly greater scope than Bitcoin, used for peer-to-peer transactions by libertarians across the world, and beyond the control of any political authority.
The purpose would be turned upside down. RSCoin would be a tool of state control, allowing the central bank to keep a tight grip on the money supply and respond to crises. It would erode the exorbitant privilege of commercial banks of creating money out of thin air under a fractional reserve financial system."
"Kristoffer Koch invested 150 kroner ($26.60) in 5,000 bitcoins in 2009, after discovering them during the course of writing a thesis on encryption. He promptly forgot about them until widespread media coverage of the anonymous, decentralised, peer-to-peer digital currency in April 2013 jogged his memory.
Bitcoins are stored in encrypted wallets secured with a private key, something Koch had forgotten."
"No one stepped forward to claim these bitcoins, which were found in electronic "wallets" used to store the digital currency. An additional 144,336 bitcoins, worth more than $128m today, were also discovered, but the government's claim on them is being disputed by Ross William Ulbricht, 29, who US authorities say was the founder and main operator of Silk Road. They had been stashed on his laptop."
"Bitcoin mining - the process in which a bitcoin is awarded to a computer that solves a complex series of algorithms - is a deeply energy-intensive process.
"Mining" bitcoin involves solving complex math problems in order to create new bitcoins. Miners are rewarded in bitcoin.
Earlier in bitcoin's relatively short history - the currency was created in 2009 - one could mine bitcoin on an average computer. But the way bitcoin mining has been set up by its creator (or creators - no one really knows for sure who created it) is that there is a finite number of bitcoins that can be mined: 21m. The more bitcoin that is mined, the harder the algorithms that must be solved to get a bitcoin become."
"Surrendering our privacy to the government would be foolish enough. But what is more insidious is the Faustian bargain made with the marketing industry, which turns every location ping into currency as it is bought and sold in the marketplace of surveillance advertising.
Now, one year later, we're in a very similar position. But it's far worse.
A source has provided another data set, this time following the smartphones of thousands of Trump supporters, rioters and passers-by in Washington, D.C., on January 6, as Donald Trump's political rally turned into a violent insurrection. At least five people died because of the riot at the Capitol. Key to bringing the mob to justice has been the event's digital detritus: location data, geotagged photos, facial recognition, surveillance cameras and crowdsourcing."
"The new malware, called Anubis, seems to use code forked from Loki. It steals crypto wallet credentials, credit card details and other valuable information from these Windows users.
According to MSI, it first discovered the malware in June in the cybercriminal underground. It has the same name with another potent banking Trojan that has been targeting Android smartphones for months."
"I don't trust it, David! It's the whole Lord of the Rings vibe - "one app to rule them all", which famously didn't work out great for Middle-earth.
A lot of people have concerns, myself included. It's why there was a backlash to Meta - which provides Facebook and WhatsApp - trying to launch a digital currency. I think there's a broader issue of digital literacy here: when we give up our permissions to a super app, do we really know what we're agreeing to?"
"The January snow lay thick on the Moscow ground, as masked officers of the FSB - Russia's fearsome security agency - prepared to smash down the doors at one of 25 addresses they would raid that day.
Their target was REvil, a shadowy conclave of hackers that claimed to have stolen more than $100m (£74m) a year through "ransomware" attacks, before suddenly disappearing.
As group members were led away in cuffs, FSB officers gathered crypto-wallets containing untold volumes of digital currency such as bitcoin. Others used money-counting machines to tot up dozens of stacks of hundred dollar bills."
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