Capital One, the 5th largest US credit card issuer, confirmed on Monday that a hacker accessed the personal information of around 106m card customers & applicants, in one of the largest data breaches of a big “bank”.
The bulk of the exposed data related to information submitted by customers and small businesses that applied for Capital One credit cards between 2005 & early 2019. It appears that the breach occurred as long ago as late March 2019, and that it was found by a so called white hat hacker, who emailed Capital One about the leak.
Capital One was an enthusiastic adaptor of the cloud for data storage, with the process of shifting all data to AWS due to be completed by 2020.
The data hacked apparently included social security numbers, bank account numbers, credit scores & payment histories but not credit card numbers.
Analysis and Comments
There was some early speculation that as the hacker had previously worked at AWS, that the hack might have come from there, but more recent filings by the FBI suggest that the Capital One data breachwas the result of a configuration vulnerability in the Capital One system.
The Capital One breach came just days after credit reporting agency Equifax announced a c. $700m settlement with a number of US government agencies regarding their data breach FTC blog on Equifax settlement. The settlement includes a sum of up to $425m for the c. 147m customers that were potentially impacted by the breach announced in Sept 2017.
Capital One was quoted as saying that they would make provision for costs of c. $100-$150m in 2019 to cover the notification of customers, credit monitoring & technology & legal costs. Although if the Equifax settlement is anything to go by this might not be all they end up spending.
According to the FT, news of the breach sent the shares of Capital One down 5.9% – a big move but not massive. This suggests to us that some investors are starting to view these breaches and the subsequent costs and fines, as just being a “cost of doing business”.
This approach may end up being risky. In the US, there have been increasing calls for more regulation of the way financial institutions protect their customers data Credit agencies must change how they manage data. Some commentators have drawn parallels with the European GDPR structure, where penalties of up to 4% of global turnover (up to E20m) can be imposed for breaches in processes around how client data is handled EU GDPR rules. In addition, much larger fines, such as the notice of intent to fine BA for a large data breach in 2018 ICO to fine BA £183m.
Consumers are increasingly looking to transact online – as more industries go digital, especially via the cloud, this is an issue that is going to take up more investor attention.
The United States Federal Reserve Board is planning to release a real-time payments and settlements service in order to boost the payments infrastructure in the country.
A press release published on Aug. 5 reads that the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System has requested that Federal Reserve Banks develop a new interbank real-time settlement service to support faster payments in the U.S. The payment system is called FedNow and will purportedly launch in 2023 or 2024.
By launching FedNow, the Fed aims to modernize the country’s payment system with a real-time service that can transfer funds around the clock and on weekends and weekdays. The service will purportedly be available to both businesses and the general public.
Litecoin (LTC), currently the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has just reduced its block reward for miners by half.
The litecoin blockchain reached the trigger block height of 1,680,000 at 10:16 UTC on Monday, according to the litecoin explorer from mining pool operator BTC.com.
The event marks a major threshold for miners, as the litecoin network is designed to reduce its mining rewards by half every 840,000 blocks (roughly every four years).
For this “halving,” the mining reward for every block has been reduced from the previous 25 LTC to 12.5 LTC
Bitcoin privacy wallet Samourai announced last Thursday that its primary competitor, Wasabi Wallet, is the target of an ongoing network attack.
The blog post is the latest in a string of allegations Samourai has leveled against Wasabi since mid-July. The attack, according to Samourai Wallet, resembles a Sybil attack, where a small number of users falsifies new identities and pretends to be much larger in number. This would mean that the anonymity set, or crowd, in which a user can hide their bitcoin transactions is not actually as large as Wasabi suggests.
“As the Wasabi team has described it, the goal of the Wasabi mixing technique, is to hide your [unspent transaction outputs] in a ‘sufficiently’ large crowd (peers),” Samourai wrote in its blog post. “The current target Anonymity Set in Wasabi mixing is 100 peers.”
Here is a quick post to tell you that I am doubling up on STEEM. One of the reasons is HF21 (find all the info from @steemitblog‘s post here) but this is neither the only one or the most important.
I think HF21 has its flows, yes it redistributes more to SP holder, but through this it will bring more investors, therefore more Buying pressure and a better STEEM Price I Believe.
More curation rewards also means more attention spent by SP Holder to curate content of quality. This would be beneficial to the entire STEEM Community.
In the end, what is the point to have 75% of your posts STEEM rewards / SBD if they are valued at a few cents, wouldn’t it be better to have 50% of a post valued a few $$$?
UN: Hacked crypto funds weapons of mass destruction
In a confidential report acquired by mainstream media outlets including Reuters on Aug. 5, the U.N. Security Council North Korea sanctions committee said that hackers formed an essential part of government funding.
“Democratic People’s Republic of Korea cyber actors, many operating under the direction of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, raise money for its WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programs, with total proceeds to date estimated at up to two billion US dollars,” Reuters quoted the report as stating.
“Join members of the SDF partnerships team tomorrow, Tuesday, August 6 for a free online workshop for Stellar developers.”
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yersterday :
Here is the current chart :
So after the confirmation of the break yesterday, the STEEM is now waiting just under the line which is now a resistance line. It is not a bad news and we could have a big drop due to the break but I think that the nice UP of the BTC is helping us to don’t drop. Let’s see what will happen soon. The BTC cound correct quiet soon and it could be the excuse for the STEEM to continue its drop.
Here is a quick post to tell you that I am doubling up on STEEM. One of the Reason is HF21 (find all the info from @steemitblog’s post here) but this is neither the only one or the most important.
I think HF21 has its flows, yes it redistributes more to SP holder, but through this it will bring more investors, therefore more Buying pressure and a better STEEM Price I Believe.
More curation rewards also means more attention spent by SP Holder to curate content of quality. This would be beneficial to the entire STEEM Community.
In the end, what is the point to have 75% of your posts STEEM rewards / SBD if they are valued at a few cents, wouldn’t it be better to have 50% of a post valued a few $$$?
Not to mention that your SP and current liquid STEEM would increase in overall value.
As you know, a good STEEM price increase would attract new users, which will make prices go up : Virtuous circle.
Lately, I have assisted to many projects which confirm that STEEM is the Home of an innovating ecosystem with great entrepreneurs
@actifit launching its token on Steem-engine
@steem-engine allowing projects to get some kind of funding
@steemmonsters keeps on rolling ! Guilds are online and I think the phone APP launch will be the “going to mainstream” moment
@drugwars developments are continuing and even if the last release was not to the liking of some in the Community, th game is heading in the right direction
@nextcolony is launched and people seem to enjoy it
@steem-bounty increases interactions between Steemians
@steemhunt has maintained a high level of engagement
@partiko is working smoothly and is still my go to app on a mobile phone. (@esteem is also very popular)
@steempress allow bloggers all over the world to publish on Steem so easily
@dtube and @threespeak allow “Youtubers” to share and earn through the STEEM Platform
@appics is entering its final phase of development and will launch its token very soon
I could go on and on ! So many great projects out there !
Later, in another post, I will also share with you some doubts about some of the coins that popped up on Steem-Engine and are valued at delirious levels.
Later, in another post, I will also share with you some doubts about some of the coins that popped up on Steem-Engine and are valued at delirious levels.
My Latest Transfers to Steemit
Today
On July, 30th
Preparing HF21
As I want to be very active after this HF21, I decided to increase my SP in order to curate some of the best content creators I know on the STEEM Platform
If you happen to have some Spare SP, do not hesitate to fill my offer on @minnowbooster !
I hope you enjoyed this post, if you did : upvote, comment and resteem. I will upvote answers and set a nice @steem-bounty.
Germany has introduced the new Digital Care Act, which builds upon the 2016 ‘E Health Act’ that focused on developing information and communication technology in healthcare, particularly in the form of ‘electronic health cards’ and ‘electronic patient files’.
The new Digital Care Act will enable doctors to prescribe health apps, the cost of which, under certain conditions, will be reimbursed by German statutory health insurances.
Additionally, the German Act that currently prohibits the advertising for remote consultations will be amended, and any planned regulations of the introduction of the ‘electronic patient file’ have been removed, in order to facilitate its launch at the turn of the year 2020/2021.
Analysis and Comments
The electronic health card serves as an insurance card for people with statutory health insurance, while the electronic patient file (which hasn’t been built yet) is a further development of the card.
The file will enable statutory health-insured people to access a broad range of medical information such as, for example, findings, diagnoses, therapy measures, treatment reports, and vaccine history.
A separate privacy law governing the sensitive health data that is to be recorded in the electronic patient file is due to come into effect in January 2021.
Ultimately, the new law simply recognises the fact that patients have already been using health apps of various kinds, and stresses Germany’s intent to introduce digital services such as the electronic patient records as soon as possible.
Australia recently introduced a similar patient file called ‘My Health Record’, which apparently not only many Australians have opted out of, but is currently often empty (i.e. not being used as information is not being shared in a meaningful way between all parts of the system).
Fluor Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides engineering, procurement, construction, fabrication and modularization, operation, maintenance and asset integrity, and project management services worldwide.
Fluor is not only down 30% in May, but down 50% since the beginning of the year. And since the monthly candle just closed below the 2009 pivot low, the chart suggests price will continue to decline to the monthly demand at $13.
Today, I had a great conversation with some of the folks over at the Steemleo Discord channel where I stated the Markets can be timed.
Fluor Corp. is just one example. The fundamentals would of allowed you to time the down fall in Fluor Corp. from the previous earning announcement in May. On Friday Fluor Corp. announced their second quarter earnings. The company reported a net loss of $554.8 million, or $3.96 a share, from a profit of $114.8 million, or 82 cents a share, from a year ago and missed revenue expectations in the process. During the earnings call, the CFO said cash flow was going to be in the red the rest of the year negative and that they would need to sale off some assets.
Even if you aren’t a fundamentalist…like myself, the charts told you the same thing and suggested more downside. After Fluor Corp announced their earnings, the stock dropped more than 25% to a level not seen since November of 2004. We are talking about level last seen 15 years ago.
So whether you area fundamentalist or a chart technician, both analysis work, however, I just chose to use the charts to time the markets as I think it’s a better leading indicator because the Smart Money also leaves their footprints behind.
This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.
While Reuters reported this as a takeover, its more strictly a merger. And of course, as with all these deals, its just discussions, Takeaway.com has until 24th Aug to announce a firm offer or withdraw (Takeover panel rules).
Investors in Just Eat are likely to be offered 0.9744 Takeaway.com shares for each Just Eat share, implying a value of 731p or c. a 15% premium to the closing price on the previous Friday before the possible deal was announced. As a result, Just Eat shareholders would own just over 52% of the combined group.
The article highlights the apparent role of US activist investor Cat Rock, who is a holder of shares in both companies.
Some analysts have highlighted the lack of overlap between the two companies (the exception being Switzerland) as being a positive feature of the proposed deal.
Takeaway.com argues that online food ordering can be highly profitable – but only for the leading player in each market.
Analysis and comments
The competitive situation for the two companies is very different. Takeaway’s markets have a limited overlap with Uber & Deliveroo, whereas for Just Eat the situation is the exact opposite.
The cross border synergies between operators are limited, unless the target company is very inefficiently run.
This deal highlights some wider lessons for similar platform type markets. Yes, the potential end market is large (& growing rapidly). But, having a large (& fast growing) addressable market is not enough on its own to ensure profitability.
Its important to also look at the local delivery cost structure & the level of competition. On both counts the outlook for Just Eat looks challenging.
This is an aspect of many of the new emerging companies that investors seem to miss – yes the end market looks attractive, but even if there are barriers to entry, multiple players in the market can make it really tough to select a long term winner.
Furthermore, if the infrastructure or product is replicable – companies may sustain extended losses as they fight for market share, especially if your competitor has deep pockets.
On the 22nd July, in the last days of the May government in theUK, a green discussion paper was released on preventative healthcare. The report highlights the long term risk to health budgets if the emerging (& in some cases already emerged) life style risk factors (smoking, obesity, diabetes etc.) are not addressed
The report flags some of the recent successes, including the reduction in smoking (its now down to fewer than 1 in 6 of the adult population)
But, it also highlights some of the risk factors we are yet to find solutions to – of which the biggest is obesity (especially in children)
The report goes on to discuss the increasingly important role that technology will play in helping to solve these problems, obviously not on their own but as part of a wider shift in healthcare priorities
The article also highlights that only 5% of UK NHS spending (which is the bulk of the governments healthcare budget) goes on preventative medicine.
Analysis and Comments
This report and the related article picks up two very important issues in healthcare – that we think will have material impacts for investors.
Much of what we see in the industry around innovation is about better ways of doing the same thing (better heart valves, improved drugs etc). This is in of itself a good thing, but its not enough if innovation is really to make a difference to long term health outcomes
This article also picks up on the second important issue, institutional change. Across Europe much of our healthcare industry is driven by government spending & priorities. In such an environment, switching to preventative healthcare is tough as it does not really contribute to achieving short (or in some cases even medium) term goals.
The article picks out a number of areas where current technology, properly applied, could make a difference to longer term health outcomes. Inaddition, just yesterday, there were reports out can Google predict kidney disease, that suggest AI could be used to help identify those hospital patients that are at a high risk of developing kidney related complications. The current trial at the Royal London Free Hospital, seems to have gone well kidney app a life saver.
These technological advancements to really gain traction need a shift in emphasis among politicians, who set government healthcare priorities. When that happens we could see an explosion in opportunity for European healthcare companies.
What started out as a slow week, has been made up in the last two days thanks to all the volatility. Volatility is a necessary evil, if one is to make money. I say a necessary evil because when prices move, it provides an opportunity to make money and make money quickly. However, because trading is a zero sum game, that money that was made quickly was due to someone losing money quickly.
Fed Powell cut central bank cut rates on yesterday for the first time in ten years, due to continued uncertainty and a slowdown in the global markets. Fed Powell told the Markets not to necessary expect more cuts in the future. The DOW fell a little over 500 points.
Fed Powell tried to clear things up at the press conference,
“Let me be clear: What I said was it’s not the beginning of a long series of rate cuts,” Powell said. “I didn’t say it’s just one or anything like that. When you think about rate-cutting cycles, they go on for a long time and the committee’s not seeing that. Not seeing us in that place. You would do that if you saw real economic weakness and you thought that the federal funds rate needed to be cut a lot. That’s not what we’re seeing.”
but the damage was already done. I trade the futures market and missed the opportunity to ride on the backs of the Smart Money when price pulled back into a daily demand zone.
The Markets took off at the opening bell, the next thing I know the DOW was up almost 300 points. Then Trump did, what Trump does,
And the DOW reversed ending the day down almost 300 points, a 500 point reversal and busting through the daily demand zone in the process.
So what’s the lesson of this post…win, lose or draw, trade your plan, plan your trade.
This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.
Payments company Square reported its second-quarter earnings Thursday, revealing $125 million in bitcoin sales through its Cash App, nearly doubling a record first quarter.
“During the quarter, bitcoin revenue benefited from increased volume as a result of the increase in the price of bitcoin, and generated $2 million of gross profit,” the earnings report explains.
Founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Square reported that bitcoin represented very nearly half of the total revenue on its Cash App, at $260 million, for the second quarter of 2019. Bitcoin costs, however, are listed at $122.9 million in the unaudited quarterly report, yielding the aforementioned $2 million in profit.
A new patent filing suggests that United States retail giant Walmart may be developing its own U.S. dollar-backed digital currency similar to Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency.
Walmart filed patent for “Digital Currency via Blockchain”
Patent filing number 20190236564, “System and Method for Digital Currency via Blockchain,” was published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on Aug. 1. The document outlines a method for:
“Generating one digital currency unit by tying the one digital currency unit to a regular currency; storing information of the one digital currency unit into a block of a blockchain; buying or paying the one digital currency unit.”
Eric Conner, founder of information site ETHHub and product researcher at blockchain startup Gnosis, said:
“I think in four years, Ethereum will be moving past the hardest parts of its ambitious goals around proof-of-stake and scaling. At that point, the network will be able to onboard more users and we’ll start to grow beyond the use cases we are seeing today.”
LedgerX admitted Thursday it has not launched bitcoin futures, as the firm had previously claimed, after the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said it had not approved the exchange to do so.
The company previously told CoinDesk it was planning to launch the product on Wednesday. LedgerX would have been the first venue in the U.S. to offer physically-settled bitcoin futures, which are contracts that pay out in the underlying cryptocurrency rather than in cash.
“Not only are they delivered physically in the sense that our customers can get bitcoin after the futures expires, but also they can deposit bitcoin to trade in the first place,” LedgerX CEO Paul Chou told CoinDesk on Monday.ring connections to external services like the crypto exchange ZigZag, the blog Yalls and games like Lightning Roulette, facilitates nearly 10,000 referrals a month. So far, BlueWallet users have completed more than 100,000 lightning transactions.
The New York Office of the Attorney General (NYAG) has submitted a letter to Justice Joel M. Cohen, arguing that cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and affiliated Stablecoin firm Tether should not be granted a continuing stay of demands. The NYAG submitted its letter on Aug. 1 — the latest chapter in the New York Attorney General’s ongoing case against Bitfinex, parent company iFinex and Tether, in which the state alleges a multimillion loss coverup took place.
The motivation for NYAG’s letter
The court initially issued a stay of document demands in May at the defendants’ request. This means that the court currently only requires the defendants to produce documents and information pertinent to the issue of whether or not New York is the appropriate jurisdiction for the NYAG’s complaint, as opposed to a wholesale disclosure of complaint-pertinent documentation.
Bitfinex’s lawyers recently wrote that it had spent over $500,000 responding to NYAG’s document requests, adding that they would appeal for a continued stay of demands even if a dismissal motion does not go through.
“Scarcity is about to kick in,” the crypto trading account known as Rhythm on Twitter commented on the event.
The current Bitcoin supply means only a maximum of 17,850,000 people can own an entire coin. In reality, however, some of the existing mined supply is not in circulation and never will be, as users lose access to private keys.
Bitcoin (BTC) price climbed back over $10,000 to nearly $10,500 on the morning of August 2 as the market has shown a surprising bounce defying earlier calls by some traders for more downside.
“August could turn out to be a good month”
Trader and market analyst Josh Rager said that BTC/USD moving back above $10,000 is finally showing some nice follow through.
“A close above previous 4hr resistance is a nice sign,” he continued. “The good news about the death cross is that it leads to a golden cross as the 50MA is already starting to turn up.”
Rager concludes that:
“August could turn out to be a good month for price, IMO”
“Join us in Geneva on August 2nd for a “Workshop on #DLT Scalability and Interoperability” hosted by the @ITU FG on DLT #Standardization.”
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yersterday :
Here is the current chart :
The STEEM is still stitting exactly on the support line. I think we should have a decision from the market quiet soon. Let’s hope it will be a good news. The current pattern could indicate that the market is not able to go lower anymore and if this is the case, a sudden UP should appear suddenly. However, this kind of support line can finish also to be broken so we must stay all very carefull.
During a question-and-answer session on Oct. 3rd, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank was a long way from adopting a neutral rate of growth. At the time the Markets were grinding higher from a very volatile 1st quarter where the US Equity Markets had not one, but two 10% declines. The Markets didn’t like what Powell said and showed him by tanking.
Then in December of 2018, Powell said the Fed’s program to reduce the bond holdings on its balance sheet was on “autopilot.” Powell later went on and raised short-term rates another one-quarter percent. The Markets didn’t like what Powell said and showed him by tanking again.
At this point, the Markets had Fed Powell right where it wanted him. The Markets become the puppeteer and Fed Powell became the puppet.
In early January, during a round table with Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke, Powell said, there is no preset path for raising rates or adjusting the balance sheet. The Markets like what he had to say, eventually climbing 10%, aiding in one of the greatest V-reversals in US equity market history.
Yesterday, Fed Powell cut rates. However, the Markets had the rate cut priced in. But Fed Powell tried to cut the strings off from the puppeteer (the Markets) saying to the Markets not to expect more cuts, just because I cut rates this time. Well, the Markets pulled on the string by dropping almost 2%.
So what’s the lesson of this post, the relationship between the puppeteer is a special two way relationship in which the puppeteer gives life to the puppet by being man-handled when necessary.
This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.
