A Bitcoin miner from 2009 has signed a message with the private keys of over 100 addresses with unspent coinbase rewards calling Craig Wright a “liar and a fraud” and weighing in on BTC’s scalability.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has addressed the STEEM community to explain why the exchange decided to support a hard fork that ended up stripping the funds of 64 dissenters.

Ransomware extortionists are increasingly targeting educational services, according to a Verizon report.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Early Bitcoin Miners Calls Out Craig Wright Signing Message in Addresses he Claimed to Own
• Steem Blockchain Is ‘Overly Centralized’ Says Binance’s CEO
• Ransomware Extortionists Are Increasingly Targeting Educational Services

At the time of writing, bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $8,995.38 (1.88%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $3.03 bn. As for ether (ETH), it is trading at $203.98 (0.47%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $633.06 million. The MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index is currently tracking at 2,945.96 (-0.78%).

Early Bitcoin Miners Calls Out Craig Wright Signing Message in Addresses he Claimed to Own

An unknown bitcoin miner has signed a message on the Bitcoin blockchain using the private keys of over 140 different wallets with Coinbase rewards from 2009 and 2010 in them, calling the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto Craig Wright a “liar and a fraud,” and signing off with “we are all Satoshi.”

The signatures for every address independently checked were a match which does mean the miner, who called out Craig Wright, does own the addresses he signed the message with. The message itself reads:

“Craig Steven Wright is a liar and a fraud. He doesn't have the keys used to sign this message. The Lightning Network is a significant achievement. However, we need to continue work on improving on-chain capacity. Unfortunately, the solution is not to just change a constant in the code or to allow powerful participants to force out others. We are all Satoshi.”

The addresses can notably be found in a list of thousands Craig Wright claimed to own in the ongoing case against the estate of the late Dave Kleiman. Wright has so far failed to prove ownership of the addresses, while last year on Memo.Cash someone signed a message on address another he claimed to own calling him a “liar and a fraud.”

Analysis of the addresses has shown these do not appear to belong to bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, but rather from an early bitcoin miner who has been holding since 2009.

Steem Blockchain Is ‘Overly Centralized’ Says Binance’s CEO

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has published a statement on the cryptocurrency exchange’s official blog saying that while the firm is against “zeroing other people’s assets on the blockchain,” it had to support a recent controversial Steem blockchain hard fork. Not doing so, he said, would mean Binance users would not be able to withdraw their STEEM tokens.

The hard fork comes amid a dispute in the Steem community over the acquisition of the blockchain’s biggest application Steemit by TRON and Justin Sun. The fork stripped 64 dissenters of their tokens, taking around $6.4 million worth of crypto from the users.

According to Changpeng Zhao, taking away people’s funds “goes against the very ethos of blockchain and decentralization,” and the fact that this could happen means Steem is “overly centralized.” The post adds:

“We are faced with a tough decision. We could hold all of our STEEM users’ funds indefinitely, or we could do the upgrade and let them withdraw. (…) We protect our users. This includes protecting their ability to get forked coin rewards and their freedom to withdraw. And we want to stay neutral.”

In the post CZ seemed to encourage users to withdraw their STEEM tokens from the platform, before adding the community must work together to build “a healthier decentralized ecosystem.”

Ransomware Extortionists Are Increasingly Targeting Educational Services

Verizon’s 2020 Data Breach Investigation Report reveals ransomware extortionists are increasingly targeting educational services, with 92% of the incidents being motivated by financial reasons, and 3% to perform espionage activities on businesses operating in the sector.

Ransomware attacks lock the victims’ devices to then demand a ransom – usually in bitcoin or a privacy-centric cryptocurrency – in exchange for a decrypting file. Ransomware attacks have, according to Verizon, accounted for nearly 80% of all cyberattacks suffered.

Last year, ransomware attacks account for only 48% of all cyberattacks. The report notes that attackers can now even rent malicious software as a service, meaning that attackers don’t even need any technical knowledge.

Polymath (POLY) is the Daily Mover

This week’s Daily Mover featured asset is Polymath (POLY) a blockchain platform for issuing and investing in security tokens built on top of the Ethereum network. The new protocol aims to simplify the process of creating and selling security tokens by integrating necessary legal requirements into its smart contracts. Polymath enforced compliance by whitelisting authorized investors and their ETH addresses.

POLY’s FCAS score went up 4.67% in the past week, thanks to a 13.87% rise in User Activity. Developer Behavior and Market Maturity climbed 1.05% and 5.72% respectively after the team announced on May 14 it was getting close to launching its new blockchain, Polymesh. It’s designed to bring new safeguards for financial institutions working with security tokens.

Polymesh brings in a new protocol known as nominated proof-of-stake (NPoS) and addresses four areas of concern for financial firms dealing with securities on a blockchain. These include governance, due-diligence checks, user privacy, and regulatory compliance.

The POLY token is used for payments on the Polymath platform and to facilitate trade between issuers, investors, service providers, and developers.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

Build your project with CoinDesk Data

Terms | Privacy

13 Charles II St, SW1Y 4QU

London, UK

This email may include advertisements by third parties. None of the advertised or promoted products and services have been verified or approved by us and this email is not any endorsement by us of the third party or of their products or services.