The “criminal” share of activity in cryptocurrency transactions fell to 0.34% - around $10 billion – last year. The figure is much lower than the share seen in 2019 of 2.1%, representing $21.1 billion.

Coinbase has announced it is acquiring Bison Trails, an “early pioneer in fully managed blockchain infrastructure” whose platform helped accelerate the adoption of blockchain technology.

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance has burned over 3.6 million BNB tokens, worth nearly $165.8 million, in its latest quarterly burn.

Despite the growing need for crypto scalability, many digital currencies remain relatively slow due to their technical infrastructure. Indeed, blockchain networks can attain formidable speeds, but this entails dealing with several design challenges.

 

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Crypto Transactions Associated With Criminal Activity Fell Dramatically In 2020
• Coinbase to Acquire Blockchain Infrastructure Platform Bison Trails
• Binance Burns $165 Million of BNB in Largest-Ever Token Burn
• HBAR, ENJ, VET Are Moving in the Crypto Market

Crypto Transactions Associated With Criminal Activity Fell Dramatically In 2020

The “criminal” share of activity in cryptocurrency transactions fell to 0.34% - around $10 billion – last year. The figure is much lower than the share seen in 2019 of 2.1%, representing $21.1 billion.

According to data firm Chainalysis, the large decrease partly came as the total cryptocurrency-based economic activity grew three-fold from 2019 to 2020, and the firm underestimated the number of active addresses linked to criminal conduct in 2019.

Some addresses linked to criminal activity in 2019 were not identified until later, including some associated with the enormous PlusToken Ponzi scheme, which took over $2 billion from millions of victims.

Chainalysis highlighted scams were much smaller last year. Darknet markets were the second-largest crime category crypto transactions were used for, and accounted for $1.7 billion. To the firm, the “big story” for crypto crime in 2020 was the rise of ransomware, which accounted for 7% of all funds received by criminal addresses.

The funds received by addresses associated with ransomware, however, went up 311% from 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic and working from home have opened new vulnerabilities to these attacks.

Coinbase to Acquire Blockchain Infrastructure Firm Bison Trails

Coinbase has announced it is acquiring Bison Trails, an “early pioneer in fully managed blockchain infrastructure” whose platform helped accelerate the adoption of blockchain technology.

In its announcement, Coinbase detailed that Bison Trails powers “billions of transactions” for “many of the biggest names in crypto today,” and that joining forces with it sees Coinbase aim to bring its technology to more projects and companies throughout the world.

Bison Trails, Coinbase wrote, will continue to operate as a standalone product. The firm’s mission is to provide “ superior infrastructure on multiple blockchains, to strengthen the entire ecosystem, and enable the pioneers of tomorrow. 

Coinbase detailed its relationship with Bison Trails started early, with an investment from Coinbase Ventures in late 2019 and a commercial partnership with Coinbase Custody in 2020. The firm plans on developing products and services to “help other companies build protocols and applications.”

Binance Burns $165 Million of BNB in Largest-Ever Token Burn

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance has burned over 3.6 million BNB tokens, worth nearly $165.8 million, in its latest quarterly burn.

Binance’s 14^th quarterly BNB token burn was the highest one ever carried out by the exchange, which uses part of its profits to burn BNB until the cryptocurrency’s supply is reduced to 100 million tokens.

In an announcement, Binance detailed that the speed of the burns, associated with its trading volumes, is taking longer than the firm originally anticipated because of BNB’s price rise. The exchange is looking to speed up its token burn rate but is “not 100% sure” how to accelerate the burns.

The accelerated burning process will, according to CEO Changpeng Zhao, stop users from being able to “reverse calculate” Binance’s revenue based on burned BNB. To date, 13% of the cryptocurrency’s supply has been burned.

HBAR, ENJ, VET Are Moving in the Crypto Market

Several tokens are leading the charge in the last 24-hour period. Some of these are well-known cryptocurrencies with rather liquid trading pairs, so we’ll be focusing on these over low-cap cryptos that may have higher percentage changes.

Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR) - Hedera is a decentralized public network for the users to make its digital world exactly as it should be – theirs. Whether the user is a startup or enterprise, a creator or a consumer, Hedera is designed to go beyond blockchain for developers to create the next era of fast, fair, and secure applications. HBAR is up 41.12% in the last 24 hours.

Enjin (ENJ) - Enjin is a decentralized platform that wants to manage, distribute, and trade virtual goods. Giving gamers and content creators a new model of virtual ownership. ENJ is up 37% in the last 24 hours.

VeChain (VET) - VeChain’s Blockchain-as-a-Service ("BaaS") platform is called ToolChain. ToolChain is a comprehensive blockchain platform offering diverse services including: product lifecycle management, supply chain process control, data deposit, data certification, and process certification. VET is up 7.21% in the last 24 hours.

Crypto Transaction Speeds and the Blockchain Trilemma

Despite the growing need for crypto scalability, many digital currencies remain relatively slow due to their technical infrastructure. Indeed, blockchain networks can attain formidable speeds, but this entails dealing with several design challenges.

Often referred to as the blockchain trilemma, the creation of a blockchain network that is concomitantly scalable, decentralized, and secure is proving difficult. Some projects claim to have solved the trilemma, and despite seeming so, haven’t had a chance to undergo actual stress tests under real-life conditions.

There are cryptocurrency industries that demand ongoing support for superior transaction speeds. While hypothetical cryptoassets to transfer real estate ownership don’t need speedy transactions, cryptoasset trading, gambling, and commerce need fast confirmation times.

The cryptoasset trading industry constantly finds itself in dire need of high transaction throughput; in this case, for each and every coin. The reasoning is simple - if a trader is slowed down by lengthy processing times, they’ll miss out on valuable gains.

Nothing screams fast-paced as loudly as online gambling. When gambling with cryptocurrency, many users find themselves depositing and withdrawing multiple times per day, to the point that if a Bitcoin casino processes withdrawal requests instantly, the delay may occur due to the low bandwidth of the coin’s network.

Achieving higher transaction speeds is possible via blockchain upgrade like Ethereum 2.0 and layer-two scaling solutions like the Lightning Network.  Currently, ETH handles about 15 transactions per second and is poised to improve, while BTC handles up to 7 transactions per second.

Transaction acceleration services are sometimes provided by miners to make sure that low-priority transactions are not left behind. Some services are available for free, whereas others may come at a low cost. Results may vary.

Press Release

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.