Episode 165: Coinbase is scum, Brent got hacked, and Roothlus is back on the show.

There's a special guest on the show - Adam "Roothlus" Levy. He's going to help us navigate these murky waters of scams, bullshit stories, and more. Why is Coinbase losing good will? Why is Kraken gaining it? Why wasn't Brent hired at Kraken? Also - Brent got hacked on this edition. # Episode 165 - Flagship Friday [QuadrigaCX Granted 45 More days to repay funds](https://u.today/quadrigacx-granted-45-more-days-to-recover-lost-140-mln-exchange-may-be-sold-later-on) [Bitgrail CEO must repay 170mil](https://whichblockchain.com/news/bitgrail-ceo-must-repay-170-million-in-missing-funds/) [XRP and XLM were approved by Thailand SEC](https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/aw52k8/xrp_xlm_approved_by_thailand_sec/) [IOTA Released a Testnet without the COO - AND they went fully discord transparent.](https://blog.iota.org/a-coo-less-testnet-879ad17ca1af) [ENJ Released their SDK for Unity](https://twitter.com/enjin/status/1102362183462195200?s=09) - They're not on Samsung though. - You know we gotta do our weekly QuadrigaCX Update. - [First of all last week Kraken offered a $100k reward](https://blog.kraken.com/post/2155/were-offering-a-100000-reward-for-discovery-of-quadriga-coins/) for any information regarding the QCX situation that leads to the discovery of funds. - They also put out two full podcast episodes about it. ([Their 3rd](https://www.kraken.com/#episode3) and [4th episode](https://www.kraken.com/en-us/learn/podcast#episode4)). They're combined almost 3 hours worth of information. I didn't listen. - [It fuckin worked somehow.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/avwzce/breaking_over_600k_ethereum_belonging_to/) They found over 600k in ETH the next day. Roughly 90-100M depending on the ETH price at the time. - Some of it was on Kraken lol. Most of it was on Bitfinex. - Even though some was found, this doesn't necessarily mean that it was QCX or that it can be recovered. - There's somehow more. - ***[Their cold wallets were found empty.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/ax6i7q/quadrigacx_plot_thickens_as_cold_wallets_are/)*** - Guess who was never audited before now? - Guess who else still hasn't been audited? - Guess where most of that found ETH was? - [New Bitcoin Betting Game Adds Thousands of Waitlisted Users](https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-betting-game-hxro) - You can bet on MOON (up) or REKT (down) with a new card where you can place bets starting every five minutes. - The company is called HXRO (Hero) and they plan on releasing new betting games down the road. - Beta started Jan 1st and over 115k people on the waiting list - Guess this is a simplified version of Augur? - Seems popular thus far. - COINBASE IS SCUM!!! - [So Coinbase acquired a team called Neutrino](https://www.coindesk.com/what-coinbase-needs-to-learn-from-the-neutrino-scandal). - They had a team that all worked on a project called [Hacking Team](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Team#Controversies), which was a startup that specifically aided some shady governments in some authoritarian practices. - They helped surveillance of citizens by selling its project to - Sudan, Bahrain, Venezuela, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Kazakhstan - The UN actually got involved and told them they were selling weapons to Sudan, and they were worried about them being used to target Darfur belligerents. Hacking Team said they never had dealings with Sudan. - After the UN Got involved the Italian government froze any exports that the team could make. - Someone hacked them and their Twitter and release a 400GB data dump, which Wikileaks even retweeted. Dealings with Sudan confirmed, and there was even an invoice to Lebanon. How did "Hacking Team" get hacked? Well their password was P4ssword, and they also used wolverine and universo. - Standard response - don't download that leak it has a virus and it's also all not true (paraphrasing Christian Pozzi, team member). His Twitter was immediately hacked. - As of 2016 they were still allowed to sell spyware...just not outside of the EU. They had 70 clients as of 2015. - They won an award in 2013 - One of 5 Corporate Enemies of the Internet! - Coinbase original statement -It was “aware that Neutrino’s co-founders previously worked at Hacking Team, which we reviewed as part of our security, technical and hiring diligence,” adding that “Coinbase does not condone nor will it defend the actions of Hacking Team,” but “it was important for Coinbase to bring this function in-house to fully control and protect our customers’ data and Neutrino’s technology was the best we encountered in the space to achieve this goal.” - [But they got their act together and fired them all, except the board.](https://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-pushes-out-ex-hacking-team-employees-following-uproar) - [They were also aware that whoever Neutrino was supposed to replace was selling user data.](https://messari.io/article/coinbase-executive-says-customer-data-was-resold-by-analytics-vendors) - The quote was plain as day ""We are aware of the backgrounds of some of the folks that were involved in Neutrino and we are looking into that,” said Christine Sandler, Coinbase’s head of sales." - [Coinbase clarified that she totally misspoke.](https://www.coindesk.com/coinbases-reputation-crisis-crypto-client-data) - They say they're totally not sharing *personally identifiable data* with 3rd party vendors. I wonder if there's a thin legal definition for that? - **[Thread on Worst Investment You Made](https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/axxy5p/bag_holders_whats_been_your_worst_investment_what/)** - Bullish or Bullshit? - Thailand's SEC Approves Bitcoin, Bans Bitcoin Cash First of all the link was literally to a [BCH/USD Technical Analysis](https://www.fxstreet.com/cryptocurrencies/news/bitcoin-cash-technical-analysis-bch-usd-within-potentially-deadly-ascending-channel-201903011416) blog post One little bullet point that says 'News flow - Thailand SEC removed BCH, LTC, & ETC from ICO Fundraising....that's it lol Found the actual statement from Thai SEC [here](https://www.sec.or.th/en/Pages/News/Detail_News.aspx?tg=NEWS&lg=en&news_no=23&news_yy=2019) They just update the list regularly, last paragraph really hypes it down TLDR didnt affect anything and the rest are definitely not legal tender lol. BS ## Crypto Around the World - **[Argentina Blockchain Adoption](https://www.binance.com/en/blog/309988869718880256/Binance-Labs-BUIDLing-Argentinas-Crypto-Future](https://www.binance.com/en/blog/309988869718880256/Binance-Labs-BUIDLing-Argentinas-Crypto-Future))** - Argentina is committed to matching the investment up to $50k USD for every Argentine blockchain project that receives funding from Binance Labs. - Argentina already allows you to top up train cards with Bitcoin. - [Leaked Transactions Link Major Banks to $8.8 Billion Money Laundering Scheme](https://news.bitcoin.com/leaked-transactions-banks-billion-money-laundering/) - The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) non-profit - published a set of reports this week detailing a complex money laundering scheme “to channel billions of dollars out of Russia” - over 1.3 million leaked transactions from 238,000 companies, - OCCRP Executive Director Paul Radu elaborated > *Among the counterparties on these transactions were major Western banks such as Citigroup Inc., Raiffeisen, and Deutsche Bank. The dozens of companies in the system also generated $8.8 billion of internal transactions to obscure the origin of the cash.* - Citigroup did not respond to a request for comment, Raiffeisen declined to comment, and Deutsche Bank refused to comment for legal reasons, claiming to have limited access to information on the transactions in question. - Troika Laundromat. “The Laundromat wasn’t just a money laundering system. It was also a hidden investment vehicle, a slush fund, a tax evasion scheme, and much more - Goes deep son - [Death in Vienna](https://www.occrp.org/en/troikalaundromat/death-in-vienna) the story of Erich Rebasso - OCCRP gives out a Corrupt Actor of the Year award. Notable winners - 2013 - Entire Romanian Parliament - 2014 - Putin "Putin has been a finalist every year so you might consider this a lifetime achievement award" - 2016 - Nicolas Maduro - 2017 - Rodrigo Duterte - 2018 [Danske bank](https://www.occrp.org/en/poy/2018/) - "In the past 20 years, they’ve globalized organized crime and autocracy and helped everyone from Mexican drug cartels to Russian President Vladimir Putin to terrorists, autocrats, and almost every global threat," - Runnerups - Putin, Hungarian President viktor Orban, Mohammed bin salman, & Donald Trump - SHOTS FIRED! [Ripple CEO says JPM coin won't be used. LOL](https://www.coindesk.com/ripple-ceo-brad-garlinghouse-on-jpm-coin-other-banks-wont-use-it) [Kraken blasts Coinbase](https://twitter.com/jespow/status/1102346122138333184?s=21) - Rants Getting Hacked Samsung Wallet sucks - Mailbag - Patreon - Exit Please join the conversation in the Discord. We're in there all the time. Rate us on iTunes. Follow CryptoBasicBrent on Reddit. We are not Financial advisers.