Bitcoin Daily: India Sees Rise In Fake Crypto Wallet Scams; Crypto Exchanges Vulnerable In How They Hold User Funds

A number of wealthy Indian business owners have succumbed as of late to scams that robbed them of their cryptocurrency, according to an India TV news report.

The scams are coming by way of fake Bitcoin wallets that trick victims into fraudulent trade agreements before disappearing completely.

Manan Shah, founder and CEO of Avalance Global Solutions, said he had seen “so many wealthy Indian falling into the trap of such fake cryptocurrency wallets in the recent past.”

“One gentleman just came to me who lost $50,000 [over Rs 37 lakh] while dealing with one such fake platform,” he said, according to the report.

Meanwhile, several cryptocurrency exchanges are in hot water over reported failures to make sure their user funds are totally secure, according to a report from exchange security firm Taurus Group, CoinDesk reported.

The firm’s co-founder, Jean-Philippe Aumasson, said he had uncovered vulnerabilities in how user funds are held, according to the report.

Crypto exchanges usually operate through multiple security keys so that no one entity has total control. But Taurus Group found that new attack vectors have come from the splitting-up of keys. The vectors assumed that key holders would be trustworthy and secure.

For example, an ill-intentioned key holder could change part of the component so the full key doesn’t work, therefore locking out the exchange from their funds. And hackers could potentially compromise a system and steal the funds.

In other news, China’s nationwide Blockchain Service Network (BSN) has launched its official international website, according to Cointelegraph.

The site aims to draw global developers into the project, which now allows international developers for Ethereum, EOS, Nervos, Tezos, NEO and IRISnet to build decentralized applications to run nodes through the system at overseas BSN data centers.

And, LVC Corporation has begun offering the cryptocurrency LINK on BITMAX, the Japan-based crypto exchange, according to a press release.

BITMAX was released in September through the LINE messaging app as a crypto asset exchange service. The LINE messaging app has over 84 million active users per month, and BITMAX has proved popular among amateur traders of the digital currency.

LINK is a crypto asset offered by LINE’s main private blockchain network, LINE Blockchain. One billion LINK tokens will be issued and 800 million are slated to be used for reward incentives for using LINE products, according to the release. The remaining 200 million will be used as a reserve.