Bitcoin Daily: Andreessen Horowitz Launching Crypto Startup School; Malware Empties Crypto Wallets

Andreessen Horowitz announced that it is launching its own crypto startup school “to encourage more tech entrepreneurs to start crypto projects and help crypto-curious builders navigate the idea maze.”

Chris Dixon, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, told The Block that the school will boast free tuition.

“We are going to run a startup school for crypto-specific startups and what we’ve learned over the last seven years as best practices in this category,” he explained.

In other news, security researchers have discovered a new botnet that can empty crypto wallets.

Researchers at Prevailion found that the Trojan malware — MasterMana Botnet — sends out phishing emails with malicious code to crypto investors. Once the email is opened, the code creates backdoors on the computer to empty out crypto wallets. Even more surprising: The botnet only costs about $160.

“Based on what we’ve observed, the MasterMana Botnet had a global impact on organizations across a wide variety of verticals,” Danny Adamitis, intelligence director at Prevailion, told CoinDesk. “We assess that the Botnet was interacting with approximately 2,000 machines a week, or 72,000 machines over the course of 2019, based on the snapshot we observed.”

He added that “the cost for the threat actors to deploy and maintain the campaign was virtually nonexistent.”

And a source has told Bloomberg that Vanguard Group is testing a new way for asset managers to trade currencies without having to go through big investment banks. The platform is reportedly based on the blockchain technology that powers bitcoin and has been operational for two months.

“Direct trading really is the Holy Grail for the buy-side,” said Campbell Adams, a former senior currency trader at Deutsche Bank who founded a platform called ParFX. “In theory, it sounds great because you can reduce your costs if you can match directly with someone else who has a countervailing interest,” but added that “it will require a critical mass of users.”