Daily: Civil journos claim unpaid CVL tokens; ADAM formed for crypto guidelines; Nasdaq to launch BTC Futures; Singapore tables payments bill for crypto; BitPay's wallet app compromised; NY woman pleads guilty for donating BTC to ISIS

​Daily: Civil journos claim unpaid CVL tokens; ADAM formed for crypto guidelines; Nasdaq to launch BTC Futures; Singapore tables payments bill for crypto; BitPay's wallet app compromised; NY woman pleads guilty for donating BTC to ISIS

• Fuddip & Fomoon category:

• Some of you may have known about the news when crypto asset Civil, which was meant to democratize and made transparent the rights of content created by journalists, had to cancel its public sale last month.
• However, lately, journalists working on its platform have claimed that they have yet to receive any compensation for the work they've done so far.
• According to them, Civil was supposed to pay journalists in its 18 newsrooms around the US, that they would be paid in CVL cryptocurrency as part of their pay.
• While the platform utilizing the CVL cryptocurrency remains incomplete (due to the token sale cancellation), the newsroom continues operating, sans tokens.
• While Civil CEO Matt Iles disputes the claims, saying that they didn't promise anyone tokens would be worth any specific amount, journalists making the claim shared that Civil told reporters working with its sponsored news operations that CVL token would be partially paid and could be worth around US$0.75.
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• Mediasizing the Regulators category:

• A group of 10 firms in the cryptocurrency and financial instituation space are forming a group with the aim to standardize code of conduct in the ecosystem.
• The Association of Digital Market Assets, or ADAM, is backed by Galaxy Digital, Genesis Global Trading, GSR, Hudson River Trading, Paxos, Symbiont, BitOoda Technologies, BTIG, Cumberland and XBTO.
• These firms are planning to put in place voluntary rules to cover activities like efficient trading, custody, clearing and digital asset settlement.
• ADAM also aims to work with regulators in the hope of helping laws and regulations and improve transparency and trust among financial watchdogs and policy creators in government.
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• US Stock Exchange Nasdaq plans to launch a Bitcoin futures as soon as Q1 of 2019.
• The move comes despite Bitcoin's price downturn to 13-month lows but Nasdaq seems to be unfazed by that.
• It has been working to satisfy concerns from the US main swaps regulator - the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) prior to launching the contracts.
• This move comes after CBOE and CME Group have both launched their Bitcoin futures in November 2017.
• The move also comes in the heels of New York Stock Exchange's parent company ICE launching and postponing their Bakkt platform on 24 January 2019.
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• The Singapore government will soon be debating on whether to pass or reject a new bill currently being tabled in parliament that may impact electronic wallets and digital payment tokens such as Bitcoin.
• The Payment Services Bill will enforce providers of payment services not under the regulatory oversight of the Money-Changing and Remittance Businesses Act and the Payment Systems Oversight Act under the jurisdiction of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
• Besides cryptocurrency regulations, activities expected to be covered under the bill include:
  • Account issuance service
  • Domestic money transfer service
  • Cross border money transfer service
  • Merchant acquisition services
  • E-money issuance service
  • Digital payment token service
  • Money-changing service
• To offer these services, providers are expected to acquire licenses corresponding to the risks these services pose.
• The licenses will be classified into three categories: major payment institutions, standard payment institutions and money-changing institutions.
• The difference among these classes will be the transaction volumes where a standard payment institution should not have transaction amounts exceeding SGD$3m per month and electronic money float above SGD$5m.
• Other conditions include applicants to be registered with a permanent place of business in Singapore.
• While other payment service providers will have up to 12 months to comply once the bill is signed into law, providers of digital payment tokens will have only six months to comply.
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• Blockhead Lockdown category:

• Crypto payment platform BitPay has released an advisory on 26 November for users using its open-source Bitcoin wallet Copay, citing that it may be compromised by malicious code.
• The vulnerability is sourced from a third-party Node.js module which is used in version 5.0.2 through to 5.1.0 of BitPay's Copay and BitPay apps.
• Apparently, this module has loaded malware capable of stealing users' private keys.
• While the app is not vulnerable to malicious code, the BitPay team is looking into whether this vulnerability had been exploited against existing Copay users.
• Meanwhile, the firm has issued an advisory to its users, saying that anyone with versions 5.0.2 to 5.1.0 of the app "should not run or open the app."
• The firm has also released a security update in version 5.2.0 and is waiting for it to be published on app stores.
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• Zoobia Shahnaz, a Pakistani-born 27-year old woman from New York has pleaded guilty for supporting the Islamic terror group ISIS using Bitcoin and other digital currencies.
• She admitted wiring more than US$150k to different shell companies and individuals overseas, which served the ISIS financial network in Turkey, Pakistan and China.
• In 2017, when these payments were made, she was caught trying to enter Syria, and was later placed in custody.
• She faces up to 20 years in prison for supporting a foreign terrorist organization.
• Prior to being caught, Shahnaz was a lab technician working in Manhattan making about US$71k a year.
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