Cryptocurrency-related lawsuits are mooning, up 300% from last year

Here’s an extraordinary fact about the 2018 bear market: business for Bitcoin-lawyers is booming.

Forty-five lawsuits involving cryptocurrency were filed in the first half of this year, reports blockchain research unit Diar.

That’s triple the amount of all the lawsuits filed last year. This is not the moon we were looking for.

Diar emphasizes the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a primary contributor to this trend. It notes the SEC is responsible for 30 percent of the cases filed, and recent moves have indicated there are to be loads more .

Last week, it revealed a veritable hard-on for cryptocurrency startups that fail to register their tokens as securities with the SEC.

Paragon and Airfox, who respectively raised $12 and $15 million after launching initial coin offerings (ICO) last year, were ordered to return all funds to investors , register their tokens as securities, and pay $250,000 in fines.

It also set precedent by shutting down seminal ‘decentralized’ digital asset trading platform EtherDelta for managing an unregistered securities exchange . The SEC further ordered its owner to pay $300,000 in fines.

While this newly-found penchant for prosecuting cryptocurrency-related securities fraud is certainly welcome (and a tad overdue), Diar keenly pointed out these fines seem a little light compared to what the SEC usually dishes for this type of fraud.

In March, the SEC demanded Merrill Lynch, the ‘wealth management’ division of Bank of America, pay $1.25 million in fines for the sale of unregistered securities that raised $38 million from investors.

Cryptocurrency scammers are tricking users with fake Binance links on Google

Slippery scammers are targeting cryptocurrency rookies with fake landing pages for popular exchange desks – including leading platform Binance – that have been deliberately designed to appear like the real thing.

Once a user has wound up on one of these fraudulent pages, all clickable links have been programmed to forward visitors to the official Binance website, but through an affiliate URL. While it appears the fake pages aren’t seeking to steal your credentials, it is advisable to practice extreme caution in case you end up on one.

Unlike the official page, the illegitimate Binance copycats use a technique known as Punycode which allows them to “represent Unicode within the limited character subset of ASCII.” Leveraging this method, the malicious domain ‘xn--inance-hrbom’ could be displayed as ‘ƅinanceom.’

You can see how that could be confusing to newcomers – and some less technical crypto-traders in general.

One way to spot fake pages is by checking the certificates in the upper left corner of your browser. It is worth noting that some more advanced techniques are known to make it damn near impossible to tell apart real from fake set-ups – so take this tip with a grain of salt.

Another detail we noticed is that fake pages don’t seem to update the exchange rates in real-time like the legitimate Binance site does. There is also a poorly placed ‘Sign up first’ button right in the middle of the of the illegitimate copycats.

For what is worth, the person behind this shenanigan is using the following affiliate account number: 10115320.

The official Binance Referal Program says that affiliates will receive 50 percent of the trading fees of any signees they’ve brought to the exchange desk.

For those unfamiliar, affiliate programs are a convenient way for companies to enlist third-party ‘partners’ to recruit new users. Such ‘partners,’ who can be almost anyone, receive a small cut of every transaction done by users who signed up through them.

“ The fee commission will be sent instantly in real-time to your Binance account as your referee completes each trade and will be paid to you in whatever token/cryptocurrency the original fee was paid in,” its terms read.

TNW has reached out to Binance to inform them of this suspicious activity. We will update this post accordingly once we hear back.

The fraudulent sites were first spotted by Redditors, who claim they accidentally landed on one of them while browsing Google. Following members urging fellow posters to report the malicious page for phishing, it appears the Big G has since removed the copycats from Search.

This is hardly the first time attackers have attempted setting up fake pages to make profits from unsuspecting crypto-enthusiasts.

Back in September last year, exchange desk Bitfinex took to Twitter to warn its users that attackers have made a phishing website that closely resembles the official service.

Given that Binance has swiftly established itself as one of the world’s leading exchange desks in the brief six months since it launched back in July 2017, it is hardly surprising attackers have taken aim at the company’s fast-growing user base.

As per Coin Market Cap , Binance processed the largest amount of exchange requests in the past 24 hours, boasting a total trading volume of over $7.5 billion.

‘Buy the Dip’ is like ‘Silicon Valley’ for crypto nerds – but funnier

First it was comic books , then it was cringy rap songs , and now people are making movies about cryptocurrency and blockchain.

“ Buy the Dip is a satirical film based around cryptocurrency which serves as a television pilot for a series of short comedies and sketches ​on current trends and technology, ” director Sam Lucas Smith told us.

“A shorter way of putting it would be a funny (but equally cynical) version of Black Mirror ,” Smith added.

Factoring in the trailer, his comparison is not far-fetched at all; though it feels the production draws inspiration from other iconic titles like Silicon Valley and Trainspotting too. But for now we’ll leave the comparisons up to you.

Buy the Dip is not yet available to watch, but Smith has already uploaded the official trailer:

The movie touches upon a slew of topics that will readily resonate with crypto-aficionados, including awful investment “advice,” dark web drug conspiracies, and of course – flashy Lambos. You will also hear talk about Bitcoin, CoinMarketCap, and the notorious BitConnect .

And in case you were wondering about it: this is what a Dublin accent sounds like.

Smith tells me he is not yet sure what direction Buy the Dip will take in the future, but he is interested in turning this short pilot into a series (assuming he manages to secure funding). Smith is also considering crowdfunding the project with digital currencies. He says this would make Buy the Dip the first-ever production entirely funded by cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain themes have gradually started popping up in a number of mainstream productions recently.

Indeed, Silicon Valley recently included the logo of leading cryptocurrency exchange desk Coinbase in one of the promo trailers for its upcoming fifth season.

The Big Bang Theory similarly touched upon cryptocurrency in its last season, devoting an entire episode to Bitcoin – though some have since pointed out the show got a lot of things about blockchain wrong .

But unlike those big-time productions, Buy the Dip targets an audience more closely familiar with the mad world of cryptocurrency and blockchain: it is a production for cryptocurrency enthusiasts, made by cryptocurrency enthusiasts – and that is precisely what excites me about this short.

Buy the Dip is slated to premiere next week. Those interested should subscribe to the official Vard Productions YouTube channel for updates.