Pablo Escobar’s brother has launched his own cryptocurrency: Diet Bitcoin

The blockchain space is truly full of surprises. It appears that Roberto Escobar, the biological brother of notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar, has launched his own cryptocurrency: Diet Bitcoin (DDX).

A hard fork of the Bitcoin network, the new currency promises to offer a faster and lighter alternative to Bitcoin. Roberto’s eponymous venture investment firm, Escobar Inc, is currently running an initial coin offering (ICO), where users can buy the token at a 96-percent discount: down to $2 from $50.

A spokesperson for Escobar Inc has since exclusively confirmed Roberto’s involvement in the project in an email to TNW.

The Diet Bitcoin website says the total supply of 1,000,000 DDX will be split in three separate token sales: 300,000 DDX will be sold at $50 (currently discounted to $2), another 300,000 will go for $100 a coin, and the remaining 400,000 will be priced at $1,000.

But this shouldn’t worry you too much, according to Escobar Inc COO Daniel Reitberg.

“ Everyone should listen to these news, go to www.dietbitcoinICOrg and buy as many dietbitcoin’s as you can afford,” said Reitberg. “The value will be very high as we are identical in numbers to Bitcoin, except we are 4000 times cheaper right now.”

“ Why would anyone on the planet buy bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency where there is no real team behind it,” Escobar Inc CEO Olof Gustafsson bullishly reiterated. “We at Escobar Inc are committed to support the cryptocurrency dietbitcoin fully and are managing the day-to-day operations of this new currency.”

Anybody interested in taking a deeper look at DDX can peruse their white paper here .

It is worth noting that forking the Bitcoin network is nothing new: there is software that lets virtually anybody do so in a matter of a few clicks. So you might want to be extra careful if you’re mulling on investing in DDX.

In addition to the new currency, Escobar has also released a book – titled Pablo Escobar’s Diet Bitcoin – that sums up his motivation to launch the coin. This rare piece of literature is available to purchase from Amazon for $8, but you can also get a free copy from the official Diet Bitcoin site here .

Among other things, Roberto claims that – contrary to popular belief – Bitcoin was created by the American government and not by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto (hinting Nakamoto is a front for the government).

“The world is going to see that this was created by them,” the book reads. “And when they see it, it is too late, and when CIA founds out that the world knows about this, the CIA is going to sell all of their coins, and they will destroy the value of Bitcoin.”

It remains to be seen how successful Diet Bitcoin will be, but Roberto appears optimistic about its future. In fact, the businessman claims that most cryptocurrencies currently available are fraudulent, and vows that his DDX will be there when all others fall.

“You can stick with your worthless coins,” Escobar says in the book. “Keep the Ethereum, Keep the TRON, keep the Ripple, keep the Bitcoin. You will see what happens. They will all go to zero, almost zero. But not my coin. Because my coin, this is going to be my new work in life.”

Coinbase will support Ethereum ERC20 tokens on its exchange

Coinbase has traditionally been extremely selective when it comes to adding new coins on its platform, but it appears things might be about to change: the San Francisco-based company has announced plans to support Ethereum-based ERC20 tokens on its cryptocurrency exchange desk in the near future.

For those unfamiliar, ERC20 is a technical protocol developers can use to create utility-based tokens on the Ethereum network. Among hundreds others, the list of ERC20-powered tokens includes popular currencies like EOS, Golem and QTUM. Indeed, the technical standard has often been employed by fraudulent startups seeking to launch their own tokens in an easy and swift way .

Coinbase took to Medium to reveal its plans to support the ERC20 technical standard, but has so far kept the lid on when the implementation will go live – or which tokens will get listed first.

“ This paves the way for supporting ERC20 assets across Coinbase products in the future, though we aren’t announcing support for any specific assets or features at this time,” the company wrote in the blog post.

According to the announcement, ERC20 support will be gradually implemented across the full suite of Coinbase products, including hedge fund tool Custody, GDAX, its Asset Management platform, and of course its main platform – but only after assets have made their way to GDAX. The only exception seems to be the Commerce payment system for which there are no immediate plans to add ERC20.

One curious detail is that Coinbase took a moment to stress that it is making this information public so as to comply with its process for adding new assets – and perhaps to avoid yet another insider trading scandal.

In late December last year, the exchange desk was in the middle of an insider trading controversy after Bitcoin Cash (BCH) experienced an abrupt jump in price moments before Coinbase announced support for the currency.

As a result, CEO Brian Armstrong launched an internal investigation, which ultimately concluded there was no foul play in the sudden price surge of BCH.

Where will crypto-nerds go now that Telegram is blocked in Russia?

Following a prolonged feud between the two parties, the Russian government has moved to block the popular Telegram messenger countrywide, BBC reports .

The news comes only weeks after the messaging platform lost a bid to deny continued requests by the local media regulator to hand in its users’ encryption keys. Media watchdog Roskomnadzor has noted the reason for the suspension is that Telegram missed to provide the requested data within the legally appointed deadline on April 4.

It remains unclear whether Telegram has any legal recourse to fight the decision, but the abrupt ban will likely have an impact on the larger cryptocurrency and blockchain scene.

Among alternatives like Reddit and Twitter, the encrypted messenger has gradually cemented its position as one of the go-to platforms for crypto-discussions – especially to Russian netizens. Many startups in the blockchain space have actively relied on Telegram to build up engaged communities and keep their user base updated.

Indeed, leading cryptocurrency exchange desk Binance has set up a dedicated Telegram channel specifically for its Russian users. The group boasts more than 9,000 users. Curiously, members of the group remain active despite the ban (we have been able to confirm with users they used VPN to circumvent the government ban).

A couple of weeks back, Telegram chief Pavel Durov took to Twitter to say that threats against its users’ privacy “won’t bear fruit.”

Telegram lawyer Pavel Chikov has since downplayed the legal attempt to block the app within Russia as “groundless.”

“ The FSB’s requirements to provide access to private conversations of users are unconstitutional, baseless, which cannot be fulfilled technically and legally,” Chikov said in a statement. It seems the Russian government disagrees though.

It will be interesting to see what platforms cryptocurrency enthusiasts will resort to in the event that Telegram fails to reach an agreement with Russia.

Alternatives like Reddit and Twitter lack the group chatting functionality that has made Telegram so convenient to use. Slack and Discord too have proven popular among crypto-enthusiasts, but unfortunately they don’t offer the same encryption capabilities. Now if only WhatsApp allowed groups with more than 256 participants…

Update: Durov has since responded to this affair with the following statement: