Tag: kucoin

IT Ministry to Block Binance, Kraken, More Crypto Websites After FIU Issues Show Cause Notice

As part of compliance action against the offshore entities, Financial Intelligence Unit India (FIU IND) has issued show cause notices to nine offshore Virtual Digital Assets Service Providers (VDA SPs) under Section 13 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

According to an official release from the Ministry of Finance, “Virtual Digital Assets Service Providers (VDA SPs) were brought into the ambit of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Financing of Terrorism (AML-CFT) framework under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PML) Act in March 2023.”

“As part of compliance action against the offshore entities, Financial Intelligence Unit India (FIU IND) has issued compliance Show Cause Notices to the following nine offshore Virtual Digital Assets Service Providers (VDA SPs) under Section 13 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA),” it said.

As per the release, the nine offshore Virtual Digital Assets Service Providers are Binance, Kucoin, Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, Bittrex, Bitstamp, MEXC Global and Bitfinex.

“Director FIU IND has written to the Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to block the URLs of said entities that are operating illegally without complying with the provisions of the PML Act in India,” said the release.

VDA SPs operating in India (both offshore and onshore) and engaged in activities like exchange between virtual digital assets and fiat currencies, transfer of virtual digital assets, safekeeping or administration of virtual digital assets or instruments enabling control over virtual digital assets, etc. are required to be registered with FIU IND as reporting entities and comply with the set of obligations as mandated under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2002, it said.

The obligation is activity-based and is not contingent on physical presence in India.

“The regulation places reporting, record-keeping, and other obligations on the VDA SPs under the PML Act, which also includes registration with the FIU IND,” said the release.

To date, 31 VDA SPs have registered with FIU IND. However, several offshore entities, though catering to a substantial part of Indian users, were not getting registered and coming under the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Financing of Terrorism (CFT) frameworks.

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Younger Generations of Traders Favour AI Advancements in Crypto, Web3 Sector: KuCoin Report

Millennial and Gen Z members of the Web3 community are hopeful that advance Artificial Intelligence (AI) integration with the sector will finetune investment decisions for younger investors. KuCoin, that claims to be the fifth largest crypto exchange in the word, conducted a detailed study on how AI could be integrated into Web3 elements like crypto and blockchain gaming among others. While AI has been a popular tech tool among developers for nearly a decade now, but discussions around the technology picked pace after AI-based chatbots like ChatGPT recently blew up on social media. Now, as the technology has seen widespread adoption, Big Tech is racing to integrate AI tools in its services.

KuCoin surveyed 1,125 crypto users from different parts of the world to understand how the Web3 community perceives AI. The survey included responses from Gen Z users aged 18-24 (15 percent), Gen Y users aged 25-40 (54 percent), Gen X users aged above 40 (31 percent), with a varied level of experience in crypto investing.

Over 64 percent of the younger respondents confirmed that they were somewhat familiar with the uses of AI in crypto and blockchain. On the contrary, members of the GenX generation are lesser aware about AI utilisation in crypto as well as in other industries as well.

This calls for an acceleration in education and awareness initiatives, especially tailored for the understanding of GenX population, the report noted.

Investors of the GenX category, comprising of those born in the mid-1960s till about 1980, are not really enthusiastic about loading up existing tech services with multiple newer technologies like AI.

Whereas 59 percent of millennials and Gen Z participants supported the addition of AI to crypto trading and educational activities.

“The enthusiastic response from our users about AI integration and blockchain efficiency is incredibly motivating. At KuCoin, we are steadfast in our dedication to staying at the forefront of technological advancements and constantly improving our platform to meet the dynamic needs of the crypto community,” Johnny Lyu, CEO, KuCoin, said, weighing in on the findings of this survey.

Generative AI for text, such as ChatGPT, is favoured across all generations, with 51 percent of respondents preferring it.

Not just AI, but other technologies like Machine Learning (ML) can add more capabilities to crypto and Web3 services.

Industry players have already begun experimenting the integration of blockchain tech with AI and ML.

Earlier this week, Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX announced that it was refreshing its Okto crypto wallet service with AI and ML capabilities, especially around security. CoinDCX claims that Okto has been integrated with an advanced cognitive AI technology, making it the first ever self-custody wallet infused with AI. In addition, the Okto team has also deployed ML to analyse and monitor patterns in usual and unusual crypto transactions.

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KuCoin Awaits Legal Notice to Freeze Assets of Crypto Rug Pull Scammer: Details

KuCoin has identified one of its users as a serial scammer, looting unaware crypto investors of their finances. The Seychelles-based crypto exchange has decided to not freeze the assets of this user, whose name remains undisclosed, unless a law enforcement agency sends over a legal notice instructing the exchange to do so. In recent years, legal agencies have become very strict around curbing the incidents of scams and hacks in the crypto sector. It could be just a matter of time before KuCoin gets a direction from the Seychelles authority on the matter.

The situation came to light after James Edwards, a Web3 community member, recognised a shady wallet address that had been launching two to five scam coins every day for the last two years. This wallet address was found to be linked to KuCoin.

Modelled after the popular Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, the meme-coins released by this scammer were to trick people to invest in them.

Later, in a typical rug pull style, the scammer would abandon the tokens and disappear with whatever these tokens pulled as investments from the victims.

In its justification for delaying the blocking of assets linked to this scammer, KuCoin has said it will follow the laws of Seychelles.

“When the reporting party has provided relevant legal documents, procedures, or reporting records, we will assist and cooperate with law enforcement agencies to take temporary risk control measures in accordance with complaints and reports, user agreements and Seychelles laws,” a CoinTelegraph report quoted KuCoin as saying in an email interaction.

In a recent report, CoinGecko named KuCoin as the third most trustworthy exchange in the world after Coinbase and ByBit.

This could be the reason why KuCoin has been becoming a hotspot for crypto scammers for a while now.

Some users of the KuCoin exchange collectively lost over $22,000 (roughly Rs. 18 lakh) after the Twitter account of the crypto exchange was briefly hacked. Hackers managed to gain control over KuCoin’s Twitter handle for about 45 minutes on April 24.

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Crypto Criminals Not on Holiday, Scams Like 3Commas and ‘Pig Butchering’ Continue to Strike

The crypto sector, thriving in several parts of the world, was struck with several hack and scam attacks this year. Even a couple of days before the industrially quaky year of 2022 ends, news and warning around crypto crimes have made it to the headlines. This week, the private API keys of around 1,00,000 crypto users were leaked on public domains. The victims were all users of 3Commas, an Estonia-based crypto trading service. The incident added more stress to the already disturbed crypto sector that has drastically dropped down in valuation to a yearly low to $795 billion (roughly Rs. 65,87,830 crore).

3Commas lets users set up an automated feature that has bots initiate trades on third party exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, and KuCoin on behalf of the users.

An anonymous hacker, as confirmed by 3Commas, had been at work since October that reportedly resulted in a loss of user funds up to $12 million (roughly Rs. 100 crore) via unconsented transactions. These transactions were processed via 3Commas on exchanges like Binance and Coinbase.

Previously, the company was exploring if these unverified transactions were being triggered by phishing attacks.

Several members of the crypto community, including Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, shared awareness and safety suggestions for others.

The incident comes in the backdrop of crypto crimes gaining more and more pace around the world.

US’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned crypto investors there about a new technique of ongoing scams — called the ‘pig butchering’. In these instances, scammers get potential victims to move their investments to cryptocurrency. Once their digital wallet ‘fattens’, these scammers hack and steal the funds.

“Be very careful when you go on social media and dating apps and somebody starts developing a relationship with you, and wants you to start investing. Don’t get butchered,” Bitcoin.com quoted Frank Fisher, public affairs specialist at the FBI’s Albuquerque division, as saying.

Back in November, the authorities in the US reportedly claimed to have identified and confiscated seven domain names that were exploited in pig butchering scams.

In a recent report, Chainalysis claimed that the month of October has been the worst in terms of crypto-related crimes. The crypto sector lost over $718 million (roughly Rs. 5,890 crore) owing to such crimes.

Back-to-back hack attacks on the digital assets sector contributed heavily to how the market turned-out to reach its current low valuation of $795 billion (roughly Rs. 65,87,830 crore).

Glassnode, in its latest report, has claimed that most Bitcoin holders have moved their holdings to self-custodial crypto wallets. Glassnode has estimated that around 550,000 Bitcoin worth $9.2 billion (roughly Rs. 76,760 crore) have left crypto exchanges.

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India Has Around 115 Million Crypto Investors, Number May Rise Post Legal Clarity: KuCoin

Indian government’s restrictive approach towards the crypto sector has hindered, but not been able to entirely fail its expansion in the tech-friendly sub-continent. In a new report, KuCoin crypto exchange has claimed that India currently has over 115 million crypto investors, making for 15 percent of its massive population. Majority Indian crypto investors are aged between 18 to 60. At this point, India does not allow the use of crypto assets as payment alternatives. Trading, purchase, or sale of crypto assets however, is permitted in India under a tax regime that went live earlier this year.

The Indian crypto market is expected to reach the valuation of $241 million (roughly Rs. 1,924 crore) by 2030, KuCoin said in its report titled The Cryptoverse Report India.

Another 10 percent of Indian adults are crypto-curious consumers who are planning to invest in crypto in the coming six months, the report claimed, while addressing certain concerns that Indians have expressed around experimenting with cryptocurrencies.

“A lack of sufficient knowledge of the crypto market is reflected by 41 percent of respondents who state that they are not sure which types of crypto investment products to choose, 37 percent have difficulty managing the risk of their portfolios, and 27 percent have trouble predicting the market directions and values of crypto. Meanwhile, 21 percent are not clear about how crypto works,” the report added.

Another key factor that is keeping people from investing in crypto is regulatory uncertainty prevailing in the country, as well as fears of losing their funds to hack attacks.

“33 percent report that government regulation is a concern when considering investing in crypto. The safety of investing in crypto is also a concern for many, as 26 percent worry about hackers being a threat, and 23 percent fear that they may not get their money back in case of security incidents,” the report noted.

Out of the 2042 Indian adults surveyed by KuCoin, 56 percent investors believe crypto is the future of finance and 54 percent believe they will rope-in higher returns on long-term investments.

Among young Indians, 24 percent investors are dabbling in the sector owing to the crypto hype.

Unfortunately, India did not make it to the list of countries, that have taken crypto-friendly measures to contribute to the growth of this nascent industry.

In the latest ‘Worldwide Crypto Readiness Report’, Forex Suggest claimed that Hong Kong, followed by the US and Switzerland are the world’s top three most crypto-ready nations, respectively.

Indian crypto traders are struggling to see profits after paying a 30 percent tax on transactions of virtual digital assets. This rule went live in April.

Starting July, Indians have also begun to see one percent tax deductions on each crypto transaction. This essentially means that one percent TDS is being levied on every purchase and deposit of crypto assets, thus increasing the pressure on investors.

Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article. 

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KuCoin Expands Crypto Services with Decentralised, Self-Custodial Wallet Platform

Acting on the rising demand for expansive crypto-related services, KuCoin crypto exchange has decided to expand its service offerings in the sector. The Seychelles-based company has announced its crypto wallet platform, which is decentralised and self-custodial in nature. Named the KuCoin Wallet, the platform supports multi-chain aggregation that enables users to send, receive, and store BTC, ETH, USDT, USDC, and BNB among other cryptocurrency tokens. For now, the wallet is live on web browsers. Its mobile application is expected to be released soon as well.

The crypto exchange, established in 2017, will be adding special sections around decentralised finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFT), and GameFi sectors.

In a bid to purchase, store, and browse NFTs or digital collectibles — KuCoin Wallet will be integrated with Windvane NFT marketplace.

In addition, the wallet’s self-custodial feature audited by Hacken allows users to access full control of their assets, since they manage their own private keys.

“As the gateway to the Web3 network, crypto wallets are an important requirement for users to participate in the decentralised ecosystem and have developed far more than being a mere tool for storing digital assets,” Lyu noted.

Johnny Lyu, the CEO of KuCoin called the launch of this wallet service a ‘significant step’ in the country’s Web3 exploration. He also posted the announcement on Twitter.

KuCoin claims that its goal is to go beyond centralised trading services and give its services more Web3 flavours.

The launch of its wallet comes just days after the crypto exchange raised fresh capital of $150 million (roughly Rs. 1,158 crore) in a pre-Series B funding round.

A bunch of venture capital firms like Circle Ventures and Jump Crypto have pumped-in the recent capital influx for KuCoin, reinstating trust in the crypto exchange business.

The company had also secured $20 million (roughly Rs. 155 crore) in a Round A funding back in November 2018. It is listed as the fifth largest crypto exchange on the market as per CoinMarketCap.

In fact, last year KuCoin ‘merged’ reality with virtual reality (VR) to introduce its new metaverse office in a stunning virtual reality-based building called ‘Bloktopia’.

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