Daily Crypto News | August 2nd, 2022
Welcome to Barmy’s Daily Crypto News – August 2nd, 2022
1. Woman Plotting Bitcoin Murder To Face Ten Years In Jail\
Jessica Leeann Sledge of Pelahatchie, Mississippi, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, for allegedly trying to plot an assassination using Bitcoin through a darkweb website.
United States Attorney Darren J. LaMarca and Special Agent in Charge Jermicha Fomby of the FBI’s Jackson Field Office both confirmed that Sledge received the maximum prison term allowed by law—120 months—for “using interstate commerce facilities in the commission of a murder-for-hire.”
According to the DOJ’s petition, Sledge delivered three payments via Whatsapp totaling $10,000 in Bitcoin on October 4, October 9, and October 10 of last year. Sledge allegedly tried to contact an assassin online between September 2021 and November 2021.
2. DROP Founders Behind $1.9M Crypto Scam Sentenced To Prison
Jeremy McAlpine and Zachary Matar were found guilty of securities fraud and given sentences of 3 years and 2.5 years in prison, respectively, according to a statement issued by the U.S. Attorney’s office in California.
McAlpine and Matar formed Dropil, a cryptocurrency startup based in Belize but operating out of Fountain Valley, California, during the 2017 crypto ICO mania. Dropil developed Dex, an automated trading bot that utilised DROP, an altcoin named DROP, and a cryptocurrency trading platform.
According to the press announcement, McAlpine, Matar, and Dropil “made a series of misleading claims to investors,” stating that Dex would produce yearly returns of 24-63%. They also failed to register DROP with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
After receiving subpoenas, McAlpine and Matar “manufactured fake Dex profitability reports, giving the false appearance that Dex was operational and profitable,” and produced additional fictitious documents stating that Dropil had raised $54 million from 34,000 investors when it had actually raised less than $2 million from fewer than 2,500 investors.
3. Colombia Collaborates With Ripple Labs For Blockchain Land Deals
As part of a strategy to address unfair land distribution practices that have resulted in decades of armed conflict, Colombia’s government has established a cooperation with Ripple Labs, the firm behind the cryptocurrency XRP, to put land titles on the blockchain.
Property titles will be authenticated and permanently stored on Ripple’s Ledger, the business’s public blockchain, as part of the initiative developed by Peersyst Technology, a blockchain development company.
According to Ripple Labs and Peersyst Technology, this will aid in the elimination of red tape and, ideally, lead to a more equitable distribution of land.
The South American nation has some of the highest levels of land ownership concentration anywhere in the world. The unequal distribution of land was the primary cause of Colombia’s civil war, which lasted from 1964 until a peace agreement in 2016 and saw leftist guerrilla organizations take up arms against the government.
4. Honduras’s First Bitcoin City, Bitcoin Vally, Launches In Santa Lucia
The little Honduran vacation town of Santa Lucia, which is 20 minutes from Tegucigalpa, the country’s capital, has become Bitcoin Valley, the first bitcoin city in the country.
Blockchain Honduras, Coincaex, the Technological University of Honduras, Decentral Academy, and the city of Santa Lucia all worked together to establish the project. The opening of Bitcoin Valley was announced by Blockchain Honduras on Thursday.
In addition to US dollars and Honduran lempiras, bitcoin will also be accepted in the Los Robles shopping center in Santa Lucia, owned by Cesar Andino. Last week, he disclosed to La Prensa that he was awaiting delivery of a point-of-sale (POS) equipment that would enable him to accept cryptocurrency.
5. Veteran Chinese Ethereum Miner Demands Fork Amid Merge
An influential cryptocurrency miner is trying to start a movement to oppose the network’s much-hyped switch to proof of stake as Ethereum makes its last preparations for the merging.
According to a tweet last week, Chandler Guo, a well-known Chinese cryptocurrency miner, has started a campaign to split the Ethereum blockchain and produce a spinoff, proof-of-work version. Using massive quantities of computing power, so-called “miners” can produce ETH in Ethereum’s current proof-of-work paradigm by tackling challenging puzzles.
With the merge, this practice will come to a stop and be replaced by a proof-of-stake mechanism, in which new ETH is generated by staking a significant amount of previously existing ETH. Ethereum is expected to become a 99% more ecologically friendly network with proof of stake.
However, the change will also put a halt to Ethereum mining, leaving ETH miners with expensive and maybe now useless specialized hardware.
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