These are the 5 biggest crypto news stories of the week
Data breach at Celsius, a hard fork at Binance, EU regulatory pressure, and the latest U.S. inflation numbers: this is the crypto news of the week.
Data breach at Celsius, a hard fork at Binance, EU regulatory pressure, and the latest U.S. inflation numbers: this is the crypto news of the week. Another exciting week in the crypto space comes to a close. A concise roundup of the key events around Bitcoin, Ethereum and friends.
Celsius: now also a data breach
The bankrupt lender Celsius has published sensitive customer data in a court document, which is now accessible via a website. There you’ll find detailed lists of investors’ losses.
Moreover, the injured parties with the largest losses are named explicitly. According to Nick Hansen, CEO of mining service Luxor, the "Celsius leak will go down in history as one of the biggest data breaches in customer information ever".
Portugal imposes crypto tax
Portugal plans to tax profits from crypto trading in the future. This comes from a government report. Anyone selling Bitcoin and co. for a profit in under a year will owe 28 percent to the state. Lisbon also wants to introduce a 4 percent tax on free crypto transfers.
The EU aims to introduce efficiency classes for cryptocurrencies
What used to be seen with washing machines, TVs, or fridges is coming to crypto as well, at least if the EU Commission gets its way. The classification is meant to assess the underlying blockchain for its durability. The Commission still intends to set corresponding minimum standards for energy use.
An additional report should also assess the "climate impact of new technologies" in the crypto market. It would also discuss "policy options" to curb environmentally unfriendly crypto tech, particularly regarding the consensus mechanism.
Binance Smart Chain (BSC) undergoes a hard fork
A hard fork on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) has been completed, named "Moran". This was confirmed in a GitHub post, where the fork was scheduled for around 10 a.m. German time. The network fork is meant to fix the multi-million dollar exploit from last week. Smart Chain was briefly paused on Friday due to a bridge hack. For more on this, see this article: Binance Smart Chain goes through hard fork
US inflation numbers fall slower than expected
On Thursday, October 13, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the long-awaited inflation numbers for September. The year-over-year inflation rate in the United States came in at 8.2%. Experts had expected 8.1%.
This means inflation is easing further from the previous month. In August, inflation fell to 8.3%, but less than expected.
