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Christie’s “encrypted” – Christie’s auction house enabling payments in cryptocurrency Ethereum

British auction house Christie’s is where spectacular auctions take place. Transactions that are carried out there are mentioned all over the world. Many Christie’s auctions attract interest due to the fact that they may be controversial, such as sale of an image created by artificial intelligence or the work entitled “Femme assise près d’une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse)” by Pablo Picasso. Recently Christie’s announced that another innovative auction is planned.

Namely its October “Post-War to Present” auction will include the sale of 31 non-fungible tokens that are considered to be some of the oldest on the Ethereum blockchain. A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unit of data stored on a digital ledger, called a blockchain, that certifies a digital asset to be unique and therefore not interchangeable. This will be the first ever live auction with bidding conducted entirely in Ether. The NFTs that Christie’s is offering in the fall have distinct legacies of their own. They are also estimated to sell for between 250 and 350 ETH, which shakes out to approximately between $870,000 and $1.3 million. These NFTs are Curio Cards that were made in May 2017, so even earlier than CryptoPunks and CryptoKitties.  

Aside from the Curio Cards NFTs, Christie’s will be auctioning NFTs from the Art Blocks curated collection. Modern artists would have possibility to choose their favourite post-war artworks and pay for them in Ethereum. The tokens are representing real-world objects like art, music, in-game items, videos and other seemingly mundane everyday signifiers. Works by renowned artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Elaine de Kooning, Joan Mitchell and Grace Hartigan will be part of the auction alongside works by Wayne Thiebaud.

The event definitely created a buzz among art enthusiasts.  NFTs are highly valued digital assets which uses blockchain to record the ownership status of the aforementioned items. After the transaction only the buyer of an NFT has the official of being its owner. However anyone can still view the item.

Recently, several large cryptocurrency-based auctions have brought in huge amounts of money in the art world. The upcoming “Post-War to Present” auction is sure to create a buzz among currency enthusiasts. One thing we can be sure of – a digital revolution is coming, and the world of cryptocurrencies will surprise us more than once.

Sources:

Christie’s Is Now Accepting Ether for Ethereum’s Earliest NFTs | Observer

Christie’s to Hold Auction of Some of the Oldest NFT Art — With Live Bids in ETH | Technology News (ndtv.com)

Christie’s na Twitterze: „Friday, 1 October at 9:30AM EDT, Christie’s New York presents Post-War to Present: The NFTs. This will be the first ever live auction with bidding conducted entirely in Ether. Featuring Curio Cards and Art Blocks Curated. https://t.co/Ydpr1zsr5Z https://t.co/zUaoY0pEXT” / Twitter

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Theft in the cryptocurrency environment

Theft in the cryptocurrency environment

We usually associate the cryptocurrency environment with advanced security measures to secure financial resources. There are even companies that offer cryptocurrency holders advanced methods of securing their wealth through military technology. Nevertheless, the problem of theft is not a foreign topic in the cryptocurrency community.

The graph above shows the size of cryptocurrency theft over a period of 3 years. Different colors indicate different cases of cryptocurrency theft, while the black line shows the number of recorded incidents.

Almost all cases of cryptocurrency theft fall into one of the three theft categories. The categories mentioned are: Exchange attacks, attacks on individuals, DeFi exploits.

Exchange attacks

At this point, thieves have stolen billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency by attacking exchange wallets. Many companies, including such large and respected companies as Bitpoint, Binance, DragonEx, have been the subject of keen interest from hackers. The question arises as to how hackers managed to break through such advanced security. One of the most common methods used by hackers is social engineering. A hacker typically tries to trick employees of a particular cryptocurrency security company’s customers into downloading special malware that will give them access to one or more accounts. If the attacker is sufficiently determined, he will wait for months or even longer, observing patterns of money inflows and outflows so that he can sense the right moment to steal as much money as possible. What does this look like in practice?  In one particularly audacious case, hackers set up a fake company, complete with website, social media presence and executive resumes.  On the fake website, the hackers posted that they had created an automated trading bot and sent out several messages to employees of the companies/exchanges asking them to download and try a free trial version. At least one of the recipients was tempted by the offer. As it later turned out, the “free trial” included malware that helped hackers obtain the keys to private cryptocurrency wallets of several users. Immediately after gaining access to these accounts, the hackers began siphoning funds from these wallets. Hacking activity is a major threat for exchanges.

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Illicit Actors and Organizations in the aspect of cryptocurrency market

Illegal organisations, or other illegal cryptocurrency entities, are groups transacting with cryptocurrency whose activities do not necessarily rise to the level of criminality, but are nevertheless considered risky due to activities balancing on the edge of legality or reputational risk. One example of such entities are implicitly sex-related sites such as RubRatings. The site in question allows massage therapists to publish advertisements encouraging clients to use their sexual services and includes Bitcoin as a payment option. While services offered by the said website are as a rule legal, the RubRatings website implies the availability of sexual services and the site itself is listed as a human trafficking intermediary, therefore the RubRatings organisation, can be categorised as illegal.

Domestic Extremism and Racial Hatred

Another example relates to the organisations and public figures associated with domestic extremism and racial hatred. Many of these organisations accept donations in the form of cryptocurrencies, and it can be expected that more will follow, as with the current interest in cryptocurrencies, organisations will continue to move away from conventional payment. Examples confirming this trend are publications such as the Daily Stormer, as well as the work of public figures such as Nick Fuentes. Extremist rhetoric itself is generally not illegal in most jurisdictions, but many of these groups have been linked to incidents involving outright violence. Examples of such incidents include: The 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia or the 2021 riot in front of the US Capitol. In the latter case, Chainalysis found that several people with alt-right views, including some associated with the rally immediately preceding the riot, had received large donations in bitcoin one month earlier.

Who are Shadow Brokers?

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Online interrogation of a foreign witness by a Polish court in a commercial court case – practical bullet points on the example of a specific witness summons.

Online interrogation of a foreign witness by a Polish court in a commercial court case – practical bullet points on the example of a specific witness summons.

The changes in the functioning of the justice system caused by the COVID-19 have been ongoing since the first quarter of 2020. The first of them were introduced in the Polish legal system at the beginning of March 2020, and to date these regulations have already been amended several times. The changes mainly concern court proceedings, the way in which cases are dealt with, as well as the issue of questioning witnesses. The present article will focus on the latter issue, in order to explain in detail how a witness is summoned and examined by a Polish court.

In accordance with article 15 zzs1 of the Polish Act of March 2, 2020 on special solutions related to the prevention, counteraction and combating of COVID-19, other infectious diseases and crisis situations caused by them (hereinafter as the “Act”):

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MERCHANT SERVICES IN THE CRYPTOCURRENCY SECTOR – KEY PLAYERS AND COOPERATION RISK ASSESSMENT

What are merchant services?

What are merchant services?

Plural form of this phrase suggests that there is a set of various services, actions that provide a financial (payment to be more precise) services to the merchant. Merchant services are situated between the merchant and the costumer during the commercial transaction, because the money should move through the merchant services provider’s system. Merchant services are provided via credit cards, debit cards, electronic payments methods. Typically the banks, credit card companies or other businesses are providers of such services.

In the cryptocurrency sector merchant services encompass cryptocurrency payment services.

How merchant services work?

Merchant services receives cryptocurrency payment from a customer on behalf of the merchant. A merchant will receive funds via immediate settlement to their bank account, or may choose to settle in cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency can now be accepted online and in person, for online transactions you will require a payment gateway which will accept cryptocurrency. The most common way is through bitcoin online payments; however, solutions are available for most mainstream providers.

What is a merchant services provider?

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