Moving Away From Deutsche Bank Before The Ship Sinks
Rumors about the demise of Deutsche Bank have been floating around for a few years already. The German financial institution is facing a lot of scrutiny over their practices and fines. Moreover, there are plenty of questions regarding the bank’s financial capacities, as many people feel they have overstretched.

So far there is no real indication Deutsche Bank will be going down anytime soon. At the same time, banks can collapse overnight, which is not putting people’s mind at ease right now. For those who were hoping Germany would bail out its own banks if something were to go amiss, a reality check came in late last night.

The German government has indicated that there are zero plans to provide rescue packages to any failing bank in the nation. Whether it is a small online bank, or even Deutsche Bank, everyone will have to fend for themselves. Such a public dismissal of any help packages will only fuel the fire of speculation regarding Deutsche Bank, though.

This decision comes at an interesting time in which the financial ecosystem continues to struggle. Hardly any bank is achieving projected profits, and customers are withdrawing funds at every possible turn. Many financial experts have always labeled Deutsche Bank as “too big to fail”, but they may be proven wrong shortly.

Things have gone from bad to worse for what once was one of the most successful European players on Wall Street. With multiple lawsuits hitting the bank throughout the years totaling over US$13.5bn, it became apparent that things cannot be maintained indefinitely. Furthermore, DB only barely scraped by the European stress tests conducted to gauge banks’ responses to a looming crisis.  This story will undoubtedly continue over the next few months

Moving Away From Deutsche Bank Before The Ship Sinks
Rumors about the demise of Deutsche Bank have been floating around for a few years already. The German financial institution is facing a lot of scrutiny over their practices and fines. Moreover, there are plenty of questions regarding the bank’s financial capacities, as many people feel they have overstretched.

So far there is no real indication Deutsche Bank will be going down anytime soon. At the same time, banks can collapse overnight, which is not putting people’s mind at ease right now. For those who were hoping Germany would bail out its own banks if something were to go amiss, a reality check came in late last night.

The German government has indicated that there are zero plans to provide rescue packages to any failing bank in the nation. Whether it is a small online bank, or even Deutsche Bank, everyone will have to fend for themselves. Such a public dismissal of any help packages will only fuel the fire of speculation regarding Deutsche Bank, though.

This decision comes at an interesting time in which the financial ecosystem continues to struggle. Hardly any bank is achieving projected profits, and customers are withdrawing funds at every possible turn. Many financial experts have always labeled Deutsche Bank as “too big to fail”, but they may be proven wrong shortly.

Things have gone from bad to worse for what once was one of the most successful European players on Wall Street. With multiple lawsuits hitting the bank throughout the years totaling over US$13.5bn, it became apparent that things cannot be maintained indefinitely. Furthermore, DB only barely scraped by the European stress tests conducted to gauge banks’ responses to a looming crisis.  This story will undoubtedly continue over the next few months

Twitch Wants Its Own Virtual Currency
It seemed to be only a matter of time until Twitch decided to issue its own virtual currency. Rewarding streamers and viewers for their loyalty and activity is a smart business strategy. In fact, avid Twitch users won’t have to set up anything, as the company will take care of every single aspect of issuing and using Stream+.

What these points will be used for remains a bit vague right now. Amazon Game Studios’ Patrick Gilmore told the BBC the Stream+ currency could be used for polls and wagering. Moreover, there are plans to make them usable for items to use within games. No specific titles or items were mentioned at the time of publication, though.

That being said, there is one game that has been confirmed to use the Stream+ currency. Amazon Game Studios will release Breakaway soon, which is a multi-player game designed to compete with the likes of Activision Blizzard, Riot Games, and Valve.
There is one worrisome aspect about the whole Stream+ ordeal. Neither Amazon nor Twitch is keen on releasing critical information regarding the inner workings of this currency. It remains unknown how these points will be issued, how many there are, and whether or not they will use a distributed ledger.

More importantly, gambling regulators are taking a closer look at exports and gaming services. Since bettors can wager on these games through dedicated platforms– including with cryptocurrency — this decision to issue a native virtual currency comes at an interesting time. Whether or not the Stream+ currency can be exchanged against real money remains unknown for now.

ShapeShift, the popular instant cryptocurrency exchange platform, has added a new feature. For quite some time now, there has been confusion on how users can separate their Ethereum and Ethereum Classic coins correctly. Ethereum Splitter, as this new feature is called, takes care of this problem automatically.

Ethereum Splitter Can Be A Powerful Tool
Up until this point, there has not been a good way to separate Ethereum and Ethereum Classic balances. One way to do so is by running two different versions of the Mist wallet, one that supports the hard fork, and one which does not. However, the new ShapeShift feature makes the process even easier and does so through an intuitive user interface.

Ethereum Splitter, as this tool is called, is designed to prevent funds from going missing. All Ethereum [Classic] holders are entitled to their proper amount of coins, and separating both chains is of the utmost importance. By using this tool, users can “clean” their balances to have ETH sent to a fresh address and ETC to a different address.

It is important for users of the Ethereum Splitter service to enter new wallet addresses they just created, as to avoid any further confusion. Once those addresses are filled in, the service will send funds to those wallets accordingly. The user will still need to send their ETH or ETC funds from the current wallet to the service to have it split up. As is the case with any of the services offered by ShapeShift, this process is entirely automated and should only take a few minutes to complete. The company mentions it may take up to five minutes, depending on how fast transactions are confirmed on their respective blockchains.

There is also a 0.25% fee to use this service, which is only normal. Only use a clean address – generated after the hard fork – to make sure no funds is missing or sent to the wrong blockchain.The minimum deposit for this service is 0.5 Ethereum or Ethereum Classic. All in all, a great tool that will hopefully clear up some of the confusion.

Ransomware is such a big threat these days; it seems to be looming around every corner on the Internet. While most types of malware are downloaded to the computer or another device directly, some of the newer forms are hiding in shortcuts. This is quite an exciting development, as it also increases the chances of doing significant damage to an infected machine.
Your Device Shortcuts May Contain Ransomware

Email attachments remain the most common way to spread ransomware to as many computer users as possible. Whether it is in the form of a PDF or infected zip file, users are very prone to downloading these files regardless. Once the files are opened, the malware goes to work and starts encrypting data on the machine. Another popular method is by infecting JavaScript files with a ransomware payload. While these files may seem very innocent on the outside, they are far from harmless text files. Very few people are aware of how JavaScript files are full programs which can execute a wide variety of commands on a computer.

As if those concerns were not worrisome enough, a new distribution method for ransomware is making the rounds on a global scale. The so-called LNK files, which appear as random shortcuts on the user’s computer, have been used by malware developers for quite some time now. It is also virtually impossible to distinguish between legitimate and malicious shortcuts, as they almost look the same.

But there is more, as developers can set up these LNK files to show up with misleading names, unrelated icons, or to even run any command. In some cases, that command may include obtaining a ransomware payload and executing it. Unless the user specifically browses the properties of a particular shortcut, he or she will never discover its true meaning.

For now, security researchers are unsure as to which types of ransomware would be distributed through shortcut files. Users can take some precautions, though, such as showing file extensions in Windows and staying clear of unsolicited email attachments. In fact, not clicking on LNK files delivered by email may be the best course of action in general. Enterprises may want to block mailed LNK files through their overall mail server settings as well.

Africa is leapfrogging traditional legacy banking and payments systems in use in much of the developed World through fast adoption of mobile and internet based technology. Disruptive blockchain technology such as Bitcoin has great potential in creating efficiency and disrupting traditional mechanisms for improved international trade, resource management, and governance.

Blockchain continues to evolve rapidly with hundreds perhaps thousands of crypto-currencies being created every day, most of which are either irrelevant or scams that offer little or no value to society.
BitHub.Africa a blockchain Accelerator based in Nairobi Kenya has spent a considerable amount of time researching and looking into different crypto-currencies and platforms to determine which ones offer either a unique value proposition or innovative solutions to common placed problems that exist in Africa.

This is because African countries like Kenya have been adopting Digital Currencies like M-Pesa faster than any other region in the entire globe. In the book titled The blockchain Opportunity BitHub.Africa has comprehensively reviewed 16 crypto-currency and blockchain platforms that will disrupt existing Incumbents across key sectors like Finance, Technology, and Commerce.

The book targets blockchain entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, and enthusiasts. It will be launched on August 31st at the Aitec 10th Annivesary Conference on technology to secure and transform financial services, which will be held in Nairobi, Kenya.

BitGo Must Pay The Piper For The Bitfinex Incident
For those who are unaware, BitGo provides multi-signature cold storage solutions for Bitcoin transactions only. Even though Bitfinex deals with multiple fiat and crypto currencies, only Bitcoin balances were affected by the hack. Since BitGo has to co-sign every transaction, the question becomes how secure their solution is, to begin with.

To make matters even more confusing, Bitfinex does not seem to be inclined to hold BitGo responsible for their role in this theft either. The company has mentioned their internal investigation is not over yet, but they have come to the conclusion “the incident is their own fault.” That seems a rather strange statement, as it is evident BitGo did not perform their job adequately either. One possible explanation is how Bitfinex did not properly implement BitGo on their end. Interestingly enough, the exchange quickly noted how they uncovered the exact way this breach had taken place, to begin with. That could mean they knew something was designed to fail from day one.

Regardless of how the agreement between BitGo and BitFinex works exactly, it is evident both parties are liable for the stolen funds. All of the platform users were under the impression BitGO would secure their funds at all costs, and that has not happened. After all, it was their solution which only protects Bitcoin which was affected by this breach.

The Bitcoin community seems to be divided over this debacle for sure. Some people feel BitGo is ultimately responsible, regardless of how their clients want to have the solution implemented. Others say Bitfinex should pay up for their own mistakes.  Either way, both companies have a lot of explaining to do, and no one should let BitGo off the hook that easily.