Bitcoin Daily: Electrum Hackers Steal $4M With Bitcoin Phishing; US Crypto Startup Chainalysis Raises $6M

eToroX — the blockchain division of social trading platform eToro — is launching a new cryptocurrency-only exchange desk for pro traders that will support six cryptos: bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ripple and Dash. The exchange will also support trading in eight fiat-backed stablecoins, pegged to the euro, U.S. dollar, New Zealand dollar, Canadian dollar, Australian dollar, Japanese yen, Swiss franc and U.K. pound sterling. There will be 37 different trading pairs.

“We want to bring crypto and tokenized assets to a wider audience, allowing them to trade with confidence,” said eToro CEO Yoni Assia, according to The Next Web. “This is the future of finance. Blockchain will eventually ‘eat’ traditional financial services through tokenization.”

In other news, Chainalysis announced it has raised an additional $6 million to close its $36 million Series B funding round. The funding includes a strategic investment from MUFG Innovation Partners, as well as Sozo Ventures. Chainalysis said it would use the funds to expand in the Asia-Pacific.

“Cryptocurrency technology is global and inclusive by design,” said Michael Gronager, CEO of Chainalysis, in a press release. “Our business was founded on the belief that in order for the industry to grow, all its stakeholders — governments, financial institutions and cryptocurrency businesses — must be united in establishing ground truth for the industry. This strategic investment will strengthen our relationships with financial institutions in Asia in particular, and spearhead both our growth and the industry’s advancement in an important region.”

A source told Reuters that Japan’s financial regulator will order the country’s crypto exchanges to boost their security related to “cold wallets,” used to store digital money. There are currently 19 registered crypto exchanges in Japan. The report revealed that the Financial Services Agency (FSA) will require those it believes need additional security measures to take action.

New research has shown that Electrum Bitcoin Wallet users have been the targets of phishing attacks that have cost them 771 BTC (around $4 million) since late December 2018. According to Malwarebytes Labs, the criminals were able to trick users into downloading a malicious version of the wallet by exploiting a weakness in the software.

“As a result, in February, the developers behind Electrum decided to exploit the same flaw in their own software in order to redirect users to download the latest patched version,” according to the report. “The software was in such trouble that, in March, developers began exploiting another vulnerability unknown to the public, essentially attacking vulnerable clients to keep them from connecting to bad nodes. Shortly after, a botnet launched distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against Electrum servers for what is believed to be retaliation against developers for trying to fix the bug. Attackers reversed the scenario so that legitimate nodes became so overwhelmed that older clients had to connect to malicious nodes.”