Russian telecom regulator Roskomnadzor looks to be targeting Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, as a platform “disseminating prohibited information,” according to Cointelegraph.
The regulator said Binance had been put on a list due to distributing data related to the acquisition of digital coins like Bitcoin. In a public announcement, Binance said it had not been notified before Sept. 24 of the news. Binance said it was talking with legal counsel, and assured users that their coins were safe.
Despite the prohibition, Russian Binance users can still access the site without additional tools like a VPN, although the site can be seen on Roskomnadzor’s list of banned websites as of June.
In other news, illegal gambling gangs in China are using cryptocurrency to funnel over 1 trillion yuan ($146.6 billion) per year out of the country, according to Cointelegraph.
Liao Jinrong, the director general of the International Cooperation Department under the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, said that operators of overseas gaming platforms and casinos collect funds from users in digital currencies, according to the report. That makes it harder for regulators to track the crimes.
He said there is a lack of supervision on transactions from payment providers and third-party institutions that had allowed this to happen, and he said it is hard to trace the funds because of a “collaboration between payment industry practitioners and criminal organizations,” Cointelegraph reported.
Liao said an outflow of such huge proportions could be economically damaging for China, and he said it could be a financial security risk if the people behind the crypto-based gambling schemes were to conspire with “foreign powers” against the country.
And, KuCoin has encountered a security breach in which hackers stole over $150 million from the crypto exchange, according to CoinDesk.
KuCoin said in an announcement on its website that it noticed “some large withdrawals” since Sept. 26 at around 3 a.m.
The report showed that parts of Bitcoin, ERC-20 and some other tokens had been transferred out of the exchange from KuCoin’s hot wallets. The exchange said in the announcement that this contained “few parts of our total assets holdings.”
“The assets in our cold wallets are safe and unharmed, and hot wallets have been re-deployed,” KuCoin said in the announcement, adding that it is looking into exactly what transpired.
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