Must-reads for August 16, 2018

AT&T Sued for $224 Million by Cryptocurrency Investor Who Lost a Fortune in Phone Hacks (Gizmodo) We’ve written before about how hackers have been wreaking hell and havoc on people in the crypto community (like this writer). However, they really went to town on one big crypto investor. Michael Terpin, who was in public relations during the primitive years of the Web, became a serial entrepreneur and an early investor in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. He has also advised the likes of Ethereum, Kraken, and Tether. Unfortunately for Terpin, a huge stash of his crypto—$24 million-worth, he claims—was stolen from him during two hacks over several months. Now he’s striking back, but not at the hackers who got away with his money but with AT&T, his (we assume) former cellphone provider. According to the complaint Terpin filed in Los Angeles on the 15^th, “After the hackers took charge of Mr. Terpin’s telephone number, the hackers accessed Mr. Terpin’s telephone to divert texts and telephone calls to gain access to Mr. Terpin’s cryptocurrency accounts. The hackers also used the phone to hijack Mr. Terpin’s Skype account to impersonate him. By that means, the hackers convinced a client of Mr. Terpin to send them cryptocurrency and diverted a payment due to Mr. Terpin to themselves.” So why sue the phone company? Because according to Terpin, one of the thieves was an AT&T employee.

Vitalik Buterin On The State Of Ethereum, The Future Of Blockchain And Google Trying To Hire Him (Forbes)
Ethereum’s co-founding wunderkind, Vitalik Buterin, gave his take on such topics as proof-of-stake and scaling in Ethereum (see his tweet storm about Caspar), the future of blockchain, privacy, and regulation. He called ICOs “old and boring” (though Ethereum is the network of choice for many). And he also shared the funny story of a Google recruiter recently trying to hire him without knowing who he was.

Ethereum Co-Founder Joseph Lubin Says Speculators Driving Price Swings (Bloomberg)
Buterin’s partner in starting Ethereum, Joesph Lubin, now runs ConsenSys, an Ethereum-based incubator located in Brooklyn. He told Bloomberg he’s not particularly worried about the fall in prices when it comes to the technological development in crypto. “With each of these bubbles we have a tremendous surge of activity and that’s what we’re seeing right now,” he said.

ETHUSD Perpetual Swap Two Week Update (BitMEX Crypto Trader Digest)
Meanwhile, BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes is calling ether “A Double Digit Shitcoin.” It should be noted that Hayes predicted a couple of months ago that Bitcoin will close 2018 above $50,000.

Cryptocurrency exit scams have conned people out of almost $100M (TheNextWeb)
As pointed out by the author, $60 million of that was from one Chinese company. Still, that’s not chump change. The story is worth clicking on, if only for the list of scams.

Are Blockchains the Answer for Secure Elections? Probably Not (Scientific American)
Those hoping blockchain tech will solve electoral dysfunction may need to think again, according to Scientific American.

Bitcoin Q&A: Why I’m against ETFs (YouTube)
Andreas Antonopoulos was one of the world’s first major evangelists for Bitcoin. His book, “Mastering Bitcoin,” is required reading for all writers at Modern Consensus. Antonopoulos is also not a fan of any Bitcoin ETF. However, among his fears is that major institutions will try to manipulate bitcoin prices.

Crypto firm Pantera Capital is looking to raise up to $175 million for a new venture fund (TechCrunch)
Sure, the crypto market has been taking a hit as of late but there’s still plenty of money for crypto technology. Pantera Capital’s third venture fund has already racked up $71 million in committed capital.

Why I left Foursquare for a blockchain startup (Medium)
Dorothy Jean Chang left her job as the top P.R. person at Foursquare to join Paxos, the institutional crypto exchange formerly known as itBit. As vice president of marketing and communications, she will be working alongside her husband, Andrew Chang, who is the company’s COO.