CryptocurrencyA cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It is a decentralized system for verifying that the parties to a transaction have the money they claim to have, eliminating the need for traditional intermediaries, such as banks, when funds are being transferred between two entities.
Pump and dumpPump and dump (P&D) is a form of securities fraud that involves artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through false and misleading positive statements (pump), in order to sell the cheaply purchased stock at a higher price (dump). Once the operators of the scheme "dump" (sell) their overvalued shares, the price falls and investors lose their money. This is most common with small-cap cryptocurrencies and very small corporations/companies, i.e. "microcaps".
Ponzi schemeA Ponzi scheme (ˈpɒnzi, ˈpontsi) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. Named after Italian businessman Charles Ponzi, the scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming from legitimate business activity (e.g., product sales or successful investments), and they remain unaware that other investors are the source of funds.
Cryptocurrency and crimeCryptocurrency and crime describes notable examples of cybercrime related to theft (or the otherwise illegal acquisition) of cryptocurrencies and some of the methods or security vulnerabilities commonly exploited. Cryptojacking is a form of cybercrime specific to cryptocurrencies that has been used on websites to hijack a victim's resources and use them for hashing and mining cryptocurrencies. According to blockchain analysis company Chainalysis, .
Tether (cryptocurrency)Tether (often referred to by its currency codes, USD₮ and USDT, among others) is a cryptocurrency stablecoin, launched by the company Tether Limited Inc. in 2014. As of July 2022, Tether Limited has minted the USDT stablecoin on ten protocols and blockchains. Tether is described as a stablecoin because it was originally designed to be valued at US1.00.WhileTetherisnotinfactbackedbysufficientfiatreserves,TetherLimitedconsistentlyliestothepublicthatitdoesmaintainUS1 of asset reserves for each USD₮ 1 issued. Cryptocurrency exchangeA cryptocurrency exchange, or a digital currency exchange (DCE), is a business that allows customers to trade cryptocurrencies or digital currencies for other assets, such as conventional fiat money or other digital currencies. Exchanges may accept credit card payments, wire transfers or other forms of payment in exchange for digital currencies or cryptocurrencies. A cryptocurrency exchange can be a market maker that typically takes the bid–ask spreads as a transaction commission for its service or, as a matching platform, simply charges fees.
Microcap stock fraudMicrocap stock fraud is a form of securities fraud involving stocks of "microcap" companies, generally defined in the United States as those with a market capitalization of under 250million.Itsprevalencehasbeenestimatedtorunintothebillionsofdollarsayear.Manymicrocapstocksarepennystocks,whichtheSECdefinesasasecuritythattradesatlessthan5 per share, is not listed on a national exchange, and fails to meet other specific criteria. Tron (cryptocurrency)TRON is a decentralized, blockchain-based operating system with smart contract functionality, proof-of-stake principles as its consensus algorithm and a cryptocurrency native to the system, known as Tronix (TRX). It was established in March 2014 by Justin Sun and since 2017 has been overseen and supervised by the TRON Foundation, a non-profit organization in Singapore, established in the same year. It is open-source software. It was originally an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token, which switched its protocol to its own blockchain in 2018.
Securities fraudSecurities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a deceptive practice in the stock or commodities markets that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information. The setups are generally made to result in monetary gain for the deceivers, and generally result in unfair monetary losses for the investors. They are generally violating securities laws. Securities fraud can also include outright theft from investors (embezzlement by stockbrokers), stock manipulation, misstatements on a public company's financial reports, and lying to corporate auditors.
Telegram (software)Telegram Messenger is a globally accessible freemium, encrypted, cloud-based and centralized instant messaging (IM) service. The application also provides optional end-to-end encrypted chats (popularly known as "secret chats") and video calling, VoIP, file sharing and several other features. Telegram was first launched for iOS on 14 August 2013 and Android on 20 October 2013. The servers of Telegram are distributed worldwide with five data centers in different parts of the world to decrease data load, while the operational center is based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Diem (digital currency)Diem (formerly known as Libra) was a permissioned blockchain-based stablecoin payment system proposed by the American social media company Meta Platforms. The plan also included a private currency implemented as a cryptocurrency. The launch was originally planned to be in 2020, but only rudimentary experimental code was released. The project, currency and transactions would have been managed and cryptographically entrusted to the Diem Association, a membership organization of companies from payment, technology, telecommunication, online marketplace and venture capital, and nonprofits.
EthereumEthereum is a decentralized blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether (Abbreviation: ETH; sign: Ξ) is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capitalization. It is open-source software. Ethereum was conceived in 2013 by programmer Vitalik Buterin. Additional founders of Ethereum included Gavin Wood, Charles Hoskinson, Anthony Di Iorio and Joseph Lubin. In 2014, development work began and was crowdfunded, and the network went live on 30 July 2015.
Machine learningMachine learning (ML) is an umbrella term for solving problems for which development of algorithms by human programmers would be cost-prohibitive, and instead the problems are solved by helping machines 'discover' their 'own' algorithms, without needing to be explicitly told what to do by any human-developed algorithms. Recently, generative artificial neural networks have been able to surpass results of many previous approaches.
PumpA pump is a device that moves fluids (liquids or gases), or sometimes slurries, by mechanical action, typically converted from electrical energy into hydraulic energy. Mechanical pumps serve in a wide range of applications such as pumping water from wells, aquarium filtering, pond filtering and aeration, in the car industry for water-cooling and fuel injection, in the energy industry for pumping oil and natural gas or for operating cooling towers and other components of heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.
MoneroMonero (məˈnɛroʊ; Abbreviation: XMR) is a cryptocurrency which uses a blockchain with privacy-enhancing technologies to obfuscate transactions to achieve anonymity and fungibility. Observers cannot decipher addresses trading Monero, transaction amounts, address balances, or transaction histories. The protocol is open source and based on CryptoNote, a concept described in a 2013 white paper authored by Nicolas van Saberhagen. Developers used this concept to design Monero, and deployed its mainnet in 2014.
Initial coin offeringAn initial coin offering (ICO) or initial currency offering is a type of funding using cryptocurrencies. It is often a form of crowdfunding, although a private ICO which does not seek public investment is also possible. In an ICO, a quantity of cryptocurrency is sold in the form of "tokens" ("coins") to speculators or investors, in exchange for legal tender or other (generally established and more stable) cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ether.
Online machine learningIn computer science, online machine learning is a method of machine learning in which data becomes available in a sequential order and is used to update the best predictor for future data at each step, as opposed to batch learning techniques which generate the best predictor by learning on the entire training data set at once. Online learning is a common technique used in areas of machine learning where it is computationally infeasible to train over the entire dataset, requiring the need of out-of-core algorithms.
