📰 Crypto News of the Day : Round of Crypto Thefts

Steem price declines after an impressive jump in the last 3 days.

💰 $4.4B of Crypto Stolen So Far in 9 Months of 2019

According to the latest CipherTrace report, losses from digital crime, in which cryptocurrency was the main haul, reached $4.4 billion over the first nine months of the year.

This figure is already 150 percent up on the total money lost to cryptocurrency-related crime over the whole of 2018. Last year, just $1.7 billion was lost to digital currency crime.

Two frauds, PlusToken ($2.9B, alleged ponzi scheme) and QuadrigaCX ($192m, alleged CEO passing), in particular are responsible for most of the uptick in losses seen this year.

🏃 IDAX Exchange Confirms CEO Gone Missing

Chinese cryptocurrency exchange IDAX has suspended deposits and withdrawals after its CEO Lei Guorong allegedly disappeared.

The blog post states: “For this reason, access to Cold wallet which is stored almost all cryptocurrency balances on IDAX has been restricted so in effect, deposit/withdrawal service cannot be provided.”

IDAX did not directly link Lei with cold wallet access, nor did it suggest that users’ money was specifically at risk.

🌭 German Banks to Soon Facilitate Sale/Custody of Bitcoin

A German media outlet has reported that in 2020, financial institutions may be able to facilitate the sale and acquire custody of Bitcoin and other digital assets.

At the moment, banks and financial institutions in Germany are prohibited from facilitating the sale of digital assets to their clients.

Sven Hildebrandt, Head of Distributed Ledger Consulting, said that “Germany is well on its way to becoming a crypto-heaven. The German legislator is playing a pioneering role in the regulation of cryptocurrency.”