Indian police bust $4M ‘Ripple Future’ cryptocurrency scam

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) ruling may have killed legitimate cryptocurrency businesses in the country, but it seems the regulatory clampdown hasn’t deterred local fraudsters and con artists.

In the latest crypto-bust, Indian police arrested two suspects for allegedly duping 300 million Indian Rupees ($4 million approximately) from 1,800 people, Press Trust of India (PTI) reports.

The accused were running a fake cryptocurrency company named ‘Ripple Future,’ which promised to triple investor money in 250 days, and also ran daily and weekly payment schemes. The Ripple Future management team claimed the company was headquartered in the US, but Indian police found out the founders actually operated the fraudulent undertaking from Ghaziabad, a city near the country’s capital Delhi.

The police official in charge of the case told local outlet NDTV that the arrests were made on the basis of complaints filed by around 50 different investors, although the number of total investors duped runs much larger. The two men arrested are facing criminal charges under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), but one other accomplice is still on the run.

For those that were wondering, Indian police has not clarified whether Ripple Future claimed any connection to XRP-issuer Ripple Labs.

It is worth noting that India has been seeing a constant rise in cryptocurrency related scams. Even local authorities, Bollywood actors, leading businesspeople , and the ruling political party have faced accusations and charges in different cases.

Coinbase now lets you buy and sell cryptocurrency using British Pounds

Coinbase is making it easier for Brits to buy and sell cryptocurrency. The exchange desk announced it now supports Pound Sterling deposits and withdrawals natively on its platform.

In addition to eliminating frictions associated with converting funds from Euro to pounds, another benefit of having native support for the local currency is that it allows for much faster deposit and withdrawal times.

Coinbase has begun rolling this functionality to its UK customers already, but it might take a couple of days before the feature is available to all users countrywide.

The new system is currently only available in the UK, but Coinbase says it has every intention to introduce similar improvements in other countries. For now though, the rest of the world will have to wait.

“Faster Payments is a UK scheme. It is not available outside the UK,” a Coinbase spokesperson told Hard Fork. “Generally speaking, Coinbase strives to provide our customers globally with the easiest way to convert fiat in to crypto[currency] and back. We will continue to invest in partnerships and infrastructure that helps us deliver this.”

The new integration is powered by Faster Payments, which is one of the fastest transfer systems available, and has a maximum transaction limit of £250,000 per transaction. In an email to Hard Fork, Coinbase stated that they do not have a limit as to what they can recieve, for larger sums CHAPs (an alternative, more costly payment infrastructure) can be used, but it’s slower and much less convenient. According to Barclays , there is a £25 fee for a CHAPS transaction.

The biggest takeaway here is that native support for the pound means that deposits and withdrawals will no longer be subject to annoying conversion fees and relevant bank exchange rates.

Traditionally, Coinbase users were at the mercy of slow, cumbersome and often costly international bank transfers. So simpler, faster transactions will be of great news to all UK users, especially to high-frequency traders who will no longer have to wait for days to cash out.

I guess that’s another way to make it easier for Coinbase users to spend their crypto-riches at the mall.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says he will pay you to work on Bitcoin full-time

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has made an offering to the cryptocurrency community: he will pay developers to work full-time on Bitcoin Core and other “cryptocurrency ecosystem” projects.

Bitcoin Core is an open-source protocol . There is no one company funding Bitcoin development, and it has no leader. Any budding programmer from around the world can contribute building the network.

Another tweet from Dorsey said: “Square is hiring 3-4 [cryptocurrency] engineers and [one] designer to work full-time on open source contributions to the [Bitcoin/cryptocurrency] ecosystem,” before mentioning devs could even be paid in Bitcoin. Square is Dorsey’s payment services company.

Dorsey’s inspiration to fund growth within the cryptocurrency ecosystem shouldn’t surprise anyone. In fact, he was an early investor in Bitcoin‘s Lightning Network , a proposed solution to its scaling problem .

He also espoused its benefits in a recent appearance on the popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast. In response, the Bitcoin community welcomed him with open arms, especially after he participated in the infamous “Lightning Torch” experiment that saw Bitcoin sent around the world, nudged along by tweets from nominees.

While Dorsey’s tweet names Bitcoin Core directly (we know exactly what he’s talking about there, at least), “other crypto ecosystem projects” is pretty vague. Hard Fork has reached out for clarification and will update this piece should Dorsey reply.

In the meantime, you can read exactly how Dorsey has evolved to become Bitcoin’s most unlikely champion here.

Hunter Jones

Hunter Jones

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