Moonday Mornings: Kate Winslet is hunting for Bitcoin scammers

Good morning Forkies. It’s that time of the week again when we serve you up a fresh plate of blockchain and cryptocurrency headlines from over the weekend.

Let’s see what this week has in store.

1. Long Blockchain Corp. formerly Long Island Tea Corp. – the beverage company that for no real reason decided to pivot to blockchain – is selling its beverage subsidiary leaving it with just its loyalty rewards platform. Authorities have long suspected the company changed its name as part of a plan to increase stock price, and is being investigated for insider trading relating to the move.

2. Despite continued challenges, Facebook is still ploughing ahead with its plans for its digital currency, Libra. The Big F has recently acquired Servicefriend, a firm that builds chatbots for customer service, TechCrunch reports. While Facebook refused to confirm whether the acquisition was part of its plans for Libra, several of Servicefriend key employees have updated their LinkedIn profiles saying they work in the Calibra digital wallet group, the company that will provide the software to let people use Libra. I guess we’ll have to make our own minds up about what’s going on here.

The 💜 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

3. Coinbase is thinking about adding a whole swathe of shitcoins altcoins, including the supposedly upcoming TON token from messaging app Telegram, ZDNet reports. The cryptocurrency exchange says its goal is to support “all assets that meet their technical standards.” In time, it expects to support at least “90 percent of the aggregate market cap of all digital assets.” I guess with Cryptopia dying, there is an opening in the market for another shitcoin factory.

4. Two individuals have been indicted by US authorities over their alleged involvement in the hack of cryptocurrency exchange EtherDelta, which happened in December 2017. It appears hackers “sim-swapped” the EtherDelta CEO, according to ZDNet. This let the bad actors gain access to the CEO’s email account and change the domain name system of the cryptocurrency exchange, The Block reports. The hack resulted in EtherDelta users being redirected to a fake website where their private keys and cryptocurrency addresses were stolen. In one instance an EtherDelta user lost at least $800,000 worth of cryptocurrency.

And finally…

5. Kate Winslet is taking action against Bitcoin scammers that used her image to trick prospective investors into parting with their cash, the Mirror reports. The scammers used a website mocked up to look like a BBC news interview which says Winslet’s latest big money-maker is from investing in a cryptocurrency called “Bitcoin Code.” Obviously this isn’t true and the movie star is going after the fraudsters. A spokesperson for Winslet said: “This misleading promotion is completely disingenuous and categorically false.” Go get ’em Kate!

Now go get on with your week.