Coinbase hiring statistics show that hiring is continually below average in terms of people of color.

Black employees claim to be treated unfairly, individually and systematically.

Does society’s view of corporate social responsibilities encourage unprofessional behavior?

Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong and the company’s “celebrity culture” leave the company exposed to accusations of racism.

Coinbase , the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange by volume, was the subject of a Nov. 27 New York Times article on racial issues within the company. The media point to waves of departures of black employees and a still low percentage of hires of people of color.

Coinbase denies en bloc

Bitcoin Trader denies that there are systematic racial issues in the business. The company reportedly hired outside consultants and conducted internal investigations into complaints from current and former black employees. However, these reviews could not confirm the allegations.

Coinbase’s hiring records show that black employees consistently make up around three percent of its workforce. Depending on the field chosen in official employment statistics , this represents between half and a third of the sector average. In addition, business expansion had no effect on this percentage. The authors note that other tech companies, such as Square, PayPal, and Twitter, have made efforts to increase the share of black employees in their businesses.

A tormented summer

Systematic racism became a hot topic at Coinbase in early summer 2020. The police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota sparked months of protests. It has also led to a reexamination of systematic racism in many communities and businesses in the United States.

According to the article, black Coinbase employees were offended by the silence of their own superiors on this issue. After a meeting arranged with company executives, Brian Armstrong said:

There was this outpouring of questions like, „Why doesn’t society cover me?“

After summer comes autumn

The rapprochement process did not last long. A subsequent email mentioned a diversity and inclusion plan, but also an intensification of the tutorial aspect, which goes directly against the company’s ethics of: “What can you bring from the first day? ” In September, however, in a blog post , Brian Armstrong decided to focus on the business and its mission.

The New York Times article focuses on one line in particular from this post: “We don’t engage here when the issues are not related to our primary mission.” According to the article, that single sentence angered many employees.

Coinbase’s vision, broad or narrow?

His September post outlines Brian Armstrong’s vision for the company, its employees, and their relationships with the outside world. In particular, Mr. Armstrong views Coinbase, as argued by its articles and other communications, as a result of a narrowly defined interpretation of the company’s goals and mission as openly stated in its documents.

Giorni dopo che i media di tutto il mondo hanno riferito che la filiale di Labuan della China Construction Bank (CCB) aveva emesso i primi titoli in RMB della nazione alimentati da blockchain, la banca in questione si è mossa per negare la veridicità dei rapporti, aggiungendo che non ha collegamenti con „criptovalute incluso bitcoin „.

Sebbene la banca non neghi l’esistenza delle obbligazioni, o il suo collegamento con la loro emissione, ha tenuto a precisare che si tratta semplicemente del „lead arranger“ e del „lead advisor“ del progetto, con l’emissione effettiva che avviene tramite una società denominata Longbond e negoziabile sulla Borsa Fusang .

La filiale di Labuan della banca ha fatto l‘ annuncio sul suo sito web CCB Malaysia , affermando:

“La filiale NON è l’emittente dell’obbligazione. […] La filiale NON accetta criptovalute, incluso bitcoin, per il regolamento in nessuna delle sue transazioni bancarie. “

Labuan è un’isola del paradiso fiscale in Malesia

L’emissione – che dovrebbe avvenire a partire da oggi – ha fatto notizia in tutto il mondo. E gli acquirenti di obbligazioni saranno effettivamente in grado di acquistare obbligazioni di 100 USD e oltre, utilizzando USD o BTC, solo non tramite la banca stessa, ma piuttosto l’exchange con cui ha collaborato. Una dimensione obiettivo del programma totale di 3 miliardi di dollari.

Ma le testate giornalistiche di tutto il mondo, compresi molti in Cina, avevano, sembrava dedurre la banca, aver erroneamente riferito che l’emittente era la stessa BCC.

Questi includevano artisti del calibro del Financial Times, che recitava con il titolo: „China Construction Bank emetterà obbligazioni offshore basate su blockchain“

Secondo un comunicato dell’11 novembre di Fusang, Longbond è una società per azioni e „uno Special Purpose Vehicle di cartolarizzazione istituito con l’unico scopo di emettere obbligazioni digitali e depositare i proventi presso CCB Labuan“. Lo scambio ha aggiunto che CCB Labuan avrebbe agito come „sponsor dell’elenco per l’accordo“.

L’annuncio non specificava da chi fosse stato istituito Longbond. Cryptonews.com ha contattato CCB per un commento.

La natura appassionata della negazione del CCB sembra indicare che mentre il fervore per tutto ciò che riguarda la criptovaluta rimane alle stelle in Cina, le banche e altre grandi aziende hanno ancora paura di invocare l’ira di Pechino, che ha messo in atto una repressione quasi totale della criptovaluta a settembre 2017 e sta ora lavorando al suo yuan digitale.

Volodymyr Kvashuk, a former Microsoft employee, convicted yesterday of tax fraud involving Bitcoin

Kvashuk was accused of fraud against his employer, Microsoft, for more than $10 million. The IRS reported that Kvashuk’s case was the country’s first bitcoin case involving tax fraud. The Microsoft engineer worked with the Washington-based technology company between August 2016 and June 2018.

During that time, he misused his access privileges to the company’s online sales platform. Kvashuk took advantage of his position to steal digital gift vouchers and profited by trading them on the Internet.

From his earnings, he bought a $160,000 Tesla as well as a $1.6 million house and hid the evidence of the crimes using his colleagues‘ email accounts. He also used a bitcoin mixer to process the winnings from the gift card sales and overshadow the paper trail.

When filling out the returns, he reported that the receipts were gifts from a relative. He grouped the taxable income from bitcoin into gifts, as they are not taxable according to the US tax code.

Upon completion of the case, Ryan L. Korner, an IRS-CI Special Agent, commented: „Simply put, today’s sentence proves that you can’t steal money over the Internet and think Bitcoin will hide its criminal behaviour. Our complex team of cyber crime specialists, with the assistance of the IRS-CI Cyber Crimes Unit, will hunt you down and hold you responsible for your mistakes“.

Kvashuk has been found guilty of a total of 18 crimes, i.e. 6 counts of money laundering and 2 additional counts of filing false tax returns, among others.

The US Department of Justice said: „During Kvashuk’s seven months of illegal activity, approximately $2.8 million in Bitcoin was transferred to his bank and investment accounts. Kvashuk then filed false tax return forms claiming that Bitcoin had been a gift from a relative“.

The 26-year-old was fined $8,344,586 and there is a possibility that he will be deported after serving his sentence. The lawyer’s office noted: „Stealing from your employer is bad enough, but stealing and making it look like your colleagues are to blame increases the damage beyond dollars and cents.

The activity of the bitcoin miners continues to update lows, the network hash rate on Saturday 31 October fell to 116 exahes per second (EH/s).

The last time this amount of computing capacity used to extract cryptocurrency was at the end of July 2020. However, there is no reason to panic, says Garrick Hilleman, representing the Blockchain.com team.

This company, which appeared in 2011, introduced the term „hashreite“ for the first time. This term is used by researchers to determine the level of Bitcoin miner activity at a specific time interval.

Hillemann emphasized in an interview with Crypto Superstar that hashreight is a very volatile indicator. Whereas in March it fell to 75 EH/s, it started to rise again after the May halving (reduction of the miners‘ award), reaching a historic high on 25 September (161 EH/s).

Another rapid drop occurred at the end of October. Many researchers linked this trend to the termination of the miners in Sichuan Province, where the rainy season had ended.

According to Hillemen, the collapse of the hashreite has no effect on the market position of the bitcoin.

He added:

So for me it is not a serious problem. It’s interesting data, but we have seen other falls after halving.

Failed exit scam – Scammers thought they had pulled off yet another bogus investment scam, but Binance put a stop to their project. Almost all of the funds have been blocked, and they will be returned to the victims.

A plan that (fortunately) did not go as planned

This November 4, the famous crypto exchange Binance revealed on its blog that it succeeded in thwarting the exit scam plans of the (fake) crypto project called Wine Swap .

Wine Swap presented itself as one of the many AMMs ( Automated Market Makers ) very fashionable in the current trend of decentralized finance (DeFi).

Launched on October 13 via the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), the Wine Swap project received 19 different types of crypto from 119 separate addresses, totaling a value of $ 345,000 in the span of an hour .

It did not take more to satisfy the scammers, who immediately put an end to this fake AMM to pocket the cryptos on their wallets and leave with the cash register .

Centralized platforms do not only have disadvantages

Binance Security teams were quickly alerted to this attempted exit scam, and they closely followed the crypto transactions from Wine Swap.

The criminals made the mistake of channeling almost all of the funds through Binance Bridge , a service providing access to inter-blockchain liquidity. This is where, at first, the funds could be frozen by the centralized crypto-exchange, when they had already all been converted into stablecoins, BNB, ETH and LINK .

The next day, October 14, Binance Security teams contacted the scammers and, caught in the act , they “quickly cooperated” to return the stolen funds.

Thus, after a recovery process, 99.9% of the amount of the $ 345,000 in stolen cryptos could be recovered .

The Binance OTC (over-the-counter) team then helped convert these funds back into the original cryptos and amounts, with a view to repaying victims . The restitution should be completed within the next few days .