Uganda’s banks have been plunged into chaos by a mobile money fraud hack

A major hack that compromised Uganda’s mobile money network has plunged the country’s telecoms and banking sectors into crisis. The October 3 hack was a result of a security breach on a consumer finance aggregator, Pegasus Technologies, which mainly affected bank to mobile wallet transfers. At least $3.2 million is estimated to have been stolen. The hackers used around 2,000 mobile SIM cards to gain access to the mobile money payment system. They then instructed the banks to transfer millions of dollars to telecommunication companies who then paid out mobile money to these different SIM cards across the country. 

$1.5 billion in Bitcoin now locked up in Ethereum

There’s 131,455 Bitcoin on Ethereum, or $1.497 billion, as of October 11, equivalent to 3.6% of Ethereum’s market cap. These are Bitcoin that’s been converted into Ethereum-based tokens that represent Bitcoin. The most popular is Wrapped Bitcoin, or wBTC, which holds 73% of the market share. Next up is renBTC, with 20% of the market share. People are moving lots of Bitcoin to Ethereum to make the most of this summer’s decentralized finance boom. Such products as decentralized lending protocols, non-custodial exchanges and synthetic derivatives—like wBTC—were all the rage this summer. But you have to use Ethereum-based tokens to use them. 

Bringing Celo wallets to feature phones

Celo.Works is a non-custodial mobile wallet, enabling feature phone users to send and receive remittances at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional methods. Celo.Works is built on the Celo blockchain. Celo.Works is accessible, enabling users to send/receive cUSD on feature phones that cost as little as $15. 

Posted from Diigo: https://www.diigo.com/user/kiffmeister/Fintech