Crypto

Why You Absolutely Need a VPN to Avoid Cryptocurrency Theft

Published

3 years ago

May 10, 2022

Why You Absolutely Need a VPN to Avoid Cryptocurrency Theft

We dwell in a digital world the place an increasing number of financial transactions are carried out on-line. As cryptocurrencies achieve recognition—not solely to purchase or promote property but in addition to make investments—many individuals are shopping for cryptocurrency on-line for the primary time.

Right here, we’ll illustrate why you want a VPN in the event you work with cryptocurrencies in order that you don’t turn into a sufferer of theft.

A tablet on a table showing a market chart

Other than getting used as conventional foreign money, you too can use cryptocurrencies for buying and selling. There are quite a few markets positioned in several nations worldwide that permit buying and selling in varied cryptocurrencies. In contrast to shares, individuals can commerce at any time and time zone.

That is partially attributable to blockchain know-how. Blockchain know-how retains cryptocurrencies in a decentralized market and unregulated by anybody. Sadly, this additionally comes with its personal set of dangers, notably associated to hacking and safety. That is the place utilizing a VPN might help cut back potential losses and supply extra privateness.

Since cryptocurrencies are unregulated, they arrive with their very own set of dangers. Hackers benefit from the truth that these transactions are irreversible and can’t be traced.

What Are Some Examples of Crypto Crimes?

Pretend crypto buying and selling exchanges mislead individuals by manipulating buying and selling quantity and statistics to usher in people who find themselves nonetheless new to crypto buying and selling. It’s higher to stay with dependable platforms for a unstable market like cryptocurrencies.

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Hackers, and even state-sponsored actors, can corrupt your gadget and set up mining software program on the system to extract crypto out of your account and switch all funds to themselves. This is called cryptojacking, by which malware can wipe out nearly your total account.

Lately, social media has turn into a preferred place for cybercriminals to rip-off customers of their crypto and cash.

The Theft of Cryptocurrencies Is a Extreme Downside

Statistics counsel that in 2020, cryptojacking instances elevated by 28%, prompting retailers to train excessive warning. Hackers make a replica of the foreign money and use it for transactions whereas holding the unique. This is called double-spending, a possible danger in cryptocurrency buying and selling.

In 2021, we noticed how hacks and fraud instances associated to cryptocurrencies have elevated to nearly $3 billion. Though makes an attempt are being made to bolster safety, this variety of crimes continues to develop.

However, there’s a rising curiosity in cryptocurrencies, not just for shopping for or promoting but in addition for investments. For that reason, it is a good suggestion to make use of a VPN to work with cryptocurrencies and thus be capable of function safely.

How Does a VPN Shield Your Crypto?

1. A VPN Protects Your Visitors

A standard false impression is that cryptocurrencies present full anonymity to the person, however that’s not solely true as a result of hackers and international governments can monitor you thru public IP addresses.

You might be doubtless utilizing a personal Wi-Fi connection for crypto exchanges that supply nearly no safety. Hackers can simply monitor your location and even get your login credentials!

Due to this fact, the VPN for working with cryptocurrencies is an efficient alternative as a result of it protects our information on-line via encryption and protects our identification. On this case, it’s as if our information travels via a tunnel due to encryption which protects us from prying eyes.

Because of a VPN, we can safe the site visitors because it masks our public IP tackle and hides our authentic location by redirecting the site visitors to a different place that could possibly be a whole bunch of miles away. This makes it nearly not possible for anybody to maintain monitor of your on-line actions.

2. A VPN Affords Safety Towards Phishing Assaults

Illustration of a phishing attack on a laptop screen

Phishing is the sending of fraudulent messages from a trusted supply. It is among the most typical methods hackers steal crypto property. Through the years, there was a gradual enhance in phishing assaults, about 3% every quarter.

A VPN can even supply us safety towards phishing assaults. Though it might solely achieve this partially, it’ll block sure internet pages that may doubtlessly hurt us. This acts as an extra layer of safety on your commerce.

3. A VPN Will Cover Cryptographic Actions From Your ISP

Your web service supplier could not understand how a lot bitcoin you obtain or offered, however they’ll inform what buying and selling platform you employ and once you logged in. However in the event you use a VPN, your ISP will solely see the IP tackle of the VPN server you employ as a substitute of the crypto web site. Because the VPN encrypts all information on-line, the ISP can not manipulate your connection.

4. A VPN Will Unblock Geo-Restricted Crypto Websites

There are geographical restrictions on crypto buying and selling platforms the place customers from sure nations could not be capable of commerce sure altcoins (cryptocurrencies aside from bitcoin) on a selected alternate.

This will range relying on the platform they use to transact. Because the VPN hides your precise IP tackle, the buying and selling platform can not know your geographical location and, subsequently, will be unable to forestall you from buying and selling on the location.

The right way to Select a VPN for Cryptocurrency Operations

Now that we all know how a VPN might help us in some ways to guard our information and keep privateness, the following step is to decide on the fitting VPN. The market is flooded with VPNs providing totally different options and costs, so how do you resolve? Beneath, we’ll take a look at some vital components to contemplate.

1. Select a VPN With a Kill Swap

In case your VPN connection goes down—even only for just a few seconds—your crypto enterprise information will likely be uncovered, resulting in your location being tracked and recognized.

Due to this fact, a VPN will need to have the kill change function, by which in case your VPN connection drops even for just a few seconds, it’ll disconnect us from the Web in order that our information shouldn’t be compromised.

2. Strict No-Logs Coverage

A VPN can stop hackers, a international authorities, or some other third social gathering from monitoring your on-line information, however the VPN supplier should still have data of your on-line actions. When searching for a VPN, guarantee it doesn’t save your information out of your on-line exercise; these are VPNs with a zero logs coverage. Nonetheless, in the event you discover such a VPN, make sure that it has correct claims to show it.

A protected guess can be to depend on a paid VPN service with sufficient status, as free ones promote your data on-line. Moreover, you will discover one that permits subscription fee utilizing nameless fee strategies comparable to cryptocurrencies.

3. Search for a VPN With Cut up Tunneling

Utilizing a VPN can certainly decelerate your web connection, which you do not need, particularly when buying and selling crypto. Cut up tunneling is a function that lets some site visitors out of the VPN tunnel. Because of this you employ VPN solely to encrypt information whereas doing crypto transactions. Since there will likely be fewer information to encrypt for the server, the connection will likely be steady and clean.

4. Examine the VPN’s Base Nation

Surveillance security cameras attached to a poll

It’s critical to remember the nation the VPN originated from and the place it operates. Many of the prime VPN suppliers come from nations with none mass surveillance packages, just like the British Virgin Islands, Switzerland, and Panama (the place NordVPN comes from).

However it’s not improper to be cautious of VPNs. Suppliers from nations with stable surveillance packages just like the US, Canada, or the UK can hand over your information if requested by surveillance companies. That is additionally why you shouldn’t belief a free VPN, even when the concept sounds tempting.

So, Ought to You Get a VPN?

It’s fairly apparent how vital a VPN is, particularly for cryptocurrency buying and selling, the place the safety and privateness dangers are many. To correctly conceal your IP tackle, shield your self towards phishing and malware assaults, and have the liberty to function on platforms in several nations, you want a VPN.

And if you’re having a tough time selecting one, you possibly can attempt some internationally famend VPNs like NordVPN, Surfshark, CyberGhost, PureVPN, and HMA VPN. So, select properly and use a VPN that enhances safety and protects your information from anybody, together with your ISP.

Are Custodial Crypto Wallets a Safety Danger?

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About The Creator

Alexiei Zahorski
(10 Articles Revealed)

Alexei is a safety content material author at MUO. He comes from a navy background the place he acquired a ardour for cyber safety and digital warfare.

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From Alexiei Zahorski

Crypto

Here's a heartwarming holiday crypto story (no, seriously)

Published

11 hours ago

December 27, 2024

Press Room

Here's a heartwarming holiday crypto story (no, seriously)

In a true Christmas miracle, a viral crypto stunt actually seems to be doing some good in the world.

Siqi Chen, an investor and startup founder, took to X on Christmas Eve to share a GoFundMe campaign he created to fund research into a rare brain tumor afflicting his 5-year-old daughter. His daughter, Mira, was diagnosed in September with adamantinomatous craniopharyngioma — a benign tumor that is usually not fatal but causes severe side effects.

Chen said the family is working with Dr. Todd Hankinson at the University of Colorado on treatments to slow the tumor’s growth. Because this cancer is so rare, he said, research is sparse and funding is lacking. “this christmas, i am humbly asking for your help to support dr. hankinson’s research,” he tweeted.

His online fundraiser raised more than $233,000 of its $300,000 goal in two days. But the most heartwarming part had nothing to do with GoFundMe.

Late in the evening on Christmas Day, Chen took to X again — this time in surprise.

“uh so some random guy 20 minutes [ago] made a SOL memecoin called $MIRA to help with research fundraising and sent me half the entire supply and it’s now worth like $400K and i literally don’t know what to do,” he wrote.

The memecoin — internet parlance for a cryptocurrency created on a lark, often based on a joke — skyrocketed in value as crypto enthusiasts traded it among themselves. Chen started selling off small portions of his holding Wednesday evening, promising to donate 100% of the proceeds to Hankinson’s laboratory. “CAN SOME PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW THIS MAGIC INTERNET MONEY WORKS I AM LOSING MY MIND,” he wrote less than half an hour after his initial tweet, when the value of his holdings soared to nearly $6 million.

Chen continued tweeting his disbelief as the value soared to $11 million, then $14.7 million, then $18.8 million. By Thursday morning, he had sold enough of the token to send at least $1 million to Hankinson’s lab, he said. “yi, mira and i are so unbelievably grateful to you all — each and every one of you,” he wrote. “christmas magic was made real this year thanks to all of you. forever grateful.”

Perhaps no one was more surprised than Hankinson, who learned of the memecoin Thursday morning via excited texts from friends and coworkers. “This entire area of the world — Bitcoin and NFTs and stuff — I do not know a single thing about it,” he told The Standard. “So when all this stuff started going on, I was like, ‘What?’”

Hankinson said he has studied adamantinomatous craniopharyngioma for more than 15 years, and his lab is the only one in North America dedicated to its treatment. He said funding is hard to come by both because the condition is rare — fewer than two in a million people are diagnosed with AC every year — and because it does not grow as aggressively as some other tumors. Still, he said, the side effects can be devastating: stunted growth; vision impairment; and difficulty regulating hunger, thirst, and temperature.

If the Chen family did contribute $1 million, he said, it would be by far the largest donation the lab has ever received.

“Even if it ends up being a small fraction of what people have talked about, it would still be a complete game changer for the scale on which we can do things and the sophistication with which we do things,” he said. “This would be the most insane Christmas gift our research has ever gotten.”

Hankinson and Chen weren’t the only ones surprised by the use of a memecoin to fund medical research. These trend-based tokens are primarily known as risky, volatile investments — more of a gag than a serious asset. (The creators of a memecoin tied to Hailey Welch, better known as the “Hawk Tuah” Girl, are being sued by investors after its value dropped 95% in a single day.) They are sometimes used in crypto scams known as “rug pulls,” in which founders create a token, convince people to invest in it, then rapidly sell all their holdings.

Chen said repeatedly on Twitter that he was trying to avoid a “rug pull” situation by selling off his holdings in the “MIRA” coin slowly. He said Thursday that he would sell $1,000 worth of the token every 10 minutes until it runs out. Still, the value of the coin has dropped significantly from its overnight high.

That crash — coupled with the fact that early sellers of the coin likely made a tidy profit — made some observers uneasy. But Chen said he didn’t mind.

“if you made a lot of money, i’m genuinely happy for you — but please consider donating some of your profits to hankinson lab,” he tweeted. “if you lost a lot of money, i’m very sorry — but magic internet money is magic internet money.”

Chen is a well-regarded figure in Silicon Valley who founded and sold two startups and worked at several others before his current venture, a finance software company called Runway. Among those responding to his tweets were Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire, and X CEO Linda Yaccarino.

In a Twitter Space on Wednesday night, Chen explained that his daughter initially presented with a headache, which he and his wife thought little about until they brought her to a pediatrician who suggested an MRI. Doctors have since placed Mira on an arthritis medication that could slow the growth of the tumor, and they are weighing the benefits of surgery. “Our strategy right now is just to try everything we can to buy as much time as possible,” he said.

Crypto

Bitcoin rally loses steam in final days of record-breaking year

Published

19 hours ago

December 27, 2024

Press Room

Bitcoin rally loses steam in final days of record-breaking year

A bitcoin rally is fizzling in the final days of a record-breaking year for the digital asset, as investors assess the remaining impetus from US president-elect Donald Trump’s embrace of the cryptocurrency sector.

The largest token changed hands at US$96,200 as of 2pm Friday in Hong Kong, partly paring a retreat of almost 3 per cent from a day earlier. Smaller rivals including ether and dogecoin, a favourite of the meme crowd, oscillated in tight ranges.

The crypto market is also braced for the expiry of a substantial quantity of bitcoin and ether options contracts on Friday – one of the biggest such events in the history of digital assets, according to prime broker FalconX.

The notional value of the bitcoin contracts on the Deribit exchange – one of the largest for digital-asset derivatives – exceeds US$14 billion, while the equivalent figure for ether is about US$3.8 billion.

Sean McNulty, director of trading at liquidity provider Arbelos Markets, flagged the risk of a “choppy market” amid the expiry of the derivatives positions.

Crypto

Russian Companies Reportedly Using Crypto for International Payments | PYMNTS.com

Published

1 day ago

December 26, 2024

Press Room

Russian Companies Reportedly Using Crypto for International Payments | PYMNTS.com

Russian businesses are reportedly using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to make international payments.

It’s a trend that comes in the wake of legislative changes that permitted these types of payments to get around western sanctions, Reuters reported Tuesday (Dec. 26), citing comments from Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov.

As the report noted, the sanctions — issued following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — have made it tougher for Russia to trade with partners like China and Turkey. But this year, Russia began allowing crypto for foreign trades, and is working on legalizing the mining of crypto such as bitcoin.

“As part of the experimental regime, it is possible to use bitcoins, which we had mined here in Russia (in foreign trade transactions),” Siluanov told Russia 24 television channel.

“Such transactions are already occurring. We believe they should be expanded and developed further. I am confident this will happen next year,” he said, adding that using digital currencies to make international payments represent the future.

PYMNTS explored this idea earlier this week in a report on events in the cryptocurrency/blockchain world in the past year.

“Cross-border payments, historically plagued by high fees and slow transaction times, underwent a significant transformation in 2024,” that report said. “Blockchain technology emerged as a key enabler, offering transparency, speed and cost efficiency.”

Stablecoins play a key role, PYMNTS added, letting businesses bypass traditional correspondent banking networks and settle transactions almost instantly.

“Blockchain technology and public blockchains in particular, are opening up a number of new use cases, one of which is to transfer value — such as remittances — from one country to another,” Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president, blockchain and digital assets at Mastercard, told PYMNTS.

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence has found that cryptocurrency use in making cross-border payments could be the winning use case that the sector has been searching for. The research shows that blockchain-based cross-border solutions, especially stablecoins, are being increasingly used by firms looking for better ways to transact and expand internationally.

“Blockchain solutions and stablecoins — I don’t like to use the term crypto because this is more about FinTech — they’ve found product-market fit in cross-border payments,” Sheraz Shere, general manager of payments and commerce at Solana Foundation, said in an interview here earlier this year. “You get the disintermediation, you get the speed, you get the transparency, you get extremely low cost.”

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