Police in Canada have issued warnings about a Bitcoin scam after two citizens reportedly lost $18,764.50 ( CAD $25,000) to criminals posing as police officers .

As usual, the criminals told victims that their personal banking details, social insurance number, and other information had been used in a major fraud case or money laundering case.

Victims were then instructed to transfer Bitcoin if they wanted to solve the problem.

Despite the outlandish scenario, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.

Back in April, Hard Fork reported on how a phone scammer was posing as a police officer and targeting victims in California , telling them to exchange all the money in their bank account to Bitcoin and hand it over.

At the the time, Berkely Police Department (BPD) also issued a scam warning, noting how a woman had been contacted by someone claiming to be “Officer Neil Matthew” of the BPD.

The scammer told the woman she was under investigation for “drug trafficking and fraudulent activities .”

The victim received multiple phone calls from several numbers – including 911 – as they were able to mask their own phone numbers with official ones.

Indeed, scammers are getting creative and finding new ways in which to siphon funds from unsuspecting victims, but if someone ever asks you for money over the phone , especially if they claim to be a policeman , hang up and move on.

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Thailand’s central bank will issue its own digital currency — but there’s a catch

Details have emerged of a new digital currency to be issued by the central bank of Thailand – it’s built on an open-source blockchain eerily reminiscent of Ripple, the popular banking ledger developed by Ripple Labs.

It was first teased in June by Bank of Thailand (BOT) governor Veerathai Santiprabhob, who cited a need to meet demand for faster transactions across banking networks. Dubbed Project Inthanon , its mission is to create “a new way of conducting interbank settlement using wholesale central bank digital currency.”

Well, now we know specifics. It’s called Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and it’s being built on the open-source distributed ledger (DLT) platform Corda, developed by New York blockchain firm R3.

The official press release (spotted by CoinDesk) reads:

R3 is an American startup working to create DLT solutions, mostly for banks and tech firms. Enterprises can create their own private DLTs based on its open-source blockchain platform. It has been around since 2016, and has continuously touted partnerships with huge industry figures, from Microsoft to J.P. Morgan.

Recently, Fortune reported on speculations that it might be running out of money, despite apparently securing $107 million in funding. Such claims were later denied by managing director Charlie Cooper.

In simple terms, R3 market the Corda platform as a liquidity tool for the financial services industry. It claims to increase the efficiency of asset exchange by removing intermediaries – banks who use its tech can supposedly enjoy instant asset settlements, even with multiple participants.

Yes, Corda is open-source, but the DLTs that it creates are not so accessible . Blockchains built on Corda, like Project Inthanon, will be completely closed and apparently centralized – a disappointingly common theme for enterprise DLT solutions.

It appears that the Bank of Thailand will not only instantly create the new currency, but will be solely responsible for its distribution. It is precisely this model that has landed Ripple Labs multiple court appearances. Three securities fraud lawsuits have been filed against Ripple Labs and its CEO, arguing that a centralized entity being the sole issuers of a token it creates breaches certain laws.

Federal court will ultimately decide the future of such distribution models, at least in the United States. If a court decides that XRP is really a security and not a cryptocurrency, the entire fintech industry is likely feel the effects. Some investment CEOs have called for a new category of digital coin to be created, “ digital fiat, ” to spare other cryptocurrency projects from becoming collateral damage.

Although one shouldn’t judge purely on appearances, it’s rather easy to see similarities between Corda-based digital currencies and DLT-tech by Ripple Labs. The key difference here is that Ripple Labs’ XRP doubles as a circulating currency. At this stage, it appears that Thailand‘s new digital currency will be used strictly by the banking system.

But, the two do have their own sordid history. Last year, they exchanged lawsuits over a deal which would have seen Corda purchase five billion XRP – ten percent of the total supply.

When prices skyrocketed, that deal was worth a whopping $12 billion. Ripple filed a counter-claim, arguing that it shouldn’t have to make the sale as R3 did not hold up its end of the deal. It alleged that R3 had promised to facilitate partnerships between banks and Ripple Labs, but none eventuated.

Not only that, Ripple Labs claim the contract was invalidated when R3 CEO David Rutter did not inform it that key members of the R3 consortium had pulled out – namely Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Morgan Stanley. At this stage, it seems it is still being handled by the courts, the ordeal dragging on for close to a year.

At least Corda is going to be put to the test, hopefully – maybe. When the announcement was first made, it was given a disclaimer:

What we’ll really see, if it works, is a government-sanctioned digital currency that makes life easier for banks. This is all very good – as long as you ignore the irony of the financial system being strengthened by centralized ‘cryptocurrency. ‘

Coinbase confident Japan will let it sell cryptocurrency by 2019

Japan’s tough stance on cryptocurrencies may be a mood killer for most businesses, but Coinbase is loving it. In fact, the company believes the increased scrutiny in the country gives Coinbase an advantage over other cryptocurrency businesses.

“The Japanese government is more focused on security. That is good for us,”‘ Coinbase’s chief policy officer Mike Lempres told Nikkei Asian Review in a recent interview in Tokyo.

Lempres further added that the talks of obtaining a license are “going well” with the Financial Services Authority (FSA), and they are expecting the license by next year. “We are… committed to getting it done. It will certainly be in 2019.”

Coinbase’s optimism is very surprising, given how frugal FSA has been so far in granting licenses to cryptocurrency exchanges. The last license was granted in December last year and the agency has more than 160 applications pending with it.

FSA is very adamant on security. The agency has made it clear that exchanges should improve their system risk management before they can be allowed to operate in the country.

Coinbase is not the first major exchange to try its luck in Japan either. Binance has already tried and failed. The exchange was based out of Japan until the FSA served it a notice for operating without permission — forcing it to move to Malta instead.

But Coinbase thinks it fits the bill perfectly. The company believes that the investor safeguard mechanisms employed on its exchange are enough to impress the Japanese authorities.

Lempres said that out of their 550 employees, dozens are dedicated to security. Ninety-nine percent of the funds are stored offline, with only 1 percent held in hot wallets. The amount in hot wallets is connected to the internet and vulnerable to hacking but it is completely insured, he assures.

Coinbase says there is a great demand for a reliable cryptocurrency exchange in Japan and it can fill that gap.

“Japan has been an active large market from the very beginning, and has proved resilient as it bounces back from several bad experiences,” Lempres said. “We think there is great demand for a trusted provider of services here.”

But, there’s a possible hiccup in Coinbase’s “all too good” plan. The exchange’s system is based in the US, and the FSA may require it to run its system in Japan before approving to ensure that it can monitor the transactions properly. But, Lempres acknowledges that it will compromise the exchange’s security. He said:

Japanese authorities have maintained that they are not in favor of “excessive” checks on cryptocurrency businesses — they only want to see the security measures improved, especially in the wake of Coincheck’s $500 million hack in January this year.

If Coinbase does end up getting a license to operate in Japan, it will definitely be a significant boost to its plan of becoming “too big to fail.”

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