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Scammers have drained hundreds of thousands of dollars from an elderly Pennsylvania woman by directing her to purchase and surrender gold bars under false pretenses. The 78-year-old resident of South Whitehall Township fielded calls from people pretending to represent American Bank who claimed her identity and Social Security number faced compromise, reports The Morning Call. Attempts to wire funds failed after her bank rejected the transfers to invalid accounts. The callers then instructed her to acquire gold bullion and transport it to specific spots in the Allentown area. She completed four separate deliveries that handed over $550,000 in gold to…

In brief Zcash climbed as much as 20% to an intraday high of $1,029 on Friday, its best level in a decade, as about $34.5 million in short positions got force-closed on the break above $1,000. The move built on Thursday’s rally after Fed Governor Christopher Waller said he’d be “inclined to support” holding rates steady, pulling September hike odds to 50.4% from 63.2% and setting off more than $415 million in short liquidations across crypto. Friday’s August jobs report showed the U.S. added 162,000 jobs against a forecast of 56,000, sending Bitcoin back under $80,000 on renewed hike bets…

Norway’s enormous sovereign wealth fund is shifting its fixed-income strategy away from heavy reliance on safe government bonds. The overhaul would slash nearly $80 billion from its U.S. Treasury positions, reports Bloomberg. This sovereign wealth fund, funded by Norway’s oil and gas revenues, ranks as the world’s largest with assets topping $2.3 trillion. Managers aim to lower the government bond weighting in the benchmark from 70 percent to 50 percent, freeing capital for corporate debt, mortgage-backed securities and other higher-yielding instruments. U.S. Treasurys currently make up the biggest slice at roughly $215 billion, and the plan would drop their share…

An Illinois resident has been sentenced to 12 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of residential burglary and other charges tied to a major theft from a home in McHenry County. The case centered on the March 2023 break-in at a residence in unincorporated Marengo, reports Lake McHenry Scanner. Sean A. Fitzpatrick, 50, of Poplar Grove stood trial on counts that included theft over $100,000 and possession of a stolen firearm. His co-defendant, Scott T. Henrie, 37, of Janesville, Wisconsin, pleaded guilty to residential burglary and received a four-year term through a negotiated deal. Stolen items included…

Luminis Health is investigating a cybersecurity incident that has left certain systems unavailable at its two Maryland hospitals. The health system says it is working with legal counsel and third-party experts after detecting the issue earlier this week. The attack has impacted Luminis Health Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis and Luminis Health Doctors Community Medical Center in Lanham. Luminis Health issued an official statement on the incident. “Luminis Health is currently responding to a cybersecurity incident affecting certain systems across our organization. Our teams are working urgently to safely restore affected systems as quickly as possible.” Access to MyChart…

In brief Robinhood rejected AMC’s demand to halt trading in tokens tied to its stock. Lawyers said AMC’s potential claims could depend on trademark use and whether buyers are misled. Lawyers also argued that stock tokens could broaden access to U.S. markets. Robinhood has rejected AMC Entertainment’s demand to stop trading tokens tied to its stock, with the brokerage’s top lawyer challenging the theater chain to pursue its legal threats.“Send your lawyers and we’ll educate them,” Dan Gallagher, Robinhood’s chief legal, compliance and corporate affairs officer, wrote on X in response to AMC CEO Adam Aron.Myriad: How high will Nvidia…

Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure Solana validator adoption of the v1.18 client has reached 85% of consensus stake, marking an important infrastructure milestone for the network. This is one of those updates that will not excite casual traders as much as a meme coin rally. But for the health of the chain, it matters. Validator software upgrades are how networks improve performance, reliability, and execution over time. In Solana’s case, the v1.18 release is tied to improvements around transaction scheduling, block propagation, and reduced state contention during periods of heavy demand. That…

In brief A meme coin called BONER cornered 53% of the tokenized Hims & Hers Health shares on Robinhood Chain over the August 30 weekend. The move briefly sent the wrapped stock to $132.64 against a real Friday HIMS close of $28.84. The real HIMS stock barely moved, trading near $29 on Monday, but the pattern has spread across Robinhood Chain, where meme coin-stock pairs generated $217 million in trading volume on September 2. A meme coin called BONER locked up more than half the tokenized shares of Hims & Hers Health on Robinhood’s blockchain over the weekend of August…

Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure The XRP Ledger’s Automated Market Maker amendment has reached 80% validator consensus, starting the activation window for native AMM functionality on the network. That is a meaningful moment for XRPL because it pushes the ledger closer to a more native DeFi model. XRP has always had deep exchange liquidity and a strong payments narrative, but DeFi has not been the network’s defining strength in the same way it has been for Ethereum, Solana, or other smart contract ecosystems. A native AMM could help change that. But the…

In brief The G7 says organizations should begin migrating to post-quantum cryptography now. Attackers can collect encrypted data today and decrypt it if sufficiently powerful quantum computers emerge. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana developers are already testing defenses against the threat. The G7 is urging governments and businesses to prepare for quantum-enabled cyberattacks now, warning that migration could take years and that sensitive data is already at risk.In a new report, the cybersecurity working group of the Group of Seven, better known as the G7—a forum comprising Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States—called quantum computing…

In brief TikTok parent company ByteDance secured a $29.6 billion loan from nearly 30 Chinese and international banks, according to Reuters. Strong lender demand prompted the company to raise the facility from an initial target of $20 billion. Sources said the money will mainly support AI projects outside China. TikTok parent ByteDance has secured a $29.6 billion loan from nearly 30 banks as it increases spending on artificial intelligence.According to a report by Reuters, citing people with direct knowledge of the transaction, lender demand allowed ByteDance to raise the dollar-denominated facility from an initial $20 billion target.Myriad: Who will top…

Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure Optimism’s Superchain interoperability upgrade has gone live on the Sepolia testnet, giving developers a new environment to test native cross-L2 messaging across OP Stack chains. This is not mainnet yet, and that distinction is important. But it is still a meaningful step. The whole Superchain idea depends on many OP Stack networks being able to communicate more smoothly with each other. Without interoperability, the ecosystem risks becoming a collection of separate chains that happen to use similar technology. With it, the Superchain can start behaving more like…

British financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown is letting retail investors buy bitcoin — nearly one year after it said the cryptocurrency was “not an asset class.”  The Bristol, UK-based investment firm’s website said it was offering bitcoin and other crypto exchange-traded notes to investors. ETNs are investment funds which trade on stock exchanges and track the prices of digital assets.  It comes after the firm, which manages nearly £173 billion (over $233 billion) in assets, last year warned customers about buying bitcoin.  “While longer-term returns of Bitcoin have been positive, Bitcoin has experienced several periods of extreme losses and is…

In brief Polymarket launched Polymarket Perps on September 3 with an initial slate of 10 markets that expanded to 67 within hours, spanning crypto, stocks, indices and commodities with leverage up to 20x and no contract expiration. Leverage caps vary by asset: crypto, the S&P 500, oil, gold and silver support up to 20x, while individual stocks and other real-world assets top out at 10x, per Polymarket’s own documentation. U.S. traders can’t place Perps orders and are routed instead to Polymarket US, the company’s separate CFTC-regulated exchange, a split that traces back to a 2022 CFTC settlement. Polymarket, the prediction…

Hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor has said that a data breach first announced last month is worse than originally reported.  The Prague, Czech Republic-based company said Friday that an additional 67,000 U.S. customers had their names, emails, phone numbers, shipping addresses and order numbers leaked. The leaked data came from orders made between November 2019 and August 2021, according to Trezor.  Trezor first announced in August that data from 11,742 customers from the U.S., UK, Sweden, Colombia, Brazil, Italy, and Portugal had been exposed — with names, emails, phone numbers and shipping addresses leaked.  Two days ago, we received an update…

El Salvador has not used public funds to accumulate bitcoin since the International Monetary Fund’s last review of its loan program, the fund said Thursday.  In a report Thursday, the body said that the Central American country had instead received bitcoin from private donations, citing documentation from the government. It added that “no further Bitcoin accumulation beyond the documented donations is expected.” El Salvador made headlines in 2021 when it became the first country in the world to make bitcoin legal tender. Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele in 2022 said the country would buy one bitcoin per day but it was…