The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) sent a blistering warning to investors and industry members about the dangers of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

In a statement, on Sunday, the CBE stated that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not considered as real currencies in Egypt and therefore may not be considered legal tender susceptible of cancelling debts. The statement also stressed the importance of adhering to Article 206 of the Central Bank and Banking System Law promulgated by Law No 194-2020.

The statement warns against dealing or investing in virtual currencies including cryptocurrencies as they are not recognized by legal entities in Egypt. They are outside the scope of the regulatory framework and are not traded by financial institutions locally. Such cryptocurrencies have been associated with fraudulent activities and attract suspicion of use in illegal and illegitimate financial activities in addition to their high-investment risks related to frequent price fluctuations

According to the Central Bank of Egypt Law No. 194 of 2020, anyone who violates any of the provisions of Article 206 of the Central Bank and Banking System Law is punished by imprisonment or by a fine of not less than one million pounds (around 65,000$) and not exceeding ten million pounds (around 650,000$), or one of these two penalties.

In Egypt it is forbidden to issue any sort of cryptocurrencies or digital money, to trade in them, to promote them, to create or operate crypto trading platforms without obtaining a license from the Board of Directors of the Central Bank in accordance with the rules and procedures that it determines.

Article 206 of the law states

In January 2018, CEB issued it’s first warning against the trading cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, due to the extremely high risk associated with such currencies. The Central Bank also asserted that commerce within the Arab Republic of Egypt is confined only to the official paper currencies approved by the Bank.

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Indian authorities seized bitcoin worth around 90 million Indian rupees ($1.2 million) following the arrest of a 25-year-old Indian computer hacker in Bengaluru, India. Bengaluru Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sandeep Patil informed media about the development on Friday.

Srikrishna alias Shreeki, the hacker, was arrested on Nov. 18 for the alleged hacking of government portals, three bitcoin exchanges and 10 poker sites, using malware in four of the attacks.

During the investigation, it was found that the Srikrishna had hacked three Bitcoin exchanges and 10 poker sites. The Bengaluru police commissioner said that Bitcoins worth Rs 9 crore have been seized in the matter.

Srikrishna confessed to hacking the e-procurement website of the Karnataka government as far back as 2019, said the report citing the ANI news agency.

An anonymous Bitcoin user is claiming to have lost $16,000,000 (1400 Bitcoins) due to installing an old Electrum wallet version that is running malicious servers.

The user created an issue and explained what happened on the official Electrum’s github page.

It seems the victim was using an infected version of Electrum wallet that asked him to install some sort of malicious updates that triggered the transfer of hist entire Bitcoin balance to a scammers address.

According to bitcoin blockchain the transfer of the stolen funds happened yesterday.

Electrum is a light client, which means it must connect to the blockchain through a server, which by default is chosen from a list of public Electrum servers. Anyone can operate such a public server and some users will be randomly connected to it.

When broadcasting a transaction on Electrum, it gets sent to the Electrum Server you are connected to for propagation to the network. The server should try to add the transaction to its mempool and further propagate it to other Bitcoin nodes.

it seems the attackers have set up a public Electrum Server targeting the old wallets’ users, which was tweaked so that instead of propagating the user’s transaction as it should, it always returns a malicious error message directing the Electrum clients to a phishing website to “upgrade” their Electrum version.

The only way to keep your Bitcoin and other digital currencies safe is to either use an offline wallet or a trusted hardware wallet.