Mt. Gox and the Untold Arms Race for Bitcoin Exchange Transparency

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The Mt. Gox fallout served as a warning to all Bitcoin investors. Ironically, early enthusiasts for the five-year-old cryptocurrency were drawn to its revolutionary ideals of transparency and a lack of central or official control. And now, it's the lack of transparency that brings 127,000 creditors of Mt. Gox to their knees.

Unlike many cash exchanges which still facilitate most of the trades, the cryptocurrency futures exchange pioneer 796 Exchange is making bigger steps to become a more open and transparent transaction venue for cryptocurrencies hedgers and speculators.

"Since Mt. Gox's fallout, we've been seriously thinking about how to make things even more transparent for our users," said Zhu Rong, the founder and CEO of 796 Exchange, "while keeping our users’ privacy intact, of course."

Making transaction logs available to independent third party audits is simply out of the question for obvious reasons, such as the sheer volume just to begin with. Making only the cold storage data available, on the other hand, cannot offer insight to the book of the exchange because the asset percentage it represents is unknown.

"Like everything else, where there's a will, there's a way," said Zhu, who was happy to describe his firm's new platform design. "We decided to make both the cold storage address and the top 100 BTC/LTC asset holding accounts public. The amount of cryptocurrency in cold storage accounts for 80% of the total, and the rest is kept in the hot wallet. In addition, the top 100 BTC assets holders can have the added peace of mind by verifying their BTC assets through publicly available data. These holders are listed on the Rank and their assets accounts for roughly 80% of the BTC assets held by all members of 796 Exchange. The Rank will display only the last 2 digits of the users' IDs for the sake of privacy. The Rank updates at 10:00 am (GMT+8) every Saturday. Asset balance is taken after the settlement. The balance equals to the amount of wallet balance, plus the futures account balance, and plus the quantity of BTC/USD unexecuted (pending) orders. BTC cold storage address and BTC asset holding Rank are made public first. We need a few more weeks to prepare a secure workflow to output and display the rest of the data. The USD deposit amount is negligibly small in comparison, so we won’t post it for now."

796 Exchange has been adhering to professionalizing and legitimizing the operation of cryptocurrency futures exchange. The founding management team is vehement in running a No Dealing Desk (NDD) price discovery service for the clients. In other words, neither the company staff nor the company itself is allowed to take trading position against their clients.
Although many exchanges are taking extreme measures to guard their clients' assets, it is surprising that some are even giving friendly advice to their clients to withdraw the inactive portion of the trading fund.

"I find it extremely rare during my career in the financial trading industry that any market facilitator encourages his clients to withdraw fund," said Terry Li, 796 Exchange newly appointed SVP. "I still vividly remember [that] one of 796 [Exchange's] clients retold the amazing chat session he had with one of the customer service staff Ryan during which Ryan suggested that he withdraw most of the inactive assets. It was actually a timely advice for the client because the BTC price was shooting over $1000 and he had 2700 BTC stored away [at 796 Exchange]."

The cryptocurrency movement is gaining user recognition in many developed countries despite the controversy. 796 Exchange is striving to gain mainstream recognition for cryptocurrency.

Only time will tell.

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The popularity of smart phones makes mobile trading posible, while the explosion of mobile trading apps brings it exponential growth. Mobile trading provides flexibility and allows traders to be agile when they work.

While mobile devices boast benefits over stationary desktops, they also pose security threats to the users. They lack security features ordinarily found on desktops. However, you can mitigate potential risks through add-on security systems after a thorough understanding of the threats.
Security threats include:

Loss or Theft – Mobile devices are small in size. So, they tend to become lost easily. They also become easy targets for theft. Recovery of lost phones is a mere 30%. Besides possible compromise of data, placing trading calls or executing financial transactions indiscriminately can accumulate charges and mind-boggling troubles for the owner.

Malware – Communication networks including Internet downloads of account statements, messaging services and Bluetooth deliver viruses and Malware to mobile devices. Malware eavesdrops on user input, steals sensitive information, destroys stored information and even, disables the device. It also facilitates other attacks such as spoofing, data interpretation and theft, service abuse and unauthorized network access activities.

Electronic Eavesdropping – Spy softwares directly collect and forward information to phones and servers. Indirect techniques include collecting information through devices that are configured to act as legitimate access points. These points pick up sensitive data from unsuspecting people in public places like airport lounges.

Precautionary Measures
796 Exchange strives to provide safe, secured and convinient trading services for its clients. 796 Exchange will soon launch an Android app for cell phones, which enables users to trade anywhere, anytime. As to security threats, Li Ming, senior vice prisident of 796 Exchange, proposes the following safeguards to improve security and reduce associated risks to your mobile device:

Maintain Oversight – Security of your mobile requires your active participation. Treat the device like your credit card, by maintaining control at all times and storing it securely. Enable user authentication systems like passwords or PINs. Keep a restorable backup to preserve your data. Avoid keeping sensitive data and information on your mobile device. Protect your data with encryption, if needed.

Avoid Questionable Actions – User interaction facilitates malware spread. Treat messages from unknown numbers with suspicion and destroy without opening them. Even messages received through Bluetooth require user approval to install. Do not accept incoming unknown connections.
Minimize Functionality – Increasing features in your mobile devices can give rise to security threats. Disable redundant features. Minimize add-on applications and plug-ins.

Use Prevention and Detection Software – Prevention and detection softwares defend your device against malware. They augment security mechanisms already existing in your device.