Welcome to the daily crypto news :

• China’s Internet Firewall Has Blocked Access to Ethereum Block Explorer Etherscan.io;

• The SEC Has a New Chief Crypto Cop;

• Sanctions Weren’t Discussed at North Korea Crypto Conference, Attendee Says;

• Zcash Foundation Funds App Mixing Private Messaging and Payments;

• Institutions Are Showing Interest in ETP Tied to Binance Coin, Amun Says;

China’s Internet Firewall Has Blocked Access to Ethereum Block Explorer Etherscan.io

China's Great Firewall, used by the government to regulate access to foreign internet sites, has blocked one of the most popular sources of ethereum blockchain data.

As of Tuesday, etherscan.io, one of the longest-running and most widely used ethereum block explorers, was inaccessible from IP addresses inside mainland China, based on tests performed locally.

The change appears to be recent. According to Greatfire.org, which compiles and monitors a database of sites that are blocked inside China, etherscan.io was still accessible with "no censorship detected" as of Aug. 18, 2019.

But Greatfire.org's scanning record shows etherscan.io has become 100 percent blocked since at least Oct. 30, rendering it inaccessible from inside China unless via a virtual private network (VPN).

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The SEC Has a New Chief Crypto Cop

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has appointed a new head of its cyber division.

Taking over from Robert A. Cohen, who left the post for a position in the private sector in August, Kristina Littman will be the agency's new chief of the Division of Enforcement’s Cyber Unit, according to an SEC announcement on Monday.

Joining the SEC as a staff attorney in 2010, Littman rose in the ranks to become a senior advisor to SEC Chairman Jay Clayton in the summer of 2017. In that role, she has advised Clayton on regulatory and policy relating to cryptocurrencies and digital assets, as well as international affairs, trading and markets, the SEC said.

“Kristy’s innovative thinking and extensive experience within the Commission have made her an invaluable advisor and, most importantly, a tireless defender of America’s investors,” said Clayton. “She will be an excellent leader for the Cyber Unit as it continues its work in this critical and continually evolving area.”

The Cyber Unit was founded in 2017 as a way to tackle cybersecurity issues and protect investors against wayward members of the developing blockchain and crypto industry.

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Sanctions Weren’t Discussed at North Korea Crypto Conference, Attendee Says

An Italian citizen who attended the North Korean cryptocurrency conference in April says the U.S. government’s charges against his friend and ethereum developer Virgil Griffith are overblown.

Griffith has been charged under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act for allegedly providing technological training that would make it easier for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to evade U.S. economic sanctions. He is in federal custody for providing "highly technical information to North Korea," as U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman put it in last week’s announcement.

But Fabio Pietrosanti says law enforcement has an exaggerated conception of what took place at the Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference. Very little of substance transpired, he told CoinDesk.

"The sanctions were not a topic at all,” said Pietrosanti, who attended the event on the same trip as Griffith, the Ethereum Foundation staffer arrested by the FBI on Thanksgiving Day.

According to Pietrosanti, the conference took up two days of a larger trip that allowed a small group of non-North Koreans to have a look at the so-called "hermit kingdom." The visit's full itinerary can be viewed on the state website.

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Zcash Foundation Funds App Mixing Private Messaging and Payments

The Canadian nonprofit Open Privacy is working on Cwtch, a zcash-fueled messaging app with more decentralization than Telegram or Signal.

“Cwtch is focused on building a decentralized infrastructure,” said Open Privacy founder Sarah Jamie Lewis. “It can’t be reliant on Visa or Venmo unless we can find a way to remove that metadata.”

The project is still in an early stage of messaging between roughly a dozen node and server operators. Now, thanks to a donation from the Zcash Foundation’s donation of roughly $40,000, the nonprofit will hire a designer and continue research on the payment aspects of the system.

“Think of it like a prepaid card,” Lewis said. “You would top off at some point using zcash or any other payment methods.”

Lewis said Cwtch (a Welsh word for hug pronounced something like “kutch”) was inspired by market research with sex workers and queer communities that experienced censorship and malicious surveillance. As such, Open Privacy is looking into multiple options, including bitcoin, diverse on-ramps and liquidity.

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Institutions Are Showing Interest in ETP Tied to Binance Coin, Amun Says

Swiss crypto investment product provider Amun says it has received significant institutional interest in its exchange-traded product (ETP) tied to the Binance Coin (BNB) exchange token.

Amun’s Managing Director and Head of ETFs, Laurent Kssis, said the company’s European roadshow in London, Zurich, Milan and Scandinavia is already “fully booked” with meetings with representatives from over 30 institutional investors across the continent.

The event, which began last week and is expected to continue through Friday, is marketing the BNB ETP to potential clients. These are primarily "qualified investors who may have a mandate to allow exposure to crypto as part of a much broader portfolio of assets,'' said Kssis.

Meetings have been with hedge funds and family offices, with some also scheduled with asset managers. One-to-one sessions were oversubscribed, so Amun has added more events, including a lunch meeting, for investors to participate in.

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