virtual currency

An online security firm F-Secure revealed that botnets of compromised machines are now used by cyber criminals to issue units of Bitcoin virtual currency.

Perpetrators used the ideas in distributed computing practiced by the SETI project. Cyber criminals programmed their botnets of zombie machines to farm Bitcoins.

"The bots are created with a generator," writes Mikko H Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure. "Generator sets a specific Twitter account to be the one which can be used to control the mining botnet."

Chinese Internet company Sina Corp plans to launch a virtual currency for its microblogging service Weibo in the third quarter this year in a move to monetize the platform, reports the source with the direct knowledge of the matter.

Two years ago Sina launched its Weibo service which now has 140 million users. In a document released online recently, Sina detailed the use of its virtual currency, Weibi, for developers. (open.weibo.com/wiki/index.php/)

A user of Bitcoin open-source virtual currency project claimed that his 25,000 Bitcoins, technically valued at close to $500,000, had mysteriously been transferred to an unknown user's account. Owners of the project cannot verify or disclaim these allegations.

Allinvain speculated the thieves made off with the windfall after using malware to compromise his Windows-based computer.

"I just woke up to see a very large chunk of my bitcoin balance gone," the user wrote. "I feel like killing myself now."

PayPal has announced its first bank collaboration in Malaysia with RHB Banking Group. Now RHB allows their customers to use their checking or savings account to instantly top-up a PayPal account. And of course, now the customers can do shopping online all in real-time and without the need of a credit or debit card. In addition to the millions of merchants worldwide that accept PayPal, RHB customers have a shopping site called WorldMart that provides special PayPal merchant deals to users of this new top-up service. 

 PapayaMobile, an open, mobile social network for Android, has announced to partner Zong, Billing Revolution, and Adknowledge's Super Rewards to offer the most complete and effective monetization solution for Android developers. As a result of these key partnership agreements, PapayaMobile now enables in-app purchases, support for various billing options and integration of advertising offers from Super Rewards.

PapayaMobile mainly focuses on casual gaming and virtual currency.

SponsorPay, the European online payment system announced that it has received a seven-digit investment from Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB), a development bank of the Federal Land of Berlin, to enhance its ad offer-based monetization platform. 

In its latest efforts to conquer social networking space Google has acquired Jambool Inc, a provider of products that enable websites to create and manage virtual economies, including virtual currency and goods.

As is known Jambool's Social Gold platform competes with Facebook Credits, the social-networking site's virtual-currency product.

SponsorPay, a known virtual currency monetization platform has announced new partnerships with industry leaders of social games publishers and social networks.

Customers now can convert their unused gift card money into virtual currency units at thousands of top online games. Plastic Jungle and Offerpal Media have partnered to allow exchange gift cards for purchasing power within online games, virtual worlds and social networks, tapping the estimated $30 billion unredeemed gift card economy.

Offerpal Media has added more payment options into its platform to help social developers and online game publishers accept payments from users which has no credit card or do not want to use it online. The new payment options include pre-paid debit cards, phone cards, e-payment systems, parent-approved payments and more, from such partners as Zeus Research and STi Prepaid, paysafecard, MyCard, Rixty, BillMyParents, ClickandBuy and others—covering nearly 200 countries in all.

 A research by Q Interactive showed that a lot of women play games and view ads so that they can 'get' other things, primarily in the form of virtual currency. The study polled over 2,000 women and found that they are playing social apps such as Farmville or tending (Lil) Green Patches on social networks so that they can earn virtual currency.

The survey found that some women take virtual cash more often than they are getting real cash from their ATMs. Furthermore, half of them redeem virtual currency every day.

 Popular social games like Farmville and Mafia Wars are huge money makers, but Michael Arrington of TechCrunch says a lot of that revenue comes from "completely unethical" advertisements that trick players with false promises of free stuff.