An entity calling themselves "TP-Link ASIC" recently announced a Wi-Fi 7 capable ASIC cryptocurrency miner with claims of hashing rates above even the mighty RTX 4090... In one specific ASIC friendly algorithm. If the concept of a router that mines crypto sounds strange, deranged, or downright questionable to you, you're not alone. The consumer market for crypto mining has waned heavily in the last handful of months due in no small part to Ethereum switching to Proof of Stake last September, which led to GPUs being ineffectual for mining the previously profitable coin. However, ASIC mining does remain prevalent across the sea of various algorithms and alt-coins that exist. One such alt-coin is Kadena, a smaller Proof of Work cryptocurrency that appears to flutter around the $1USD range. This is where "TP-Link ASIC" has placed their engineering efforts with the, "TP-Link NX31 31.2 THS Router Miner," which, as the name implies, offers 31.2 TH/s of Kadena hashing power at a cool $1,990 USD (previously $1,440).

If you've been around long enough to remember the Butterfly Labs fiasco and fallout, you're probably already groaning and holding your head in your hands. Buying ASICs from new and unproven vendors promising the moon is never a good idea. But TP-Link isn't an unproven company, they have a successful business and sell legitimate products. Surely this would be handled properly since this is a well established brand, right? Well, here's the twist; "TP-Link ASIC" is NOT TP-Link. When questioned about this new launch by Tom's Hardware a TP-Link representative responded that "TP-Link ASIC" has no affiliation with TP-Link, nor does their NX31 mining router.

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The biggest crypto scam ever recorded (so far, of course) has made investors lose some $3.6 billion. The scam was enacted by a pair of South African brothers, Ameer Cajee and his brother Raees Cajee, who funded crypto investment firm AfriCrypt in 2019. Another element of warning for all crypto investors, in that rug pulls can obviously be done years after the start of a project - so longevity and temporal maintenance of a given project shouldn't be the "be all, end all" of your due diligence when choosing where to invest your money into.

The story goes as follows: circle back to April 2021, when Bitcoin was at its peak value of around $62,000. That was when AfriCrypt's COO and current heist suspect Ameer Cajee informed users of the platform of a hack - and asked investor not to contact authorities or seek legal proceedings, saying that those actions might impede progress in dealing with its effects and recovery of the funds.

ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) are one of the most important facets of Ethereum, responsible for propelling the cryptocurrency's value to its values of today. These are the cryptocurrency equivalents of community-backed investments and startups - not unlike Kickstarter, but based solely in the crypto world. Demand for Ethereum usually sees vast increases in volume after a promising ICO goes live (or in preparation for it), and is one of the premier channels for value to be chained towards this cryptocurrency. However, as is usually the case - and one needs only look towards Kickstarter as an example of this - there are both success and disaster stories to be met in this space.

Case in point of a disaster, Ethereum startup Confido has recently made headlines both for its $375K ICO, and after it surfaced that the entire initial coin offering was nothing more than a scam. Confido claimed to be a blockchain-based app for making payments and tracking shipments, and as is usual in ICOs, it sold digital tokens to investors over the Ethereum blockchain in an ICO that ran from November 6 to 8. Last Sunday, the company started erasing all marks of its short, profitable foray into the ICO world: it deleted its Twitter account and took down its website. A company representative posted a brief comment to the company's (now-private) subforum on Reddit as well as Medium, citing legal problems that prevent the Confido team from continuing their work.