Crypto news
Indian law enforcement accuses WazirX exchange of aiding in laundering of $130M
India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED), the agency responsible for financial crimes, is looking at cryptocurrency exchanges suspected of processing transactions that sent more than 10 billion rupees, or about $130 million, from firms under investigation to international wallets. At least ten crypto exchanges are allegedly involved, according to an official who spoke to The Economic Times, and bank accounts of exchange WazirX have been frozen, the newspaper reported. Transactions of up to 1 billion rupees, or $1.3 million, were allegedly made in the names of people with no connections to the money by companies under investigation in a case involving instant loans. Thes companies often had ties to China. Even though Know Your Customer/Anti-Money Laundering (KYC/AML) procedures showed the trans...
Over 1,900 block-producing nodes in the Solana ecosystem, new report reveals
Solana released its first-ever, “Validator Health Report” which revealed information on its network operators. According to the report the network has over 1,900 block-producing nodes with nearly 1,688 (88.14%) of those run by independent entities. Solana says the health and strength of its validators is critical to the long-term health of the ecosystem. Previously, the network has faced backlash for both a lack of decentralization and expensive validator hardware. Though this new report highlights the 3,400 validators across six different continents. 9/ Distribution across geographies is important. Resilient blockchains continue operating through all types of global events. Here’s how stake is distributed across the @Solana network, with a snapshot of Ethereu...
Is it foolish to expect a massive Ethereum price surge pre- and post Merge?
Ether’s (ETH) impressive 85% gain in the past 30 days has surprised even the most bullish investors, and it makes the $800 range seen in mid-July seem like ages ago. Bulls now hope to turn $1,900 to support, but derivatives metrics tell a completely different story, and the data suggests that professional traders remain highly skeptical. Ether 1-day price index, USD. Source: TradingView It’s important to remember that the leading cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), gained 28% in the same period. Thus, there should be no doubt that the Ether bull run was driven by the Merge expectation, a transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus network. Goerli was the last remaining Ethereum testnet scheduled to implement the Merge, which officially became a proof-of-stake blockchain as of 1:45 UTC on Aug...
Cross-chains in the crosshairs: Hacks call for better defense mechanisms
2022 has been a lucrative year for hackers preying on the nascent Web3 and decentralized finance (DeFi) spaces, with more than $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency fleeced in several high-profile hacks to date. Cross-chain protocols have been particularly hard hit, with Axie Infinity’s $650 million Ronin Bridge hack accounting for a significant portion of stolen funds this year. The pillaging continued into the second half of 2022 as cross-chain platform Nomad saw $190 million drained from wallets. The Solana ecosystem was the next target, with hackers gaining access to the private keys of some 8000 wallets that resulted in $5 million worth of Solana (SOL) and Solana Program Library (SPL) tokens being pilfered. deBridge Finance managed to sidestep an attempted phishing attack on Monday, Aug....
Mark Cuban faces class action lawsuit for promoting Voyager crypto products
Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur who has been quite active in the crypto ecosystem for the past year, is facing a class-action lawsuit over his promotions of the bankrupt crypto brokerage firm Voyager Digital. The Moskowitz Law Firm filed a civil suit in the United States District Court in Southern Florida against Cuban for promoting Voyager’s unregulated crypto products. The lawsuit demanded a jury hearing for the case. The lawsuit alleged Cuban also misrepresented the firm on numerous occasions, making dubious claims of it being cheaper than competitors and offering “commission-free” trading services. Cuban, along with Voyager Digital CEO Stephen Ehrlich, leveraged their years of experience to lure inexperienced customers into investing their life savings in what they called...
Bitcoin battles 2-month resistance amid ‘most hated’ stocks rally
Bitcoin (BTC) pierced the top of a stubborn trading range on Aug. 11 as a decidedly awkward rally took hold of risk assets. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Bitcoin retracement warnings intensify near $25,000 Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting highs of $24,750 on Bitstamp, marking its best performance since June 13. The pair had attempted several breakouts to the top of the range in prior weeks, these all failing in the face of stiff selling pressure. New United States inflation data released this week formed a long-awaited catalyst for change, however, with Bitcoin and altcoins rising in step with equities as the Consumer Price Index (CPI) print for July suggested that inflation had peaked. On Aug. 10, the day of the relea...
How do you pick your next NFT? Community responds
Since it may be a good time to buy nonfungible tokens (NFTs) as the floor prices are lower, a Reddit user asked the community what they look for when searching for the next NFTs to add to their collection. In a subreddit, the Redditor has gotten various answers from the community including examining the utilities of the tokens, finding overhyped projects with low minting fees and monitoring data collected by oracles and basing their NFT investing strategy on what they see. According to one Redditor, utility is what they look for when checking NFTs because it goes beyond being a “digital art piece.” In addition to that, they highlighted that the project’s community must also be examined as they “keep the utility alive and interesting.” Another user shared...
Ethereum whale transactions peak at 2-month high amid Goerli testnet merger
The Goerli testnet was successfully merged to the proof-of-stake (PoS) network, marking the final step before Ethereum’s mainnet transition. The triumphant final testnet merger means the mainnet transition slated for Sept. 19 could go as scheduled. Goerli is the third and final testnet after Ropsten and Sepolia that makes Ethereum’s final rehearsal before its official transition to the PoS network. BREAKING: The Goerli Testnet has activated Proof of Stake Mainnet™ — bankless.eth (@BanklessHQ) August 11, 2022 The PoS Merge is considered to be one of the most significant updates for the Ethereum blockchain since its inception, and the bullish sentiment behind the event has started to reflect on the altcoin’s price. The native token Ether (ETH) has more than doubled its price sin...
Truly decentralized Web3 needs more developers: Animoca co-founder
Animoca Brands co-founder and chairman Yat Siu has urged for more developers to enter the Web3 space, warning that without “choice” there can be no “decentralized environment.” Speaking to Cointelegraph during Korean Blockchain Week (KBW) 2022, Sui stressed that more developers need to come into the space to give consumers more alternatives when it comes to their platform of choice — which could be based on “best value” or one they most culturally associate with. “We need as many choices of Layer-1’s and Layer-2’s […] or creative companies so that they [crypto users] have a choice in machine code from one another […] so we have a desire to create many alternatives. Siu noted that while developers have been excited to build software applications, many have continued to “struggle under...
Cross-chain bridge RenBridge laundered $540M in hacking proceeds: Elliptic
Cross-chain bridges have been the target of more than a few hacks this year, but new data from blockchain analytics provider Elliptic alleges one has been used to launder over half a billion dollars in ill-gotten crypto assets. According to an Aug. 10 report, crypto bridge RenBridge has facilitated the laundering of at least $540 million in proceeds of crime since 2020 through a process known as chain hopping — converting one form of cryptocurrency into another and moving it across multiple blockchains. Elliptic said that decentralized cross-chain bridges provide “an unregulated alternative to exchanges for transferring value between blockchains.” Rogue states and hacker groups For the most part, cross-chain bridges or blockchain bridges are used for legitimate purposes, en...
Decentralized apps on Polygon hit 37,000, rocketing 400% this year
The number of decentralized applications (DApps) on Ethereum-scaling-platform Polygon has topped 37,000, marking a 400% increase since the start of 2022. The Polygon team shared the figures via an Aug. 10 blog post, which was sourced from partnered Web3 development platform Alchemy, noting that the figure represents the cumulative number of applications ever launched on both the testnet and mainnet. It also noted that the number of monthly active teams — a measure of developer activity on a blockchain — reached 11,800 at the end of July, up a whopping 47.5% from March. The project team also highlighted a breakdown of dApp projects which notably showed that “74% of teams integrated exclusively on Polygon, while 26% deployed on both Polygon and Ethereum.” Polygon’s EVM compatible ...
88% of Nomad Bridge exploiters were ‘copycats’ — Report
Close to 90% of addresses taking part in the $186 million Nomad Bridge hack last week have been identified as “copycats,” making off with a total of $88 million worth of tokens on Aug. 1, a new report has revealed. In an Aug. 10 Coinbase blog, authored by Peter Kacherginsky, Coinbase’s principal blockchain threat intelligence researcher, and Heidi Wilder, a senior associate of the special investigations team, the pair confirmed what many had suspected during the bridge hack on Aug. 1 — that once the initial hackers figured out how to extract funds, hundreds of “copycats” joined the party. Source: Coinbase According to the security researchers, the “copycat” method was a variation of the original exploit, which used a loophole in Nomad’s smart contract, allowing users to extract...
