Category: Cryptocurrency News

Over $1.5 billion of users’ and enterprises’ assets were held on Multichain prior to the arrest of its CEO Zhaojun He.

In a new report, Estonia’s preeminent crypto payment and personal wallet provider, CoinsPaid, has revealed the intricate workings of a hacking incident that led to a colossal loss of $37 million. This audacious breach was reportedly the culmination of a six-month saga marked by calculated maneuvers and sophisticated tactics, orchestrated by none other than the notorious Lazarus Group.  Collaborating with Match Systems, CoinsPaid embarked on a comprehensive inquiry, unearthing the modus operandi of the hacking group and exposing the subsequent laundering of pilfered assets in a post. Elaborate 6-Month Operation By Lazarus Group The ploy, characterized by an extraordinary level of meticulousness, spanned half a year, revealing the calculated and relentless nature of the hack. Employing a blend of social engineering and technical strategies, the hackers engaged in a series of Distributed Denial-of-Service and brute-force attacks.  Related Reading: Pro-XRP Lawyer John Deaton Says He Is Willing To Bet That Ripple Will Win SEC Appeal Their calculated approach culminated in a July 22 breach with the manipulation of a CoinsPaid employee, ensnaring them through a falsified job proposition. The ordeal began innocently enough, as a CoinsPaid employee embarked on a video interview for what appeared to be an enticing career prospect, facilitated via LinkedIn.  Little did they know that the seemingly innocuous task of downloading a technical assessment was part of an elaborate ruse orchestrated by the hackers. This single act granted the hackers access to CoinsPaid’s systems, allowing them to exploit software vulnerabilities and authorize unauthorized withdrawals from the company’s hot wallets. The hacker executed a swift sequence of unauthorized withdrawals, swiftly depleting the company’s coffers in less than an hour of operation. In total, CoinsPaid lost $37.3 million in the attack. Total market cap jumps to $1.147 trillion | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap on Tradingview.com CoinsPaid Moving Forward From The Incident CoinsPaid’s exhaustive post-mortem report reveals invaluable lessons extracted from the breach. The report highlights the importance of training employees to identify social engineering tactics, including job offers that might be a ploy to gain access to internal systems.  The report also explains the adoption of principles like the Separation of Duties and Least Privilege, advocating for the implementation of robust monitoring and alert systems to detect suspicious activities.  Following the report, CoinsPaid will be hosting a roundtable discussion involving blockchain-based entities, aiming to collectively address the escalating threat posed by hacking incidents. Related Reading: Valkyrie Unveils Double-Barreled Approach To Launch An Ethereum ETF Alongside A Bitcoin ETF In the wake of the exploit, the payments platform assured customers that none of their funds were affected. The company also resumed all activities less than a week after the hack took place. The Lazarus Group is believed to have stolen over $3.8 billion in digital assets from crypto exchanges and decentralized finance (DeFi) services since it became active. Featured image from TechBullion, chart from Tradingview.com

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If the DOJ indicts Binance executives on charges similar to those already issued by regulators, could it have an unusual effect on the cryptocurrency market in the year ahead?

BlackRock and multiple other fund managers filed for Spot Bitcoin ETFs back in June. Since then, speculations have abounded regarding if the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will approve the first Spot Bitcoin ETF given its track record. But according to insiders, the first approval may not be far off. Approval Coming Soon For First Spot Bitcoin ETF Citing his sources at BlackRock and Invesco, Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz stated that the SEC will likely give the green light for these Bitcoin ETFs within the next four to six months. The CEO said this on an earnings call with investors where he maintained a bullish stance on the firm’s Bitcoin strategy. Related Reading: Beware Of Crypto Firms Falsely Claiming To Have Submitted License Applications “Our contacts from the Invesco side and from the BlackRock side gets you to think that this is a question of when, not if, that the outside window this is probably six months,” Novogratz said during the company’s Q2 earnings call on August 8. “And so you’re– kind of your four to six months, if you had to put a pin the tail on the donkey audit.”  During the earnings call, the Galaxy Digital CEO noted that the Spot Bitcoin ETF application by BlackRock, which happens to be the largest asset manager, has sparked a positive sentiment from institutional investors towards the foremost cryptocurrency. He also highlighted how BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s change of mind from being a Bitcoin skeptic to a proponent has arguably led the Bitcoin adoption charge in the asset management industry.  In 2017, Fink labeled Bitcoin an “index of money laundering.” However, the CEO of the largest investment firm in the world has since changed his stance, and Fink has advocated for Bitcoin, rightly labeling it as the first “global money.” BTC price recovers following improved market sentiment | Source: BTCUSD on Tradingview.com Competition Is Going To Be Hot Novogratz told investors on the call that he recognizes that the competition will be hot once the various spot Bitcoin ETFs are approved. He, however, reaffirmed his company’s intention to claim a large chunk of the ETF market share. According to him, “We’re going to fight like cats and dogs to win market share once it’s approved.”  Other prominent firms that are major contenders for a Spot Bitcoin ETF include Invesco (the US fourth-largest ETF manager), Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest, Wisdom Tree (the 10th largest ETF manager), Fidelity, Grayscale, and Valkyrie. Related Reading: ARK Invest’s CEO Says SEC Could Approve Multiple Spot Bitcoin ETFs Simultaneously While it remains uncertain in what order the SEC will approve these applications (or whether they will be approved together), many believe that a first-mover advantage could be key to determining which of these firms enjoy a huge chunk of the market share in the spot Bitcoin ETF industry.  That is why it isn’t surprising that Valkyrie recently filed an application to the SEC to amend its Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BTF) to include ETH futures contracts, in a move that could see it launch ahead of other firms applying for an Ethereum futures ETF. Featured image from iStock, chart from Tradingview.com

According to Olga Skorobogatova, first deputy governor of the Bank of Russia, initiating pilot operations using genuine digital rubles represents a pivotal phase within the project.

Hey r/ethereum! I'm Derek from Kurtosis & I wanted to share the Kurtosis eth2-package! This is a tool that developers should use to spin up private testnets for development and testing against protocol changes (e.g. EIP4844) or for e2e testing of large, complex dApps. See it in action with the Kurtosis CLI, Docker, and only…
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A ragtag group of communists and ZK-rollup fans are working tirelessly to make blockchain games composable and fully on-chain. It’s not easy.