vulnerability

Stablecoins Under Scrutiny

Amidst the market’s recovery from the recent onslaught of SEC crackdowns, rumors swirl over the potential targeting of stablecoins in their crosshairs. Such a move could have profound implications for cryptocurrency prices, making it crucial to gauge the likelihood of this scenario and the approach regulators might adopt. The largest stablecoins by market cap are Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC. Both are pegged to the US dollar and backed by various assets, typically highly liquid instruments like US Treasury bills. In theory, when someone wants to buy stablecoins from an

Paribus. The Fragility of Finance.

Despite a lot of turbulence in the markets this week the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) did exactly what was predicted. Jerome Powell carefully adjusted his language and reframed the narrative around his 25 basis point rate hike to try and calm the markets he had helped to damage. His forward guidance was only to expect further rate increases if inflation spirals out of control. He avoided taking any responsibility for the recent bank failures, claiming instead that the sector was stable and robust. In reality, the global financial system

White hat hacker paid DeFi’s largest reported bounty fee

Belt Finance, an automated market maker (AMM) protocol operating a yield optimization strategy on Binance Smart Chain (BSC), claims to have paid the largest bounty in the history of decentralized finance (DeFi) to a whitehat hacker who averted a $10 million bug crisis. Industry whitehat programmer Alexander Schlindwein discovered the vulnerability in Belt Finance’s protocol this week and reported the news to the team. For his efforts, Schlindwein received a generous compensation of $1.05 million, the majority of which ($1 million) was granted by Immunefi, with the additional $50,000 offered by

Bug in Leading Ethereum Node Software Has Caused the Chain to Fork

A bug in outdated versions of the leading Ethereum client for node operators, Geth, is causing forks on the chain, according to research by the Block.According to The Block, this could enable double spends on the world’s second-largest blockchain by market capitalization. Ethereum security lead Martin Holst Swende tweeted, “Fortunately, most miners were already updated, and the correct chain is also the longest (canon).”Ethereum developer who works on the Geth client, Marius Van Der Wijden, said that most retail users should be okay, particularly if they are using the most

ChainSwap saga: Platform hit again; MATTER, ROOM, others tank; compensation plan announced

On Saturday, a hacker attacked the cross-chain decentralized finance (DeFi) platform ChainSwap (ASAP), exploiting a critical vulnerability in its smart contract.Roughly nine days after its latest exploit, which resulted in losses of around $800,000, the project got drained for a significantly larger sum as more than 10 tokens have been impacted.ChainSwap hacker Many projects partnered with the cross-chain platform to bridge tokens between Ethereum (ETH)) and Binance Smart Chain (BSC) were affected, including Umbrella Network (UMB), Antimatter (MATTER), Dafi (DAFI) and Option Room (ROOM), to name a few.The team published a

Two Attacks on ETC Network Leave Community Needing a Solution, Fast

Ethereum Classic, a 2016 hard fork from Ethereum’s main blockchain, has suffered multiple concerning network attacks over the last two years. Two such attacks occurred within a seven-day span, totaling millions of dollars in losses. With the dust settling from the two 51% attacks, further details are now coming forward, as provided by a number of industry experts.“There is no debate about the attacks,” ETC Labs CEO Terry Culver told Cointelegraph on Aug. 7, answering a question on whether or not the network difficulties were in fact 51% attacks. “Community

Bull Runs, Mining, and Tor Attacks: Bad Crypto News of the Week

Last week, the Bitcoin news was all about lift-off. This week, it’s all about the leveling off. Bitcoin ends the week around $11,400, a fall of about 2.7 percent over the last seven days. That drop included a correction of $700 in one day so the question now is whether the bullish moment has gone or will Bitcoin push on to $15,000? Its first mission will be to break the resistance at $12,000. Bitcoin failed to do that twice in ten days but consolidated after each failure, which some experts believe

‘Critical Security Vulnerability’ Forces Bisq Exchange to Halt Trading Service

Non-custodial cryptocurrency exchange, Bisq has announced that it will temporarily halt trading service on its platform following a newly discovered security vulnerability.  Based on the development, the exchange has notified its users not to proceed with any existing transaction or send funds to any party as it could result in a loss.  The temporary halt in trading service does not stop users from overriding the key responsible for this action. However, Bisq does not support the idea as it could hamper users’ security.  “Bisq is a proper distributed peer-to-peer network. So you