Connect with us

Market

Blockchain Bites: Big Bitcoin Bets, SushiSwap Drops, bZx Attacked

Published

4 Monaten ago

on


Hackers hit DeFi protocol bZx again, derivatives traders have placed bets bitcoin will hit $30,000 by year’s end and the latest twist in the SushiSwap saga.

Top shelf

Hacked again
Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol bZx is the victim of yet another hack – this time costing nearly $8 million. On Sunday, an unnamed attacker apparently tricked bZx into minting iTokens, an interest-earning token that allows users to redeem crypto in the protocol’s lending pools, cashing them out for nearly 220,000 LINK tokens, 4,507 ETH, 1.76 million USDT, 1.4 million USDC and 670,000 DAI, CoinDesk’s Paddy Baker reports. Early this year, attackers drained nearly $1 million from the protocol in two separate attacks – raising questions over a DeFi feature called “flash loans.” The latest bug apparently passed through two audits performed by security firms Certik and Peckshield. bZx co-founder Kyle Kistner said the drained funds will be covered by the protocol’s insurance fund, pending community ratification. 

In a late breaking twist, a spokesperson said bZx was able to track down the attacker using his or her on-chain activity and that the funds were returned as soon as that person was exposed. 

Red flags
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international standards-setting body followed by 200 nations, has recommended regulators profile cryptocurrency users so they can better identify criminal activity. In a Monday report, FATF said regulators should keep an eye out for suspicious behavior including swapping publicly tracked cryptos for privacy coins like monero or zcash, skirting KYC/AML checks and transactions that fall just below the Travel Rule threshold, CoinDesk’s Paddy Baker reports. The watchdog also said a discrepancy between a trader’s transaction history and known wealth is a red flag. 

Auto crisis
Iran may use crypto to fund car imports. Gholam Hossein Mozaffari, CEO of the Kish Free Zone Organization, has queried the nation’s central bank about using cryptocurrencies mined on Kish Island to beat hyperinflation and international sanctions. “If the central bank allows this, it [would be] possible to import cars with digital currency for these three free zones, and the car problem can be solved,” Mozaffari said, according to ArzDigital. In recent months, Iran has loosened regulations to permit crypto mining under certain circumstances.

Diamond ring?
Prosecutors have charged a Washington, D.C., man with running a crypto-backed diamond investment ponzi scheme. Jose Angel Aman was charged with wire fraud on Friday for his alleged role in soliciting $25 million from hundreds of investors to fund a scheme where he and his cadres promised to buy and flip diamonds. Court documents say Aman “rarely” used investments as promised, instead funding a lavish lifestyle and to pay interest to earlier investors. Prosecutors further allege Aman launched a purported diamond-back cryptocurrency called Argyle Coin to solicit more funds as the scheme neared collapse.

ICO targets
Rapper T.I. and seven others were charged with securities violations for their involvement in a pair of initial coin offerings (ICOs). The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said on Friday film producer Ryan Felton misappropriated funds and wash traded cryptocurrencies using the proceeds from the $164,665 FLiK and $282,418 CoinSpark ICOs, while others are said to have recommended investors buy tokens without disclosing they were paid by the projects. The rapper has agreed to pay a $75,000 fine and not participate in any digital asset sales for at least five years; Sparks agreed to pay a $25,000 fine and likewise refrain from participating in any securities sales for five years.

Quick bites

At stake

Uniswap looks to have regained its position as top automated market maker (AMM).

Billing itself a community-driven DeFi experiment, SushiSwap aspired to drain liquidity and users from the dominant, VC-backed AMM Uniswap. It did this by forking Uniswap’s code, instituting a governance token and offering a generous subsidy for liquidity providers (LPs) that migrated over. 

On Saturday, the vampire clone cut its block reward from 1,000 tokens to just 100. And it looks like a number of LPs cut town as well. 

As of this writing, $776 million worth of crypto is held in Sushi’s smart contracts, down 18% from the previous day, according to sushiswap.vision. Meanwhile, Uniswap’s total value locked (TVL) has spiked 70% day-over-day to $971 million, according to DeFi Pulse.

Last Friday, Messari’s Ryan Selkis drew the terms of the confrontation as being about entrepreneurship and full-decentralization. 

“As an entrepreneur I am rooting so f**king hard for uniswap and against everything about sushi. But as a crypto degen, I am loving the ruthless competition and embrace of open source ‘rules,’” he tweeted. 

Market intel

Big bitcoin bets
Hundreds of derivatives investors are betting bitcoin will rally to $36,000 by the end of 2020. Over the weekend, crypto derivatives exchange Deribit saw a rise in call options (bullish bets) with $36,000 and $32,000 strike prices that expire Dec. 25. Calls give investors the option, but not the obligation, to buy an asset at a given time. CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole reports that the probability of bitcoin reaching a new record high above $20,000 by the end of December is roughly 5%.

Tech pod

Do or dai
Demand for stablecoins has knocked MakerDAO’s dai (DAI) off its peg, reports CoinDesk’s Colin Harper. MakerDAO’s community is now debating some tweaks to its monetary policy to restore the peg, though Maker’s creator believes the only long-term solution is adding additional, varied collateral to the DAO. 

Op-ed

Bitcoin correlations
Bitcoin’s correlation with gold is now at an all-time high, though this may not help us understand what “digital gold” really is any better. In the latest Crypto Long & Short newsletter, CoinDesk Director of Research Noelle Acheson examines the role correlations play in how we think about and utilize an asset – especially in an age where price movements may not be rational. “This grasping for data to back a story reveals our very human need to put bitcoin in context of things we’re already familiar with. … [W]e are searching for a handle on its prevailing narrative. We hope that correlations will give us a clue.

Podcast corner

Validating Ethereum
With Ethereum 2.0’s much anticipated move to Proof-of-Stake getting closer, CoinDesk Research Analyst Christine Kim spoke with Ben Edgington and Vijay Michalik on what would-be validators need to know.

Who won #CryptoTwitter?

https://www.coindesk.com/newsletters
Subscribe to receive Blockchain Bites in your inbox, every weekday.





Source link

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Deine E-Mail-Adresse wird nicht veröffentlicht. Erforderliche Felder sind mit * markiert.

Market

Altcoin Rally Dimming Bitcoin’s Shine, Polkadot Gains 34% in One Week

Published

28 Minuten ago

on

Dezember 29, 2020

By


Polkadot (DOT) saw daily gains of 22.5% wrapping up an impressive week with an almost 34% rise in its value.

Bitcoin bullish run looks to have come to a halt amidst an altcoin rally which has seen relatively lower coins put up impressive performances in the past few weeks. Bitcoin dominance is gradually fading as many experts believe the biggest digital coin is backing down as some top altcoin are showing strong “moves” or signals. 

Bitcoin hit an all-time high over the weekend, the third time its price has done so in just over 2 months. The price of the biggest digital coin touched $28,400 on December 27, before a lightning drop took it to $27,000 just hours of that incredible feat. 

Bitcoin failed to hold onto the $27,000 mark as its price further dropped to $26,000 a day after and is now testing lower levels centered on $26,000 as immediate support. Reports from crypto exchanges revealed BTC/USD trading at lows of $25,830 during the early hours of December 29. 

While Bitcoin has seen red over a couple of days, some altcoins are putting up impressive numbers, giving off signals of a strong altcoin rally. Despite XRP’s current issues, the altcoin market is showing glimpses of its glory days as some digital coins are poised to see major gains over the next couple of weeks. Ethereum (ETH) is at the forefront of the rally, with its price climbing above $700 for the first time since May 2018. 

Polkadot (DOT) also saw daily gains of 22.5% wrapping up an impressive week with an almost 34% rise in its value. The coin is now the seventh-largest token by market cap. Kusama (KSM), a cousin of Polkadot, also saw its price gain 46% last week, pushing its price from $43.1 to $63. The digital token is currently trading at $56 but experts are adamant a breakout above $65 is possible as the token has rebounded off the 20-day exponential moving average ($50.90)

Speaking on the possibility of a long term altcoin rally, analyst Van de Poppe stated that altcoins are next in line to see greens. He added that the next “impulse wave” on Bitcoin next year should be able to take the market to $40,000 or $50,000, but until then, the possibility of a continuance altcoin rally is very much likely.

Although many factors could be in play with regards to the latest Bitcoin price dip, it’s recent fallout with Ripple’s XRP leads the way. Ripple was hit with a lawsuit from the United States Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) and subsequently suffered drops that left its price in a pit. XRP, the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, is now trading at $0.20 as news broke that Coinbase, a major US cryptocurrency exchange has decided to suspend its trading from next month.

next Altcoin News, Bitcoin News, Cryptocurrency news, News

Crypto fanatic, writer and researcher. Thinks that Blockchain is second to a digital camera on the list of greatest inventions.



Source link

Continue Reading

Market

Taylor Monahan: The Year the Narrative Became the Truth

Published

5 Stunden ago

on

Dezember 29, 2020

By


The year 2020, as told by the Crypto Believers, will most certainly go down in history as the year the curtain was finally pulled back.

For so long we sounded the alarm about the threat of centralized entities. For so long we warned of the unsustainable monetary policy of the United States Federal Reserve. And then, suddenly, a global pandemic begets “money printer go BRRR” begets endless inaction by those who claim to be our leaders. Finally, those outside our bubble began to question what they once knew.

This post is part of CoinDesk’s 2020 Year in Review – a collection of op-eds, essays and interviews about the year in crypto and beyond. Taylor Monahan is the founder and CEO of MyCrypto, a simple dashboard for managing all your Ethereum-based assets.

There were signs of a new, shared realization as non-believers began to quip, “If we can just print money, I shouldn’t have to pay taxes” and, “This is unsustainable. We’re screwing ourselves.” There were also signs they began to see how much absurdity dominates our lives. Discrimination didn’t end in 1863 or in 1964 or in 2019. We have never had “the lowest Fatality (Mortality) Rate in the World.” The stock market is not the economy. Their truth is not true.

Moreso, the truth seemed to be whatever those in power wanted it to be. Or rather, the truth is whatever we, those not in power, believe it to be. So long as enough people believe it to be true, it is true.

Our new reality manifested in everything from increased anxiety and depression as the world remained in a state of locked-down uncertainty, to debates about masks and potential COVID-19 treatments, to the Black Lives Matter movement coming back with a vengeance. 

One of the least-complex manifestations of the power of shared belief was the curious case of Hertz’s stock price pumping 900% in the weeks following its bankruptcy filing. It left otherwise rational, mature, market-minded adults (and Hertz itself) bewildered. As far as anyone has been able to sort out, after a lifetime of believing The Adults knew what they were doing The Kids realized the truth and took action on the not-so-secret secret that you don’t win the market by betting on the future – you win when you bet on what other people think will happen in the future. The Kids also happen to know, more than any other generation, that technology is the key to changing what other people think.

(Wikimedia)

The Hertz moment

I actually completely missed the Hertz situation when it first made headlines. I’m sure I saw the articles as I doomscrolled through another day of lockdown. But, as the story is so familiar, I didn’t even bother registering it to my memory. Crypto has been pumping and dumping and re-pumping and re-dumping empty shells of coins for years.

Hertz was especially uninteresting as it followed the classic pump-and-dump scheme, like what might be found on bitcointalk.org in 2013. Today’s decentralized finance (DeFi) token schemes are wrapped up in automated market makers, interoperability and yields, often making it hard to discern whether the shared delusions of the players are giving the tokens value, or if the perceived value of the tokens are creating the shared delusion. To complicate things, there is a third, meta layer: The players are aware they are playing a game and can predict the cycle of their shared delusion. The whole thing is a grotesque ouroboros – all simultaneously feeding itself, and feeding off itself, and birthing itself in some eternal, cyclical, scammy mindf**k.

See also: Taylor Monahan – As We Hunger for Viability, Let’s Stay True to Our Values

Well, maybe not “eternal.” The folks who “ape’d into” the DeFi things this summer had such a finite view, usually minutes or hours rather than months or years. It’s hard to grok how any DeFi thing could survive once the heavily subsidized reward period wore off. Especially if two or three or 10 freshly subsidized DeFi things had launched since. Yet they somehow did … sorta.

It’s even harder to understand how this became a dominating force of 2020 considering the intense individualism and selfishness that it both fuel, and is fueled by. We’ve managed to build thousands of “every man for himself” sub-networks on a sprawling, decentralized, cooperative, consensus network. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily if we value our humanity, decentralized consensus networks don’t care about the morality of the things running on it.

And, as much as they continue to fight me on it, I remain convinced that these half-baked farming games are unsustainable in the same way initial coin offerings (ICOs) are unsustainable, in the same way hacked smart contracts are catastrophic, in the same way the money printer cannot go BRRRRRR forever and in the same way the serpent cannot devour itself in perpetuity. 

Better system?

Bitcoin has seemingly solidified its place as an alternative, though still slightly experimental, store of value. I would talk more on this but literally everyone is talking about it and I have nothing original to add. I will admit I was wrong in 2015 and 2016 and 2017 when I said the digital gold narrative will never be more valuable than the digital cash one. Any narrative that becomes truth is more valuable than the narrative that fades from memory.

I do wonder what will ultimately become of our historically most persistent narrative, that we are creating a better world. Have we made real progress on banking the unbanked, unbanking the banked, breaking down borders and removing power from repressive regimes and corrupt cabals?

For me, crypto is a worthwhile endeavor because it can provide a viable alternative to the existing systems. Crypto can give people the gift of choice. And with that choice we can opt into the systems that benefit us and opt out of the ones that oppress us.

I wonder if this system will ever be a ‘better system’ or just ‘a system that better serves me?’

CoinDesk’s Year in Review 2020

Between the diminishing returns on truth, the ever-increasing individualism, and our submissiveness to life’s cycles, I wonder if this system will ever be a “better system” or just “a system that better serves me?”

This is important. In one, we aim to remove the system’s very ability to have a 1%. We attempt to break the cycle of oppression. We create systems to humanize any and all participants and prevent ourselves, the early adopters, the influencers and the Believers, from gaining power on the backs of others.

In the other, we simply shift the power from the oppressors of today to the oppressors of tomorrow. The oppressed devour the oppressors. The oppressors are reborn as the oppressed. The cycle continues. And then, one day, some kids show up and it is the Crypto Believers who this time must shout, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”





Source link

Continue Reading

Market

House Approves $2,000 Direct Payments in COVID-19 Stimulus Payouts, Looks to Senate to Vote

Published

6 Stunden ago

on

Dezember 29, 2020

By


There is a possibility that the Senate Republicans may want to hold onto their conservative approach in increased spending citing longer-term consequences.

The United States House of Representatives passed the votes to support the issuance of $2,000 in stimulus checks to American households or beneficiaries, with expectations from the Senate to also sign off on the higher payments. According to a report from Newsweek, the vote from the House came a day after President Donald Trump signed off the COVID-19 stimulus bill with a $600 direct payment to Americans and his unusual demand to raise the payments calling the initial proposal a “Disgrace.”

The second batch of the COVID-19 relief funds which has been marred by months of negotiation impasse over differences in the budget from both the Republicans and the Democrats in the House and Senate respectively finally saw the consent of the lawmakers and the president who recognized the need to support American families during this holidays season. The President’s proposal to boost the payments has been well received by the Democrats and marked by a 275-134 vote in the House, beating the two-third majority required to pass the bill.

Speaking ahead of the House signing off on the deal, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi noted that “the president of the United States has put this forth as something that he wants to see and part of his signing the legislation yesterday. I hope that view will be shared by the Republicans in the Senate, because we will pass this bill today.” “Republicans have a choice: vote for this legislation or vote to deny the American people the bigger paychecks this need. To reject this would be in denial of the economic challenges that people are facing and it would deny them, again, the relief they need,” added she.

Will the Senate Object to the House Ratified Higher COVID-19 Payments?

From the longer-term dispositions of the Republican-controlled Senate as seen in the months of negotiations for this new paycheck, many believe that there is a possibility that the Senate Republicans may want to hold onto their conservative approach in increased spending citing longer-term consequences.

However, many expect that a move in opposition to the higher payments will be a direct affront to the American people who needed these funds more than ever, and also to the president who is in his last days in office, barring any new developments in his attempts to overturn the results of the November 3rd Presidential elections.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., however, has noted he would force the chamber to take up the measure Tuesday but only one senator would need to object to block the bill from passing.

“Following the strong bipartisan vote in the House, tomorrow I will move to pass the legislation in the Senate to quickly deliver Americans with $2,000 emergency checks,” Schumer said in a statement Monday. “Every Senate Democrat is for this much-needed increase in emergency financial relief, which can be approved tomorrow if no Republican blocks it – there is no good reason for Senate Republicans to stand in the way.”

next Market News, News, Personal Finance

Benjamin Godfrey is a blockchain enthusiast and journalists who relish writing about the real life applications of blockchain technology and innovations to drive general acceptance and worldwide integration of the emerging technology. His desires to educate people about cryptocurrencies inspires his contributions to renowned blockchain based media and sites. Benjamin Godfrey is a lover of sports and agriculture.



Source link

Continue Reading

Trending