Blockchain Voting Systems Are Untrustworthy, MIT Cybersecurity Experts Say
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Amidst the ongoing discussions of the results of the presidential election, a group of researchers has come up to disapprove of blockchain voting as an alternative for trusted democratic elections.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT) researchers published a report on November 16 cautioning against reliance on blockchain voting technology as a way of promoting greater turnout in an election. According to them, using the system would not improve the integrity of voting but instead increase the risk of hackers tampering with the way elections are carried out.
Sunoo Park, Neha Narula, Ronald L. Rivest and Michael Specter, the institution’s cybersecurity team, asserted that it is highly unlikely that political elections would rely on blockchain for the foreseeable future. According to them, voting in person, mail-in ballots, and other software-independent methods are more reliable and, therefore, would stay for a long time. Potential lack of ballot secrecy – due to blockchain’s traceable nature – and inability to audit in case the race is contested are some of the concerns the researchers emphasized.
Researchers Suggest that Blockchain Can Compromise Elections
Rivest, an MIT professor, who was the report’s senior author, explained that the risk of nation-scale election failures being undetectable would greatly increase with blockchain replacing the current election systems. Meaningful assurance that votes were counted at the time they were cast would dwindle with the increase in turnout.
“I haven’t yet seen a blockchain system that I would trust with a county-fair jellybean count, much less a presidential election,” the researcher continued to distrust blockchain voting.
The use of blockchain technology in a democratic voting process differs from the use in financial transactions in that financial institutions usually compensate victims using various ways in the latter when losses occur due to fraud or hacks. If they are crypto exchanges, tokens would be frozen, and if they are credit card companies, funds would be reimbursed after the hack, according to the teams’ argument. Once an election is compromised due to the failure of democracy, there is no reassurance that voters will be made whole again.
The MIT team also explained that blockchain-based voting is vulnerable to “serious failures.” Physical access is necessary for one to destroy a mail-in ballot, but hackers can just use a single point of attack to remove or alter millions of votes with a blockchain-based voting system. Therefore, authorities would be forced to hold an entirely new election if the results are unreliable when hackers attack votes.
Blockchain Voting Was Deployed despite Its Vulnerability
A couple of countries are trying to integrate blockchain technology into their voting process bring about various challenges. For instance, users and third parties were able to decipher votes during Vladimir Putin’s term limit before the official count started in Russia’s blockchain-based voting system, thereby compromising ballot secrecy.
Researcher Michael Specter, in a different MIT team, in February, found out that Voatz, a blockchain-based voting app, had various security vulnerabilities. In spite of that, the Republican and Democratic parties went ahead to use the app for voting at their conventions this year.
Rivest supported the deployment emphasizing:
“Democracy – and the consent of the governed – cannot be made contingent on whether some software correctly recorded voters’ choices.”
Due to social isolation caused by the pandemic, many American voters chose to vote by mail. As a result, intense debates have been triggered concerning the current American electoral system’s legitimacy and veracity. Some are proposing a proposed “mobile” voting based on blockchain as a way to ease elections.
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James Lovett is a talented crypto enthusiast who finds pleasure in sharing more knowledge on fintech, cryptocurrency as well as blockchain and frontier technologies. He likes to keep himself furnished and updated with the latest innovation in the crypto industry, blockchain technology, Internet of Things (IoT) and other technologies. As a result, he tries to furnish ardent crypto supporters with the latest news on blockchain and distributed-ledger technologies. Indeed, Blockchain and Cryptocurrency is changing the world as we know “one block at a time”. As a hobby, he also trades in small amounts of cryptos every now and then.
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In one of the biggest attacks in the DeFi space, hackers exploited the DeFi project Cover Protocol by liquidating nearly 12K COVER coins and injecting an additional supply of 40 quintillion Cover “coins”.
DeFi project COVER staking protocol has recently been the victim of a suspected attack while artificially inflating the COVER token supply. The hackers have reported exploited the Cover protocol with millions of stolen cover tokens amounting to a massive $2 trillion.
Allegedly, the hackers infused an additional supply of over 40 quintillion Cover “coins”. This resulted in the COVER coin price crashing nearly 90%. On Monday, December 28, the COVER token price crashed all the way from $735 to $53, as per the data on CoinGecko.
The hacker – may be an individual or a small group – has taken responsibility for the attack. In a dramatic, the suspected attacker also returned the funds saying “Next time, take care of your own shit”.
Ethereum wallet explorer Nansen also presented some key details of the event. Soon after inflating the token supply in the initial exploit, the attacker liquidated nearly 12K COVER coins on decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch. In a message on the Discord Group, the Cover Protocol noted:
“The Blacksmith farming contract has been exploited to mint infinite $COVER tokens. We have restricted minting access to the farming contract in order to stop the attacker. If you are providing liquidity for $COVER token (uniswap or sushiswap) please remove it immediately.”
The Cover Protocol team said that the issue has only affected the token supply. However, the funds in the “claim/noclaim” pools are still safe.
Exploring a New Cover Protocol Token
Soon after the attack on Monday, Cover Protocol also announced that it is exploring a new Cover token after a snapshot of the LP token holders. In a message on its Twitter handle, the Cover Protocol team noted.
Hello everyone, we are exploring providing a NEW $COVER token through a snapshot before the minting exploit was abused. The 4350 ETH that has been returned by the attacker will also be handled through a snapshot to the LP token holders.We are still investigating. Do NOT buy COVER
Interestingly, soon after getting the alert message, all developers from Yearn Ecosystem came to support the Cover team. The team noted that they “are working with multiple teams and individuals within the Yearn Ecosystem. We will provide updates as they come. We can not thank everyone enough for their help in this unfortunate situation.”
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Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and holds a good flair in understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance draw his attention towards the new emerging Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency markets. He is continuously in a learning process and keeps himself motivated by sharing his acquired knowledge. In free time he reads thriller fictions novels and sometimes explore his culinary skills.
Altcoin Rally Dimming Bitcoin’s Shine, Polkadot Gains 34% in One Week
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1 Stunde ago
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Dezember 29, 2020
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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 $700for 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.
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Crypto fanatic, writer and researcher. Thinks that Blockchain is second to a digital camera on the list of greatest inventions.
XRP Crashes Below $0.25 as Coinbase Announces XRP Trading Suspension
Published
8 Stunden ago
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Dezember 29, 2020
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Some of the popular crypto exchanges have announced XRP trading suspension following the SEC lawsuit. This is seriously going to hurt XRP investors’ interest over a long period of time.
XRP investors have met with an unfortunate fate. It has been a rocky ride for XRP investors as the cryptocurrency has been heading south after the SEC lawsuit. From its monthly high of $0.66 on December 1st, XRP has reduced to only 1/3rd of the price. At press time, XRP is trading 20% trading at $0.22 with a market cap of $10.3 billion. The latest price crash comes amid crypto exchange Coinbase announcing its plan to suspend XRP trading starting January 19, 2020.
Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewar writes that the latest suspension comes amid the SEC lawsuit against Ripple Labs. Also, in the official announcement, Grewar writes:
“We have made the decision to suspend the XRP trading pairs on our platform. Trading will move into limit only starting December 28, 2020 at 2:30 PM PST, and will be fully suspended on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, at 10 a.m. PST. The trading suspension will not affect customers’ access to XRP wallets which will remain available for deposit and withdraw functionality after the trading suspension. We will continue to support XRP on Coinbase Custody and Coinbase Wallet”.
Coinbase joins Bitstamp as one of the top crypto exchanges to suspend XRP trading in recent times. There have been several other exchanges that have announced XRP trading suspension in recent times. Following the Coinbase announcement today, another major crypto exchange Crypto.com also announced its decision to delist the crypto asset.
$XRP will be delisted from the https://t.co/vCNztABJoG App in the U.S. effective Jan 19th, 2021 at 10am UTC.
The Road to XRP Recovery Isn’t an Easy One with Measures by Coinbase and Others
It looks like XRP’s road to recovery ain’t going to be an easy one! Over the last few years, the SEC has conducted a crackdown on several such crypto projects. Speaking to CoinTelegraph, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou said:
“SEC and Ripple will have their day in court with due process of law, so we shall not prejudge the case in the court of public opinion. It is of course likely that the case will take up much of Ripple’s attention and resources. […] We hope a clear precedent and framework emerge from these proceedings.”
Furthermore, the SEC has accused Ripple of selling unregistered XRP securities under Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1993. Also, the case will proceed further in the New York Federal Court. Todd Crosland, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange CoinZoom said that the lawsuit will have a long-lasting impact on XRP price.
XRP which has already been a laggard performer over the last two years will continue trading at lower levels even further. While institutional players have been betting big on crypto, they will refrain from having any exposure to XRP.
“Lack of institutional support will hurt liquidity. Institutions will not bet against the SEC, and will be unloading their positions and will avoid taking new positions in XRP until the lawsuit is resolved,” said Crosland.
The only hope for XRP currently is the appointment of new crypto-friendly SEC chairman Elad Roisman. Soon after filing the lawsuit complaint, previous SEC chairman Jay Clayton submitted his resignation. However, we don’t expect things to improve anytime soon.
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Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and holds a good flair in understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance draw his attention towards the new emerging Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency markets. He is continuously in a learning process and keeps himself motivated by sharing his acquired knowledge. In free time he reads thriller fictions novels and sometimes explore his culinary skills.
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