Author: Staff Writer
Crypto trading platform AscendEX suffered a loss of $77.7 million in a hot wallet compromise that allowed hackers to access and transfer tokens hosted over the Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain and Polygon blockchains. Soon after the realization, AscendEX proactively warned its users about the stolen funds, confirming that the hackers were not able to access the company’s cold wallet reserves. According to PeckShield, a blockchain security and data analytics company, around $60 million worth of tokens were transferred over the Ethereum blockchain. Tokens stolen from the Binance Smart Chain and Polygon are worth $9.2 million and $8.5 million, respectively, as evidenced by EtherScan data. Some…
Glauber Contessoto — who earned the nickname DOGE Millionaire after becoming a millionaire through his Dogecoin DOGE investments — is sharing his next big investment. During an exclusive interview with Benzinga, Contessoto said he bought about $125,000 of memecoin Floki Inu FLOKI or about half a billion tokens. He pointed out that Dogecoin is still the heaviest bag in his portfolio — since he holds about 4.3 million DOGE worth about $900,000 at the time of the interview — but Floki Inu is his second-largest crypto investment ever. Contessoto said that he will “continue buying Floki” and that his “new goal is to have 1 billion…
The decentralized finance (DeFi) space, driven by smart contracts, has exploded since the summer of 2020. Retail and institutional investors are jumping on the DeFi train seeking higher returns on the backdrop of an underperforming global economy hit by rampant inflation. The budding DeFi sector offers a radical opportunity for users to earn passive income on their crypto assets. This feature has captured significant attention from retail investors, market speculators, and forward-thinking asset managers. Per data from DeBank.com, the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols increased by a staggering 2500% in 2020, surpassing the $20 billion mark by December of that year. The sector…
Over the summer, an anonymous hacker stole roughly $600 million in cryptocurrency from Poly Network, a decentralized finance network many outside the crypto world had likely never heard of. Then the hacker gave it back. Four months later, hackers stole at least $150 million from crypto exchange Bitmart. According to one analysis, unidentified hackers used a stolen private key to open two “hot wallets” and extract funds. Security incidents like these are not new in the crypto world, but the size of these hacks appears to be growing as cryptocurrency prices have surged over the past year, drawing more mainstream attention. Five of the…
A Russian power utility has found a way to increase electricity prices for consumers mining cryptocurrency using household electricity. The regional distribution company has taken dozens of amateur miners to court and has already won some of the cases. Irkutskenergosbyt, a power distributor in the Russian region of Irkutsk, has managed to secure an increase of the electricity tariffs for crypto mining farms set up in private homes. The utility was able to prove in court that their owners are carrying out business activities while buying electricity at the low prices meant for household consumers. The enterprise has filed 85…
During last week’s snoozer of a congressional hearing on the $2.5 trillion crypto-blockchain business, we got just a small glimpse into just how little the government knows about a technology that could transform the way we do business. A more complete picture of this utter fecklessness is playing out in federal court in lower Manhattan in a case titled Securities and Exchange Commission v. Ripple Labs. It will likely determine how much regulation there will be over the burgeoning crypto industry, and at least so far, the SEC is demonstrating why it should be nowhere near policing something reasonably described as the next Internet. The SEC…
A US court case could have unmasked Australian as cryptocurrency inventor. But a jury found in his favour so the enigma remains. In Budapest, there is a bust by the Danube River. The face is bronze, and blank, so people can see their own faces reflected back at them. It is wearing a hoodie, with the bitcoin logo on the chest. It is a statue of the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto. Nakamoto is the person or persons who developed bitcoin. They are anonymous and pseudonymous. They created a decentralised, digital commodity which is now worth more than a trillion dollars globally. It is a…
Bitcoin (BTC-USD) is down more than 20% from its record high and is set for its fourth straight weekly decline. Crypto bulls, as always, are keeping the faith. That includes MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, who added bitcoin to his company’s balance sheet last year. Since then, he’s been an outspoken advocate. Right now, he doesn’t see many — any? — long-term obstacles to prices going higher. “The only legitimate risk is a black swan – an unknown unknown,” he said in an interview. He dismissed some potential challenges: “Has it been hacked? No, it hasn’t been hacked. Is it going to be banned?…
Andrew Yeo doesn’t know what’s happened to tens of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency belonging to hundreds of clients of the collapsed exchange ACX, but he aims to find out. In mid-October the veteran insolvency practitioner was appointed administrator of Blockchain Global, the company that used to run ACX, and since then he’s been getting a crash course in all things crypto from the tech experts at the firm where he’s a partner, Pitcher Partners. “There’s always stuff that’s different – you have that on every job,” he says. “Its always about finding out what’s different about this industry…
The Federation Council of the Russian legislature is forming a working group expected to propose comprehensive regulations for cryptocurrencies. Officials from several ministries and government agencies, as well as members of the country’s expanding crypto industry, will join the body. The Federation Council, the upper house of Russian parliament, is establishing a working group of experts to take on the task of developing additional regulations for Russia’s growing crypto space. Cryptocurrencies are now only partially regulated through the law “On Digital Financial Assets,” and officials have recognized the need to adopt more rules to cover various aspects such as circulation…