Cryptospace Spotlight 2022 #11 (13 Mar 2022)
Polygon went down for almost 11 hours, Pres Biden issued first of its kind crypto executive order, and DeFi Fantasm Finance was exploited and Tornado-ed for over $2.6 million!
Technology and Industry
Polygon (MATIC) was down for almost 11 hours on Thursday (10 Mar) when implementing a planned network upgrade. Its network was operational after hotfix was deployed. [more]
10M Ether, represents over $26 billion worth of the asset at current prices, now locked on Eth 2.0 staking contract. [more]
Payments company Stripe is delving back into crypto, offering support for the space’s exchanges, on-ramps, wallets and NFT marketplaces, and has partnered with FTX and Blockchain.com. [more]
SoftBank’s Z Holdings now plans to launch an NFT marketplace in 180 countries this spring, according to the company’s top executive [more]. Also, Bain Capital Ventures announced the setup of a half-billion-dollar fund for crypto projects [more].
Citi’s co-head of digital assets, Alex Kriete, said he was calling it quits at the bank to start up his own crypto venture [more].
Malaysian electric utility company - Tenaga Nasional Bhd. - has proposed a special tariff for Bitcoin mining operators in a move to fight electricity theft. It has also proposed that the Energy Commission encourage Bitcoin mining operators to apply for legal electricity supply. [more]
Ukraine is buying non-lethal equipment for military purposes through its multi-signature wallet using crypto received. [more]
Regulatory
In US, President Biden signed a first-of-its-kind executive order on digital assets directing federal agencies to coordinate their approach to the sector. Industry watchers indicated that although it is an important step in the policymaking process, concrete legislation could take years. [more-1] [more-2][more-exec-order]
The executive order does not lay out specific positions the administration wants agencies to adopt, or impose new regulations on the sector.
One part of the order will direct the Treasury Department to create a report on the “future of money,” including how the current financial system might not meet consumer needs.
The order also highlighted associated risk such as cybersecurity and market failures at major digital asset exchanges and trading platforms resulted in billions of dollars in losses, as well as digital assets that might pose significant illicit finance risks or being used as a tool to circumvent regulatory requirements.
In UK, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said on Friday that all crypto ATMs are prohibited from operating. [more]
Data shows that there are 80 bitcoin ATMs or tellers operate in the UK, none of which has been approved to offer crypto ATM services.
In South Korea, the country is set to have a pro-crypto president in May. President-elect Yoon Suk-Yeol who platformed on crypto deregulation, stated his intention to recruit and establish cryptocurrency “unicorns,” or startup firms valued at at least USD1 billion. Additionally, he said that he may reconsider a 2017 prohibition on initial coin offerings (ICOs) and reintroduce the contentious fundraising technique. [more-1] [more-2]
In Switzerland, City of Lugano has formed a partnership with stablecoin issuer Tether to establish bitcoin, Tether and Lugano's own LVGA Points token as “legal tender” in the city. [more]
The move goes far beyond the actions of a number of other Swiss localities that for some time have been accepting crypto for tax payments.
Somewhat similar to El Salvador, Lugano – in addition to allowing crypto for taxes – is aiming to have all of its businesses seamlessly use crypto for everyday transactions (in El Salvador, only bitcoin qualifies).
Security
50% of NFT holders have lost access to their NFTs ranging from rugpulls to user exploits on marketplaces. However, these multi-million dollar security concerns didn’t seem to slow the growth of the booming industry, which reached USD17.7 billion in sales last year. [more]
Fantom-based DeFi - algorithmic assets protocol - Fantasm Finance was exploited for over $2.6 million worth of crypto early last Thursday, with the stolen tokens swapped for ether using privacy protocol Tornado Cash. [more]
Root cause: unchecked `_ftmIn` amount, leading to attacker able to mint $XFTM by only supplying $FSM (instead of both) [more-Nipun-twitter]
Users normally would need to supply $0.981 $FTM + $0.019 $FSM to mint $1 $XFTM, but with no checks on FTM amount required, the attacker can just supply $0.019 $FSM to mint $1 $XFTM
The current `collateralRatio` is now set to 100%, so the same attack pattern should no longer work now.
Coffee-chat
(Video) No-holds-barred discussion moderated by the former Chief of the SEC’s Office of Internet Enforcement, John Reed Stark - “The Wave of the Future or a Giant Ponzi Scheme?” [more]