Cryptospace Spotlight 2022 #4 (23 Jan 2022)
Russia to ban crypto related activities, Bitcoin mining difficulty increased and Crypto.com got hacked!
Technology & Industry
Bitcoin mining difficulty increased by 9.32% and sets new all-time high of 26.64 trillion on 21 Jan as more Chinese miners came back online. Previous record was on 13 May 2021, where Bitcoin's mining difficulty hit a record 25.04 trillion. The difficulty started dropping later in May when miners in China, at the time the biggest bitcoin mining country, went dark to comply with a regulatory crackdown. Hashrate and difficulty kept falling until late July. [more]
Bank of America noted that Solano blockchain could become the “Visa of the digital asset ecosystem” as it focuses on scalability, low transaction fees and ease of use. [more]
Vitalik burned 90% of the SHIB tokens (given to him) - how and why. [more]
El Salvador, the first country to make Bitcoin a legal tender, has onboarded 4 million users for its government-backed BTC wallet Chivo in partnership with digital identity provider Netki, according to an announcement. [more]
Meta, formerly Facebook, is reportedly working on a feature that would let users showcase their NFT collections on Instagram. [more]
Coinbase customers will be able to use Mastercard credit and debit cards to make purchases the crypto company's upcoming NFT marketplace. [more] [more-mastercard_media]
Security
17 Jan - Crypto[dot]com suffered a loss of over USD30 million after 483 customer accounts were compromised. [more-1][more-2][more-cdc_media]
Crypto[.]com’s risk monitoring systems detected unauthorized activity where transactions were being approved without the 2FA authentication control being inputted by the user. All withdrawals on the platform were suspended for the duration of the investigation
The incident affected 483 Crypto.com users. Unauthorised withdrawals totalled 4,836.26 ETH, 443.93 BTC and approximately USD66,200 in other cryptocurrencies.
17 Jan - Multichain, a platform that allows users to swap tokens between blockchains that was previously known as Anyswap, announced in a Medium post that there was a vulnerability that affected six cross-chain tokens, with at least USD1.4 million drained by hackers. [more-1] [more-2]
Hackers took advantage of a vulnerability in a blockchain service to steal around USD1.4 million from users earlier this week. CoinDesk reported that loss could be worsen to USD3 million
Swapping tokens using Multichain requires users to set approvals for the platform's contract in their cryptocurrency wallet, and these approvals are what the hackers exploited.
Two of the hackers had since indicated that they are "whitehats" and will be returning majority of the tokens, keeping some as tips.
Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, outlined critical security concerns surrounding cross-chain bridges in the blockchain ecosystem. [more-1] [more-2]
He highlighted on the security of cross-chain bridges, warning of their vulnerability in the event of 51% attacks. According to Crypto 51, it costs as much as $1.78 million an hour for hackers to mount a 51% attack vector against the Ethereum network. However, the cost drops to as little as $13,846 per hour for blockchains such as Bitcoin Cash.
Regulatory
Russia's central bank proposed banning the mining, creation, and use of cryptocurrencies, in a report released last Thursday. The central bank said the proliferation of cryptocurrencies pose a danger to Russia's financial system and the stability of the Russian ruble. The bank said it expects the ban to reduce those threats. [more]
Russian is the third nation to crackdown on cryptocurrencies over the last year, following China and Kazakhstan.
SEC Chair Gensler wanted to see crypto trading platforms move under the investor protection auspices of his agency, much like the way the SEC oversees the NYSE and NASDAQ stock exchanges. [more]
The House Energy and Commerce Committee hosts a hearing titled “Cleaning Up Cryptocurrency: The Energy Impacts of Blockchains.” to look into Proof-of-Work blockchains. [more-1] [more-2]
Singapore's central bank issued guidelines to limit crypto ads in public spaces and media. [more]