Author: José Oramas

José is a journalist and translator with a keen interest in blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

Categories
Crypto News Dogecoin Scams

Investors Lose $119 Million in Dogecoin Mining Scam

Another day, another scam in the crypto world. On this occasion, it was a bad actor that managed to rip off would-be investors in a Dogecoin mining scam, according to local media in Turkey. 

Over US$100 Million Stolen

The scammer, identified as “Turgut V”, together with his team managed to trick investors into buying DOGE and handing it over to him, thereby investing in mining technology and promising 100 percent returns. The scammers managed to steal at least US$119 million before one of the victims filed a complaint with the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in Küçükçekmece, a suburb of Istanbul.

Apparently, Turgut V and his team hosted in-person meetings at luxury properties and via Zoom calls trying to lure investors into pouring money into the scam, the report said, quoting the prosecuting lawyer. A court has banned Turgut V and his team from leaving the country while authorities investigate.

Companies like KeychainX could be helpful in this kind of situation. A few weeks ago, a retired US truck driver managed to retrieve 10 million DOGE thanks to KeychainX’s wallet recovery service.

Impersonation Scams and Dogecoin

Dogecoin, being one of the largest market cap tokens, has attracted massive interest from the media, especially thanks to billionaire celebrities and tech leaders like Elon Musk. Scammers usually try to take advantage of the hype to fool newcomers.

It is worth noting there was an impersonation scam that happened five months ago where a man lost A$700,000 to a fake Elon Musk Twitter account. As Crypto News reported, the man was tricked by a link under a purported tweet from Musk, sending him to an event hosted as a giveaway where people were invited to send anything from A$7,700 to to A$1.5 million.

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Cardano Crypto News Ethereum

Number of Cardano Millionaires Skyrockets: 1,850% Increase in the Last Month

Cardano’s recent market performance has blown out the number of ADA millionaires from 3,625 on July 20 to 9,830 on August 24.

As per a recent in-house post, the number of Cardano addresses with a balance greater than US$1 million has surged 173 percent during ADA’s recent price rally, which reached an all-time high of $3.02 on August 23. Compared to Cardano’s 1455 percent year-to-date (YTD) gains, this represents a 1,850 percent jump considering the number of millionaires went from 504 to 9,830.

ADA bottomed out at US$1.007 on July 20 but quickly saw a boost in price by almost 200 percent on the ADA/USD exchange rate. This move followed up a 6.42 percent correction in price, trading at US$2.67 at the time of writing. 

The blog post also highlights the number of unspent transaction outputs (UTXO), which have spiked following Cardano’s rise in 2021. UTXOs represent unspent tokens that remained in wallets after deposits. When a blockchain detects UTXOs are rising, it means that most wallets are HODLing instead of selling.

Could Cardano Unseat Ethereum?

As reported by Crypto News Australia, Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson said in May that while Ethereum developers were working to implement several upgrades to the network, it was still falling behind its competitors. Most of the recent bullish sentiment is centred on the idea that Cardano could take a huge slice of the market, even outranking Ethereum.

Most of the hype is also due to the imminent launch of the Alonzo hard fork, an upgrade that would finally deploy smart contract compatibility for the network. Back in March when the Mary upgrade was announced, ADA surged 579 percent, making the blockchain compatible with DeFi projects and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).

Another boost for the coin came after Cardano announced the launch of a new stablecoin, Djed, which seeks to eliminate price volatility using formal verification.

Categories
Facebook NFTs Social media

Facebook Exploring NFTs as Part of ‘Ready’ Digital Wallet

Facebook is considering allowing the company’s Novi digital wallet to support NFTs, according to David Marcus, the social media giant’s head of financial services. 

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Marcus said Facebook is in a “good position” to enter the NFT market and allow users with related features to store their work. This would make the Novi wallet a multifunctional system besides just storing Diem, Facebook’s delayed token formerly known as Libra.

We’re definitely thinking about this. It’s really an area that is worth exploring, and one where we can have a positive impact for both creators and consumers.

David Marcus, head of financial services, Facebook

Novi Would Facilitate Cross-Border Payments

Facebook hopes Novi (which will go live as soon as Diem goes live) will make cross-border payments more efficient and reduce transaction costs.

Novi is Facebook’s blockchain-based wallet to support Diem transactions. Libra, Diem’s predecessor, was a coin meant to be backed by a mixed set of currencies and government debt, yet after several regulatory hurdles it was left as another stablecoin pegged to the US Dollar.

Speaking of regulatory uncertainty, the Reserve Bank of Australia, which has been dragging its feet regarding the study and launch of its own CBDC, remains unsure if the Diem will gain regulatory approval and be allowed to operate in Australia.

Facebook still suffers from the mistrust people have felt over the years regarding personal data security and privacy, thus their negative response to the company’s involvement in finance. Marcus has referred to this opposition as “un-American”, adding: “I don’t think we deserve people’s trust, I think we deserve a shot at earning people’s trust.”

Western Countries Are Losing the Race

Marcus notes that Western countries such as the US are lagging in technological and financial innovation compared to countries like China. “We are really falling behind at an alarming rate,” he says.

Four months ago, Facebook announced it was working on Pontem, an experimental network for Diem that will allow users to build decentralised applications (dApps), DeFi strategies, and other tools before Diem goes live.

Categories
Australia Scams

Investment Scams Increase 53% in Australia as Victims Lose Over $70 Million This Year

According to a report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Aussies have lost over A$70 million during the first half of this year and more than half of that number is attributed to cryptocurrency investment scams.

Crypto Scams on the Rise in Australia

Scamwatch, an Australian statistics website run by the ACCC, has received at least 4,763 investment scam reports so far in 2021, a 53.4 percent increase from the 3,104 reported in the first half of 2020.

Amount lost by Australians. Source: Scamwatch Australia

The total amount lost by Australians totals A$166 million for 2021 so far, attributed to 151,000 reported scams.


Types of scams in Australia. Source: Scamwatch Australia

Cryptocurrencies were the most used payment method to deceive Aussies and caused the biggest losses. Of the 1,931 reports, 955 (49.5 percent) were due to cryptocurrency losses amounting to A$29,277,896, with bitcoin accounting for more than A$25 million of that amount.

Investment scams are more prevalent than ever, and scammers are capitalising on interest in cryptocurrency in particular. More than half of the $70 million in losses were to cryptocurrency, especially through bitcoin, and cryptocurrency scams were also the most commonly reported type of investment scam, with 2,240 reports.

ACCC deputy chair Delia Rickard

Recent Crypto Trading Scams

One the most common scams highlighted by the ACCC is fake crypto trading platforms, something that has become a lucrative business for scammers.

As previously reported by Crypto News Australia, the number of fake crypto trading sites has been growing in Australia as scammers have been designing highly detailed websites posing as crypto exchanges and targeting victims via email or Telegram.

Be wary of investment opportunities with low risk and high returns. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

ACCC Deputy Chair Delia Rickard

Bitcoin accounted for the most used cryptocurrency regarding investment scams, with A$26 million losses this year compared to A$17.8 million in 2020, a 44 percent increase.

Australians are losing record amounts thanks to the numerous scams going around. Currently, the top crypto scams in Australia are investment scams, romance scams, personal identity mining and illegal crypto mining.

Categories
Blockchain Solana

First Solana Rugpull Steals US$10 Million

Solana has had its first and biggest rugpull on its ecosystem after Luna Yield, a cross-chain yield aggregator, stole nearly US$10 million from liquidity pools and shortly after proceeded to delete its official website, Telegram, and other media channels.

The Solana Luna Rugpull

On August 19, various Luna Yield users reported being unable to unstake their funds from the pools. SolPAD, a multichain IDO (Initial DEX Offering) platform for Solana, announced in a tweet that the protocol started experiencing “some problems”. SolPAD, which hosted Luna Yield’s IDO on its platform, said it contacted a third party to investigate the incident.

However, everything suggests that the team behind Luna Yield rugpulled and stole nearly US$10 million in funds.

Solana Users Unable to Unstake Funds

It all started when a user tried to unstake funds from Luna but failed due to insufficient balance. Someone had already drained the protocol’s pools even before the smart contract was set up.

One user found the address that was being used to send batches of ETH. The address starts with FBUKfg, which is a Sollet bridge, a Solana wallet with support for SPL tokens. 

Hoakegani, a developer building on Solana, found the address belonging to the protocol’s owner. It appears this address was the one that funded the mint authority of LUNY, Luna Yield’s native token. The owner then used the FBUKfg address to send the funds in batches, and it appears the owner tried to bridge the funds directly to Binance.

Users Complain About Lack of Transparency on Solana

After the event, the SOL token slowed down after its massive uptrend rally in the past two weeks. Various users, including hoakegani, complained about the “lack of transparency” on Solana, and that “some shady businesses” were still occurring.

SOL Price Unaffected

After surging over 100 percent during the past few weeks, the price of SOL seems unaffected as it remains around the US$75 mark.

Categories
Crypto News Hackers

Google Removes 8 Fake Crypto Mining Apps, Users Warned to Remove Immediately

As cryptocurrencies become more popular and public interest increases, hackers, scammers and other malicious actors are taking advantage of newcomers by tricking them with fake crypto applications on Google Play Store.

Victims Tricked into Paying for Fake Subscription Service 

Google recently took down at least eight such fraudulent applications that were promoted as cryptocurrency cloud mining apps for Android devices, as detected by security firm Trend Micro. The firm said these applications tricked victims into watching ads and paying for subscription services that could amount to a monthly fee of 12 to 15 USD, without returning any kind of profit to users.

The fraudulent applications were: 

  • BitFunds – Crypto Cloud Mining
  • Bitcoin Miner – Cloud Mining
  • Bitcoin (BTC) – Pool Mining Cloud Wallet
  • Crypto Holic – Bitcoin Cloud Mining
  • Daily Bitcoin Rewards – Cloud Based Mining System
  • Bitcoin 2021
  • MineBit Pro – Crypto Cloud Mining & BTC Miner
  • Ethereum (ETH) – Pool Mining Cloud

This is the second time Google has rushed to remove fake cryptocurrency apps. In November last year, a member of the Aussie Nugget’s News community reportedly lost A$20k to a fake Uniswap application hosted on Google Play Store.

Beware of Fake Crypto Apps and Sites

All of us should be wary of where to put our capital with so many threats hanging around, especially Australians, since some fake crypto exchanges are reaching out to Aussie citizens via Gmail, Telegram and other channels to lure them into downloading fake apps or depositing money into a fake exchange.

Another method hackers are using to deceive customers is fake hardware wallets. As we reported a month ago, fraudsters have been sending fake hardware wallets to Ledger customers to gain access to their addresses, following an internal security breach about a year ago.

Some other users have reported receiving fake hardware wallets with a pre-installed recovery phrase:

A Reddit user reporting a preinstalled recovery seed

Avoid Getting Scammed

With so many threats going around the DeFi and crypto community, it’s always best to DYOR (Do Your Own Research) and seek advice from experienced members in the community. At Crypto News Australia we have outlined some of the most common scams and also the best practices to help avoid them.

Categories
Crypto News DeFi Ethereum Hackers Tether

Poly Network Hack Drama Continues – Hacker Withholds $141 Million

The Poly Network drama continues as Mr White Hat is refusing to return US$141 million left on a multi-sig wallet. 

Poly Network Waits for Hacker to Return Private Keys

The hacker has returned most assets, approximately US$427 million worth. But according to a recent update, Mr White Hat is holding hostage $141 million in ETH and WBTC (28,9523 and 1,032 respectively), and about 33 million USDT is frozen.

Poly says it is in constant communication with Mr White Hat on how to deal with the situation.

Poly Accused of Being Complicit in Hack

This back and forth between the protocol and the hacker has outraged the community, some of whom are even accusing the Poly Network team of being behind the hack or otherwise complicit. The Poly Network addressed the community concerns in its communications, claiming it is working as fast as possible can to return the assets.

We understand there are many users and projects using Poly Network’s services, and there are users who are panicking that they might lose control of their assets, and we want to minimise the impact on them, so restoring our network and our users’ assets in a secure manner as quickly as possible is our top priority.

Poly Network statement
Categories
Australia Crypto News Investing Trading

ASIC Issues Further Warnings to Aussie Investors Using Unlicensed Crypto Companies

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has again cautioned Aussie citizens to be wary when investing in unlicensed cryptocurrency companies. The warning comes after investors across the country reported significant losses after trading crypto-related products such as options, futures or leveraged assets on unregistered crypto exchanges.

In a statement released this week, ASIC warned citizens to only make crypto investments if the company offering them has an Australian financial services (AFS) licence or an Australian market licence (AML).

Concern Over “Excessive Leverage, Platform Outages or Unfair Liquidations”

The statement highlighted specific risks of investing in unregistered crypto exchanges, including platform outages, unfair liquidations and, especially, excessive leverage, which can magnify the trader’s profit as well as loss. 

ASIC noted that unlicensed crypto companies overseas have taken measures to prevent Australians from accessing these crypto financial products, including geo-blocking (imposing geographically based IP restrictions), removing references and links, and placing warnings and disclosures on their respective websites and apps.

The commission recommends that unlicensed crypto businesses can register with an external dispute resolution scheme such as the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.

Boosting Consumer Protection in Crypto Trading

Crypto trading (and the overall crypto space in Australia) is not regulated by Australian financial authorities, yet ASIC has made efforts to boost consumer protection around crypto-related products such as CFD (Contracts for Difference). On July 2, the commission published a consultation paper seeking market participants’ feedback to adjust rules for local operators, protect consumers and promote market integrity.

ASIC recently highlighted how young investors are especially vulnerable to “Finfluencers“, a new trend circulating on social media channels such as YouTube or Instagram where financial influencers claim they can make newcomers millionaires or become financially independent, while not dispensing any actual financial advice.

[New market entrants] have been engaged in short-term speculation rather than long-term wealth creation.

ASX
Categories
Blockchain Crypto News DeFi Ethereum

Bizarre Twist: $600 Million DeFi Hacker Asked to Become Project Security Adviser

The hacker who stole US$611 million from the Poly Network last week turned out to be a white hat hacker who returned the funds while exposing the protocol’s network security flaws. And what’s even weirder, the Poly Network team offered the hacker a US$500k reward, and a role as chief security officer.

A Strange Turn of Events

As per an August 17 blog post, the Poly Network completed the second phase of the Mainnet Upgrade while keeping the hacker updated daily on its progress. Poly Network and the hacker had been interchanging encrypted messages in which the latter shared his concerns about the protocol’s network security and overall projects in the DeFi space.

We are also counting on more experts like Mr White Hat to be involved in the future development of Poly Network since we believe that we share the vision to build a secure and robust distributed system. Also, to extend our thanks and encourage Mr White Hat to continue contributing to security advancement in the blockchain world together with Poly Network, we cordially invite Mr White Hat to be the Chief Security Adviser of Poly Network.

Poly Network blog post

The protocol hopes that the hacker returns the private keys to restore full assets control to the community.

‘Mr White Hat’ Exploits Bug on Smart Contracts

As Crypto News Australia reported on August 12, the hacker – dubbed “Mr White Hat” – found a bug on the protocol’s smart contracts that allowed him to move assets between different blockchains, as per an analysis from blockchain forensic firm Chainalysis.

The hacker stole a total of US$611 million in Ethereum, BNB and Poly, making it the biggest theft in DeFi history. Yet things changed when the hacker started returning the funds progressively to the protocol through a multisig wallet.

He also tried to communicate with the Poly Network team through private messages embedded in an ETH transaction the hacker sent to himself. “It’s already a legend to win so much fortune. It will be an eternal legend to save the world. I made the decision, no more DAO,” reads one of the messages.

Hacker Refuses Bounty, Offered Further Reward

After several messages and a dialogue made public, the hacker clarified his intentions and his vision of the DeFi space. While the hacker refused to accept the $500k bounty, the protocol still plans to reward him for his “contributions to blockchain security”.

We are grateful for Mr White Hat’s outstanding contribution to Poly Network’s security enhancements. While there were certain misunderstandings in the beginning due to poor communication channels, we now understand Mr White Hat’s vision for DeFi and the crypto world, which is in line with Poly Network’s ambitions from the very beginning – to provide interoperability for ledgers in Web 3.0.

Poly Network
Categories
Crypto News Solana

Solana Hits New All-Time-High Following $70 Million DEX Crowdfund

SOL, the native and utility token of the Solana network, reclaimed its all-time high on August 16, making it the only cryptocurrency to recover its full value since the May crash. 

Currently trading at US$68 as per data from TradingView (see chart below), SOL is surging fast. The token reached a record price of U$69 on August 16 and US$75 a day later.

What’s Behind the SOL Mayhem?

SOL’s impressive performance comes after several developments for the Solana ecosystem, key among which was a recent US$70 million crowdfund to support its official decentralised exchange, Mango Markets.

Mango Markets is a DAO-governed platform, similar to other Ethereum-based DEXs such as Uniswap. Yet the DEX is powered by Solana instead, as it offers a wide set of innovative features integrated with high-performance technology.

Another boost for the token came shortly after the launch of Degenerate Ape Academy, an NFT project based on Solanart, Solana’s NFT marketplace, which recently registered a record daily volume of over 92,610 SOL, or more than US$5 million.

Q1 2021 Marks Solana’s Peak Performance

Solana is rising fast, having already caught the eye of the crypto community with its impressive market performance. The first four months of 2021 were a peak period for the token as it surged over 4,000 percent thanks to the protocol’s development success and integration of new DeFi projects on the network.

Solana is backed by Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX Trading. Talking about Solana’s growth, Bankman-Fried says he is astonished by its success and looks forward to seeing what projects will be onboarded.

A lot of an ecosystem’s success depends on how much the community builds on it. I’ve been really happy with the growth of Solana so far building out the world’s fastest, most scalable on-chain ecosystem; I’m excited to see some projects come to market!

Sam Bankman-Fried

Though Solana doesn’t have many notable projects on its NFT Marketplace, this could change as it becomes one of the leading blockchains in the industry.

A month ago, Australian renewable energy trading platform Power Ledger dumped Ethereum and switched to Solana for its higher throughput and speed.