Author: José Oramas

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

Categories
Hackers NFTs OpenSea Scams

OpenSea Discord Hacked, NFTs Stolen Using Fake YouTube Site

OpenSea has suffered a security breach on its main Discord channel, allowing hackers to promote a fake YouTube partnership with the NFT platform. OpenSea Support warned the community not to click on any links in its Discord channel, and that it would investigate the situation:

The scam was first pointed out by a Twitter user called Serpent, who shared a screenshot of the marketplace’s hacked Discord, showing the scammers promoting an NFT mint pass as part of a fake partnership with YouTube and a link to a phishing site:

Webhooks Used for Phishing

Apparently, the hacker(s) used webhooks – a technique used to augment or alter the behaviour of a web page in real-time – to access server controls.

The hacker(s) was able to stay on the server for a considerable amount of time before OpenSea staff were able to regain control. It appears that at least 13 wallets had fallen victim to the scam, as per on-chain data on Etherscan.

Another Discord Channel Hacked

Compromised Discord servers aren’t that uncommon, and more users are demanding better security protocols from the messaging platform.

It seems NFT channels are the biggest target for scammers. A month ago, Crypto News Australia reported how $APE dropped over 20 percent after the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) Discord channel got hacked.

Five months ago, blockchain gaming company Animoca had to repay users 265 ETH, or US$1.1 million, after several victims fell for fake NFTs, draining a considerable amount of money out of investors’ pockets.

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Binance Social media

Binance Commits $500 Million to Elon Musk’s Acquisition of Twitter

Major crypto exchange Binance has committed US$500 million to help Elon Musk’s US$44 billion bid to acquire social media company Twitter, as revealed by a May 4 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A ‘Small Contribution to the Cause’

Musk wasn’t alone in his multibillion-dollar acquisition of Twitter, as major investment firms and digital assets companies such as Sequoia Capital, Fidelity, Andreessen Horowitz, and now Binance backed the temporary CEO’s takeover of the social media network.

Binance was the fourth-biggest contributor with US$500 million. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said it was a “small contribution to the cause”:

Ellison Kicks in $1 Billion

According to the SEC filing, 18 co-investors – including Oracle co-founder and Tesla investor Larry Ellison – participated in the acquisition. Ellison delivered the largest contribution with a US$1 billion investment, while Sequoia Capital and VyCapital invested US$800 million and $700 million respectively.

On April 27, Musk officially acquired Twitter for US$44 billion, a move hailed by some and decried by others. Despite his critics, Musk has signalled that freedom of speech would be the backbone of Twitter under his stewardship.

Investors believe that Musk has all the necessary skills to turn Twitter into something better than just spam bots and constant censorship, which have badly tarnished the social media network. Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz offered this glowing endorsement:

Elon is the one person we know and perhaps the only person in the world who has the courage, brilliance, and skills to fix all of these [problems] and build the public square that we all hoped for and deserve.

Ben Horowitz, co-founder, Andreessen Horowitz (Twitter)
Categories
Blockchain Ethereum Ethereum Name Service Gas

Vitalik Buterin: ETH L2 Fees Must Be Under $0.05 to be ‘Truly Acceptable’

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes gas fees on Ethereum layer-2s should be less than 10 cents in order to be “truly acceptable”.

The comment came as a response to a Twitter post from “Bankless” podcast host Ryan Sean Adams, who shared a screenshot of eight layer-2 protocols and their average transaction gas fees:

Layer-2s are protocols built on top of an existing blockchain. Since L2s are connected to a main chain – in this case, Ethereum – they inherit its security properties. So far, most layer-2s are designed to aid the Ethereum network with certain setbacks, such as scalability and throughput.

A layer-2 solution takes transactions out of the Ethereum network to process them in a secondary chain, in what is known as off-chain activity. This secondary chain provides high throughput and cheaper transaction fees while the mainchain provides security.

Currently, the cheapest ETH L2 solution is Metis Network, which has gas fees of US$0.02. However, swapping tokens costs $0.15, and bigger fees may be applied depending on the order.

‘Danksharding’ the Ethereum Network

With his mention of danksharding (aka EIP-4844), Buterin was referring to a new sharding model proposed for Ethereum that seeks to simplify previous sharding designs. This proposal will theoretically scale the Ethereum network by adding a new type of transaction dubbed the “blob-carrying transaction”, which carries an additional 125KB worth of data.

Most members of crypto Twitter agreed with the idea that the biggest stepping stone for Ethereum is transaction costs. While danksharding can help scale the network, ETH 2.0 has been delayed again – this time, the sharding might occur somewhere between the end of 2022 or early 2023.

Recently, the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) hit a milestone by surpassing one million domain names created, causing the ENS token to surge 86 percent in value shortly after the announcement.

Categories
Crypto News Hackers Reddit Scams Security Social media

Redditor Issues Warning After Phone’s Predictive Text Guessed His Seed Phrase

An IT professional from Germany has warned fellow Reddit users after discovering that his mobile phone’s predictive text feature enabled it to correctly predict his entire recovery seed phrase after typing in the first word.

Complete list of 2048 BIP-39 Seed Recovery Phrase Words
Example of BIP-39 recovery seed phrase list. Source: Bitcoin Safety

Guessing Seed Phrases: Impossible?

Seed phrases, a random selection of 2048 words originating from Bitcoin Enhancement Protocol (BIP) 39, enable users to back up or recover access to their crypto holdings. The prospect of correctly guessing the correct 12- or 24-word seed phrase is virtually impossible, even with quantum computing. To give a sense of how low the probability is, one Reddit user ran the numbers.

Imagine then the surprise of Andre, also known as u/Divinux on Reddit, when he noticed that his phone accurately guessed the 12–24 word seed phrase, in the right order. “First, I was stunned. The first couple of words could be a coincidence, right?” he said, adding:

This makes it simple to assault, get your fingers on a telephone, begin any chat app, and begin typing any phrases off the BIP39 record, and see what the telephone suggests.

u/Divinux on Reddit

However, being IT literate and recognising the risk, he decided it would be best to put word out to the community.

Different Keyboards, Different Results

To properly assess the risk, Andre decided to evaluate how a range of different keyboards performed. His findings revealed that Google’s GBoard was the least vulnerable, since it did not predict every word in the correct order. However, both Microsoft and Samsung’s keyboards were able to predict the seed phrase word-for-word by default.

He then proceeded to issue a warning to fellow crypto enthusiasts:

Not your keys not your coins, do your own research, don’t FOMO, never invest more than you are willing to lose, always double-check the address you are sending to, always send a small amount beforehand and disable your PMs in settings.

u/Divinux on Reddit

Perhaps more pertinently, he concluded that users should “do [themselves] a solid [favour] and prevent that [predictive text guessing the seed phrase] from happening by clearing [their] predictive type cache”. Others however, such as u/babaossa77, thought even that didn’t go far enough: “If you typed your seed phrase into your mobile phone I’d already consider that seed as unsafe and wouldn’t use it for any bigger funds, even after clearing the cache.”

Just two weeks ago, MetaMask issued a phishing attack notice to its users, suggesting that when it comes to security, it’s ultimately a matter of degree since one can never be truly immune to the risk of a breach.

Categories
Bored Ape Yacht Club Ethereum Metaverse NFTs Polygon

ApeCoin Integrates with Polygon After NFT Mint Disaster

ApeCoin (APE) has integrated with Polygon, an Ethereum sidechain known for delivering faster and cheaper transactions, as a direct consequence of Yuga Labs’ recent Otherdeeds NFT mint disaster:

This week, Crypto News Australia reported how Yuga Labs made more than US$550 million with the minting of its virtual lands called Otherdeeds, NFTs belonging to the company’s metaverse project, Otherside.

Ethereum Blockchain Brought to its Knees

However, the hype and demand for Otherdeeds caused massive congestion on the Ethereum network, leading to a sharp increase in gas fees and practically shutting down the entire Ethereum blockchain.

Some users reported paying up to US$10k to $14k in gas fees to obtain their Otherdeeds NFTs, but some others weren’t so lucky as they paid the gas fee but the transaction still failed. Yuga Labs said it would refund users who had experienced failed transactions for their gas:

‘You Messed Up,’ Says Community

Yuga Labs remarked that the demand was higher than expected, and that Ethereum’s capacity failed to meet the project’s size. However, the community started speculating that this was just a marketing stunt to show that ApeCoin needs its own chain.

ApeCoin DAO board member Yat Siu dismissed the allegations, saying Yuga Labs encourages its DAO to propose ideas for a new chain. Yet it seems the community is not buying it:

Categories
Bored Ape Yacht Club Ethereum Metaverse NFTs

Yuga Labs To Offer Gas Refunds After ‘Otherside’ NFT Mint Burned $157 Million in ETH

ApeCoin (APE), the governance token of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), has plunged as much as 11 percent after a catastrophic NFT sale by Yuga Labs.

Single NFT Collection Shuts Down Ethereum

The price drop came shortly after Yuga Labs (the company behind BAYC) made over US$550 million with the sale of “Otherdeeds“, a new Ethereum-based NFT collection that’s part of the Otherside metaverse.

However, the sale came with a few problems. The NFTs sold at a fixed price of 305 ApeCoin, or roughly US$7,000 each, but the high demand congested the Ethereum network to the point of rendering it practically useless:

Up to $14k in Gas Fees

Users reported paying gas fees from up to US$9,000 to $14,000, while others saw their transactions declined as a result of high network traffic. Yuga Labs said it would refund gas to affected users, but didn’t disclose when:

Over 71,000 ETH – approximately US$200 million at time of writing – was paid in gas fees, a new record for the Ethereum network. Fees were burned or destroyed, taking $200 million in liquidity out of the market.

While Ethereum gas fees are back to their usual levels, the price of ApeCoin dropped sharply after the event. At press time APE was trading at $14.19, down 4 percent from its recent weekly high, and trading volumes are still in the red with a 34.81 percent drop.

Categories
Crypto News NFTs Ukraine

Ukraine Launches Website for Donating and Buying NFTs

The Ukrainian government has launched a website for NFT (non-fungible token) donations in an attempt to raise funds to aid the country’s military forces in their ongoing conflict with Russia.

Supporting the Ukrainian Military With NFT Donations

The new marketplace, which comes with an ETH address for everyone wishing to donate, will host a wide range of NFTs, including the popular MoonCat collection and the Ethereum-based CryptoPunks.

Government NFT marketplace. Source: Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine

So far, the Ukrainian government has received over US$100 million from crypto donations, an amount acquired shortly after digital assets exchange Kraken and the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) joined the charitable efforts last month.

The proceeds were largely used to buy the necessary equipment for Ukraine’s military arm, including bulletproof vests, medicine, and general supplies.

Blockchain, crypto and NFTs will not stop missiles, said Alex Bornyakov, the Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, “but [they] do offer a way to protect our defenders and rebuild Ukraine as an innovation-friendly country”:

While the Ukrainian government is happy to attract crypto donations, recent news of its limiting crypto purchases has baffled the wider community. As Crypto News Australia reported last week, the National Bank of Ukraine has prohibited citizens from buying more than 100,000 UAH (approximately US$3,400) worth of crypto per month.

Categories
Crypto News DeFi Ethereum Real Estate

ETH Project ‘Teller’ Concludes World’s First DeFi Mortgage

USDC.Homes is a new company that partners with mortgage lenders and brokers to facilitate home loans using cryptocurrencies. This week, the company sold its first home to an Austin, Texas, resident who bought a US$680,000 condo through the Ethereum-based lending protocol Teller.

Forget About Fiat – Buy Your Home With Crypto

Teller calls USDC.Home the “first unsecured DeFi mortgage”, with its hybrid program that combines practices from both the traditional finance and decentralised finance worlds. Borrowers can ask for loans and show their credit score to determine eligibility and can use cryptocurrency staking or other yield-generating activities to pay off the balance:

Thanks to a good credit score, the Austin homebuyer was able to get the loan and while he didn’t put up collateral, he did make a downpayment in USDC. He was able to earn interest on the downpayment by putting his assets to work through staking.

According to Teller, all transactions take place on-chain using Ethereum sidechain Polygon, which leverages a set of mechanisms to make transactions faster and cheaper.

Buying Homes With Crypto – From Dreams to Reality

Buying a home using bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies was a mere dream years ago, but it’s now a solid reality thanks to mainstream adoption of digital assets.

A few months ago Crypto News Australia reported that Milo, a US fintech company, had launched the world’s first Bitcoin mortgage offering, enabling customers to buy real estate in the US by leveraging their stack as collateral:

Categories
Crypto News DeFi Ethereum MetaMask

MetaMask Users Frustrated as Infura Suffers Another Service Outage

Users of the popular Ethereum wallet MetaMask are infuriated after the wallet’s default endpoint, Infura, again suffered a major outage.

Infura is Metamask’s main RPC (Remote Procedure Call) provider that allows the wallet to communicate with the Ethereum network. Last week, at least 15 components of the Infura system suffered complete or partial outages, bringing down MetaMask access in the process.

MetaMask addressed the issue on Twitter, explaining that: “If you’re currently experiencing issues with MetaMask, it may be because of the outage that Infura is actively combating.”

Not the First Outage in the Infura Protocol

All Infura systems appear to be up and running again, as per the protocol’s status page. But this is yet another outage to have occurred in the Infura protocol, and users didn’t hesitate to call out for a more decentralised ecosystem where everyone can run their own nodes. As it was, users had to deploy different RPC endpoint solutions, such as Alchemy or QuickNode, to access their Web3 accounts:

On the subject of a lack of decentralisation, last month both MetaMask and OpenSea banned wallets associated with Venezuelan and Iranian IP addresses, citing compliance issues, only later to discover that Infura had cut off users to separatist areas in Ukraine, accidentally blocking Venezuelan users as well.

MetaMask has been having a rough time of it this month. On April 20, Crypto News Australia reported how MetaMask iPhone users were endangered by an iCloud-related phishing scam.

Categories
CBDCs Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Regulation

Bahamas to Allow Citizens to Pay Taxes with Digital Assets

Citizens of the Bahamas will be able to pay their taxes using cryptocurrency, as per this week’s release of a white paper from the Bahamian government.

Bahamian Government Pushing Broader Crypto Adoption

The government will allow Bahamians to pay taxes by collaborating with the nation’s central bank as well as the private sector. It will also encourage broader adoption of the nation’s CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) and access to crypto through the Bahamian Dollar.

The government will endeavour to ensure that digital assets are not used for the evasion of taxes or sanctions, and will seek to ensure compliance with all applicable tax information exchange agreements (TIEA) and domestic laws and agreed OECD standards.

Bahamian government white paper

The white paper outlines the island nation’s strategy to become a “leading digital assets hub in the Caribbean” from now until 2026, according to Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis. As part of the plan, the government will establish a digital asset policy committee and a digital advisory panel, with the latter chaired by Davis:

Caribbean Crypto Paradise

The Bahamas was one of the first to implement proper regulations for the digital assets landscape. In 2020, the government created the Digital Assets and Registered Exchanges Act (DARE), allowing crypto companies to operate legally within the nation.

Some of the policy objectives outlined in the white paper are seeking to improve the attractiveness of the Bahamas as a well-regulated jurisdiction and to explore new opportunities in the digital assets landscape.

A few months ago, Crypto News Australia reported that the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) was looking to attract crypto millionaires to revive visitor numbers to an industry adversely affected by the pandemic.