A new Web3 token, MINA, has soared over 75 percent this week following a US$92 million investment and a recent listing on one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, Coinbase.
New Asset: Coinbase will add support for Mina (MINA). Inbound transfers for this asset are now available on @Coinbase and @CoinbaseExch in the regions where trading is supported. Trading will begin on or after 9AM PT on Thurs March 24, if liquidity conditions are met. pic.twitter.com/JPzdE1mYdV
Self-described as the world’s lightest blockchain with a fixed size of 22 KB, the Mina Protocol is a fast-growing platform for zero-knowledge smart contract development.
The protocol’s native token, MINA, has been recovering from a sharp price drop of over 70 percent from its all-time high of US$6.71 in November 2021. The cryptocurrency now hovers at $2.49 per coin, boosted by bullish sentiment after the protocol sold $92 million worth of MINA tokens to Three Arrow Capital and FTX Ventures.
MINA daily chart. Source: TradingView
The Coinbase Effect
What further boosted MINA’s price was Coinbase’s support for the token, as per an announcement on March 23. Trading will be paired with Tether (USDT), once liquidity conditions are met.
New Asset: Coinbase will add support for Mina (MINA). Inbound transfers for this asset are now available on @Coinbase and @CoinbaseExch in the regions where trading is supported. Trading will begin on or after 9AM PT on Thurs March 24, if liquidity conditions are met. pic.twitter.com/JPzdE1mYdV
As Coinbase is one of the largest crypto exchanges internationally by trading volume, a listing surely adds massive value to any cryptocurrency project. In January this year, real estate smart contract token Propy soared 227 percent after being listed on the exchange.
Ocean Protocol (OCEAN) has seen its price soar this month on the back of its anticipated Ocean v4 update, as well as a growing partner list and a thriving grant program.
With many industry leaders claiming that data is becoming the new oil, Ocean Protocol is building infrastructure that enables individuals and businesses to monetise and exchange data on the blockchain.
The protocol has seen its token make some considerable gains this month. According to CoinMarketCap, OCEAN has rallied nearly 70 per cent in March. The coin was trading at a low of US$0.40 on March 7 and from March 18 the price started to rally to a high of around US$0.69. The coin has since stabilised at around US$0.59. On March 21, the cryptocurrency saw a massive 562 percent surge in its 24-hour trading volume, which was responsible for the price spike.
OCEAN/USD price. Source: CoinMarketCap
Upgrades to Ocean Protocol
Some of the main reasons for the rally have been pinned to a few key events happening for Ocean this month. The launch of Ocean v4 is a major upgrade to the protocol and is expected to go into production in Q2 2022:
.@oceanprotocol is launching Version4 in the next weeks and it will get really interesting for data management and monetization.
Data X Defi =💥 💥 💥
Data IP: managed by NFTs (ERC721) Data consumption: managed by datatokens (ERC20)
According to the project, Ocean v4 will include several upgrades including a mechanism that aims to solve rug pulls, one of the NFT industry’s biggest problems. The new protocol upgrade will also see the introduction of data NFTs, which add non-fungible token capabilities to base intellectual property (IP) as a way to help increase revenue streams, as well as providing new means for the community to monetise data.
OceanDAO Breeds TalentDAO
The second factor making OCEAN look more attractive to investors can be the OceanDAO, which serves as a launchpad for new projects. The US$140 million reserve announced in late 2021 was earmarked for grants and is now starting to see some of the fruits. A month ago, the Ocean Shipyard grants program was launched, giving builders their allocation of US$2 million to develop crypto and AI solutions.
More recently, though, TalentDAO has emerged as the winner of OceanDAO’s 15th round of grant rewards. The 16th round of OceanDAO is now under way, offering a pool of 200,000 OCEAN tokens for funding:
We continue with introducing the winning projects of the recently concluded @OceanDAO_ Round 15 to the Ocean Community 🌊@talentDAO_ is the latest grantee to have joined the Ocean ecosystem! pic.twitter.com/Qe9YHjRFgY
Ocean Protocol has also raised awareness of its mission by having its data power a real-world use case that positively affects those in the food production industry:
"Millions of smallholder farmers barely produce enough"
How does Ocean partner @dimitratech's connected farmer platform leverage blockchain to mitigate this global issue?👀
Explore how Dimitra empowers 100 million small farmers through actionable data. https://t.co/DY0r1P9wO2
In this partnership, Ocean’s Web3 capabilities will be employed to enable data sharing and monetisation so that small farmers can benefit from an extra layer of revenue.
The combined positive sentiment and creation of real value are factors that have contributed to the token’s rally. Recently, crypto companies have been branching out with projects such as IoTeX and Avalanche making various partnerships.
Arthur Cheong, founder of DeFi and Web3-focused crypto venture capitalist firm Defiance Capital, tweeted this week that a hacker had stolen over US$1.7 million worth of NFTs from his crypto wallet.
Pieces stolen include five CloneXs, 17 Azukis, 33 Second Selfs, two Hedgies and two Tsubasa NFTs, according to security firm PeckShield. A total of 59 NFTs were stolen.
Cheong said the unknown hacker compromised his device using a technique known as ‘spear phishing’:
Well not sure what happened, need to take time to figure it out. Didn't expect this to happen to me as well.
Earlier this month, an unknown hacker began draining NFTs from an Ethereum wallet owned by Cheong, which he later confirmed on Twitter. The hacker then proceeded to sell the stolen NFTs on OpenSea and also transferred other tokens such as wETH, Lido DAO, LooksRare and DYDX to their wallet.
As it stands, the perpetrator’s wallet currently contains about 585 ETH, or around US$1.7 million, that can all be traced back to Cheong’s wallet. This figure may increase as the hacker appears to be still moving funds out of Cheong’s account:
Ok it's a private key/seed phrase compromise since this little shit is still transferring some token out
Cheong said the hacker used what is called a ‘spear phishing’ email to deploy malware on his device, which then proceeded to extract the seed phrase to his crypto wallet:
Found out the likely root cause for the exploit, it's a targeted social engineering attack. Received a spear-phishing email that really seems to be sent by one of our portco with content that seems like general industry-relevant content.
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), one of Australia’s ‘Big Four’ banks, is tapping into the growing demand for decentralised finance (DeFi) via the Hedera Hashgraph testnet.
Speaking as a member of an Australian Blockchain Week panel on DeFi, ANZ’s portfolio lead Nigel Dobson said his bank was exploring how best to offer DeFi services to its 8.5 million customers.
According to Dobson, ANZ was taking a “blockchain agnostic” approach and had already experimented with minting, transacting and burning tokens on the Hedera Hashgraph testnet.
All Part of ANZ’s Sustainability Plan
With Bitcoin and Ethereum often criticised for their high carbon emissions, Hedera Hashgraph’s lower-carbon imprint fits with ANZ’s stated goals to be a more ecologically responsible bank:
With Hashgraph able to run Solidity smart contracts, existing smart contracts and applications on Ethereum could be ported over to Hashgraph to the advantage of a potential DeFi ecosystem.
ANZ’s Targets to 2025
On the subject of sustainability, ANZ has already set targets to:
fund and facilitate at least A$50 billion by 2025 towards sustainable solutions for its customers;
engage with 100 of its largest emitting business customers to encourage them to strengthen their carbon transition plans and enhance their efforts to protect biodiversity by the end of 2024;
develop an enhanced climate risk management framework that strengthens ANZ’s governance and is responsive to climate change, by the end of 2022; and
achieve ANZ’s 2021-2025 suite of environmental footprint targets.
Set the Course for DeFi
Last November, Dobson described competitor CommBank’s pacesetting move into the Australian crypto space as “bold”, suggesting it was just the start of a major shift in the financial system and something traditional finance would need to embrace or adapt to.
“We are moving to a more decentralised system that can generate new outcomes and business models that can’t be ignored,” Dobson said at the time. “The power of decentralised networks transcends all companies – you just need to choose whether to be part of it or ignore it … I think we have a much stronger bias to participate than ignore.”
Li.Finance, a decentralised exchange (DEX) based in Germany, has had one of its smart contracts exploited, resulting in 29 users losing an estimated US$600,000 worth of various assets. The vulnerability has since been fixed and the majority of the affected users reimbursed.
According to the Li.Finance postmortem, on March 20 an attacker exploited a contract responsible for pre-bridge swaps and was able to steal an estimated 200 ETH in a single transaction:
The affected 29 wallets were emptied of a variety of tokens, with the attack based on wallets that had their token contracts set to give infinite approvals. The tokens included were USDC, MATIC, RPL, GNO, USDT, MVI, AUDIO, AAVE, JRT, and DAI. They were all converted to ETH and are still sitting in the hacker’s wallet.
Bug Bounty Option Ignored
The protocol also gave the hacker the option to claim a bug bounty, but there has been no response. The writer added in the post: “If you are reading this, we would be extremely grateful to provide a generous bounty and would obligate ourselves not to disclose any information about your identity.”
The thief’s wallet address containing the stolen funds. Source: Etherscan
Li.Fi Being a Nice Guy
The official post stated that the vulnerability had since been patched and the majority of affected users compensated within 24 hours. Out of the affected 29 wallets, 25 have been reimbursed for a total of US$80,000.
Owners of the remaining US$517,000 owed to four wallets have been given the option to transform the lost funds into an angel investment into Li.Fi, and thus future LI.FI tokens will be given to them under the same terms as an investor in the current funding round. Doing it this way reduces the damage to the platform’s treasury and also allows users to recover their investment with “an opportunity that would not be possible otherwise with huge upside potential”.
Importance of Audits and Security in DeFi
According to Li.Finance CEO Philipp Zentner, the platform was only a week away from its scheduled security audit. The audit might have been able to catch the bug before it was exploited, but nothing is assured:
This exploit has provided another example of why security must be of utmost importance. As builders in the space, it is our responsibility to ensure that users’ funds are safe above [all] else. Our users can rest assured that the audit is happening and LI.FI is safe to use
Li.Finance postmortem
This latest hack demonstrates how giving infinite approvals to smart contracts can potentially open up a user’s funds to a greater amount of risk. Infinite approvals allow users to swap coins at a decentralised exchange an unlimited amount of times without needing any further approval.
Earlier this month, Deus Finance also suffered an attack that cost the protocol US$3 million, following closely on the heels of the Fantasm Finance hack that cost the project US$2.6 million. The importance of security cannot be understated in the space; according to the 2021 Chainalysis Crypto Crime report, crypto stolen from DeFi has increased 1,330 percent since 2020.
FTX, one of the world’s fastest-growing crypto exchanges, is rapidly expanding its presence globally, having now established a local service in Australia as announced by crypto-billionaire founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried:
As per a company press release, FTX Australia will offer a full range of services, including an exchange, over-the-counter (OTC) products, and even derivatives.
The announcement coincides with recent moves by the Australian government to establish a “world-leading” regulatory ecosystem for digital assets.
Senator Proposes New Crypto Legislation
During the Australian Blockchain Week conference, NSW Senator Andrew Bragg proposed legislation that seeks to lay the groundwork for a proper regulatory framework in the country. Bragg laid out four principles that the mooted Digital Service Act needs to follow:
technological neutrality;
broad, flexible principles, ie, not a prescribed code;
regulation by a minister, not bureaucratic agencies; and
the need for cooperation within government.
Bragg stated that the government should adopt these four principles if it wants to refine its approach to the crypto ecosystem, including certain components of the decentralised finance (DeFi) sector, such as DAOs (decentralised autonomous organisations).
This will show Australia is open for business and things are clear and clean.
Senator Andrew Bragg
Bragg’s proposal came a day after a consultation paper was issued by the government, asking the industry to provide feedback by the end of the month.
Bankman-Fried said he was largely incentivised by the efforts of the local blockchain community to help establish a clearer regulatory ecosystem for digital assets:
We are encouraged by the important work being undertaken to establish a new digital asset licensing regime.
Twitter Trends 2022 has given us the statistics on the hottest topics on Twitter and has revealed some interesting, but not surprising, results. For instance, talk about non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and crypto topics in general has surged an astonishing 242 percent.
The Twitter report’s findings suggest that the three top trends are:
“The Great Restoration”, healing the planet by healing ourselves;
“Fan-built Worlds”, digital communities calling the shots; and
“Finance Goes Social”, speaking to many of the Gen Z and Millennial population getting into investing – especially in digital assets.
300 Million Tweets About Crypto in the Past Three Months
Twitter users alone have posted almost 300 million tweets regarding digital assets. Twitter’s report revealed its biggest trends over the past two years, and finance – including digital assets – is number one on the list. Financial tweets have gone up by 78 percent year-over-year among average users, meaning the subject has gained traction even among non-professionals who do not work in the industry.
Money matters used to be closely held secrets of the few. But these days, a new crowd’s getting in on the action – and having fun.
Twitter Trends 2022
The most talked-about crypto topics on Twitter include Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple, followed by Cardano, DeFi, Coinbase and Binance.
Discussions of topics such as stablecoins, NFT marketplaces, decentralised apps and decentralised exchanges have ballooned by 242 percent – with DAOs another hot topic under the heading of “user-empowered communities”.
Some Words of Wisdom from Twitter
Twitter offered some advice to businesses and content creators recommending finding ways to make a brand more entertaining, exciting and inclusive. And while companies are dropping NFTs left, right and centre, the social network encourages giving a greater deal of thought to why digital assets are being offered in the first place:
“Don’t blindly jump on the NFT bandwagon – create something that’s meaningful to your community. For example, a sportswear brand didn’t just drop a logo NFT, they put their gear on the hottest NFT avatars to connect two passions their fans care about.”
Seems the NFT Bubble Has Burst (For Now)
The NFT bubble might have finally burst, with weekly NFT sales trending downward and interest in the sector dropping 45 percent over a 30-day period in late January and February 2022. Worldwide Google Trends data shows that interest plunged 45 percent in terms of internet searches. During the second week of January, the search query “NFT” sat comfortably at 100, the highest trend score a query can register, but by early March had dropped almost half to a score of 55.
Mistakes are made in the cryptocurrency world, some of which incur a high price. This time, we’re talking about the owner of an NFT who erroneously listed his EtherRock for 444 wei instead of 444 ETH.
The NFT in question is a rock JPEG previously owned by a trader with the Twitter handle of Dino Dealer. The rock was supposed to be listed at 444 ETH, or roughly US$1.2 million, but Dino made the mistake of listing it in wei, the smallest denomination of ETH (1 ETH = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 wei):
How's your week?
Mine? I just erroneously listed @etherrock #44 for 444 wei instead of 444 eth🤦♂️
Bot sniped it in the same block and trying to flip for 234 eth
In one click my entire net worth of ~$1 million dollars, gone
The NFT was quickly snapped up for less than a cent by a sniper bot. Bots are becoming increasingly popular in NFT listings, as buyers can use them for last-second bidding on auction items, such as on decentralised marketplace OpenSea. There’s a freelance website called Upwork that offers sniper bots for US$200, along with other sniping tools.
A desperate Dino even tried to reach out to “crypto customer service” asking if there was a way to retrieve the rock. As expected, this request was met with jokes from users handing out emails and WhatsApp numbers to Dino. Of course, no one should ever follow up on those dubious numbers or emails:
OK crypto customer service is very friendly and responsive, who'd have thought?
Given the immutable nature of the blockchain, it’s highly unlikely Dino will get his rock back unless the new owner of the NFT sympathises with him – also extremely unlikely.
We have seen various examples of costly mistakes such as this, although one might wonder how it could be possible to confuse wei with ETH. One such rookie error led to the sale of a Bored Ape NFT for US$3,000 instead of its intended market price of $300,000.
Another painful example was a mutant ape that sold for 17 USDC instead of 17 ETH – somehow the owner confused both currencies. Keep in mind the owner paid a fee of 2.87 ETH, or US$9,100 at that time.
As part of its plan to bring DeFi to the masses, Sydney-based blockchain-powered fintech company Block Earner has made some key hires as it readies itself for launch later this month.
Among the key appointments are:
Apurva Chiranewala, a former eBay and Sendle executive, as general manager, tasked with overseeing global operations, growth, and strategic partnerships;
former Tyro Payments and Capify Australia marketing head Colin Williamson, as head of digital and growth;
Tawanda Mangere as head of risk and compliance; and
Baris Yilmaz as head of finance.
According to Chiranewala, “I have seen very few financial services companies that have the potential to positively impact human life quite like Block Earner.” He added that the company is a rare start-up with “capability, vision, and backing to shake up the financial industry in Australia, which is ripe for disruption.”
Making High Yields More Accessible
Block Earner, a Synthetix-backed platform best illustrated as a bridge between traditional finance and decentralised finance, has the goal of making high yields of DeFi more accessible to everyday Australians. The company wants to solve issues of adoption by channeling high-yield investments in DeFi into an easy-flowing, accessible process for anyone, regardless of how clued up they are in the crypto space.
In December 2021, Block Earner managed to raise US$6.4 million in a seed round of funding and claims its yields will generate 7 percent fixed annual yield or variable returns from 2-18 percent.
Potential earnings with Block Earner. Source: Block Earner
The funding round was led by American VC firm Framework Nentures, along with Coinbase, DeFi Alliance, Longhash Ventures, Synthetix founder Kain Warwick, Avalanche’s Emin Gün Sire and AAVE founder Stani Kulechov. Block Earner will generate returns using the stablecoin USDC and DeFi lending and borrowing protocols Aave and Compound.
No Lock-Ups to Contend With
Holders of a Block Earner Yield Account can choose between the aforementioned return rates, which are USD-based yield on funds deposited. Through the entire life of the holder’s account, users will have constant access to both their capital and yield, meaning they can withdraw at any time with no lock-up period to contend with.
Fantom-based DEUS Finance has suffered a flash loan exploit when hackers made off with an estimated US$3 million and washed it through Tornado Cash. Luckily, affected DEI holders will be reimbursed.
Hackers Use Flash Loan Attack
According to a tweet from blockchain security firm PeckShield, hackers used a flash loan attack to destabilise the DEI, the other token issued by DEUS Finance:
1/ @deusdao Deus Finance was exploited in https://t.co/bfYCQcz5rZ, leading to the gain of ~$3M for the hacker (The protocol loss may be larger), including 200,000 DAI and 1101.8 ETH
Hackers set the flash loan to target the price oracle responsible for the price of DEI, making it think the DEI had collapsed. This resulted in a loss of all funds that were held in the DEI/USDC liquidity pool.
An estimated US$3 million was stolen and exchanged for 200,000 DAI and 1101.8 ETH, and moved via the Multichain cross-chain router protocol (CRP). The hacker moved the funds to Tornado Cash, a privacy-centric swapping tool, to help make the funds disappear (or at least make them much harder to track).
Deus Finance admitted the flaw in its lending process and stated that its $DEI lending contract had been closed. The DEUS token fell nearly 40 per cent following reports of the hack, but it seemed to have recovered somewhat by the time of writing.
Community to be Fully Recompensed
According to the postmortem on its official medium, Deus Protocol CEO Lafayette Tabor reassured users they would be completely reimbursed:
To make things clear: NO USER FUNDS are LOST. We will make everyone whole again – anyone affected by the exploit will be reimbursed completely. This means that the sAMM inside the borrowing contract will be replenished and the balances of users that got affected will be restored to the value they had prior to the exploit.
Lafayette Tabor, CEO, Deus Protocol
After also taking to Twitter to inform the community about the reimbursement plan, Tabor stated that the developers would create a new contract where affected users would be able to repay their loans:
Pure hero. Hopefully this does not ruin you or the project 🙏
DEUS community members were elated to hear about the reimbursement scheme, since it’s very rare for compromised protocols to recompense their community.
