Autor Cointelegraph By Zhiyuan Sun

Circle plans to only support Ethereum PoS chain after Merge is complete

Circle plans to only support Ethereum PoS chain after Merge is complete

Uverejnil používateľ | aug 9, 2022 |

On Tuesday, Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, pledged its full support for the transition of Ethereum to a proof-of-stake, or PoS, blockchain after the much-anticipated Merge upgrade. The firm views The Merge as an important milestone in the scaling of the Ethereum ecosystem, writing:”USDC has become a core building block for Ethereum DeFi innovation. It has facilitated the adoption of L2 solutions and helped broaden the set of use cases that today rely on Ethereum’s vast suite of capabilities. We understand our responsibility for the Ethereum ecosystem and businesses, developers, and end users that depend on USDC, and we intend to do the right thing.”Currently, USDC is both the largest dollar-backed stablecoin issued on Ethereum and the largest ERC-20 asset overall, with over $45 billion in market capitalization residing in the ecosystem at the time of publication. Its reserves are audited and held at U.S. financial institutions such as BlackRock. Unlike others, Circle continued that it does expect any issues as the Ethereum blockchain begins its transition, stating:”We do not anticipate disruptions to USDC on-chain capabilities nor our fully automated issuance and redemption services. Circle’s testing environment is connected to the Goerli Ethereum testnet, and we will monitor closely as it merges with Prater in the coming days.”The company is following suit alongside an increasing number of firms that vouch to transition to Ethereum’s POS blockchain upon completing The Merge. The day prior, Chainlink said it would not support any proof-of-work forks after the upgrade. Due to the proximity of the upgrade, Ethereum layer-two solution Optimism has seen its token skyrocket by over 300% as per Merge speculation. 

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Anonymous user sends ETH from Tornado Cash to prominent figures following sanctions

Anonymous user sends ETH from Tornado Cash to prominent figures following sanctions

Uverejnil používateľ | aug 9, 2022 |

On Tuesday, one day after the U.S. Treasury sanctioned cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash for its alleged role in cryptocurrency money laundering operations, intervals of 0.1 Ether (ETH) transactions began materializing from the smart contract to prominent figures such as Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and American television host Jimmy Fallon. It is not possible to trace the source of the transactions per Tornado Cash design, and as a result, either one individual or multiple individuals or entities could be involved in the operation.Notable individuals/companies who just received funds from a government-sanctioned entity:- Jimmy Fallon- Shaquille O’Neal- PUMA- Randi Zuckerberg- Logan Paul- Brian Armstrong- Steve Aoki- Ukraine Crypto Donation- Dave Chappelle- BeepleField day for investigators. https://t.co/9HDJmppzT2— FatMan (@FatManTerra) August 9, 2022Due to sanctions, it is illegal for any U.S. persons and entities to interact with Tornado Cash’s smart contract addresses, blockchain or business-wise. Penalties for willful noncompliance can range from fines of $50,000 to $10,000,000 and 10 to 30 years imprisonment.The consistency of the transactions indicate that the sender(s) may be starting a prank as to direct law enforcement attention to the recipient individuals. However, the Treasury sanctions require “willful” engagement with the blacklisted smart contract addresses as a precondition for possible criminal proceedings. Thus, it is unlikely that the receipt of tokens from Tornado Cash on a gratuitous basis, without any prior knowledge nor engagement, can constitute a violation of the sanctions.The same day, Web3 development platforms Alchemy and Infura.io joined stablecoin issuer Circle and programming depository vault GitHub in blacklisting the sanctioned Tornado Cash addresses and barring access to its front-end application. Months prior, Tornado Cash attempted to address ongoing concerns that its platform was being used by malicious hackers to launder stolen crypto funds by disabling illicit wallets from accessing the application. However, its co-founder, Roman Semenov said at the time that the instrument only blocks access to the decentralized application, or DApp, interface and not the underlying smart contract.Months prior, Tornado Cash attempted to address ongoing concerns that its platform was being used by malicious hackers to launder stolen crypto funds by disabling illicit wallets from accessing the application. However, its co-founder, Roman Semenov said at the time that the instrument only blocks access to the decentralized application, or DApp, interface and not the underlying smart contract.

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'IBC is a serious alternative for secure cross-chain communication,' says Sunny Aggarwal of Osmosis

'IBC is a serious alternative for secure cross-chain communication,' says Sunny Aggarwal of Osmosis

Uverejnil používateľ | aug 9, 2022 |

On August 2, the Nomad token bridge became yet another victim of cross-chain hacking after the protocol suffered a $190 million exploit. Joining a list of casualties alongside Axie Infinity’s Ronin Bridge and Solana’s Wormhole, many industry experts have cast doubt on the future of cross-chain technologies. However, not all cross-chain toolkits have thus far been exploited. Regarding this matter, Cointelegraph spoke with Osmosis’ co-founder Sunny Aggarwal. Osmosis is one of the most popular decentralized exchanges, or DEXs, on the Cosmos hub with $120 million in total value locked. Here’s what Aggarwal had to say regarding Cosmos’ namesake inter-blockchain communications protocol (IBC):”The major bridge hacks are a reminder to victims that bridges are, in fact, too brittle to be allowed to custody significant amounts of capital at this stage in their lifecycle. High profile bridge hacks cast a light on IBC as being the most viable solution for cross-chain bridging as this understanding acts as an opportunity for the rest of the EVM-based ecosystems to look at IBC as a serious alternative to do cross-chain communication.”Currently, there are nearly fifty blockchains using IBC to conduct 10 million+ transactions daily, across and ecosystem with $1 billion+ in assets under management, in spite of the market downturn. “The fully trustless nature of the system is what makes it [IBC] work so well,” said Aggarwal.The DeFi architect then pointed to a recent example illustrating the resilience of IBC: “A huge test to the Osmosis DEX occurred when Terra Luna collapsed. The majority of our namesake OSMO tokens that was staked resided in LUNA/OSMO and UST/OSMO pools. In order to prevent a malicious actor from minting infinite LUNA and draining the pools of OSMO stake, Osmosis governance implemented a trading halt on the Osmosis-Terra IBC channels.”According to Aggarwal, IBC’s capacity to distribute points of failure through inter-chain sovereignty is precisely what keeps it “the safest bridging protocol in existence.” Year to date, over $2 billion worth of funds have been stolen from cross-chain protocols, accounting for 69% of all crypto stolen in the period.

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Alchemy and Infura block access to Tornado Cash as Vitalik Buterin weighs in on debate

Alchemy and Infura block access to Tornado Cash as Vitalik Buterin weighs in on debate

Uverejnil používateľ | aug 9, 2022 |

According to Twitter user @0xdev0, on Monday, Web3 development platform Alchemy and Infura.io blocked remote procedure call (RPC) requests to cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, preventing users from accessing the applications. The day prior, the U.S. Treasury placed 44 smart contract addresses linked to Tornado Cash in the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) list. U.S. persons and entities are prohibited from blockchain or business interactions with Tornado Cash under t sanctions, with the possibility of criminal liabilities for violations.The move came after the U.S. Treasury alleged individuals and groups had used the privacy protocol to launder more than $7 billion worth of crypto since 2019, including the $455 million stolen by the North Korea-affiliated Lazarus Group. Almost immediately after the announcement, stablecoin issuer Circle froze USD Coin funds held within Tornado Cash’s smart contracts. Meanwhile, programming repository GitHub took down the project’s main page and blocked developer access.Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, claimed that he used Tornado Cash to donate to Ukraine. The intent, as told by Buterin, was to protect the financial privacy of the recipients so that their enemy, the Russian government, would not have full details of the transaction.I’ll out myself as someone who has used TC to donate to this exact cause.— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) August 9, 2022Others have also pointed out the mixer’s privacy applications, such as for an individual getting paid in crypto who doesn’t want an employer to see their financial details, or paying for a service in crypto who doesn’t want the service provider to see the past transactions from their wallet. On the other hand, the tool has, in part, acted as a hotspot for enabling anonymous hackers to launder stolen funds from protocol exploits particularly cross-chain bridges. More than $2 billion worth of funds has been stolen from such applications year to date.

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Trend Micro calls out vulnerabilities in metaverse security development

Trend Micro calls out vulnerabilities in metaverse security development

Uverejnil používateľ | aug 8, 2022 |

In a new report published by American-Japanese cybersecurity company Trend Micro, the firm says that the metaverse possesses increasing vulnerabilities that could materialize within the next three to five years.As told by Trend Micro, the top threats to the realm, mainly from a regulatory standpoint, include NFT security concerns, the development of a “Darkverse” similar to the dark web, financial fraud, privacy concerns, physical threats, AR threats, social engineering, and traditional IT attacks.With regards to NFTs, Trend Micro specifically wrote:”NFT ownership is verified using blockchains, which are susceptible to blockchain hijacking attacks. NFTs that rely on smaller blockchains could be vulnerable to a Sybil attack, where the attacker gains control of more than 50% of the peer nodes that verify transactions and thus can manipulate NFT ownership verification. Finally, a metaverse space may not honor the ownership asserted in the NFT as there is no legal reason to do so.”The firm also believes that criminal groups could be drawn to the metaverse world due to the huge volume of e-commerce transactions. “In the metaverse, we will likely see more pump-and-dump schemes. Malicious actors will boost the value of digital assets through fake recommendations, endorsements, and investments; and then dump the assets.” As in theory, the valuation of virtual land is highly dependent on perception and could be open to manipulation.Lastly, Trend Micro thinks that law enforcement agencies would potentially struggle in the first couple of years of metaverse development because of the high cost of intercepting digital crimes and criminals at scale. They will also have difficulty because jurisdiction is hard to establish. The time required to build metaverse expertise would also mean that such class of crimes could go largely unpoliced in the initial years.”If a user is defrauded or robbed, then getting help, filing complaints, or filing legal actions will be very difficult. The user will also be using decentralized digital currencies, which adds to the complexity of the situation.”At its finale, the report calls for developing suitable security models in anticipation of a large inflow of investments into the industry. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, has said recently that the metaverse is an opportunity that could unlock ‘trillions of dollars’ over time. 

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