According to a Jan. 5 report published by Chinese blockchain security firm LianAn Technology, decentralized finance, or DeFi, exploits across blockchains worldwide totaled $3.64 billion in 2022. This represented a rise of 47.4% compared to the loss of $2.44 billion in 2021. The incidents increased in quantity despite a steep 80% loss in DeFi total value locked during the year. Out of the 2022 amount, funds lost during cross-chain bridge hacks amounted to $1.89 billion across 12 incidents — the highest in the category. Overall, attacks on the Ethereum, BNB, and Solana chains accounted for the majority of exploits. Out …

According to a recent paper, Chinese researchers claimed to have discovered a novel method to break the Rivest–Shamir–Adleman 2048 bit (RSA-2048) signing algorithm present in blockchains and other security protocols. RSA is a cryptographic technique that utilizes a public key to encrypt information and a private key to decrypt them. Breaching the RSA-2048 algorithm requires, similar to other algorithms in the RSA numbers family, finding the prime factors of a number with 617 decimal digits and 2048 binary digits. Experts estimate that it would take ordinary computers 300 trillion years to break an RSA-2048 encryption key. However, Chinese researchers said …

European Central Bank (ECB) executive board member Fabio Panetta has been a vocal supporter of central bank digital currency (CBDC) and cryptocurrency sceptic, and he presented his latest argument for CBDC on Jan. 5. Writing on the official ECB blog, he said that, by developing CBDCs, central banks “will safeguard the trust on which private forms of money ultimately depend.” Panetta began his argument with a harsh appraisal of cryptocurrency in 2022. “Last year marked the unravelling of the crypto market as investors moved from the fear of missing out to the fear of not getting out,” he said. That …

Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, chair of the United States Senate Agriculture Committee, has announced that she will be leaving office in 2025. In a Jan. 5 announcement, Stabenow said she would finish the remainder of her 6-year term in the Senate, then “pass[ing] the torch” to other U.S. lawmakers. The senator was one of the lawmakers behind introducing the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act, or DCCPA — a bill aimed at establishing additional regulatory clarity for cryptocurrencies and the role the Commodity Futures Trading Commission would play in overseeing digital assets. Stabenow said she would be focusing on legislation aimed …

Many decentralized exchanges boast cross-chain capabilities, but in fact, the majority of them simply use bridging technology to perform swaps. To bring complete decentralization to crypto trading, one exchange has developed a fully cross-chain liquidity aggregation mechanic that does not rely on bridging. Find out more about cross-chain liquidity in the latest Cointelegraph interview with Chainge founder Dejun Qian. Q: What is the biggest problem facing DEXes at the moment, and why is it such a challenge? DEXs have several problems, among which the most notable are: lack of liquidity, inefficient/hazardous interoperability solutions, and user experience. The first two issues …

Bonk, a meme token modeled after Shiba Inu (SHIB) that launched on Dec. 25, 2022, and some traders believe the token’s trading volume is potentially driving Solana (SOL) price up. Over the past 48-hours, SOL price has gained to 34% and Bonk is up 117% in the past 24-hours according to data from CoinMarketCap. While the wider crypto market remains suppressed, traders are hoping that Bonk could present new opportunities during the downturn. According to the project’s website, Bonk is the first dog token on the Solana blockchain. Initially, 50% of the token supply was airdropped to Solana users with …

Celebrities had a shaky year promoting crypto firms and projects throughout 2022. Many found themselves named in lawsuits over their alleged promotion of since-failed projects, while others have been relentlessly mocked on social media for their involvement in the first place. From movie stars to television actors, sports stars to musicians, many celebrities may be regretting their endorsement deals last year, though that’s not to say that there haven’t been exceptions. Who got burned? In February last year, American comedian Larry David, who co-created the television series Seinfeld, appeared in a Super Bowl commercial for now-defunct crypto exchange FTX that …

Singapore-based decentralized finance (DeFi) services firm, Cake DeFi, has announced the release of its Proof of Reserves using the cryptographically-audited Merkle tree method. Developed by Ralph Merkle in 1979, the Merkle tree method is a way of proving that a certain piece of data is included in a set of data, without revealing the entire set of data. Under the proof of reserves method, a Merkle tree is used to prove that a cryptocurrency exchange has the reserves it claims to have, without revealing the exact amounts of each cryptocurrency that it holds, in order to protect the privacy of …

Digital assets funds saw inflows totaling $433 million during 2022, the lowest level since 2018, when inflows in the crypto industry reached $233 million, according to the cryptocurrency investment firm Coinshares. Investors' appetite for digital assets seems not to have been fully affected by the crypto winter, but otherwise encouraged investments in crypto assets in a year marked by a price decline and the collapse of many industry players. James Butterfill, researcher at CoinShares, noted in the weekly report that: "In a year where bitcoin prices fell by 63%, a clear bear market precipitated by irrational exuberance and an overly …

Gold made a strong start to the new year and is trading close to a seven-month high on expectations that the United States Federal Reserve may slow down and hike rates only by 25 basis points in its next meeting on Feb. 1. Cryptocurrency markets have also shown a mild uptick but are yet to make a decisive move higher. One of the reasons could be renewed fears regarding Digital Currency Group’s liquidity issues, which again came into focus after Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss penned an open letter to DCG CEO Barry Silbert on the alleged $900 million that Genesis …

According to a blog post published on Jan. 4, Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange MEXC announced that it would allocate $20 million to support developments on Sei Network. A layer one blockchain designed for trading, Sei Network's stated features include native order matching, frontrunning protection, smart block propagation, and 600 milisecond on-chain trade settlement. Leo Zhao, investment manager of MEXC Ventures, commented: "AMM [Automated Market Makers] was the dominant market-making method in crypto for the past 2 years. The lack of a more efficient market-making strategy is in large part because of technology restrictions like low speed and smart-contract restrictions. We believe …

The United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA) is taking measures to increase its focus on cryptocurrency crimes and combat criminals. NCA’s cyber-focused command, the National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU), is launching a dedicated cryptocurrency unit to investigate U.K. cyber incidents involving the use of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC). Called “NCCU Crypto Cell,” the crypto-focused unit will initially contain five officers dedicated to "proactive cryptocurrency remit." “This is a really exciting opportunity which involves working in a team at the forefront of protecting the U.K. from cyber crime,” NCA infrastructure investigations director Chris Lewis-Evans told Cointelegraph. He added: “Cryptocurrency and virtual …