Binance representatives participated in a hearing of the Philippine Senate Banking Committee, according to a report in the local press Wednesday. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas deputy governor Chuchi Fonacier, the country’s Security Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Emilio Aquino, and members of FinTech Alliance Philippines and the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority also took part in that hearing. The hearing was devoted to fintech innovation and consumer protection, according to the report. Fonacier discussed a sandbox approach to regulation, and Aquino talked about digital asset security. Binance was represented by APAC director Leon Foong and Philippines general manager Kenneth Stern, who told …

One user has filed a class-action lawsuit against crypto exchange Coinbase on behalf of account and wallet holders “who have had their accounts breached and incurred losses arising from the unauthorized transfer of assets.” In an Aug. 15 filing in U.S. district court for the Northern District of Georgia, plaintiff George Kattula requested a jury trial against Coinbase, claiming the crypto exchange did not employ practices aimed at keeping users’ accounts secure, and had “improperly and unreasonably” locked clients out of their accounts during periods of peak volatility in the crypto market. In addition, Kattula alleged that Coinbase should be …

The rise of crypto hacks over 2022 has skyrocketed demand for blockchain security experts, with some auditors making upwards of $430,000 per year. Speaking with Cointelegraph, blockchain recruitment firm CryptoRecruit founder Neil Dundon said that while security audit services have long been in demand, the rise of decentralized-finance (DeFi) protocols has opened up opportunities for auditors to review potentially vulnerable smart contracts: “There’s always been a demand for security auditors [...] But since DeFi apps have been out there, there has been quite a big increase in demand for security audits across the space because one small vulnerability in the …

Lawyers representing Nathaniel Chastain, the former OpenSea product manager accused of insider trading, have claimed United States authorities only filed charges in an attempt to set legal precedent that nonfungible tokens are securities. In a Friday filing with the Southern District of New York court, Chastain’s legal team from Greenberg Traurig filed a motion to dismiss the indictment against him, which included allegations of wire fraud and money laundering related to an NFT insider trading scheme from June to September 2021. The lawyers argued that the charges against the former OpenSea employee were invalid in part “because the NFTs at …

The Ethereum ecosystem continues to witness a flurry of activity that has individuals and organizations deploying token contracts, adding liquidity to pools and deploying smart contracts to support a wide range of business models. While notable, this growth has also been riddled with security exploits, leaving decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols vulnerable to hacks and scams. For instance, recent findings from crypto intelligence firm Chainalysis show that crypto-related hacks have increased by 58.3% from the beginning of the year through July 2022. The report further notes that $1.9 billion has been lost to hacks during this timeframe — a figure that …

Protecting user data and private keys is crucial as Web3 advances. Yet, the number of hacks that have occurred within the Web3 space in 2022 alone has been monumental, proving that additional security measures, along with greater forms of decentralization, are still required. As this becomes obvious, a number of organizations have started leveraging multiparty computation, or MPC, to ensure privacy and confidentiality for Web3 platforms. MPC is a cryptographic protocol that utilizes an algorithm across multiple parties. Andrew Masanto, co-founder of Nillion – a Web3 startup specializing in decentralized computation – told Cointelegraph that MPC is unique because no …

2022 has been a lucrative year for hackers preying on the nascent Web3 and decentralized finance (DeFi) spaces, with more than $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency fleeced in several high-profile hacks to date. Cross-chain protocols have been particularly hard hit, with Axie Infinity’s $650 million Ronin Bridge hack accounting for a significant portion of stolen funds this year. The pillaging continued into the second half of 2022 as cross-chain platform Nomad saw $190 million drained from wallets. The Solana ecosystem was the next target, with hackers gaining access to private keys of some 8000 wallets that resulted in $5 million …

Close to 90% of addresses taking part in the $186 million Nomad Bridge hack last week have been identified as “copycats,” making off with a total of $88 million worth of tokens on Aug. 1, a new report has revealed. In an Aug. 10 Coinbase blog, authored by Peter Kacherginsky, Coinbase's principal blockchain threat intelligence researcher, and Heidi Wilder, a senior associate of the special investigations team, the pair confirmed what many had suspected during the bridge hack on Aug. 1 — that once the initial hackers figured out how to extract funds, hundreds of “copycats” joined the party. According …

When the United States Office of Government Ethics (OGE) released its Legal Advisory 22-04 on July 5, most attention was given to its conclusion that federal employees who own any amount of cryptocurrency or stablecoins whatsoever may not participate in regulation and policymaking that concerns crypto. The legal advisory (LA) raised some eyebrows, as de minimis exemptions, threshold amounts below which assets holdings are permissible, are common in the government. The LA is more comprehensible when seen in a larger context. What they were thinking The OGE does not grant interviews, so it was fortunate that a video of OGE …

Vermont’s Department of Financial Regulation (DFR) issued a warning against troubled crypto lending firm Celsius on Tuesday, reminding users that the crypto lending firm is not licensed to offer its services in the state. The DFR alleged that Celsius is “deeply insolvent” and doesn’t possess “assets and liquidity” to fulfill its obligations toward the customers. The state regulator accused the crypto lender of mismanaging customers’ funds by allocating them toward risky and illiquid investments: “In addition to the ordinary risks of cryptocurrency investing, holders of Celsius interest accounts were also exposed to credit risk that Celsius would not be able …

As Web3 adoption goes further and more beginners enter the space, hackers are becoming more active, with more phishing attacks being recorded in the latest quarter of 2022 and social media being noted as a major platform of choice for conducting the hacks. In the quarterly report of security firm CertiK, the team has found a 170% increase in phishing attacks in the second quarter of 2022. According to the security firm, 106 attacks were recorded in the first quarter, while 290 events were noted in the next quarter. According to the blockchain security firm, most phishing attacks have been …

Solana Labs is the latest crypto company to be hit with a lawsuit accusing it of promoting an unregistered security. The class action was filed on July 1 by Roche Freedman LLP and Schneider Wallace Cottrell Konecky in the district court for the northern district of California on behalf of plaintiff Mark Young, a state resident. The lawsuit accuses Solana Labs, the Solana Foundation, Anatoly Yakovenko, Multicoin Capital Management, Kyle Samani and FalconX of selling unregistered securities tokens in the form of Solana (SOL) from March 24, 2020: “Defendants made enormous profits through the sale of SOL securities to retail …