Last week, Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum (ETH)'s co-founder, voiced his disapproval regarding the emergence of cross-chain bridges, citing security vulnerabilities due to their interdependency. In the days that followed however, developers working on cross-chain technologies largely dismissed his skepticism. In a statement to Cointelegraph, Kadan Stadelmann, chief technology officer of atomic swap blockchain Komodo, responded to Vitalik's critique: "What we ultimately need is true decentralization. For example, instead of relying on one or two trusted bridges that have a single point of failure, it would be better to work towards a future where we have numerous bridges that are secure, trustless, …

Decentralized finance, better known as DeFi, may not be “decentralized” enough as attackers exploited centralized weak points to drain users of billions of dollars in 2021, according to research from blockchain security firm CertiK. In a new report on the state of DeFi security in 2021, CertiK researchers said “centralization issues were the most common attack vector” within decentralized finance. The blockchain security firm cited 44 DeFi hacks totaling $1.3 billion in lost funds in 2021. That’s an increase of over $500 million compared with 2021. “This underscores the importance of decentralization and highlights the fact that many projects still …

Decentralized finance, or DeFi, security platform and bug bounty service ImmuneFi published an official report on Thursday which calculated the total volume of losses in the cryptocurrency markets in 2021. According to its report, the company found that losses resulting from hacks, scams and other malicious activities exceeded $10.2 billion dollars over the past year. Responsible for protecting over $100 billion worth of assets for a number of well-established DeFi protocols, including Synthetix, Chainlink, SushiSwap and PancakeSwap, among others, ImmuneFi has regularly facilitating seven-figure pay-outs to whitehat hackers and other good-willed entities for preventing protocol compromises. According to the report, …

NFT marketplace Rarible temporarily cancelled orders from OpenSea and sent a series of tweets today outlining how it plans to help combat what it called “risky sale orders” on OpenSea with a new order management tool. The tool is designed to help users differentiate between their active and inactive orders to help prevent their NFTs from being mistakenly sold even if they cancel an OpenSea order by transferring the asset to another wallet. Part of Rarible’s business model is aggregating OpenSea orders on its platform. Since late Dec. 2021, OpenSea users have noticed a bug which allows assets to remain …

NFT marketplace OpenSea has frozen 16 Bored Ape and Mutant Ape nonfungible tokens (NFT) after they were reportedly stolen yesterday from a New York art gallery operator. In total, one Clonex, seven Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and eight Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs currently valued at about 615 ETH ($2.28 million) were stolen and are now not able to be traded on OpenSea. The toddkramer.eth account, which links to the Ross+Kramer Art Gallery in New York, fired off a series of tweets detailing the 16 NFTs that were stolen from his hot wallet and pleading with OpenSea and the NFT …

What is a crypto honeypot and why is it used? Smart contracts programs across a decentralized network of nodes can be executed on modern blockchains like Ethereum. Smart contracts are becoming more popular and valuable, making them a more appealing target for attackers. Several smart contracts have been targeted by hackers in recent years. However, a new trend appears to be gaining traction; namely, attackers are no longer looking for susceptible contracts but are adopting a more proactive strategy. Instead, they aim to trick their victims into falling into traps by sending out contracts that appear to be vulnerable but …

The Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), a non-government trade association and advocacy group, has proposed to treat cryptocurrencies as securities of a special class. The trade association released a report titled “Cryptocurrencies, Crypto Tokens/Assets & Regulations: The Way Forward” where it advocates for regulating the crypto market instead of outlawing it, reported Business Line. The report highlighted substantial technological innovation that the core technology of blockchain can bring in the payment and remittance sector. The report proposes to formulate new regulations around the nascent crypto market instead of regulating them under existing securities law. “A new set of regulations appropriate …

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance newsletter. A week packed with positive advancements in the DeFi space including nine-figure fund raises, successful product launches and soaring token prices was somewhat tarnished by the news of two severe security exploits. Read on to get the full scope of developments across the week. What you’re about to read is the smaller version of this newsletter designed for brevity. For the full version of DeFi’s developments over the last week, drop your email below. Borderless Capital launches $500M fund to support Algorand ecosystem Capital venture firm Borderless Capital announced the …

Cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius has reportedly lost over $50 million in the exploit of decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol BadgerDAO. As reported by Cointelegraph on Dec. 2, the attack targeted the protocol on the Ethereum network, reaping an unconfirmed $120 million in assets. According to one Redditor, the biggest alleged victim of the hack was an address that lost 896 Wrapped Bitcoin ($51 million). The address is supposed to be owned by Celsius “since it has interacted with other addresses known to be owned by them.” The address regularly transacts with an address that has a $67 million balance, $40 million …

Global blockchain security firm CertiK has concluded an $80 million investment round backed by some of crypto’s biggest venture funds, putting the company on track to reach the lofty $1 billion valuation mark in the foreseeable future. The Series B2 investment round was led by Sequoia, a California-based venture fund, with additional participation from Tiger Global, Coatue Management and GL Ventures, CertiK announced Wednesday. In the startup world, Series B or B2 financing refers to the second round of funding for a business through either private equity or venture capital. CertiK has now raised over $140 million over the past …

The cryptocurrency space moves rapidly, so much so that every year, there’s a new trend: from initial coin offerings (ICOs) to nonfungible tokens (NFTs) only a few years have passed. In the face of such astounding innovation, crypto companies and regulators face a growing challenge: balancing security practices with new products and features. Some companies’ approach is to move fast and adopt new innovations as they become available, leaving security processes such as Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks as a secondary objective. Popular cryptocurrency exchange Binance seemingly used this strategy up until this year when regulators …

At present, your DeFi product needs to be multichain to be competitive — this is the hard (and exciting) truth of 2021. Whether you’re building a wallet, a lending service or a DeFi game, your target audience knows that there is more to the crypto space than Ethereum. And they expect you to provide the best of all worlds. It seems there will always be a debate about which blockchain makes for the best foundation for projects. Enhanced security, low transaction costs and formidable speed — there will always be a chain that offers bigger advantages. As the speculators argue …