European security startup Nym Technologies has announced a $13 million funding round coordinated by renowned crypto investor Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, and further participated by a venture capital firms Digital Currency Group, Tayssir Capital, Huobi Ventures, Hashkey and Fenbush. This third funding round represented their highest raise to date, following seed funding of $2,5 million in May 2019 and Series A raise of $6 million in July 2021 — Polychain Capital led the latter of which — according to financial data from Crunchbase. Nym Technologies is an open-source, decentralized infrastructure that aims to surpass the typical third-party privacy services offered …

As new technology becomes available to more and more end-users, our world is only becoming more interconnected. However, as the spread of such technology progresses, so does the reach of big tech. Many of these companies now hold vast amounts of personal user data — information that includes a user’s location, their activity on third-party websites and even the contents of users’ emails — this is astonishing for those in a liberal democracy where concepts of freedom and social responsibility were both built upon expectations of privacy in one’s own communications. As a result, your personal data may be subject …

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance (DeFi) newsletter. Ethereum Name Service announced a retroactive token airdrop this week to a fanfare of crypto enthusiasts. If you happen to own a .eth domain, read on to discover how you can claim your eligible tokens. What you’re about to read is the smaller version of this newsletter. For the full breakdown of DeFi’s developments over the last week, subscribe below. “The DAO space has matured,” says ENS' director of operations Domain protocol Ethereum Name Service distributed its native ENS governance token this week in an airdrop event to early …

Annual percentage yields, or APY, on crypto borrowing and lending platform Aave have surged to record levels after capital withdrawals sent the decentralized finance, or DeFi, protocol into a liquidity crunch. At the time of writing, variable APY on borrowing stablecoin Dai via Aave has surged to 24.88%, compared to approximately 6.50% the day prior. According to cryptocurrency researcher Igor Igamberdiev, blockchain personality Justin Sun was responsible for at least billions of dollars in withdrawals in the past few hours. Aave's total value locked, or TVL, fell to $14.7 billion from $17.89 billion the day prior, based on data from …

Cross-chain liquidity protocol THORChain has fully recovered from two summer exploits that compromised millions of dollars in user funds after the company announced Thursday that it had received passing grades in a new security audit. The simultaneous audits, which were carried out by cybersecurity companies Trail and Bits and Halborn, allowed THORChain to implement a five-step recovery plan. THORChain’s contributors now say the protocol is fully operational after a restart brought all the major cryptocurrency integrations and cross-chain trading features back online. In addition to the audit, THORChain announced that it has commissioned Immunefi, a leading bug bounty platform for …

DeFi security platform Immunefi has announced a $5.5 million funding from a panoply of eleven institutional investors including Blueprint Forest, Electric Capital, Framework Ventures and Bitscale Capital, in addition to a series of private individuals. Immunefi will utilize the funds to advance its services in DeFi security, providing asset protection to smart contract protocols, as well as implementing financial incentives to benevolent hackers. The service is reportedly responsible for protecting more than $50 billion in protocol assets from projects such as Synthetix, Chainlink, SushiSwap and PancakeSwap. It has paid out $7.5 million in bug bounties throughout its history. According to …

The majority of blockchain applications are still yet to be widely used in everyday life, despite the technology's ability to provide advanced safety and privacy through encryption. For this reason, adoption of the technology is often placed at a standstill due to the inability of everyday users to see blockchain benefits as more than what cryptocurrencies provide. Across all industries, information security is becoming an essential consideration, as more and more applications are enabled to help people exchange personal and financial information. Many users have begun raising the question, "Is my data secure?" The blockchain has already proven that data …

Caroline Crenshaw, a commissioner at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, has said the “safe harbor” proposal would have exacerbated the problems seen during the initial coin offering (ICO) boom of 2017 and 2018. Crenshaw made the remarks during the annual “SEC Speaks” event this month and posted her speech to the SEC website on Tuesday. The commissioner argues that the impact on investors and markets would have been far greater if safe harbor provisions were in place at the time: “I think the results would have been even worse for investors and the markets. ICOs and other digital …

XRP has a good chance of hitting $1.50 in the fourth quarter of 2021 after painting a bullish crossover between its 20-day and 50-day exponential moving averages (EMA). The so-called golden cross has appeared multiple times on XRP charts in history. Its last occurrence was on Aug. 10, which followed up with an 80% price rally later, with XRP topping out seasonally at $1.43 before pulling back to the downside. Similarly, a close of XRP’s 20-day EMA above 50-day EMA on Feb. 4, coincided with an approximately 400% price rally afterward. In doing so, XRP reached a year-to-date high of …

Oxen is a privacy-focused platform built on top of a proof-of-stake (PoS) network. It has also built a secure and anonymous messaging platform Session. The company’s chief technical officer Kee Jefferys talked to Cointelegraph about its platform, its technology and how important privacy and data protection are for the end-user. 1. Hello! Tell us about Oxen and Session. OXEN is a private, stakeable cryptocurrency. The Oxen coin (OXEN) has brought a lot of innovation to the CryptoNote space (CN), including instant transactions and a large-scale PoS system. However, the real magic is the service node network. It’s powering a whole …

Lossless, a decentralized finance (DeFi) security outfit, has assisted in the recovery of 5,152.6 Ether (ETH) siphoned during the Cream Finance exploit that occurred in August. Tweeting on Monday, Lossless identified white hat security expert Pascal Caversaccio as being pivotal to the successful recovery of the siphoned funds. As previously reported by Cointelegraph, DeFi lending protocol, Cream Finance suffered a flash loan attack to the tune of $19 million in ETH and Amp tokens back in August. Following the exploit, Cream stated that it would repay the siphoned funds via fees collected on the protocol to compensate affected users. Detailing …

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has reportedly suffered another security breach after attackers were able to bypass the company’s multi-factor authentication, or MFA, feature in a coordinated campaign earlier this year. The attackers stole cryptocurrency from 6,000 accounts, though the monetary value of the theft wasn’t disclosed, according to a report from Bleeping Computer. Earlier this week, Coinbase reportedly notified affected customers that the theft occurred between March and May. To gain access to the accounts, the attackers must have known the affected users’ email address, password and phone number. It’s not clear how the attackers obtained this information, though phishing scams …