Bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital received initial court approval for its proposal to sell its assets to Binance.US for $1.02 billion amid a national security probe Voyager is seeking to speed up. On Jan. 10, United States Bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles allowed Voyager to enter into the asset purchase agreement and seek creditor approval, but the sale will not become final until a future court hearing, according to a Jan. 11 Reuters report. It comes as Voyager wants to expedite a review of its proposal to sell assets to Binance.US which could result in the deal being blocked or delayed. …

The business model that cryptocurrency exchanges currently use relies on ignorance and fear. It relies on their customers not knowing much about decentralized finance (DeFi) and their fear of what could happen if they get things wrong with their crypto investments. Cryptocurrencies seem like an obscure and risky investment to most, and unsurprisingly, concerns about losing assets in market crashes, losing wallets or security keys through carelessness, or being scammed by unscrupulous operators are prevalent. These concerns are reasonable considering the volatility of the market and the prevalence of sharks, crooks, bluffers and shysters who operate in the industry. In …

Arguably the most popular blockchain amongst developers building decentralized applications (dApps), the Ethereum Network is credited with introducing the Web3 community to innovations like smart contracts while maintaining robust security standards. However, in order to solve Ethereum’s scalability issue, a new type of Layer-2 (L2) blockchain was introduced that relies on the Ethereum Mainnet (Layer-1) for its security but processes transactions on separate third-party networks in order to increase throughput speeds. EVM compatibility for higher transaction speeds Importantly, developers had to ensure that these L2 blockchains were compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), a run-time environment where Ethereum’s application …

Blockchain security firm SlowMist has highlighted five common phishing techniques crypto scammers used on victims in 2022, including malicious browser bookmarks, phony sales orders and trojan malware spread on messaging app Discord. It comes after the security firm recorded a total of 303 blockchain security incidents in the year, with 31.6% of these incidents caused by phishing, rug pull or other scams, according to a Jan. 9 SlowMist blockchain security report. Malicious browser bookmarks One of the phishing strategies makes use of bookmark managers, a feature in most modern browsers. SlowMist said scammers have been exploiting these to ultimately gain …

There is no excuse for not putting a few hours of research into how to properly custody your crypto, according to lead on-chain analyst James Check. Joining the latest debate around self-custody, the analyst pushed back against the notion that managing private keys is too complicated and risky for the average crypto user. “If you have gold in your vault, if you have cash in your wallet, it's the same concept: you need to exercise a level of responsibility,” said Check in our latest Cointelegraph interview. Check argued that, while third-party custody and semi-custodial solutions such as collaborative custody may …

A secure cryptocurrency wallet is crucial for those investing in the growing cryptocurrency market. Technically, crypto wallets are pieces of software that enable users to send and receive digital currencies, like Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC). Cryptocurrency wallets are typically used to store multiple coins and tokens at once. However, most wallets only support a limited number of digital currencies. These wallets can come in the form of hardware (much like a flash drive) that can be connected to the internet as needed or digital storage (like a banking app) that can be accessed on a device. To …

It’s no secret that in 2022 the world of Web3 and decentralized finance (DeFi) experienced a slew of major exploits and attacks. From the Ronin bridge attack to the Nomad hack, the top 10 exploits alone saw over $2 billion lost. In the Beosin Global Web3 Security Report 2022, it revealed that of 167 major security incidents over the last year those rooted in DeFi were the most vulnerable. DeFi projects were attacked 113 times, which accounted for approx. 67.6% of recorded attacks. This is followed by attacks on exchanges, nonfungible token (NFT) projects, cross-chain bridges and wallets in that …

The retail industry is one of the most important sectors of the United States economy. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has left the trillion-dollar retail sector vulnerable to in-store theft. Findings from the National Retail Federation’s 2022 Retail Security Survey show that retail losses from stolen goods increased to $94.5 billion in 2021, up from $90.8 billion in 2020. Some retailers also have to lock away certain products to prevent theft, which may lead to decreased sales due to consumers’ inability to access goods. Retailers look toward blockchain to solve retail theft Given these extreme measures, many innovative retailers have started …

This year was a turbulent one for the whole crypto space. From NFTs to DeFi and exchanges, all areas of the industry felt the cold blows of crypto winter. Unfortunately, such an unfavorable climate is the perfect breeding ground for scammers to exploit distressed investors’ crypto wallets. The most recent examples of crypto scams include hackers stealing NFTs through over 500 fake phishing domains, while robocallers started targeting FTX customers in the aftermath of the exchange’s crash. Such malicious attacks have become an everyday occurrence in the space, and the crypto community is actively working on protective measures. On one …

The cryptocurrency ecosystem underwent a turbulent year in 2022. Criticism inside and outside of the crypto industry was fueled following the collapse of FTX, Celsius, Three Arrows Capital and the Terra ecosystem. A number of losses have been recorded from these events. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis released a report in December of last year, which noted that the depegging of Terra’s stablecoin, Terra USD Classic (USTC), saw weekly-realized losses peak at $20.5 billion. Findings further show that the subsequent collapse of Three Arrows Capital and Celsius in June 2022 saw weekly-realized losses reach $33 billion. While these events may have …

In a Jan. 6 tweet, Balancer warned certain liquidity providers to remove their LPs "ASAP" as there is an ongoing issue related to some of the protocol's pools. Other pools have had their fees set to zero by the balancer emergency multisig, which the team claims to have "mitigated" the issue. Not all pools could be mitigated in this way, however. Balancer listed the pools that need to be withdrawn include DOLA / bb-a-USD on Ethereum, It's MAI life and SmellsLike Spartan Spirit on Optimism, and Tenacious Dollar on Fantom. IMPORTANT: Because of a related issue, LPs of the following …

Hackers have started the year with another exploit, with several million being taken from a whale holding large amounts of decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol GMX’s native token. On Jan. 3, various community members saw suspicious movements of GMX tokens. Following this, security firms CertiK and PeckShield flagged the transactions as an exploit that drained $3.4 million worth of GMX tokens from a GMX whale. According to data analysis platform Lookonchain, the hackers took control of 82,519 GMX tokens and exchanged the assets for 2,627 Ether (ETH). Then, the attackers cross-chained the assets to the Ethereum network using Hop Protocol and …