$700,000 worth of funds has been drained from BNB Chain DeFi protocol LaunchZone, with the project alleging that an attacker has carried out an exploit. Details remain scarce after more than 80% of funds in the LaunchZone liquidity pool were drained on Feb. 27. A message on the project’s official Telegram group warned users not to buy tokens until more information has been gathered: “$LZ is being hacked from DND exploiter. The team is handling the situation, please don't buy the token at this stage. Please keep calm. We will update timely (sic).” The value of LaunchZone’s native token $LZ …

The rapid downfall of FTX has hastened the shift from centralized exchanges (CEXs) to decentralized exchanges (DEXs), but selecting the right DEX is not an easy task. Besides looking for convenience and an intuitive interface, crypto traders face several challenges with DEXs that can greatly affect their trading activity. The problem is that many traders are unaware of some of these challenges because some DEXs don’t provide enough information to simplify the trading process. This leaves many crypto traders vulnerable to several DEX risks, such as: Price impact — the risk of the trade being executed at a worse price …

Blockchain bridges allow decentralized finance (DeFi) users to use the same tokens across multiple blockchains. For example, a trader can use USD Coin (USDC) on the Ethereum or Solana blockchains to interact with the decentralized applications (DApps) on those networks. While these protocols may be convenient for DeFi users, they are at risk of exploitation by malicious actors. For example, in the past year, the Wormhole bridge — a popular cross-chain crypto bridge between Solana, Ethereum, Avalanche and others — was hacked, with attackers stealing over $321 million worth of wrapped Ethereum (wETH), the largest hack in DeFi history at …

Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) have become increasingly popular in recent years due to their ability to offer users a high degree of control over their assets and a more secure trading environment than centralized exchanges. However, one major limitation of DEXs is their inability to support cross-chain and margin trading. There are multiple decentralized exchange protocols that aim to overcome this limitation by enabling DEXs to support cross-chain trading, margin trading and other features. Injective Protocol is a decentralized exchange protocol built on Cosmos, a decentralized and interoperable blockchain ecosystem. Injective Protocol enables DEXs to support cross-chain trading and margin trading, …

Avalanche (AVAX) witnessed a meteoric start to 2023, gaining 98% in 30 days, and traders are now curious about whether the rally will extend throughout February. AVAX’s year-to-date gains for 2023 have outpaced those of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). Recent reasons for AVAX’s rally can be attributed to an Amazon partnership announcement on Jan. 11. The partnership is meant to easily deploy nodes on the Avalanche blockchain with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Ava Labs, which supports the Avalanche ecosystem, hopes the partnership increases blockchain usage for enterprises and governments. While AVAX price has benefited from the news, some analysts …

In January, the brother of a former Coinbase product manager was sentenced to 10 months in prison for wire fraud conspiracy in what prosecutors called the first case of insider trading involving cryptocurrencies. In September 2022, Nikhil Wahi entered a guilty plea for executing trades based on private data obtained from his brother, Ishan Wahi, a former product manager for Coinbase. Most countries have laws against insider trading, which carry stiff penalties like jail time and heavy fines. The recent insider trading investigation against crypto exchanges by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission indicates that regulatory bodies are prepared …

Recent charges brought against Mango Markets exploiter Avraham Eisenberg will have a positive impact on the decentralized finance (DeFi) space, according to credit rating firm Moody’s. In a Jan. 31 note from Moody’s Investor Service, AVP of decentralized finance Cristiano Ventricelli stated that enforcement actions brought by the two leading U.S. market regulators in January mean that DeFi is moving towards a “safer and more welcoming environment.” “The fact that both the SEC and CFTC took action against market manipulation by an alleged rogue trader is a credit positive for the industry as a whole. Ventricelli stated that these actions …

Mango Labs, the company behind the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Mango Markets has come out with its own lawsuit against exploiter Avraham Eisenberg. The Jan. 25 filing in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York alleges Einseberg of exploiting its platform for millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies in October 2022. It asks for $47 million in damages plus interest starting from the time of the attack. It also asked the court to rescind an agreement made between Eisenberg and Mango’s related DAO and declare it to be “invalid and unenforceable.” The agreement was in …

After the collapse of major cryptocurrency exchange FTX in November 2022, former CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried was arrested by Bahaman authorities on Dec. 12. Just a day later, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed charges against him for allegedly defrauding investors and violating securities laws. On Dec. 22, Bankman-Fried was granted bail on a $250 million bond paid by his parents against the equity in their house. The bail order added that he would require “strict pretrial supervision,” including mental health treatment and evaluation. The former CEO faces eight criminal counts in the …

Just a month after warning of a "significant deficit" in its treasury, the CEO of decentralized exchange (DEX) SushiSwap has shared several planned updates to the platform which it says is intended to "10x" its market share in 2023. Sushi CEO Jared Grey laid out the plans for the decentralized finance (DeFi) platform in a Jan. 16 Medium post saying it will focus on its product stack in line with prior plans to make Sushi more sustainable. "Sushi commands ~2% of the AMM market & 0% of the aggregation market. By executing our vision, we intend to 10x our market …

Digital assets will largely decouple from traditional equity markets in 2023, says Chief Investment Officer at Arca, Jeff Dorman. Discussing his outlook for 2023 in a recent interview with Cointelegraph, Dorman argues that as the global economy enters a recession this year, equities will be negatively affected while some crypto tokens will perform well: the value of the latter, he explained, is determined not only by macroeconomic factors but also by their utility within the respective ecosystems, which would remain unaltered in a recession. “You're going to see a lot of stocks get punished under the weight of restructurings and …

Investor sentiment has always been a critical driver in the crypto space. Both positive and negative sentiment influence ongoing trends — be they price movements, product launches or regulations. In 2022, sentiment worldwide suffered as major crypto firms and ecosystems collapsed, further straining investors amid an unforgiving bear market. While many showed resilience as Terraform Labs, Celsius and Voyager, among others, closed down, Sam Bankman-Fried’s alleged misappropriation of FTX customers’ funds drove even the most die-hard crypto investors to question the integrity of those running the show. A series of scams, crashes, bankruptcy filings and court cases have forced investors …