Bitcoin Industry

Cybersecurity Firm Unciphered Hacks Popular Trezor T Crypto Wallet 💲

➡️ The breach of the popular hardware wallet was made possible by physically taking apart the device using highly specialized tools.Cracking of the hardware wallet would, in other words, only work if the attacker had physical possession of it, as well as access to advanced tools and knowledge.*➡️ *Unciphered, which specializes in recovering locked crypto in cases where for instance passphrases are lost or forgotten, said they used their own “in-house exploit” method that allowed them to extract the wallet’s firmware.

✅ This eventually enabled them to crack the necessary pin code and seed phrase, thus getting access to the funds stored on the device, the firm claimed.
Trezor T is one of the most popular crypto hardware wallets in the market today, and is made by Czech Republic-based company Satoshi Labs.🔴 As the news of the hack broke, members of the crypto community on Twitter were quick to point out that a similar hack was also carried out in 2019 by experts at the hardware wallet maker Ledger.➡️ Among those who pointed that out was Rodolfo Novak (also known as NVK), a veteran in the Bitcoin community who is also the CEO of the Bitcoin hardware wallet maker Coinkite.According to Unciphered, however, the old vulnerability has already been addressed by Trezor, and nobody else has so far hacked the updated version of the hardware wallet with its new firmware.

Korean crypto executives allegedly profited $2.3M from coin listing scandal💲

📌 According to local news outlet The JoongAng, an indictment on May 22 revealed that four individuals named Mr. Jeon, Mr. Kim, Mr. Ko and Mr. Hwang in court proceedings, all of whom were employees of South Korean crypto exchange Coinone, allegedly used illicit means to profit more than 2.98 billion Korean won ($2.26 million) during coin listings from various projects. At least 46 coins were involved in the incident lasting from November 2019 to December 2022, accounting for nearly 25% of all tokens listed on Coinone.🔔 As told by prosecutors, Coinone executives and staff members required projects to sign a market-making (MM) contract with a specific MM company through brokers before a coin’s listing. This was done to ensure sufficient liquidity in trading volume after the new coins were listed. However, the contract’s recipients allegedly operated illegally by artificially boosting trading volume and prices through cross-trading. Coinone executives also allegedly enticed projects into signing such contracts by offering to remove “listing deposits” if they did so.

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​US lawmakers target perceived risks of crypto adoption in El Salvador with reintroduced bill😊

🤪The legislation appeared to be another attempt at the Accountability for Cryptocurrency in El Salvador Act, originally introduced after the country’s Bitcoin Law was enacted.

🧐Two United States Senators from opposite sides of the political aisle have reintroduced legislation from 2022 aimed at mitigating perceived risks posed by El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin as a legal tender.

Congressional records show Idaho Senator James Risch and New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez introduced “a bill to require reports on the adoption of cryptocurrency as legal tender in El Salvador” 🌸on May 11. The legislation appeared to be a second attempt at the Accountability for Cryptocurrency in El Salvador Act, which Risch introduced in February 2022, mere months after El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law came into effect.

👉According to a May 12 report from the Washington Examiner, Risch introduced the bill as part of efforts to fight using cryptocurrency as legal tender, claiming it could “weaken economic and financial stability and empower malign actors.” Bitcoin has been accepted as legal tender in El Salvador alongside the U.S. dollar since September 2021.

If passed, the bill could require federal agencies in the United States to report on El Salvador’s cybersecurity and financial stability capabilities, and how these may have led to the passage of the country’s Bitcoin Law. The International Monetary Fund also warned the Central American ​​nation in February to consider the risk of BTC as a legal tender on the country’s financial integrity and stability.🌿

😲The previous version of the Bitcoin-focused legislation introduced in the Senate passed through a committee in April 2022. Lawmakers in the House of Representatives also introduced a companion bill, but according to congressional records, the legislation has not moved in more than a year.

​Arbitrum's DAO to receive over 3,350 ETH revenue from transaction fees👇

Proceeds come from base fees and surplus revenue generated from network transactions. The incentive follows a recent clash between Arbitrum's team and its community.

😌Ethereum layer-2 blockchain Arbitrum will distribute ETH tokens worth nearly $6.2 million to its decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), the project announced May 9 on Twitter. ARB holders must claim the rewards.

💸The funds to be collected are base fees and surplus revenue generated from network transactions. According to Arbitrum's tweet, a total of 3,352 ETH will be collected by its DAO. As internet-native organizations, DAOs are collectively owned and managed by their members. They have treasuries and make decisions through proposals voted on by the group.

Arbitrum is a popular scaling network used by many decentralized applications (dApps) and blockchain developers. All users pay a fee during transactions on Arbitrum One.

😜The cost of sending ETH on Arbitrum is currently at $0.25 and swapping tokens is $0.68 at the time of writing. Data from CryptoFees shows that Arbitrum's users paid $387,423 in fees over the past seven days.

Each fee paid on Arbitrum One is divided into two sections — L1 fee and L2 fee. According to the protocol, the L1 fee covers the cost of posting a transaction on the Ethereum network and the L2 fee covers the cost of running the network.

😌A revenue breakdown reveals around 582 ETH of surplus funds generated from the L1 fee, nearly 1,308 ETH from base fees and 1,462 ETH surplus from the L2 fee. Combined, this represents revenue of 3,352 ETH for Arbitrum's DAO.

According to the proposal discussion on Arbitrum's governance forum, the protocol will create a mechanism for revenue distribution that will be triggered periodically by a smart contract. Only delegated ARB tokens will be eligible for revenue distribution, and holders must claim their rewards.🌿

​​Hackers take over Azuki’s Twitter account, steal over $750K in less than 30 minutes.

Most of the funds stolen were from a single wallet, with $751,321.80 in USDC drained from the malicious link.

Azuki, a popular nonfungible token (NFT) project, had its Twitter account compromised on Jan. 27, leading to hackers stealing over $750,000 worth of USD Coin by posting a malicious “wallet drainer link” posing as a virtual land mint.

Hackers stole $751,321.80 in USDC from a single wallet within half an hour of the malicious links being tweeted, according to Etherscan data provided to Cointelegraph by crypto wallet security firm Wallet Guard.

The data also revealed that hackers stole a further $6,752.62 worth of USDC from various wallets holding 11 NFTs and over 3.9 Ether.

Wallet Guard stated that the total amount stolen was $758,074.42.

Emily Rose, community manager for the anime-inspired NFT project, confirmed via Twitter on Jan. 27 that the Azuki account was hacked, warning users not to click any links from Azuki’s Twitter account.

Azuki’s head of community and product manager, Dem, explained on a Twitter Space hosted by Wallet Guard on Jan. 27 that scammers were able to “post a wallet drainer link” after gaining control of Azuki's Twitter account.

Dem urged users to “stay safe and stay suspicious” while the team attempted to regain control of the account.

Several hours later Azuki stated that it had regained control of its Twitter account via a tweet:

This was confirmed by Rose and Dem retweeting the announcement.

Liz Yang, head of growth at Chiru Labs, the company behind Azuki, told Cointelegraph that the team is “currently in contact with Twitter and investigating the breach,” noting that Azuki “will provide an update once we have more information.”

Ohm Shah, the co-founder of Wallet Guard, told Cointelegraph that “it does not matter” if an account is official or verified and users should treat everything as suspicious until proven otherwise. Shah noted:

“Don’t be the first person that clicks the link. It’s better to be paranoid in Web3 than not.”

Upon Azuki regaining control of the account, it emphasized to its followers in a tweet to always “go out on several channels” to confirm announcements.

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​​Australia ranks 3rd in crypto ATM installations after US and Canada.

Australia now enjoys 234 crypto ATMs, which puts her in the third spot globally after the United States and Canada.

Despite the bear market and the record-low dynamics of new Bitcoin ATM installations around the world, Australia breaks into the top three nations globally by the number of crypto ATMs. It was only in the first days of January when the Aussies got to the fourth spot — since that time they installed 16 more machines.

According to Coinatmradar’s data, Australia now enjoys 234 crypto ATMs, which puts her in the third spot globally after the United States and Canada. In three weeks it outperformed Spain, which possesses 222 crypto ATMs.

It’s all about dynamics — Australia deployed 99 crypto ATMs, which is almost half of its total number, in only the last three months of 2022. And it doesn’t slow down. Since Jan.1, Australia has installed 16 new machines, while Spain has actually lost 4 and El Salvador, which holds the fifth global spot, hasn’t recorded a single new ATM.

Overall, Australia’s numbers, as well as Spain’s and El Salvador’s, could hardly match the enormous proportion of crypto ATMs in the U.S. The States are home to 33.387 or 86.9% of all the machines in the world. Together with Canada (2.556) at the time of writing, they hold a stunning 94.4% of all the crypto ATMs.

A year-long bear market in 2022, accompanied by geopolitical tensions and global inflation, resulted in a dramatic slowing down of the crypto ATMs installations. Only 94 Bitcoin ATMs were added between July to the end of 2022 to the global network in contrast to 4,169 ATMs during the first half of 2022.

In January 2023, the Australian city of Coolangatta got its first Bitcoin ATM with integrated Lightning Network capabilities. It works similarly to traditional crypto ATMs but saves significant time due to the layer-2 Lightning solution. And also allows for purchasing very small amounts of BTC.

​Indian Minister Says No Issue With Crypto if Laws Are Followed.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India's Minister of Information Technology, has said crypto would face no issue within the country if related laws are followed.

Speaking at an event in the southern city of Bengaluru, Chandrasekhar said there is "nothing today that outlaws crypto as long as you follow the legal process." The remarks come just days after the country's central bank advised investors to stay away from crypto.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has long maintained a harsh stance toward digital assets, arguing that the nascent asset class has no underlying value. The central bank has constantly warned investors and the government against crypto, citing volatility as well as risks of fraud and scams.

Just last week, India’s central bank governor Shaktikanta Das said cryptocurrencies don't have any intrinsic value and their perceived “value is nothing but make-believe." He said cryptos are not even worth a tulip, alluding to the well-known Dutch tulip mania blow-up in the early part of the past century.

"Every asset, every financial product has to have some underlying (value) but in the case of crypto there is no underlying… not even a tulip…and the increase in the market price of cryptos, is based on make-believe."

India, which currently holds the G20 presidency, also plans to use this opportunity to coordinate global crypto regulation. As reported, India’s federal economic affairs secretary Ajay Seth said in December last year that the G20 countries will study the implications of cryptocurrencies for the economy, monetary policy, and the banking sector in order to inform a policy consensus.

On the other hand, the country's central bank has been a supporter of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), calling them "the future of money." India started a pilot program of its digital currency in cooperation with nine banks in November last year.

It is worth noting that India’s controversial crypto tax plans, which include a 30% tax on income from cryptocurrencies as well as a 1% tax deduction at source (TDS) at the time of payment of a crypto transfer, have adversely impacted trading volumes on local cryptocurrency exchanges.

According to a research study by Esya Centre, a Delhi-based technology policy think tank, Indian crypto traders have moved over $3.8 billion in trading volume from local exchanges to international crypto platforms after the country’s controversial tax policy came into effect.