May 24, 2019
BINANCE: Universal 2nd Factor addition, 14 Tips to Enhance Security for Your Account, ‘Harmony’ as Next Project and Strategic Partnership with Chiliz
Biweekly update 8th May- 22d May
During the last two weeks Binance community illustrated high social activity in the media landscape. To start with, Binance team shared some updates on the security incident. Significant changes to the API, 2FA, and withdrawal validation areas which was an area exploited by hackers during this incident were made. Secondly, security is the number one priority at Binance and 14 tips will help you to protect your Binance account. Last but not least, Binance Launchpad announced support for its fifth project of the year, Harmony, a fully scalable and secure blockchain. Harmony helps businesses tokenize their assets and incentivize user engagement. Harmony also creates an open economy for data sharing. Finally, Chiliz, the digital currency for sports and entertainment platforms, has announced a strategic partnership with Binance Chain. To present this partnership, Binance will join Chiliz for a meetup in Seoul, South Korea on 27th May and in Singapore on 28th May. More to follow!
Development Ecosystem
An update from @cz_binance, sharing current progress, significant changes going forward and the addition of Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) support, such as @Yubico, security key, offering strong two factor authentication.
In Progress
> Coding Competition
This competition is very well-received and many solutions were submitted on the forum!
> Bounty Program
Binance is offering a bounty of up to $10,000 USD in BNB for each vulnerability found by researchers on *.binance.org (website), *-dex.binance.org (API) and Binance Chain. Please submit reports at: https://bugcrowd.com/binance.
Rewards will be evaluated based on the level of security impact on reported vulnerabilities. Please read the Binance Chain Bug Bounty Program for details, documentation and vulnerability classifications, before submitting a report.
Highlights
BUIDLing
> Binance Chain
Two software upgrades took place at the testnet of Binance Chain, while many changes were introduced.
- Key Features in the latest version
- Added length limit of proposal title and description
- Added checks for list proposal
- Expanded the limit on token names to 32 bytes
- Limited the token symbol to at least 3 characters
- Release of SDK in different languages:SDK solution available in popular languages:Golang, Java, JavaScript,C++
- Release of binaries of Binance chain node and client for different platforms:https://github.com/binance-chain/node-binary
- Documents:Get to know more about how DEX works here:
Home — Binance Chain Docs
> Wallet Development
New features for web wallet:
- WalletConnect: The Binance Chain Web Wallet supports connecting with external wallet providers via the WalletConnect protocol.
- Mobile Version: Add trading page, open order page, and history page, optimizations
- Ledger: Added HD address select on unlocking and extra security checks.
- Increase price input precision
- Simplify Transfer for each token
- Keystore file can be regenerated from mneumonic words/private key
- Fee history page
> Dex Explorer
New Features:
- Displaying total holder address count
- Optimized page-turning display
- Improved user experience of ‘Cancel Order’
> Community
- Open source tools from community members
- Volatility Calculation Tool: Volatility Checking Tool
- Transaction Bot: Bots used for trading competition
- Python SDKs:
- https://github.com/sammchardy/python-binance-chain
- https://github.com/Demon-Hunter/BinanceChain-py
- https://github.com/kobej1/binance-chain-python
- Swift SDK: https://github.com/mh7821/SwiftBinanceChain
- C# SDK: https://github.com/mitjag/csharp-sdk
- Binance Dex Competition in the media: OCRYBIT on BINANCE DEX ($OCB)| ツイートに自動エアドロップ
- Trust Wallet has released support for four new blockchains: Viacoin, Qtum, Ontology, and Groestlcoin. Click here for more details.
Social encounters
1. Always use Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), preferably Google Authenticator.
2. Check the list of devices that have been authorized to access your Binance account.
3. Use a strong password for your Binance account and change it regularly.
4. Allow withdrawals only to addresses you trust and check the whitelist regularly.
5. If possible, complete Level 2 Verification for your Binance account.
6. Consider managing some funds in your own wallet (e.g. Trust Wallet)
7. Take the necessary steps to secure your account when using API.
The next seven steps go beyond your Binance account and tackle general security procedures. Take these steps as well.
8. Make sure that your Internet connection is secure.
9. Install antivirus software and trust only secure apps/programs.
10. Put a lock on your phone.
11. Use a secure password manager.
12. As much as possible, use unique emails for each of your accounts, including your Binance account.
13. Invest in Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) authenticators.
14. Identify and avoid phishing attempts.
The article covers the interview with He Yi, co-founder and CMO of Binance.
Bitcoin bull and the CEO of digital assets merchant bank Galaxy Digital, Michael Novogratz, has warned that the hacking suffered by the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance could invite more investor scrutiny. In Novogratz’s view, this can only be bad for the industry.
- Binance Hack Brings Back Talks of Decentralized Exchanges
- Billionaire Binance CEO Apologizes for Bitcoin Blockchain ‘Reorg’, a Dirty Word
- What is Binance Coin? An Overview of BNB and its Unique Value
- Binance Research has published three new research reports.
- How are fiat-backed stablecoins adapting their strategies to remain competitive? Binance Research takes a deep dive into the stablecoin market in a new, in-depth report — “The Evolution of Stablecoins”.
- HARMONY (ONE). Harmony is a fully scalable and secure blockchain with key innovations in state sharding and peer-to-peer networking.
- ZILLIQA (ZIL). Zilliqa is a high-throughput public blockchain platform using sharding, designed to scale financial transactions.
See also:
Wei Zhou talks with the Helen Hai, the Head of Blockchain Charity Foundation and UNIDO Goodwill Ambassador, about her role in driving industrialization in Africa, her move to Binance, and how Blockchain can shape the future of charities.
Upcoming events:
In this meetup, Ms. Athena Yu, Executive Director of Binance Charity Foundation (BCF) will talk about the impact that blockchain technology has on social good and charity, and its ability to overcome the current system’s limitations.
Ms. Athena Yu will also address the need of educating the community and the younger generations about the blockchain, and our incubation program at Binance Labs, aimed to support local blockchain projects and contribute to expand the industry ecosystem.
Date and time: Sat, May 25, 2019, 5:00 PM — 7:00 PM WAT
Location:
Civic Centre
Ozumba Mbadiwe Road, Opposite 1004
Victoria Island, Lagos 100001
Nigeria
Hear Director of @BinanceLabs, @sunflora’s thoughts about “The Changing Landscape of Crypto Investment” on May 10th.
Blockchain Charity Foundation (Binance BCF)
- How Two Ugandans Help in Making Crypto a Part of Daily Life (Part Two)
- Binance Charity Raising $200,000 Fund for Children Empowerment During Gala Dinner Hosted by Bloq
Finance
Binance announced the next project on Binance Launchpad — Harmony (ONE). The Harmony token sale will also follow a lottery format, with the recording of user BNB balances starting on May 19, 2019.
Harmony is a fast and secure blockchain with key innovations in state sharding (secure staking & resharding with decentralized randomness) and in peer-to-peer networking (optimal cross-shard routing, fast block propagation).
For more information, visit: https://harmony.one/
When you trade cryptocurrencies, there are two main ways to do it — either via exchanges or over the counter (OTC).
Exchanges (like Binance) act as a marketplace that brings in liquidity from traders from around the world. On an exchange, you’re able to see an aggregated order book (a list) of bids (where people want to buy) and offers (where people want to sell). You can see exactly how much you can buy or sell at each price, and each trade is clearly published for everyone to see. The exchange takes care of wallet management, security, KYC/AML and provides a safe and user-friendly platform for users to trade on.
In general, trading on exchanges is great as it is simple and transparent. The problem with trading on exchanges is that sometimes this transparency makes it difficult to trade huge amounts in one go without significantly moving markets.
OTC trading gives you access to a deeper liquidity pool than what is immediately available on the exchange order book. Simply put, it lets you trade in large block sizes (typically 20 BTC and above) at a reasonable price without moving the markets against you. An OTC desk would give you a single fixed price you can buy/sell your coins at.
Binance Exchange
Listing Updates
- Binance added the following trading pairs: PHB/BNB, PHB/BTC, PHB/USDC, PHB/TUSD and PHB/PAX
Roadmap
No updates
Partnerships and team members
The first @BinanceLabs Fellow is @ironbellywallet, created by Grin contributor @i1skn as the first multi-platform mobile wallet for Grin. Explore the genesis of Ironbelly in this interview and learn how you can get involved.
Chiliz, the digital currency for sports and entertainment platforms, has announced a strategic partnership with Binance Chain, a blockchain software system developed by Binance and the community, in a move that will bring global brands and household names such as Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain into the crypto space.
An Australian start-up dedicated to bringing transparency to verification of academic credentials via blockchain, and Binance, world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and developer of proprietary blockchain Binance Chain, have entered an agreement to launch TrustED on Binance Chain.
TrustED was initially poised to utilize the Ethereum blockchain for its application use case, however, with the introduction of Binance Chain, TrustED is excited to announce the agreement with Binance to offer to be one of the first start ups to utilize Binance Chain.
In addition to utilizing Binance Chain and the accommodating support to establish the TrustED application, TrustED plans to conduct a public token offering in the near future to assist with further fundraising and community building.
Raven Protocol will be launching on Binance Chain. This is a RAVEN token generation event. The token launch is happening soon.
Rumours
No updates
Social media metrics:
The charts above illustrate widespread increase in the number of indicators: Telegram, Twitter, Medium, Instagram followers and Reddit subscribers. In general, Binance experiences the gradual increase in the level of social activity.
- Twitter (Binance) — official announcement channel.
- Instagram — official channel which covers Binance team achievements, charitable work and etc. (300–800 likes per publication).
- Reddit — news about projects and blockchain, links to interviews, podcasts, upcoming events.
- Telegram — official announcements channel (20k — 40k views per publication)
The graph above shows the dynamics of changes in the number of Binance Facebook likes, Reddit subscribers and Twitter followers. The information is taken from Coingecko.com.
