Crypto Conquistador 8.2.22
$500m L1 exploit smacks the cryptoverse!
Issue# 52
The crypto market is a wild, wondrous and intimidating place but you’ll never have to trek alone!
Overview
- Solana wallet exploit.
- Michael Saylor steps down.
- Markets pause amidst Taiwan tensions.
- dYdX introduces free trading.
- Magic Eden is adding Ethereum NFTs.
Good morning Fam,
You won’t believe who’s stepping down as CEO to focus on Bitcoin accumulation. None other than Micheal Saylor! Read the whole scoop in the news section below.
But not all is well in the cryptoverse today.
Sigh.
Another major exploit is taking place. This time the target is Solana-based wallets. Let’s dive directly into it.
Solana Wallet Hack
More than 8000 Solana wallets with $580m have been mysteriously exploited.
The common thread: 4 addresses have received the stolen funds. Very little else is known of the incident.
The Phantom wallet team has stated it’s working closely with teams to get to the bottom. There has been a lot of misinformation surrounding the incident since its emergence, but the exploit seems to be draining SOL tokens from affected wallets.
Adam Cochran digs deeper in the following thread:
Market update 🌍
Tensions rise; markets pause.
Despite receiving inconspicuous threats from the Chinese government, Nancy Pelosi has flown into Taiwan, marking the first time a high-ranking US official has entered the country in 25 years. Her arrival escalated tensions in the region, and the Chinese military reacted by running live-fire drills near the border of the disputed territory. Markets responded by pausing recent bullish action.
BTC/USD
The crypto market followed the lead of the stock market with mild price action, mainly to the downside. BTC continues to slowly fall towards the 21.7k support level after six days of similar activity. BTC completed the daily candle down -1.16% to $22,896.
High-resolution chart
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Newswatch 📰
Michael Saylor steps down as CEO. The Microstrategy CEO, Michael Saylor, has stepped down to take a lesser role in the company. Why? To focus on accumulating more Bitcoin! During the Q2 earnings call, the company noted its impairment loss of $917.8m during the second quarter about its Bitcoin holdings. The former company CEO said, “volatility means Bitcoin is more interesting, and so Microstrategy is more interesting.”
Recession avoidance. Federal Reserve President James Bullard believes the economy can avoid a recession despite reaffirming continuing rate hikes. However, the markets believe otherwise after sending the yield curve into inversion. Bullard noted that the Fed relies on its credibility to stop inflation and that “That credibility didn’t exist in the earlier era.”
Robinhood lays off 23% of the workforce. The firm behind the free trading app is laying off 23% of its workforce regarding the crypto market winter. The move comes after laying off 9% of their employees the previous quarter. The reason? The crypto winter
News tidbits:
- Web3 Foundation celebrates 400th grant awarded.
- BitMEX’s “ETHPow vs. ETH2” report.
At the protocol level ⛓
dYdX introduces free trading. The soon-to-be Cosmos chain, perpetual exchange dYdX, introduces free trading for up to $100,000k in volume per month across all markets.
Synthetics are coming to GMX. Synthetics follow the price of any asset, and GMX will allow the decentralized trading of these assets. As a result, the volume on GMX could begin to skyrocket once the assets go live.
Protocol level tidbits:
- Moonbeam pauses to investigate a security incident.
- Introducing Aspect: The first NFT marketplace on StarkNet MainNet.
- How does L2 Scroll work?
- Uniswap bug.
NFT & metaverse update 🐵
My Five Cents….
The most important feature of any blockchain, protocol, or wallet?
Security. Security. Security.
The most important feature of an individual’s participation in crypto?
You guessed it! Security!
There’s a lot of security out of our hands, but the security of our crypto wallets is not one of them. The simplest way to protect your wallet is a ledger device.
A ledger device would have protected any custodial wallet involved in the Solana exploit.
If you don’t already own a ledger, make sure to invest in one. You can find them for less than $100. It’s one of the most critical security features for anyone participating outside of exchanges.
As the old saying goes: NOT YOUR KEYS, NOT YOUR CRYPTO.
Gabi
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Disclaimer: All opinions expressed by the publisher, writers, and chartists should not be construed as financial advice. The publisher, writers, and chartists may hold positions in the tokens and assets discussed. Readers are encouraged to do their own research.
