👉 $600M Stolen in Largest DeFi Hack Ever

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TL;DR

The Dark Side Of DeFi: $600 Million Gets Stolen In Biggest Hack To Date Over Half of the World’s Top 100 Banks are Exposed to Crypto and Blockchain Moonbeam Deploys Meter Passport Bridge On Moonriver Bitcoin Rally Weakens After Golden Cross and 4th Straight Green Week Altcoin Dominance Solidifies Support Above Descending Wedge Events on the Horizon: Token2049 Europe

MACRO NEWS

The Dark Side Of DeFi: $600 Million Gets Stolen In Biggest Hack To Date

The world of decentralized finance is one that is filled with numerous benefits. Whether it be through the implementation of blockchain technologies to better our world or simply becoming rich beyond our wildest dreams via trading with cryptocurrencies, DeFi has something for everyone. However, it has also attracted a number of unsavory individuals who seem hell-bent on exploiting the thriving industry for their own personal gains at the expense of everyone else. This had led to increased regulation and scrutiny from governmental officials, which had also culminated in the recentinfrastructure bill being discussed by Congress. Just this year alone, there have been far too many hacks that have occurred, with a notable one being the infamous Colonial Pipeline incidentwhich had caused shortages all over the East Coast. The 2019 hack on Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, had resulted in over $40 million being stolen and 7,000 BTC had been lost back then. Just when it looked like things could not get any worse, we have now witnessed the biggest hack in the DeFi sector thus far, with over $600 million being stolen from Poly Network, a cross-chain protocol. $600 million lost as Poly Network grows desperate It is difficult to imagine what life is like right now for Poly Network, as confidence in the DeFi protocol has been shaken to its core, and investors are unsure as to whether it would be a worthwhile investment to continue using Polygon’s services. Polygon’s native token, MATIC, had increased in price recently though, recording a spike of 25% as of the time of this writing. It is worth mentioning though that nearly all of the altcoins are currently experiencing similar increases as well. Still, the fact that Poly Network was the victim of the largest hack in history cannot be understated. It is a wake-up call for all cryptocurrencies and projects in the DeFi space to enhance security measures immediately as there is an aura of unrest and paranoia penetrating the world of decentralized finance nowadays that must be addressed. The hacker, according to the official release, siphoned assets from Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Ethereum, as well as Polygon’s network. The team had tweeted out that it is with great regret that they must inform everyone that Poly Network was indeed hacked and that the crypto-assets were transferred to different wallet addresses. Poly Network is a protocol developed by the inventor of the Chinese project known as 'Neo' that runs on Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum, and Polygon blockchains. Meanwhile, an investigation by each network determined that the hackers took about $273 million in Ethereum, $85 million in USDC from Polygon, and finally $253 million from BSC. A vast amount of tokens were thus taken, including USDT, BNB, ETHB, BTCB, BUSD, SHIB, UNI, FEI, DAI, and ETH. What caused the attack? Firstly, we need to briefly discuss the cause of the attack in order to hopefully prevent it from happening on such a massive scale again. According to Poly Network's tweet, the hacker(s) exploited a weakness within contract calls, however, the attack had not been triggered by a single keeper. Some had initially believed that this was an advanced version of theflash loan exploit technique which has crippled others in the DeFi community in the past. Additionally, the combination of cash flow and fingerprint information revealed that this was in all likelihood a long-planned, coordinated, and premeditated attack, as per a statement made by Slowmist, a China-based blockchain security company. Others believe that the hack was not based on the exploitation of smart contracts, but rather that it was a simple matter of taking advantage of the seemingly reckless and rushed design decisions taken by Poly Network. Consequences & ramifications Poly Network, unsurprisingly, is encouraging exchanges and miners to block the wallets associated with the attacker. The hacker(s) had since revealed that things could be a lot worse and that the losses could have been in the billions if such action as desired. The protocol's operators have promised to take legal action against the rogue individual(s), but nobody is sure as to whether all of the assets will be fully returned or whether a catastrophic event like this can be prevented from occurring again. Binance's Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has stated that his exchange shall do all it can to help, but that no promises can be made at this time. As per the latest developments, it is now known that the hacker(s) have indeed returned more than half the money that was stolen, however about $268 million is still currently unaccounted for.
Paolo Ardoino, Tether's CTO, revealed that the stablecoin provider has restricted $33 million in USDT tokens linked to the Poly Network incident. Moreover, Poly Network’s team issued a statement directly addressing the hacker, in which they asked the criminal(s) to actively consider the ramifications of what has happened and to return the money that had been stolen or face the consequences from law enforcement agencies. Ideally, though, the team is hopeful that a line of communication can be opened and a solution reached before more damage is done. Whatever happens now, it is abundantly clear that Poly Network is no longer safe and that using it would be a most unwise decision. Until the matter can be resolved (about which many remain increasingly pessimistic), perhaps the best course of action would be to shift crypto assets to cold wallets for now and only trade with what is needed. In such a time of uncertainty, one can never be too careful.

Over Half of the World’s Top 100 Banks are Exposed to Crypto and Blockchain

The efficiencies in a blockchain run deep and we should easily see its appeal to the traditional financial institutions and systems. "Watch what they do and ignore what they say" is the motto here because there can be no doubt the banks are investing heavily in blockchain, or have plans to, despite what they tell us. Observations illustrate that beyond the benefits of massive crypto price increases and blockchain startup business opportunities, the growing crypto industry also demonstrates great manpower efficiency gains over traditional financial systems. More for less is the equation, and that is a formula the banks know well.
Blockdata research tells us that 55 out of the top 100 banks have exposure to Crypto & Blockchain company investments, either directly or through subsidiaries. Barclays, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan being some of the top names with exposure on the list. Though the focus for many of the banks is on crypto custodial services and businesses that offer that, it is part of a greater trend of investment in the crypto & blockchain startup business sector. Blockchain startup investment volumes are already 2 x this year over 2020.
For the banks, the top points of interest in blockchain and crypto are obviously its adoption and demand acceleration, the resulting soaring profits for blockchain interested startups, & regulatory advancements. All clear signs of industry growth. Another key takeaway being noted through observation of the big crypto exchanges is that the manpower factor in producing such returns is a fraction of the traditional approach of banks. The whole formula looking very appealing to everyone in the know.
Cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies continue to reveal opportunities through efficiency & growth. Banks, like everyone else, will not ignore blockchain's obvious growth in demand, and platform improvements on yesterday's systems. The Bank's participation in crypto is guaranteed to follow the demand of their customers, helping to evolve their business models and efficiencies.

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ACQUISITIONS & FUNDING

Moonbeam Deploys Meter Passport Bridge On Moonriver

In recent news, Moonbeam has now deployed Meter Passport Bridge on Moonriver. For those who might be unaware, Moonriver is essentially a parachain (Ether-compatible) on Kusama. It primarily functions as a community-driven, experimental sister network of sorts to Moonbeam. Many developers have praised Moonriver’s design for being very user-friendly and its subsequent implementation has successfully lured in numerous decentralized applications (dApps). Meter Passport may be understood as an N-way blockchain router that enables information and assets to move straight through one blockchain to the other while simultaneously being protected by a network of decentralized relayers. It's also intended to act as a shared, safe infrastructure for several blockchains as well as multichain dApps. The aforementioned bridge shall thus link the abovementioned Moonriver parachain and Kusama with Meter, BSC (Binance Smart Chain), Ethereum (ETH), and also Polygon (MATIC). This will result in assets being permitted to flow freely between the separate networks. Meter Passport was announced to be made readily available when Moonbeam arrives on Polkadot (DOT) later on in the year. What does this mean? Meter Passport's inclusion to Moonriver provides users with key asset transit choices from a handful of the ecosystem's most active and popular chains, as well as the inherently interoperable assets on Polkadot and Kusama. Meter’s founder, Xiaohan Zhu, had claimed that the cryptocurrency industry nowadays tends to do away with the singular and often isolated local blockchain network paradigm, and is instead rapidly leaning towards an interconnected Internet model that is also heterogeneous in nature. Smart contracts must therefore be scalable throughout all blockchain borders and related limitations. In Polkadot's ecosystem, Moonbeam and Moonriver are at the heart of such landscape changes. The creator added that it is with great joy that Meter is able to help out with ensuring the smoothest cross-chain experience for the future Moonbeam and Moonriver releases. The Meter.io team, alongside Wetez, Hashquark, InfinityStones, and Protofire are among the first relayers to join Meter. When a cross-chain transaction receives a minimum of three approvals from the five relayers, it is considered complete. Meter.io is also backed by AU21 Capital, GBIC, DHVC, Pantera Capital, DTC Capital, and LD Capital. Later on, in 2021, an implementation with a larger proportion of relayers as well as a higher security threshold shall also be made available. According to Derek Yoo, the founder of Moonbeam, the major hurdles to solve in a growing multi-chain world are issues that are directly related to both connection and interoperability across blockchains. What’s next? Moonriver is in the midst of launching on Kusama, a release that will include balance transfers along with a complete EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) in approximately three weeks from now. Various dApps and certain other projects would then commence deployment on the network. In related news, Moonbeam is now under active development by PureStake and is scheduled to reach MainNet by this year’s third quarter.