Bitcoin Price: US$ 20,000.30 (+0.85%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 1,579.28 (+1.40%)
PwC Venezuela Twitter account hacked, attacker shills fake XRP giveaway
- An attacker gained access to PwC Venezuela’s Twitter account and has been actively posting cryptocurrency phishing links for the last 8 hours at the time of the writing. Considering that all the tweets posted by the hacker remain active, it is evident that PwC officials are yet to realize the compromise.
- Investors clicking on the links remain at risk of being defrauded by the hacker. If not mitigated promptly, the threat may be catastrophic, considering that PwC Veleneula’s Twitter currently boasts over 37,000 followers.
- Cointelegraph has reached out to PwC Venezuela to inform them about the hack. PwC Venezuela has not yet responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.
- The flexibility behind running Bitcoin (BTC) mining operations can be vital to solving the real-world problems that stand in the way of the energy industry, suggests Arcane research.
- One of the biggest concerns authorities raise when it comes to Bitcoin’s mainstream adoption is its energy requirements. While innovations in chipset manufacturing have helped reduce operational costs related to Bitcoin mining, a report from Arcane reveals the market’s potential to transform the energy industry.
- Owing to low cost of reacting, Bitcoin mining complements the growth of wind and solar grids, which often produce unstable and non-controllable energy. Arcane research points out that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, to date, has only allowed bitcoin miners to participate in the most advanced demand response programs.
- In addition to being flexible to grid demands, Bitcoin mining can also help solve issues related to gas flaring — the process of burning natural gas associated with oil extraction.
- Arcane highlights that by leveraging the agnosticism, modularity, and portability of Bitcoin rigs, miners can setup operations next to oil wells, reasoning that “Per $1,000 investment, a bitcoin mining system reduces emissions of 6.32 tons of CO2 equivalents per year, compared to 1.3 for wind and 0.98 for solar.”
Binance identifies KyberSwap hack suspects, involves law enforcement
- Helping investigate a $265,000 hack on decentralized crypto exchange KyberSwap, crypto exchange Binance narrowed down two suspects that seem responsible for the attack.
- On Sept. 1, Kyber Network succumbed to a frontend exploit, allowing the attacker to make away with $265,000 worth of user funds from KyberSwap. While investigations were underway, KyberSwap offered a 10% bounty — of roughly $40,000 — to the hacker as means to remediate the situation.
- Parallelly, based on an independent investigation, Binance’s security team identified two suspects that may be responsible for orchestrating the virtual heist. Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao confirmed that the intel had been sent to the Kyber team.
- Binance has also begun coordinating with law enforcement as efforts from both ends continue to corner the hackers.
- Being the biggest crypto exchange in terms of trading volume, Binance’s proactive and selfless effort to help investors from other ecosystems didn’t go unnoticed, as one of the community members pointed out:
- “Binance is now playing the role of a big brother in the crypto space. Binance has gone beyond securing its platform to securing the entire crypto ecosystem.”
Sept. 22 is the date for Cardano’s Vasil hard fork launch, 3 months after target date
- Cardano has set September 22 as the date for its Vasil mainnet upgrade, founder of the blockchain Charles Hoskinson announced on his YouTube vlog Friday. The hard fork was originally scheduled for June of this year and rescheduled twice.
- According to Cardano-associated R&D company Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), which worked on the update, three necessary critical mass indicators have been reached:
- “1. 75% of mainnet blocks being created by the final Vasil node candidate (1.35.3) 2. approximately 25 exchanges upgraded (representing 80% of ada liquidity) 3. top 10 DApps by TVL confirming they have upgraded to 1.35.3 on PreProduction and are ready for mainnet.”
- IOHK wrote that, of the top 12 crypto exchanges, MEXC and Bitrue are “ready” for the upgrade, while Binance is “nearly there” and Upbit, Coinbase, WhiteBit, BKEX and HitBTC are “in progress.”
- Developers have promised greater scalability and lower fees from the hard fork, which will incorporate the first major upgrade to the Plutus script — the programming language used for smart contracts on the Cardano blockchain. Plutus was introduced in the previous upgrade, named Alonzo, which took place in September of last year.
Snapchat’s parent company shutters Web3 division amid layoffs
- Snap Inc’s CEO Evan Speigel announced in a note on Friday that the company had made the difficult decision to reduce the size of its workforce by approximately 20%.
- The note said that this round of layoffs comes after the company experienced slow revenue growth, a slump in stock prices, and a general lag behind its financial targets. Speigel shared:
- “Our forward-looking revenue visibility remains limited, and our current year-over-year QTD revenue growth of 8% is well below what we were expecting earlier this year.”
- Snap Inc. will now undertake the task of restructuring in an attempt to ensure the company’s success in a highly competitive space where Instagram and TikTok are currently dominating. As part of its restructuring process, the company has axed its entire Web3 team. Jake Sheinman, head of Snap’s Web3 team, announced his exit from the company on Wednesday in a series of posts on Twitter stating:
- “As a result of the company restructure, decisions were made to sunset our web 3 team.”
Gaming makes up over half of blockchain industry usage, DappRadar
- New data from DappRadar suggests that gaming remains a vital organ to the blockchain industry. According to the report, the gaming sector accounts for approximately 50.51% of industry usage month-over-month (MoM), as per August numbers.
- While overall the numbers are a good indicator for the sector, it is a decrease from the previous month. Last month, the gaming sector made up approximately 57.30% of industry usage (MoM).
- The data from DappRadar comes from the daily Unique Active Wallets (UAW). According to the surveyor, there are around 847,230 gaming-related UAW active daily with nearly $698 million in transactions.
- Gaming has long been touted as a gateway to the world of Web3, blockchain, and crypto. Another recent survey from ChainPlay highlighted that of 2,428 surveyed GameFi investors, 75% said they joined the space solely on the premise of gaming.
Trust in crypto remains strong despite bear market: Bitstamp survey
- The ongoing cryptocurrency winter has had little to no impact on global trust in crypto, this was the conclusion reached new study commissioned by Bitstamp exchange.
- Despite the downward market, global trust in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) remains mostly unshakable, Bitstamp said in its latest Crypto Pulse report. The study is based on a survey conducted by an independent research firm and involves 28,000 retail and institutional investors in 23 countries, Bitstamp said.
- The survey suggests that the percentage of global retail investors who find crypto trustworthy has slightly dropped from 61% in Q1 to 65% in Q2 2022. The survey signaled a similar trend among institutional investors as 67% of respondents deemed crypto trustworthy in Q2 versus 70% in Q1.
- “Considering that in Q1 we were entering a crypto winter, these numbers are inspiring and speak in favor of the industry’s resilience,” Bitstamp analysts noted.
El Salvador Bitcoin bond delayed due to security concerns: Bitfinex CTO
- El Salvador, the Central American nation that adopted Bitcoin (BTC) as a legal tender in September last year, has delayed the launch of its billion-dollar Bitcoin bond again.
- The Bitcoin bond, also known as the Volcanic bond, or Volcanic token, was first announced in November 2021 as a way to issue tokenized bonds and raise $1 billion in return from investors. The fundraiser will then be used to build a Bitcoin City and buy more BTC.
- The bond was set to be issued in the first quarter of 2022 but was postponed to September in the wake of unfavorable market conditions and geopolitical crises. However, earlier this week, Bitfinex and Tether chief technology officer Paolo Ardoino revealed that the Bitcoin bond will be delayed again to the end of the year.
