8 years of Ethereum
In July 2015, Vitalik Buterin and his team launched the Ethereum blockchain. With its own Ether (ETH) currency and smart contract function, Ethereum aimed to become a decentralized computer. After 8 years, Ethereum has grown to become the second largest cryptocurrency asset in existence, with a market capitalization of $220 billion. The project has established itself as the leading smart contract platform, creating a new wave of decentralized applications for finance, gaming, collecting and more.
55,022 BTC on Tether address
A blockchain researcher recently released an analysis and suggested that the top stablecoin issuer Tether could be the owner of the 11th largest Bitcoin address. Tether's BTC balance has increased significantly, with another $176 million added since the previous quarter, bringing its estimated holdings to approximately 55,022 BTC. In the previous quarter, Tether's balance fluctuated around $1.5 billion, which equates to approximately 53,490 BTC.
An analyst has discovered a Bitcoin address whose balance matches Tether's quarterly balances. The BTC balance of the address has steadily grown every quarter, and at the end of March it accumulated 53,490 BTC, and at the end of June - 55,020 BTC. Earlier this year, Tether announced plans to use 15% of its realized net income to invest in Bitcoin.
The hacker who hacked Curve returned some of the funds
On July 30, a hacker, using a vulnerability in the Vyper compiler, was able to hack the liquidity pools of the Curve Finance decentralized exchange. As a result, more than $50 million was stolen. The hacker returned 4820 alETH to Alchemix Finance. Alchemix Finance is a credit-based DeFi protocol that uses Curve pools. The first transaction was for 1 alETH, the next one for alETH ($1.7 million), and a few minutes later another 3,819 alETH worth $6.7 million was sent. As a result, the total amount of returned funds amounted to about $12.7 million. In one of the transactions, the hacker left a message stating that he did not want to ruin the project and that he was smarter than everyone else.
Banks plan to use Ripple technology
In a new report, Bank of America acknowledged the role of Ripple Labs in improving the way payments are made in Asia Pacific (APAC). The report points out how the blockchain technology that Ripple uses can improve trading and payments. Bank of America understands that technology can make payments easier in real time. APIs or tools that allow different programs to work together are the key to this. Ripple has partnered with many important financial institutions around the world such as SBI Holdings and American Express. But his relationship with Bank of America was a big topic of discussion.
Litecoin halving has taken place
On August 2, the Litecoin halving took place. Block reward decreased from 12.5 LTC to 6.25 LTC. Halving in crypto refers to an event in which the reward to miners for blocking the verification of transactions on the blockchain is halved. In fact, this is a procedure after which the miner begins to receive 50% less coins for each mined block. This mechanism was put in place to control the inflation rate of crypto assets and create a scarcity that can increase its value over time.
As the block reward decreases, it becomes harder and more expensive to mine new coins, resulting in a reduction in the supply of new coins being brought to the market. This is a very important process for various crypto assets such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash.
Hardfork planned for BSC network
BSC has announced a planned hard fork. This will be an important event for the network, there will be 2 updates at once: Plato is scheduled for block 30,720,096 (around August 10) and Hertz will take place at block 31,302,048 (around August 30). Until August 10, all validators must update the software to version v1.2.9. The Hertz hard fork will move some London and Berlin upgrades from Ethereum to BSC for compatibility.
Attackers using Zero Transfer Phishing stole $20 million USDT
Recently, more and more hackers have resorted to the Zero Transfer Phishing method. The essence of the method is that transactions are sent to the addresses of the victims, the address of which matches the first and last characters of the real address. To avoid becoming a victim of such fraud, it is recommended not to copy addresses from the transaction history. To create false addresses, hackers use smart contracts. The other day, due to inattention, a user lost $20 million USDT by copying a phishing address from the transaction history. After 50 minutes, Tether froze the coins.
