🔓Solana Ecosystem Multimillion Dollar Hack - TWJ #200

PSA: Move your funds to a hardware wallet and/or reputable CEXs asap.

Hi folks,

At this point, it seems like almost every existing crypto bridge has been exploited in one way or another. Some survived thanks to bailout, while others never really return to their former glory. I’m not going to pretend to be a shadowy super coder or a cybersecurity expert, and there are way smarter people than me that can explain the technical complexities of crypto bridges — in this write-up, I’ll simply pontificate on how bridges work, their importance, drawbacks, and present my thoughts on their future dynamics as crypto asset matures.

On Crypto Bridges

Here are the quick takeaways:

• TVL locked across crypto bridges amount to more than $20 billion.

• $1.8 billion+ were exploited across 5 crypto bridges in the past year.

• Vitalik’s vision of a multi-chain future instead of a cross-chain one will most likely be right.

• Bailouts for crypto bridges set a bad precedent for the industry.

• Institutional investors will most likely favor trusted rather than trustless crypto bridges.

In today’s issue:

The crypto market is flat with its total market cap above ~$1.1 trillion. LidoDAO (LDO) has been the best performer in the top 100 in the past 7-d. The market is bracing for volatility as Pelosi visits Taiwan despite China’s warning.

In other news, Solana exploits are ongoing as devs investigate the source, MicroStrategy reports a $918M impairment charge in Q2 2022, and Magic Eden expands to Ethereum.

We’re continually improving our content, please reach out if you have ideas or want us to recap another market segment.

- Curated by Marco Manoppo (@manoppomarco)

📰Market News

⎆Solana Exploits Are Ongoing as Devs Investigate the Source

There is an ongoing Solana wallet exploit with over 8,000 hot wallets compromised thus far. The source of the attack remains unknown and developers are working to uncover the cause of the large-scale incident. Many people speculated that this is a supply chain layer attack and not a problem of the underlying blockchain.

foobar @0xfoobar

🚨 Widespread Solana private key compromise 🚨 - attacker is stealing both native tokens (SOL) and SPL tokens (USDC) - affecting wallets that have been inactive for >6 months - both Phantom & Slope wallets reportedly drained

⎆MicroStrategy Reports a $918M Impairment Charge

The Michael Saylor-led firm reported a non-cash digital asset impairment charge of $918M on its BTC holdings in Q2 2022. The firm also announced that Saylor will step down as CEO while remaining as chairman of the board. Phuong Le, the firm’s president, will replace Saylor’s CEO position.

Sisyphus @0xSisyphus

Michael Saylor has about 16% (ish) economic ownership of Microstrategy, but 68% voting ownership due to a 2-share class structure; his Class B shares have 10x more voting power Even if he isnt CEO, he still controls vote-based outcomes

⎆Magic Eden Expands to Ethereum

Solana’s top NFT marketplace Magic Eden has expanded to support Ethereum-based NFTs. The firm us preparing a “cross-currency trading product” that enable users to purchase Ethereum NFTs with SOL and vice-versa.

Magic Ethen 🪄 @MagicEden

Magic Ethen.

👨🏻‍💻Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

• Ethereum Name Service Domain Registrations Hit All-Time High

• Ethereum Developers Address Potential Glitch Ahead of the Merge

• Sygnum Bank Expands Staking to Cardano

• Aave Devs Propose Freezing Fantom Integration

• Moonbeam Network Gone into Maintenance Mode

• Reserver Protocol Introduces Reserve Institutional

• Hubble’s Peg Stability Module is Officially Live

• Band Protocol will Cease Price Feeds Support on Cream

• Empiric Network Partnership with StarkWare 

• Waves Community Backs DeFi Revival Plan for Vires.Finance

• Wirex Partners with 1inch to Enable Wallet-based Token Swaps

🏛Governance - Active Proposals

• Compound - Enable Sending ETH from Timelock (Revised)

🦮NFT & Metaverse

• OpenSea NFT Gifting Feature Raises Concerns About Mislabeled Transactions

• Magic Eden Expands NFT Marketplace to Ethereum

• Pearson Wants NFTs to Track Secondary Sales

• Crypto Users Spent $2.7B Minting NFTs in First Galf of 2022

• Google AI Turns All 10,000 BAYC NFTs into Machine-made Art

Top Sales (Last 24-h); Source: https://dappradar.com/nft

📈Deal Flow & Capital Raise

• Bits Crypto - $1.2M Pre-seed Round

• MarqVision - $20M Series A

• Dove Metrics - Undisclosed $ of Acquisition by Messari

⚖️Regulatory Update

• Robinhood Crypto Slapped With $30M Fine by New York Regulators

• Luno Wins Regulator Registration in France

• Bitcoin, Stablecoins the Worst Options for Cross-Border Payments, ECB Study Says

📚Noteworthy Reads

• Macbrennan’s Thread on Ethereum Losing Its Builders

• Marc Zeller’s Thread on ETHPoW

• Satwassie’s Read on What is Value and Alpha?

Feel free to reach out to manoppomarco@gmail.com — feedbacks and constructive criticisms are much appreciated.