Crypto && Coffee 129 – CipherTrace

Crypto && Coffee 129

Technology Recap:

BitcoinWhat is Bitcoin? The term “Bitcoin” can either refer to Bitc… More:

• John Law posted to the Lightning-Dev mailing list a description of a protocol optimized for creating channel factories. These would allow multiple users to trustlessly open multiple channels between pairs of users with only a single transaction on-chain.

• Bitcoin Core v24.0.1 is a new major release with various new features including an option to configure the node’s Replace-By-Fee (RBF) policy, new RPC calls and watch-only descriptors for Miniscript expressions.

Ethereum:

• The Ethereum Foundation releases their final roundup of 2022 with focus on Research and Development.

• The Protocol Guild is announced! This is a split contract which distributes donated application tokens over a vesting period to a self-curated list of Ethereum protocol contributors.

• Ben Edgington shares notes on the last ConsensusConsensus is a mechanism, usually used by most nodes on the … More Implementers call of 2022. The call focused on the upcoming Shanghai testnet and Capella upgrade.

• Tim Beiko published a recap of the last AllCoreDevs update for 2022. The call focused on Shanghai/Capella with a finalized scope with focus on which EIPs would be included in the upgrades. The majority of EIPs included in Shanghai are part of a single EVM Object Format (EOF).

• Nethermind publishes their v1.15.0 release which contains the merging PRs for Shanghai as well as ETH/67 support.

• Erigon releases v2.32.0 with various bug fixes and modifications to their P2P sentry to deal with peers who aggressively prune old blocks.

• Prysmatic Labs publishes their latest release, v3.2.0, which includes many improvements and substantial progress towards the upcoming Capella upgrade.

Other Chains:

• Inverse Finance shares that they will enact a more defensive approach in their liquidity operations. Supporting a more positive price auction for INV will help prepare them for entering the next crypto bull market.

• Scroll, the native zk-EVM will be performing a scheduled pre-alpha release in order to roll out some new performance enhancements that will help drive higher throughput.

• ChainSafe proposes an integration using Aztec Network to bring privacy to ENS (Ethereum Name Service).

• Skip Protocol shares the current Cosmos EVM trends over the last year.

• BNB looks to create a trustless scaling solution for BNB Smart Chain through zero-knowledge proofs.

• Nunchuk introduces the Honey Badger WalletA device, physical medium, program or service whose sole pur… More, a safe self-custody solution with inheritance planning.

• LI.FI presents their End of Year Review on the cross-chain ecosystem.

• MoonPay is now live as Uniswap’s fiat on-ramp.

• Syntropy becomes part of the Interchain as they migrate from Polkadot to Cosmos to power their vision for a decentralized Internet.

• Lido Finance shares their analytics for the middle of December as their staking deposits increased on all chains except Kusama.

• A proposal was published to deploy Aave V3 on Celo to expand their lending and green asset collateral to more users.

• Optimism shares their Year in Review!

Hacks | Vulnerabilities | Exploits:

• On December 3rd, 2022 BTC.com’s mining poolMining pools are groups of cooperating miners who agree to s… More lost ~$3M in a cyber attack which was reported to law enforcement in Shenzhen, China. The company has not released any further details.

• A new style of hack was outlined on December 22nd, 2022 which exploited OpenSea’s gasless sales feature which was used to compromise a number of NFTs.

• SlowMist released their investigation into North Korean APT’s (Advanced Persistent Threat) on December 24th, 2022 which detailed the large-scale phishing campaign on NFTNFT stands for Non-Fungible Token. Contrary to a BTC which i… More users.

• On December 25th, 2022 Rubic ExchangeA business that allows customers to trade cryptocurrencies o… More, suffered an exploit that led to the loss of ~$1.4M in user funds. The routing contracts were compromised which allowed the attacker to exploit the contract and take user’s funds when they contacted the contract for approval.

• On January 2nd, 2023 Dedaub disclosed a critical vulnerability to the Uniswap team. The vulnerability allows reentrancy to drain the user’s funds mid transaction.

Mainstream Recap:

• The Federal Reserve, FDIC, and OCC issue a joint statement on crypto-asset risks to banking organizations.

• FTX’s Gary Wang and Alameda’s Caroline Ellison plead guilty to federal charges, cooperating with prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.

• The former CEO of AAX, Liang Haoming, and the founder of AAX, Thor Chan, were arrested on December 23rd, 2022. The two are accused of fraud and misleading police.

• Wallets associated with Alameda Research, the sister company to FTX, were seen transferring funds days after CEO Sam Bankman Fried was released on a $250M bond. The funds moved on December 27th, 2022 and utilized swapping servicesGeneral services, including non-profits, forums and news sit… More to move into Bitcoin.

• More than 100 BTC connected to the defunct Canadian crypto exchange, QuadrigaCX were transferred out of cold wallets thought to be beyond anyone’s control. Some of the funds, ~69BTC were sent to Wasabi on December 17th, 2022.

• TRM Labs states that new evidence confirms ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan is accepting cryptocurrencyA cryptocurrency (or crypto currency) is a digital asset des… More donations.

• Visa publishes an article on Auto Payments for Self-Custodial Wallets.

• China launches a national digital assets exchange for NFTs and metaverse.

This Week’s Cup of Coffee:

This week, we are headed to San Francisco, CA for a cup of Owl’s Howl from Sightglass Coffee. This espresso blend yields flavors of cacao nib, stone fruit, and hints of orange peel. Perfect as a simple single shot or via drip (Chemex or V60) this well-balanced cup will definitely jump start your day! Sip up and enjoy!!