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LastPass attacker stole password vault data, showing Web2’s limitations
LastPass users with weak master passwords may need to change the individual passwords they stored with the service.
Password management service LastPass was hacked in August 2022, and the attacker stole users’ encrypted passwords, according to a Dec. 23 statement from the company. This means that the attacker may be able to crack some website passwords of LastPass users through brute force guessing.
LastPass first disclosed the breach in August 2022 but at that time, it appeared that the attacker had only obtained source code and technical information, not any customer data. However, the company has investigated and discovered that the attacker used this technical information to attack another employee’s device, which was then used to obtain keys to customer data stored in a cloud storage system.
As a result, unencrypted customer metadata has been revealed to the attacker, including “company names, end-user names, billing addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers, and the IP addresses from which customers were accessing the LastPass service.”
In addition, some customers’ encrypted vaults were stolen. These vaults contain the website passwords that each user stores with the LastPass service. Luckily, the vaults are encrypted with a Master Password, which should prevent the attacker from being able to read them. Read More
Economic frailty could soon give Bitcoin a new role in global trade
Aggressive interest rate hikes have wrought havoc on global markets. As a consequence, more countries may embrace Bitcoin in the years ahead.
The chaos we’ve experienced in global markets this year — global geopolitical upheaval magnified by the confluence of broken supply chains, inflation and heavy national debt loads — seems to signal the beginning of a new era. All of this is within the context of the United States dollar serving as the primary global reserve currency, currently accounting for about 40% of global exports.
But monetary history tells us that multiple global reserve currencies can exist at one time. Many countries are actively seeking a reserve settlement that is insulated from global political strife. Bitcoin may fit the bill, and if it is adopted as an alternative reserve currency — even at the margins — we will see the unleashing of Bitcoin-based trade and the rise of a new geopolitical reality.
The Bitcoin network is ready for this moment. Read More
What are reflection tokens and how do they work?
Reflection tokens allow holders to earn passive returns from transaction fees by simply holding onto their assets.
Yield farming, liquidity mining, and staking have become common practices in the crypto market due to the remarkable growth the DeFi ecosystem has witnessed in recent years. These features enable users to earn interest on their crypto holdings by locking them as deposits for specific periods.
The concepts sound appealing, but there’s one big risk — the potential decline in the valuation of the locked assets. In other words, users will see losses in dollar terms if the asset’s value drops during the lock-in period.
These shortcomings have raised “reflection tokens” as a viable alternative. In theory, reflection tokenomics removes the necessity of locking tokens while offering staking-like benefits.
The projects backing the reflection tokens charge a penalty tax (calculated in percentages) on each transaction. In turn, they issue fees to all tokenholders depending on the percentage of assets they hold.
As a result, reflection tokenholders do not need to lock their assets for a certain period to earn rewards. In most cases, they earn their income almost instantly when a transaction is made, with the functions governed by a smart contract. Read More
DeGods and Y00ts NFTs are bridging off Solana: Here’s why
The migration of Solana’s top two NFT projects to Polygon and Ethereum is set for the first quarter of 2023, on an opt-in basis.
Nonfungible token (NFT) firm Dust Labs is migrating its two top-performing Solana NFT projects — DeGods and y00ts — onto Ethereum and Polygon in a bid to expand their adoption.
The news was announced on DeGods and y00ts Twitter pages on Dec. 25, with both expected to be officially bridged onto Ethereum and Polygon, respectively, in the first quarter of 2023.
DeGods and y00ts creator Rohun Vora, known by the alias Frank III, said the decision was made to “explore new opportunities” and to allow for the continued growth of the collections. The move will also see the DUST token — used to buy, sell and mint NFTs on the DeGods ecosystem — also be bridged onto Ethereum and Polygon. Read More
Markethive Leading The Way In Web 3 Social & Market Media
Web 3.0 is the next generation of the internet which people envision will be more decentralized and permissionless. One that's built on decentralized protocols, where users help with content creation and the governance of the web itself. They also have the ability to own a part of the network, so you can think of it as a Read-Write-Own Internet.
There are already several technologies that could serve as the backbone for a Web 3 world. Most point to blockchains like Elrond, Cardano, or Ethereum, for example, but other distributed technologies like IPFS can also be used to decentralize networks.
Thousands of dApps (decentralized applications) are already being built in the Web 3 environment. These often include native tokens to add value to the application to those who hold the tokens. These native crypto assets allow those who participate in the network to share in the value generated from it.
Web 3 promises a decentralized alternative where we are all users, owners, and developers. This quote from Fabric Ventures sums it up beautifully,
“Web 3.0 enables a future where distributed users and machines are able to interact with data, value, and other counterparties via a substrate of peer-to-peer networks without the need for third parties—the result: a composable human-centric & privacy-preserving computing fabric for the next wave of the web.” Read More
Kraken quits Japan for the second time, blaming a ‘weak crypto market’
The crypto exchange said it will deregister from Japan’s Financial Services Agency as a crypto asset exchange operator from Jan. 31.
Global cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has decided to pull its operations in Japan for the second time, citing a strain on its resources amid a “weak crypto market.”
In a Dec. 28 blog post, Kraken said it has decided to cease its operations in Japan and deregister from the Financial Services Agency by Jan. 31, 2023, which it said was part of efforts to “prioritize resources” and investments, stating:
“Current market conditions in Japan in combination with a weak crypto market globally mean the resources needed to further grow our business in Japan aren’t justified at this time.”
“As a result, Kraken will no longer service clients in Japan through Payward Asia,” it added.
Kraken’s Japanese-facing exchange is operated by its subsidiary Payward Asia Inc.
The same subsidiary company operated in Japan from 2014 to 2018, before pulling out in April 2018 so that it could better focus its resources on growth in “other geographical areas.” Read More
Crypto self-custody faces hurdles before widespread adoption
The recent crash of centralized crypto exchange behemoth FTX has again brought the original intent of Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto to the fore.
Opening a wallet seems easy enough, though the need to remember a set of words as a seed phrase may turn some users off. But what is particularly difficult for many laypersons to grasp are the wallet addresses that are often named in hexadecimal strings. Fortunately, there are companies that provide names for hexadecimal addresses so these read like JohnSmith.Wallet, but it would be good to integrate that feature into the wallet itself.
Although the transactions can be viewed on blockchain explorers for all to see, for most people not yet in the crypto space, sending funds to an unknown hex address or copying and pasting their hex wallet address to receive funds will not work. These people are used to the convenience of traditional banking, especially since these fund transfers are one-way and cannot be reversed.
Adding tokens before you can view those on your wallet is another thing. This is understandable for new, unfamiliar tokens, but if the token is already on the Top 100 of Coinmarketcap, perhaps it should already appear without the need to manually import it.
Delayed blockchain verification is also a problem for many blockchains. There are even instances that after the crypto has been sent, that crypto is still in the sender’s wallet and has not been updated in a reasonable amount of time, especially for slow blockchains. Read More
10 predictions for crypto in 2023
Expect blockchain adoption to increase in the year ahead — in addition to the culture wars surrounding it.
This year has been a particularly tumultuous one for the crypto market, with many decentralized and centralized entities failing or struggling to stay afloat. It feels as though we are in the final stages of the bear market, with bad actors and practices being purged in a process that is both dramatic and necessary for the maturity of the entire system. Despite this, the Web3 technologies that emerge from this crypto winter will change everything.
Web3 represents the next evolution of information exchange, with similarities to the transformation from a largely agricultural society to a more industrial one. It is a computing fabric that is designed to put humans at the very centre and prioritizes privacy. Blockchain technology will bring about a new way of interacting with the internet and will fundamentally change how we engage with each other. As we move into the future, here are some predictions for what we can expect to see on the other side, in 2023. Read More
5 altcoin projects that made a real difference in 2022
This year was tough on crypto prices, but ETH, LDO, MATIC, DAI and ATOM all made a positive impact on the industry.
Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto market had a rough 2022 from a price perspective, but traders are hopeful that 2023 will include bullish developments that push prices higher.
Despite the marketwide downturn, a handful of altcoins continued to make a positive contribution to the crypto space and thanks to Ethereum, the term altcoin is no longer a derogatory term.
Let’s explore the top altcoins that made a difference over the past 12 months. Read More
Disclaimer: These articles are provided for informational purposes only. They are not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other advice.
