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Hackless Pioneers B2B & B2C Security Tool For DeFi, Saving Nearly $500,000 For Clients
ETHLisbon Hackathon winners Hackless has designed a comprehensive security platform which aims to protect the decentralized finance (DeFi) world from targeted exploits, as well as safely migrate funds from individual wallets and protocols under attack.
Hackless works at the infrastructure level of EVM-compatible blockchains, uniting several elements from the blockchain ecosystem in order to strengthen a DeFi protocol’s security from the lowest levels of its ecosystem.
The platform has three core services which it uses to help defend against exploits and recover funds:
Watchdog – A mempool monitoring tool which tracks suspicious transactions.
SafeMigrate (B2B) – The first-to-market service which ensures that funds can be successfully migrated from a paused DeFi protocol that is being attacked.
Conductor (B2C) – A private mining provider that ensures the safe and undetectable migration of user's funds from compromised wallets.
The Hackless team believes this type of active protection is critical to the future innovation in the DeFi space given the substantial increase in the value of assets being locked up in DeFi applications.
Serhii Androsiuk, co-founder and CEO of Hackless, commented:
“The daunting thing about DeFi right now is that the rising tide of recent security exploits seems to out-speed the adoption and development of DeFi as such. Seven of the ten largest crypto thefts from January 2021 to March 2022 involved DeFi protocols. Frequent brutal exploits of flash loan protocols, cross-chain bridges and individual crypto wallets stress the need for a powerful security tool which is capable of boosting industry’s security level right away. We envision Hackless as a comprehensive platform that offers solutions both for DeFi protocols and individual investors. When used by all types of DeFi players it will enhance the overall protection giving a boost to industry’s growth.” Read More
Interlay launches trustless BTC stablecoin bridge on Polkadot
InterBTC operates as a BTC-backed stablecoin, secured by a decentralized network of overcollateralized vaults, which according to Interlay, resembles MakerDAO’s DAI token.
Interlay, a London-based blockchain firm, launched a Bitcoin (BTC)-based cross-chain bridge on Polkadot (DOT). Named interBTC (iBTC), the bridge allows the use of Bitcoin on non-native blockchains for decentralized finance (DeFi), cross-chain transfers and nonfungible tokens (NFTs), among others.
interBTC operates as a BTC-backed stablecoin, secured by a decentralized network of overcollateralized vaults, which according to Interlay, resembles MakerDAO’s DAI token, a stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain.
The iBTC vaults use mixed-asset collateral to insure BTC reserves, making iBTC redeemable 1:1 with BTC over the Bitcoin blockchain. As a preventive measure during unforeseen vault failure, the collateral is programmed to get slashed and reimburse the BTC depositors. Sharing the thought process behind the initiative, Interlay co-founder and CEO Alexei Zamyatin stated:
“Bitcoin is the driving force behind global crypto adoption, while Polkadot, Ethereum & co. is where technological innovation is happening. With interBTC, we combine the best of both worlds while preserving the trustless nature of Bitcoin.” Read More
Cross-chains in the crosshairs: Hacks call for better defence mechanisms
Cryptocurrency security firms, decentralized finance and cross-chain platforms are stressing the importance of improved defence mechanisms after a spate of hacks and exploits targeting the ecosystem.
2022 has been a lucrative year for hackers preying on the nascent Web3 and decentralized finance (DeFi) spaces, with more than $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency fleeced in several high-profile hacks to date. Cross-chain protocols have been particularly hard hit, with Axie Infinity’s $650 million Ronin Bridge hack accounting for a significant portion of stolen funds this year.
The pillaging continued into the second half of 2022 as cross-chain platform Nomad saw $190 million drained from wallets. The Solana ecosystem was the next target, with hackers gaining access to the private keys of some 8000 wallets that resulted in $5 million worth of Solana (SOL) and Solana Program Library (SPL) tokens being pilfered.
deBridge Finance managed to sidestep an attempted phishing attack on Monday, Aug. 8, unpacking the methods used by what the firm suspects are a wide-ranging attack vector used by North Korean Lazarus Group hackers. Just a few days later, Curve Finance suffered an exploit that saw hackers reroute users to a counterfeit webpage that resulted in the theft of $600,000 worth of USD Coin (USDC).
The team at deBridge Finance offered some pertinent insights into the prevalence of these attacks in correspondence with Cointelegraph, given that a number of their team members previously worked for a prominent anti-virus company. Read More
Cardano’s Vasil Hard Fork Explained: What to Expect from the Major Upgrade?
The Vasil hard fork is one of the most highly-anticipated upgrades for Cardano. Here’s everything there is to know about the improvements it aims to introduce.
The Cardano network was supposed to undergo a network upgrade in the form of a hard fork in June this year, but the event was postponed on a few occasions and is yet to happen.
Called Vasil, the upgrade is named after the late Bulgarian mathematician – Vasil Dabov – who was also a prominent community member of Cardano.
Part of the third development epoch of Cardano, Vasil is a very important network upgrade that’s aimed at boosting the network’s usability and scalability. The following attempts to break down the Vasil hard fork and explain everything there is about the major milestone.
The upgrade is aimed at introducing five critical mechanisms designed to improve the performance of the Cardano blockchain. Read More
We have a lot to be grateful for within Markethive. It’s like stepping out of the rat race into an oasis of humanity at its best. As an inbound marketing, business-based blockchain platform with an inherent entrepreneurial spirit, we have all the tools to get our message out to the whole world. We have a social media interface with a collaborative ethos rarely experienced on legacy social media.
We are starting to see new integrations in the blogging section in preparation for the customized, more intuitive interface and dashboard of Markethive and, of course, the Markethive Wallet that will facilitate the Merchant accounts for members as well as personal transactions, the Vault, etc.
The new-look Blogcasting Hub is located at the top of all blogs in the system. Blogcasting is a term introduced by Markethive and is an enhanced broadcasting system. In the traditional broadcasting sense, only the people who physically subscribe to your blog or newsletter are usually notified of your updates via email.
With this blogcasting system, your social networks are informed of your blog as and when you publish them. What this means is the potential reach is into the millions. Read More
Polygon decentralised apps increase to 37,000, up 400% in 2022
Layer 2 Ethereum scaling platform Polygon has seen more than 37,000 decentralised applications (dApps) developed on its network, a 400% increase since the start of 2022.
The figures were sourced from partnered Web3 development platform Alchemy and represent the cumulative number of applications ever launched on both the Polygon testnet and mainnet.
In terms of active developer teams, Polygon reached 11,800 at the end of July, up 47.5% since March.
The project team also highlighted a breakdown of dApp projects which notably showed that “74% of teams integrated exclusively on Polygon, while 26% deployed on both Polygon and Ethereum”.
Polygon’s EVM compatible proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain hosts dApps from a long list of prominent projects and brands in the crypto space, such as NFT marketplace OpenSea, Metaverse platforms Decentraland and The Sandbox, decentralised finance (DeFi) lending platform Aave, and NFT venture fund Animoca Brands.
DApp usage on Polygon has seen more than 142 million unique user addresses and $5 billion in assets secured with around 1.6 billion transactions processed on the network to date. Read More
Want to share in the success of your favourite artists? Now you can
Musicians can find it difficult to get the financing they need to get songs and albums off the ground. This blockchain-based project is changing that.
It's an all-too-common problem: artists have brilliant ideas for albums that take them in a new creative direction, but record labels stand in their way.
But now, a blockchain-based music platform is promising to give creatives complete control over their works — all while allowing devoted fans to get involved in the production process.
Corite says it eliminates the need for record labels and managers altogether by enabling artists to secure funding directly from the public integrated with BNB Chain.
Musicians can now make key decisions — determining how much they need to raise in order to release an album or a song, with their backers getting a share of the royalties. Read More
Monero Rolls Out Enhanced Privacy Features With Hard Fork
Privacy coin Monero has deployed a non-contentious hard fork to boost its privacy and security feature set.
Popular privacy coin Monero (XMR) completed a hard fork introducing new privacy and security features over the weekend.
The non-contentious hard fork, completed at block 2,688,888, was first announced by developers in April this year. Initially planned for July, it was subsequently delayed to August 13.
One of the main changes introduced with the fork is an increase in Monero's ring size from 11 to 16. In order to protect user privacy, Monero merges the digital signature of the individual signing a transaction with those of 11 (now 16) other non-signers to create a new signature authorizing the transaction.
The network upgrade also included changes to its 'Bulletproofs' algorithm to boost transaction speeds and reduce transaction sizes by an estimated 5-7%, as well as improvements to its multisig mechanism. Other performance upgrades include 'view tags,' which aim to reduce wallet sync times by up to 40%, along with security patches and fee changes. Read More
Celestia: Launching a blockchain to be as easy as deploying a smart contract
New crypto project wants to give online communities their own sovereignty by easily deploying their own blockchain with their own rules
Developers and communities will be able to deploy their own sovereign, custom-made blockchains at the “click of a button” says Celestia co-founder Ismail Khoffi.
Speaking with Cointelegraph at Korean Blockchain Week 2022 last week, Khoffi said that the project’s vision is to decouple the consensus and application execution layers to unlock new possibilities for decentralized app builders. Celesita is basically a stripped-back minimalist layer-1 blockchain that offers users the infrastructure that makes it easy to deploy their own blockchain, or layer-2 rollup.
“One of the goals of Celestia is to make deploying your own blockchain as easy as deploying a smart contract,” he explained, likening the project to Amazon Web Services where, “you write your code and click a button, it’s deployed and people can start using it.”
In a similar way to how the new rollup-centric Ethereum vision separates the consensus and data availability layers from the execution layer, Celestia is modularly-designed but with customizable features that offer users the freedom to choose their execution environments:
“In Celestia, there is no such thing as execution on the base layer, so it's completely outsourced to a different layer. You can have a settlement layer, but as a specific specialized execution layer that only does settlement on top of Celestia, but is its own thing.” 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.
