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📣 $2.5 Billion Stolen From US Victims via Crypto Investment Scams in 2022: FBI Report
US citizens lost more than $10B due to online fraud in 2022, with crypto investment scams accounting for $2.57B of that sum. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealed that Americans parted with over $10 billion last year due to online fraud. Despite the predominantly bearish year for the cryptocurrency industry, 2022 was fruitful for criminals. They stole nearly $2.6 billion from American consumers.
The agency disclosed that the most targeted group is people aged 30 to 49. Previous studies have shown that such individuals are pretty active in the crypto field, while older investors have not yet embraced the asset class. The FBI outlined the most common ways in which crypto scammers attack victims. They often lure people into linking their wallets to a fraudulent liquidity mining application and thus steal their funds or hack their social media accounts. Subsequently, crypto fraudsters sometimes pretend to be real estate professionals or employers of a company that offers investment advice.
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📣 The FBI Is Hunting For A Vietnamese Man Who Is Suspected Of Laundering $3 Billion In Bitcoin
Nguyen Minh Quoc, 49, of Vietnamese nationality, is wanted by the FBI for alleged participation in money laundering and identity theft. The European Union Law Enforcement Cooperation Agency (Europol) and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced that the ChipMixer website had been taken down. There were 1,909.4 Bitcoins.
According to allegations from these two authorities, ChipMixer was formed in 2017 by Nguyen Minh Quoc and this individual holds a Doctorate in cryptography from Taiwan. “Nguyen Minh Quoc is wanted for his direct involvement in money laundering and identity theft while using the services of ChipMixer. The vast majority of the funds are directly tied to hackers utilizing ransomware to extort victims, crypto theft, and other illegal activity “According to the FBI’s website. As stated by the US Department of Justice, Quoc has not been apprehended since his present whereabouts is unclear.
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📣 NYDFS pushes back against claim that Signature Bank takeover was crypto related
A New York regulator rebuffed criticism from former congressman Barney Frank and said its decision to take over Signature Bank was not related to the bank's work with digital asset businesses. “The decision to take possession of the bank and hand it over to the FDIC was based on the current status of the bank and its ability to do business in a safe and sound manner on Monday,”.
The NYDFS spokesperson said it worked with executives at Signature Bank to evaluate its financial position, the ability to meet withdrawal requests and whether it could continue normal operations on Monday. The bank did not provide “reliable and consistent data, creating a significant crisis of confidence in the bank’s leadership,” according to the spokesperson. Barney Frank, a member of the Signature Bank board and an architect of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory law, told The Block on Monday that he thought regulators had closed the bank.
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🟠 Binance converting $1 billion in BUSD to bitcoin, ether and BNB
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced on Twitter that the foremost crypto exchange would convert the approximately $1 billion remaining from its Industry Recovery Initiative funds to native crypto assets — precisely, bitcoin, ether and BNB. The cryptocurrencies will be purchased using the exchange's dollar-pegged stablecoin, BUSD.
The $1 billion conversions to native crypto assets come amid a banking crisis that captured the United States' attention over the weekend. Last night, the New York Department of Financial Services seized what was widely considered the last crypto-friendly bank, Signature Bank, citing systematic risks — effectively cutting the crypto industry off from banks in the country. "Took 15 seconds and costs $1.29," CZ tweeted, citing a movement of funds worth over $980 million. "Imagine moving $980 million through a bank before banking hours on a Monday."
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📣 A Giant Whale Has Sold 73.92 Million USDC, Resulting In A 6.14 Million US Dollar Loss
According to reports, a whale worth 73.92 million USDC was swapped for 63.84 million USDT. An observer on the network reports that a huge whale address that formerly held 120 million USDC is swapping USDC for USDT. Now, 73.92 million USDC has been swapped for 63.84 million USDT and 2755 ETH, resulting in a 6.14 million USD loss. The address still has 45 million USDC in it.
Indeed, understanding the background of this occurrence is necessary in order to completely comprehend its significance.While the specific reason for the whale address selling the USDC at a loss is unknown, various ideas have been advanced. One scenario is that the whale address was just wanting to get out of their position as soon as possible and was ready to incur a loss to do so. Another option is that the whale address was attempting to manipulate the market in some way, such as selling a significant number of USDC.
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🪙 Ether.fi’s Mainnet Launch For ETH Delegated Staking In April
ether.fi is a non-custodial, decentralized staking protocol that offers stakeholders complete control over their assets while leveraging the power of permissionless decentralization. The protocol offers a secure and seamless delegated staking service that provides higher returns and lower costs through innovative revenue streams.
The launch of ether.fi will occur in three phases. Phase 1 will take place in April and will involve the protocol going live on the mainnet with ETH delegated staking following Shanghai. Phase 2, which is scheduled for Q2 23 or Q3 23, will see the eETH liquidity pool go live. Finally, Phase 3 is scheduled for Q4 23 or Q1 24, and will involve the launch of the Permissionless Node Marketplace. In Phase 1, ether.fi will release a desktop app for delegated staking via an auction mechanism. The staking rewards and unstaked ETH can be withdrawn, and the protocol will offer transferrable NFTs.
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🪙 Fantom Mainnet Gets Major Boost With Go-opera 1.1.2-rc.5 Release
Fantom Mainnet, a high-performance, scalable, and secure smart-contract platform has announced a new release, go-opera version 1.1.2-rc.5. The upgrade brings several significant improvements, including batched genesis blocks processing, configurable DBs management, parallel EVM logs search, and optimizations in P2P protocol.
One of the key highlights of the upgrade is the improvement in P2P and events/blocks processing, resulting in an approximately 30% improvement in events/blocks processing time. Additionally, the processing time for genesis file has improved up to three times faster, while each log search should take only 1/5 of the time it took before. The upgrade also includes security improvements for the Opera node, such as stricter conditions for starting LLR and txpool syncing, restricting P2P connections to given IPs, and forbidding unlocking accounts when external RPC is enabled.
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🏦 Huobi to Join BitTorrent Chain's L2 Blockchain Ecosystem
Huobi, a virtual asset trading platform, announced joining the BTTC (BitTorrent Chain) ecosystem to support the development of a Layer 2 network based on BTTC. The goal is to promote an on-chain open financial system. BTTC, the L2 solution for Ethereum, TRON and BNB Chain, was launched in December 2021.
BTTC is a cross-chain solution that enables seamless asset exchange through digital asset connectivity of mainstream public chains such as Ethereum, TRON and BNB Chain, spanning a super network linking all blockchains. BTTC, the L2 solution for Ethereum, TRON and BNB Chain, was launched in December 2021 with ZK (Zero Proof of Knowledge) technology to be introduced later this year. This enables users to build decentralized applications anywhere and provides a secure, low-cost and fast development environment for dApps, thus creating an on-chain open ecosystem.
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🇺🇸 US Senators Accuse Binance Of Being A Hotspot For Legal Violation
Three US senators from different political parties have written to Binance, accusing the cryptocurrency exchange of being a hotbed of illegal financial activity and requesting information on its anti-money laundering measures, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Senators have given Binance until March 16 to answer their request.
The group demanded information on the company’s balance statements, internal processes, and any correspondence regarding what was allegedly an attempt by Zhao to limit compliance, according to the letter sent to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao on March 1. The letter, written to Changpeng Zhao, the chief executive of Binance, and Brian Shroder, his senior U.S. deputy, highlighted news articles from The Wall Street Journal and other publications regarding a slew of legal and financial concerns the company was facing. The senators requested Messrs. Zhao and Schroder to provide copies of Binance’s.
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💰 Visa's crypto strategy isn't going anywhere after report firm was 'slamming the brakes'
Visa remains committed to its crypto strategy, a company spokesperson told The Block, despite the hammering digital assets have taken in recent months. To that end, we’re focused on growing our core competencies in web3 infrastructure layers and evaluating the blockchain protocols driving crypto development."
The statement came following a Reuters report claiming that Visa would be "slamming the brakes" on its plans to form new partnerships with crypto firms. Visa had "decided to push back the launch of certain products and services related to crypto until market conditions and the regulatory environment improve," the report said. On Tuesday, Visa’s head of crypto, Cuy Sheffield, countered the report in a tweet claiming that the Reuters story was innaccurate. services related to crypto until market conditions and the regulatory environment improve.
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📣 The Leading DEX Velodrome Proposed As STG Hub On Optimism
Stargate proposes to move $1.5M of protocol-owned liquidity to Velodrome’s Layer 2 DEX, receiving additional VELO emissions and higher APR. Stargate can significantly reduce the need for STG emissions by locking VELO rewards as veVELO and qualify for a Lock Bonus.
In a bid to expand its reach, Stargate is proposing to move $1.5 million worth of protocol-owned liquidity (POL) to Velodrome, the top Ethereum Layer 2 DEX. Velodrome’s voting system allows protocols to attract liquidity by directing VELO emissions to their liquidity pools, incentivizing voters with veVELO tokens or voter rewards. In the last voting round, VELO bribe multipliers offered by voters resulted in a $3.5 VELO reward for every $1 in bribes. Velodrome has offered to match 40% of Stargate’s bribes.
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🏦 Ethereum’s L2 Base Testnet Has Crashed
Coinbase’s Base testnet on Ethereum crashed a few hours after launch. Hours after Coinbase released the Base testnet of the Ethereum L2 network, the network crashed, sending users flooding social media to complain about the network’s functionality.
The Coinbase wallet incorrectly estimated the gas fees required to execute users’ transactions. As a result, the user pays less gas than is needed to complete the transaction, which causes Base to revert these transactions instead of processing them. Coinbase software engineer Roberto Bayardo explained on Twitter a few hours after the release: “Should fix now. Demand contracts increase gas usage under load, which wallets don’t estimate accurately. Gas limits are now hardcoded higher.”
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📣 MasterCard Accept Crypto Payments Using USDC Settlements In Web3
Users will be able to make crypto payments across digital, physical, and Metaverse worlds thanks to a collaboration between Web3 payment protocol Immersve and payments behemoth Mastercard. Transactions on the Mastercard network will be settled using Circle’s USD Coin tokens, a stablecoin backed by US dollars.
Mastercard-Immersve cooperation to settle real-time bitcoin transactions at merchants who accept Mastercard payments online. Users won’t need to rely on a third party for collateral when making direct cryptocurrency payments using their existing Web3 wallets. Instead, Immersve will collaborate with a third-party settlement service and permit all transactions to be made using USDC. Once the user’s end of the transaction is completed, USDC will be converted to fiat before settling on the Mastercard network.
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🟠 Binance US Refutes Reports Comparing It to Fraudulent Crypto Exchanges
Binance US has refuted reports that draw parallels between it and “fraudulent exchanges that have gone bankrupt.” The U.S.-based crypto trading platform stressed that “only Binance.US employees” have access to its bank accounts, denying the allegation that global crypto exchange Binance has “secret access.”
Binance US, a U.S.-based cryptocurrency trading platform affiliated with the global crypto exchange Binance, has refuted reports that compare it to fraudulent and bankrupt crypto exchanges. Binance and Binance US claim that they are separate entities with different management teams. There have been many attempts to draw parallels between Binance.US and fraudulent exchanges that have gone bankrupt,” the official Twitter account for Binance US tweeted Thursday.
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🟠 Binance Completes New STG Token Swap With Original STG Token
According to the official announcement of Binance, the exchange has now completed the new STG generation of the Stargate Finance (STG) blockchain and AVAX Chain, Arbitrum One, BNB Smart Chain (BEP20), Ethereum (ERC20), Fantom, and Polygon about the original STG token. In addition, Binance will reuse STG as the trading code of the original STG token.
In addition, the STGOLD deposit is now open, and withdrawal of STGOLD tokens will no longer be supported. Crypto exchanges’ decision to remove support for new STG tokens follows a decision by the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) Stargate on Tuesday to stifle plans to mint new tokens, according to a recent community suggestion. Reportedly, Stargate Finance’s original STG token is back in support after StargateDAO canceled its plans to reissue STG following a dispute with FTX liquidators. StargateDAO initially voted to re-issue all STG tokens by March 15 after discovering security risks due to “illegal transfers of STG from compromised Alameda wallets”.
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🟠 Voyager-Binance.US Deal Backed By Bankruptcy Judge
In a court filing on Wednesday, a bankruptcy judge opted to allow Binance.US to make a $1 billion bid to purchase Voyager assets, rejecting the US government’s plea to suspend enforcement until an appeal. Damian Williams, an attorney for the US government, said that the agreement should be changed or canceled because it breaches tax or federal securities rules.
Judge Michael Wiles of the Southern District of New York, on the other hand, stated the settlement he authorized was not breached and that any delay would harm Voyager customers who have not been able to receive their money back since the company declared bankruptcy in July 2022. As Coincu reported, the court earlier allowed Binance.US’s acquisition of Voyager. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United States and the state government of New York have both objected to Voyager’s planned $1 billion sale to Binance.US. According to the authorities, the Binance.US-Voyager deal looks to breach US law in terms of investor compensation.
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🟠 Binance to suspend GBP transactions as payments partner moves away
Binance will suspend GBP deposits and withdrawals after its payments partner Paysafe said it would no longer support them. The move will affect new users starting March 13 and all users on May 22, a company spokesperson said over email. Binance will ensure that affected users are still able to access their GBP balances.
"Binance will ensure that affected users are still able to access their GBP balances," that spokesperson also said. The company estimates this will affect less than 1% of Binance users but is "working hard to find an alternative solution for them.". Meanwhile, users will still be able to deposit and withdraw other fiat currencies as well as buy and sell crypto on Binance.com. Binance will suspend deposits and withdrawals of GBT for new users on March 13 and all users on May 22.The company said this will affect 1% of users and is working on new solutions after its current payments partner said it would no longer provide the services.
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🪙 FTX Exec Loses $3.7 Million Island Home to Authorities 5 Months After Buying It
Singh signed a deed for the home on October 25, while FTX went officially bankrupt on November 11th. Nishad Singh – FTX’s Lead Engineer – bought a $3.7 million vacation home in the San Juan islands last October. Now, the property has been seized by the U.S. government.
The home – purchased roughly two weeks before FTX went bankrupt – is located on a wooded hill, and features six bedrooms, a lap pool, and a hot tub. Though Singh, 27, purchased the home with money from his FTX account, authorities believe those funds are directly linked to his crimes. Prosecutors allege that Bankman-Fried and his associates misappropriated funds at the exchange for personal use, and for trading at Alameda Research – a claim backed by FTX bankruptcy head John Ray. FTX appeared to have used funds to purchase a multi-million dollar mansion in the Czech Republic in July 2022.
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⚫️ Hedera confirms hackers stole tokens from DEXs, exploiting a bug in 'smart contract service'
The core team at Hedera confirmed there was a recent exploit on the network in which hackers stole funds via users' accounts on decentralized exchanges, it said.The attackers took advantage of a vulnerability in the "Hedera smart contract service" to transfer the Hedera Token Service (HTS) tokens.
The core team at Hedera reported that the attackers targeted liquidity pools on multiple decentralized exchanges (DEXs) that had ported Hedera tokens over to the network's smart contract service via a bridge. The affected multiple DEXs including Pangolin, SaucerSwap and HeliSwap. Today's confirmation of the exploit comes a day after the HBAR Foundation, the organization behind the blockchain, publicly notified “network irregularities” affecting various Hedera-based decentralized applications (dApps) and their users.
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🏦 Bitstamp US partners with Prove Identity to offer document-free, rapid onboarding
Crypto exchange Bitstamp U.S. is optimizing its account onboarding process through a partnership with Prove Identity. The exchange will use Prove Identity's pre-fill onboarding solution to streamline the account registration process. The pre-fill tool, which is powered by the Prove Identity Network.
Prove creates anonymized identity tokens using telecoms and mobile network data combined with bank-grade compliant information such data from utility providers and banks, said Joon Pak, head of crypto at Prove in an interview with The Block. "We have the largest collection of identity tokens in the market," Pak said. "If you've ever logged into Bank of America, American Express, PayPal, etc., we have your identity token. And that's what we call the Prove Identity Network, its what underpins all of the solutions that we provide here at Prove."Prove's solutions are used by more than 1,000 businesses including PayPal, Coinbase and Mastercard.
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🆘 FUD Attack Sends Binance’s BUSD Market Cap Plummeting 45%
Binance, a prominent cryptocurrency exchange, has recently encountered a series of issues that have eroded investors’ trust in its credibility. Binance has been facing mounting regulatory pressure as authorities have questioned the trading platform’s solvency following the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.
One of the most significant events leading to the current wave of panic among investors is the New York regulator’s recent order to Paxos to limit BUSD’s issuance, resulting in a 45% drop in the market capitalization of the stablecoin. This drop has raised concerns among investors about the safety of their funds on the Binance platform. However, the peg with the U.S. Dollar remains intact, and users’ funds are still relatively secure. Despite the setback, BNB is still one of the largest exchanges globally and boasts a considerable user base. Nevertheless, the recent events have shaken investors’ confidence.
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🪙 Circle Will Transfer A Part Of Silvergate’s USDC Reserve Deposits
Circle made the announcement that it will be transferring a little amount of USDC reserve deposits held by Silvergate to a number of other banking partners. The remaining Silvergate-dependent clients have already been informed of alternate choices by Circle’s customer service.
Circle said that it will transfer a small portion of Silvergate’s USDC reserve deposits to a number of other banking partners. Silvergate has discontinued the provision of some services that were once made available by Silvergate Bank to the digital asset market in general. This includes Silvergate’s Exchange Network (SEN), sometimes known as the Silvergate Exchange Network, which was utilized by a select group of Circle clients. Circle is aggressively seeking to move all remaining services out of Silvergate Bank, despite the fact that Silvergate.
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🪙 Chainlink introduces new developer platform called Functions
Decentralized oracle network Chainlink has launched a new developer platform called Chainlink Functions to help connect decentralized applications (dApps) with traditional web apps in a seamless manner. The platform is now available in beta on the Ethereum Sepolia and Polygon Mumbai testnets.
Chainlink's oracle network is designed to enable smart contracts and applications to utilize off-chain data in a secure and decentralized manner. It is the most widely used oracle network in the industry with over 650,000 active users, per data from Dune Analytics. It will allow blockchain developers to connect their dApps or smart contracts with any application programming interface from within the traditional tech space without having to manage additional cloud infrastructure.
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🚨 Mastercard and Visa set crypto plans on hold amid market decline: Reuters
Mastercard and Visa are holding off on their crypto integration plans in the wake of several turbulent events that have rocked the cryptocurrency space in the last year, according to Reuters. Both card payment firms have previously announced plans to integrate crypto into their network.
Visa and Mastercard halting their crypto plans are the latest in a growing trend of mainstream businesses limiting their crypto exposure. Several banks in the U.S. have begun to withdraw services to crypto businesses. Even the major accounting firms have so far chosen not to audit the books of cryptocurrency exchanges in the wake of the FTX collapse.The regulatory environment for crypto in the U.S. may also be another issue for companies like Visa and Mastercard.
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🏦 Coinbase’s In-House Blockchain Launch Followed By Impersonation Tokens
At least 4 new token mints with names similar to Coinbase’s new blockchain have been spotted. Coinbase launched its own Layer-2 blockchain yesterday, built in collaboration with Optimism in its OP stack. The new Layer-2 blockchain, named Base, will host many of Coinbase’s on-chain products.
Unfortunately, opportunistic bad actors are once again trying to make a quick buck off of the success of other firms. Not even a day after Base was launched, Solidus Labs announced via their Token Sniffer website that at least four new tokens had been identified, all with names playing on Coinbase’s new product, such as Base Token and even the very generically named “Coin Chain.”. n the crypto world, a honeypot is a smart contract that does not allow anyone but the contract creator to withdraw funds once they are deposited in the wallet.
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📶 Factor On Arbitrum Booms With $7.6 Million Through Public Token Sale
Factor, an Arbitrum-based on-chain asset management platform, raised almost $7.6 million from more than 4,000 different wallets during its token offering, which ran on February 20 through Friday. Users can now claim the FCTR tokens they bought during the public sale on Saturday, February 25.
The protocol’s liquidity holdings for the USDC/FCTR pair on Camelot were first increased. Users would deposit USDC into the protocol in exchange for FCTR when participating in the token generation event. A liquidity pool held by the protocol will now receive half of the USDC monies raised through the open sale. Early plans called for only 40% of the liquidity to be owned by the protocol. a number of adjustments intended to reduce the initial circulating quantity from 32.5 million tokens to 18 million tokens.
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🆘 New York Attorney General sues CoinEx crypto exchange over registration
New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing cryptocurrency exchange CoinEx for allegedly failing to register with the state. “CoinEx offered, sold, purchased and effected transactions in cryptocurrencies that are commodities and securities, without having been registered.
New York has been an active player in the crypto space with lawsuits against others, including Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of crypto lender Celsius and in the past, actions against Bitfinex and Tether. The petition alleged that CoinEx “represented itself as an exchange” while not being registered with the state. The exchange also failed to comply with a subpoena served in January, according to the petition. CoinEx did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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📣 Paxos in 'constructive discussions with the SEC,' ends relationship with Binance
Stablecoin issuer Paxos told employees it's in "constructive discussions" with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after getting a Wells notice about the Binance USD stablecoin coin. The company said last week that it categorically disagreed with the SEC's categorization of BUSD as a security.
Cascarilla also said the company would end its relationship with Binance, in what he said was a separate decision from the SEC Wells notice and the directive from the New York Department of Financial Services. "We remain fully focused on serving the end holders of BUSD and protecting them from undo harm. Paxos will continue to support BUSD through at least February 2024 and maintain the highest standards of security and soundness in the stablecoin market," Cascarilla said. The firm has facilitated more than $2.8B in BUSD redemptions.
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🆘 Platypus Develops A Plan To Indemnify Users After Attack
According to official sources, stablecoin exchange project Platypus has announced that it is working on a plan to compensate users and remind users not to refund the current stablecoin USP. The team is working with all parties to repair the damage, but more time is needed to confirm the results.
The team is also contacting law enforcement and will make further announcements once confirmed. Additionally, some funds are trapped in AAVE and the team is exploring a possible way to recover this funds, which will require the presentation and adoption of a recovery proposal on the AAVE admin forum. According to the CertiK analysis, the vulnerability appears to be in verifying the MasterPlatypusV4 contract using the EmergencyWithdraw function, which will only fail when the borrowed asset exceeds the borrowing limit.
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