A Typo Caused $36 Million Worth of Crypto to Become Inaccessible

Jenson Nunez
-
0
A Typo Caused $36 Million Worth of Crypto to Become Inaccessible

A million JUNO tokens went down the drain, but there is still hope.

This week, a cryptocurrency developer made a tremendous error when he sent several million dollars worth of tokens to a bad inaccessible profile. The sad story, according to CoinDesk, took effect on the Juno project team amid an epic community governance protocol.

But this phenomenon takes place long before the loss of this 30 million dollars. The situation dates back to a historic decision made by the Cosmos (ATOM)-based blockchain project Juno community to seize a vast sum of project-native JUNO tokens from a whale that received accusations of manipulating an airdrop for a total of USD 120 million.

A Particular Story about Blockchain Governance

In February, shortly after the release of the Juno blockchain, to attract users of the Cosmos ecosystem to the new network, the Juno team executed an airdrop that would split 1 JUNO token between each wallet with one staked ATOM token.

However, the program seems to ignore that there could be whales, users with a large volume of digital assets, with several wallets with ATOM staked.

While the airdrop got designed with a limit of 50,000 JUNO per wallet, that did not prevent a guy named Takumi Asano, who had 50 staked ATOM wallets, from claiming a massive amount corresponding to 10% of the total supply of JUNO tokens.

Asano got accused shortly after of maliciously maneuvering to claim more tokens than the airdrop allowed. Fearing that a single individual would have access to such an amount of tokens, and thus gain the possibility to handle the JUNO market, the community submitted a governance proposal to revoke the permits from Asano.

Many proposals appeared about the movement to steal the user’s tokens, as CoinDesk points out in a series of studies. One of the proposals expressed that Asano represented an investment group in Japan named CCN and was therefore ineligible for the airdrop protocol.

The Tremendous Mistake

Words more, words less, the day of the vote finally arrived last Friday, after several months of dispute, and the majority of the community voted to seize every Asano’s coins, except for 50,000 tokens.

According to CoinDesk, the movement has epic dimensions. It marks the first time a Blockchain group has gathered votes to revoke a user’s allegedly ill-gotten gains, a case reminiscent of what happened in 2016 after the attack on DAO on Ethereum.

As a result of approval by more than 70% of voters, the proposal would execute an automatic update on the Juno blockchain to migrate revoked funds to a smart contract controlled by a community. The Juno community could then vote on what to do with the tokens.

In a series of events, the developer leading the decision sent the tokens to an alphanumeric address that represented the transaction hash, all by accident, instead of the rightful wallet address. A Juno developer interviewed by CoinDesk expressed that this situation took effect due to a copy-paste bug.

As a result, when the code got applied to run this week, a programming error went to migrate 3 million JUNO tokens, worth $36 million, to a wrong address on the blockchain where no one, not Asano or the community, can access.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Traditional Markets and Bitcoin Suffer their Worst Drop Since 2020

Alexander Salazar
-
0
Traditional Markets and Bitcoin Suffer their Worst Drop Since 2020

The Dow Jones index lost 1,000 points while the Nasdaq 100 index fell by 5% amid investor fear. The hardest hit by the market decline were technology stocks like Apple, Google, and Amazon.

The recent uncertainty in the markets amid inflation did not only affect the value of Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies. It also caused the stock market to suffer its worst drop since 2020. The decline in the Dow Jones, Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 indexes reversed the progress achieved after the US Federal Reserve (Fed) announced interest rate hikes.

The fall in the leading stocks occurred amid investor fears about the medium and long-term economic outlook. While the Dow Jones index suffered a loss of 1,000 points, the cryptocurrency market also declined.

The drop in the Nasdaq 100 index has been the sharpest since the market crash. In March 2020, when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 pandemic, the markets collapsed.

The hardest hit by the market decline in the past few days have been technology stocks. For example, Apple fell by 5.6%, Google dropped by 4.8%, and Amazon lost 7.6%.

Bloomberg reported that the US Fed’s plan to curb the increase in prices through the rising cost of money arouses doubts in the market. The analysts questioned the ability of the government agency to control the highest inflation in decades without leading the US economy into a recession.

The US Fed Plans More Interest Hikes for this Year

The chairman of the US Fed recently stated that there might be five more interest rate hikes, capped at 0.5%, this year. Jerome Powell denied that the remaining increases expected in 2022 could be 75 basis points (bps) or 0.75%.

Interest rate prediction tool CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange ) FedWatch determines that the market seems to doubt those limits to the increases. It indicates that there is only a 17.1% probability that the rise will have a limit of 50 bps. Meanwhile, it gives an 82.9% probability of growth between 50 and 75 points in June.

The CME clarifies their calculations rely on the Fed funds futures contracts for the date of meeting at the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC).

The Bitcoin market is going through a trend of growing coupling with the behavior of traditional assets. That makes it more sensitive to external circumstances that affect the performance of said assets.

Bitcoin is trading at around USD 33,705 and has accumulated a 2.3% loss over the last 24 hours. It has a daily trading volume of above USD 29,81 billion, and its market capitalization is about USD 642.08 billion, according to CoinGecko.

Renowned on-chain analyst Willy Woo predicted that the price of BTC might continue dropping. However, he considers its recovery will occur quickly and sees a long-term bullish behavior.

Woo suggests that a structural supply shock is underway, with significant purchases of Bitcoin not reflected in the price. He pointed out that this usually leads to a high bullish price contraction, not without warning that this may take time to happen.

By Alexander Salazar

Bitcoin Keeps Falling Down, and the Market Loses at Least USD 200 Billion of Capitalization

Jenson Nunez
-
0
Bitcoin Keeps Falling Down, and the Market Loses at Least USD 200 Billion of Capitalization

BTC detected a drop in its cost of 9.34% last week. Econometrics warned that the price of BTC could crumble down to at least $30,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) keeps presenting red figures after lowering its cost to at least USD 34,000, making the digital currency market lose about USD 200 billion in capitalization.

On the last day, the leading crypto asset lowered its price by 3.68% and 9.34% in the previous week. These harmful amounts also got detected in other digital currencies such as ether (ETH), Ethereum’s native asset, which crumbled to at least 7.93% in the last week.

The decline of bitcoin made the market go through levels it previously approached in July 2021 when the market cap dipped as low as $1.2 billion, as highlighted by CoinMarketCap.

Although there is a slight recovery, which took the capitalization to USD 1,800 million, the leading currency continues to have a negative performance that didn’t happen since 2014, being five consecutive red weeks for BTC.

Everything appears to highlight that bitcoin could approach six weeks of low performance. Bitcoin has never reached seven uninterrupted weeks working with such red numbers.

Fear Attacks Traders and the Traditional Market Shakes after this Situation

The fall in the cost of bitcoin keeps causing extreme uncertainty in traders. On May 6, the measures experienced a downgrade registered from 27 to 22. On May 8, that fear reaches new high peaks, approaching 18, in accordance with Bitcoin Fear and Green Index, a network that gathers information from social media, surveys, volatility rates, and trading volume reports.

This fear also impacted the stock market last Friday, when it had the worst fall since 2020, letting go at least 1,000 points of the Dow Jones index. This event happened due to investors’ fear of the US economic procedures in the medium and long term.

Both the market-oriented to crypto and the usual financial space received unprecedented damage by this uncertainty caused by the government procedures taken by the United States of America after the increase in interest rates by 0.5%, as revealed by the Federal Reserve.

This situation relies on a resource applied by central banks to obstruct credit and stimulate savings. By reducing consumption levels, theoretically, inflation should also decline.

US annual inflation reached a record high of 8.5% in mid-April, the highest in 41 years. In Europe, something like this inflation when year-on-year headline inflation went 7.5% in April.

The ascension of the inflation worldwide is a consequence unleashed by the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which increased food and energy prices. The latter significantly damages Europe because many of the nations that make up the community need Russian gas and now face economic punishments that block their economies.

 Willy Woo says that cryptocurrency’s price could continue its road to decline. However, he thinks that the recovery in value will be quick and detects a long-term bullish performance. Woo also highlighted that a supply shock structure is under construction, with solid purchases of bitcoin not being reflected in the price.

By: Jenson Nuñez

The Fear of Recession in the US Could Affect the Price of Bitcoin

Alexander Salazar
-
0
The Fear of Recession in the US Could Affect the Price of Bitcoin

A survey by Allianz Life reveals that 6 out of 10 Americans feel that a recession is just around the corner. In the first quarter of 2022, US inflation was at one of its highest points in the last 40 years.

The Wall Street Crash and the collapse of the banking system caused the Great Depression in the US in 1929. That crisis cost billions of US dollars to the country, and citizens fell into poverty. In addition, the Great Recession beginning in 2008 gave rise to Bitcoin, left many Americans bankrupt, and generated insecurity in the real estate market.

Those two historical events changed the lives of Americans and had an impact on the world economy. For that reason, it is understandable that the words inflation, unemployment, crisis, and recession inspire terror in the population. A survey by the firm Allianz Life reveals that 6 out of 10 US citizens currently feel that fear.

The term recession means that the economy has suffered a decline in the gross domestic product (GDP) for two consecutive quarters. In the first three months of 2022, the US economy registered one of the highest inflations in the last 40 years.

Reports from the Product Management Institute (ISM) confirm that the situation can worsen. For example, mortgage rates, which refer to the price of housing in the US, have soared to all-time levels.

Businesses grow more slowly while demand for products falls because the US Federal Reserve (FED) has increased interest rates to 0.5%. Those situations could cause stagflation, a process by which inflation accelerates, unemployment rates rise, and the economy stagnates.

How the Recession in the US Could Affect Bitcoin

Those that follow the price of Bitcoin wonder what the US economy has to do with it. Surprisingly, the value of the cryptocurrency reacts along with the measures by the US FED and the behavior of the Wall Street stock market.

Since early 2022, investors have seen Bitcoin as a risky asset more than anything else. They consider it a highly speculative investment, comparing it with popular stocks on US stock markets like those of technology companies. The price of Google, Apple, and Telsa has moved sharply similarly to Bitcoin, showing the high correlation between both markets.

That makes sense when considering that leading institutional investors in Bitcoin like MicroStrategy, Block and Tesla are companies listed on US stock exchanges. In other words, much of the capital helping BTC climb to new price levels comes from firms that rely heavily on the US economy.

In addition, the ban on Bitcoin in China led a significant number of miners to move to the US territory. Regulations have begun to have growing relevance in the price of BTC since its shares of power in the market have increased.

Given that situation, it would not be surprising that the current US economic situation affects the Bitcoin market. If loans become increasingly expensive, fewer people will want to borrow money to produce returns in the stock markets, including cryptocurrencies. In times of crisis, many investors prefer store-of-value assets instead of risking capital.

For Bitcoin to move away from a financial crisis in the US, its narrative as a store-of-value asset should take hold. The community supports that perspective by considering that the currency has the potential to increase its value in the long term.

By Alexander Salazar

There is a Huge Amount of Pressure Worldwide to Censor the Internet

Jenson Nunez
-
0
There is a Huge Amount of Pressure Worldwide to Censor the Internet

Many policies to get the Internet regulated go against net neutrality. Google takes “excessive steps” on censorship, says David Vorick.

“There is a lot of pressure to censor the Internet,” says David Vorick, development lead for Skynet. This issue got expressed, on May 8, during his presentation at the MIT Bitcoin Expo, organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States.

The specialist explains that, under the statement to prevent phishing attacks (fraudulent pages generated to deceive people), progress is happening to the detriment of the neutrality of the Internet.

This issue is a principle that encourages all network traffic to be treated equally, without obstacles, since the Internet user can freely choose between the online resources.

Vorick mentions that Google can decide, for an arbitrary reason, that a certain website should not exist. He also says that his company, a decentralized network that allows file sharing, had problems of this type. Because they did not comply with KYC (know your customer) policies and authorized users to upload files to their storage archetype, their website appeared hidden from the popular search engine.

the computer scientist stated that he never signed terms of service with Chrome, later mentioning that they put a warning sign on their website and informed them that they would not remove it until they removed all the malware.

The cientist also argues that Skynet only provides infrastructure: “We’re like a portal where people put files or websites, and when users use our website, we don’t control the interface.”

According to Vorick, what happened with his company and Google was “an excessive step” and “a grave violation.” “Google has independently decided that websites must meet specific conditions if they want billions of people to be able to access them,” he argues.

Considering the Reconstruction of the Internet

The specialist is convinced that progress is being made, in regulatory matters, in the wrong direction. According to him, it is wrong to encourage Internet service providers to get involved in moral decisions. He said: “If we do that, what will happen is that innovations will stop,” also adding that culture will freeze because anything that is culturally unusual or just unexpected will piss off some infrastructure provider.

Vorick knows that re-building the Internet must get considered as an alternative to decentralize it and prevent whoever controls a party from making arbitrary decisions in this gloomy scenario.

Near the end of his speech, the computer scientist added that this is precisely the reason why he is very interested in Bitcoin (BTC). As CriptoNoticias explains, this monetary system “works like a network of computers connected through the Internet.” This decentralized network is uncensorable and neutral.

In this way, the currency created by Satoshi Nakamoto sets up a new paradigm that points toward more community uses of data and is not being ruled by a powerful entity. This vision seems to be valid for more and more computer scientists and enthusiasts of human freedom.

By: Jenson Nuñez

The Government of California Is about to Regulate Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies

Alexander Salazar
-
0
The Government of California Is about to Regulate Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies

The executive order issued by Newson will encourage responsible innovation and evaluate how to implement blockchain for state and public institutions. The Californian government will need to adopt a regulatory approach to cryptocurrencies consistent with a decree signed by Joe Biden in March.

California recently became the first US state to chart a path to introducing regulations to control Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order about crypto assets, laying out a road map toward consumer and regulatory protections. That regulation also examines ways for the state to take advantage of blockchain technology.

Dee Dee Myers is Senior Advisor to Newson and Director of the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development. She said that about 25% of the 800 blockchain companies in North America are in California. She highlighted that they want to allow many that want to be there to do so responsibly.

California Takes a Step to Adopt Blockchain Technology

That executive order, under the California Consumer Financial Protection Act enacted in 2020, will allow the creation of a regulatory approach to encourage responsible innovation. In addition, they will evaluate how to implement blockchain technology for state and public institutions.

The government seeks to create a transparent business and regulatory environment for Web 3.0 businesses. It should adjust to the federal approaches of California and balance consumer benefits and risks.

Gavin Newsom said that California is a global innovation hub and that his administration is preparing the state to succeed in using blockchain. They aim to stimulate responsible innovation, protect consumers, and take advantage of that technology for the public good.

The Californian governor also stated that the government has often lagged behind technological advances. He explained that this led them to get ahead, laying the groundwork to enable consumers and businesses to thrive.

The Governor of California Announces the Executive Order N-9-22

The Californian government will have to establish a regulatory approach to cryptocurrencies. It should be consistent with the executive order signed by Joe Biden in March.

Newsom is directing the state Office of Business and Economic Development to work collaboratively with the California Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency. They will also work with the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) to receive feedback from the parties concerned.

The DFPI will adopt a regulatory approach to deal with cryptocurrencies in the state. In the meantime, the Government Operations Agency will explore use cases of blockchain technology for the public.

Within 30 days, the DFPI will have to request public comments on the crypto regulations. Besides, the Californian government will have to inform of progress within 60 days since the publication of the federal report on the order.

Amy Tong, the secretary of the California Government Operations Agency, stated it is critical to engage with the industry. She added that they should start learning the pros and cons of innovative technology soon. She concluded that they could take the following steps to get ahead of the curve and take advantage of the potential of those tools to improve the government.

By Alexander Salazar

1...800801802...1,654Page 801 of 1,654