United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Gary Gensler has found a new audience for his crypto-skeptical pep talks — the United States Army. On Jan. 11 the U.S. Army hosted its first Twitter Space of 2023 with Gensler and SEC commissioner Caroline Crenshaw joining the discussion to provide financial advice on how and where U.S. soldiers should invest their money. https://t.co/oRjE3pDc8C — U.S. Army (@USArmy) January 11, 2023 Sergeant Lawrence Holmes noted “there are soldiers that look for those alternative investments [such as] crypto assets” asking the pair what risks there were to crypto investing. “It’s the Wild …

Multi-party computation (MPC) is a type of cryptographic protocol that allows multiple parties to jointly compute a function over their inputs without revealing those inputs to each other. MPC can be useful when parties want to compute some function together but want to keep their inputs private from others. For example, a group of banks may want to determine the total amount of money in their joint account without revealing their account balances to each other. In MPC, each party has a secret input which they keep to themselves. The process is done by carefully encrypting the inputs and performing …

Ethereum Layer-2 (L2) on-chain activity has been increasing to the extent that the leading two networks now process more transaction volume than the Ethereum network. Layer-2 networks Arbitrum and Optimism have seen an increase in transactions over the past three months. Comparatively, aside from a few spikes, transactions on the Ethereum network have declined by around 33% since late October according to Etherscan. This has enabled the two L2s combined to flip Ethereum for this metric, according to Dune Analytics data. The chart shows Ethereum processed over 1.06 million transactions on Jan. 10 whereas Arbitrum and Optimism combined processed over …

The average crypto investor probably isn’t planning on dying of old age anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have a plan in place to pass on their crypto in the event they meet an unlikely demise, lawyers warn. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Dubai-based crypto lawyer Irina Heaver believes that “billions” worth of Bitcoin (BTC) has been lost due to a lack of proper death-related planning by hodlers. She noted that many families have been unable to access their loved one’s crypto assets due to private keys being taken to the grave, and emphasized the importance of discussing crypto assets …

The Flare (FLR) token airdrop started on Mon., Jan. 9, nearly two years after a snapshot of Ripple (XRP) holders took place on Dec. 12, 2020. The FLR airdrop was distributed at a ratio of 1.0073 FLR per 1 XRP and the initial distribution saw 15% of the total supply released to the community. A total of 28.5 billion FLR were distributed based on this methodology and according to Flare’s tokenomics, 58.3% of the total genesis FLR supply will be distributed over 36 months. What is Flare? Flare is a Layer-1 blockchain with an oracle system aiming to boost interoperability …

UK crypto app Tap Global has become the first 2023 listing on the Aquis Stock Exchange (AQSE), according to a press release from the company. The listing was accomplished through a reverse takeover by Quetzal Capital, according to a press release on Jan. 10. The first #AQSE listing this year. Thank you to @SimonPeterHunt of The Evening Standard (@standardnews) for covering the news of our stock market debut. #TAP #RTO #PLC Full article: https://t.co/NK5Wp2VqjG — Tap Global Group Plc (@TapGlobalPlc) January 10, 2023 Tap provides fiat banking services, a crypto swap service that sources crypto from partner exchanges, and access …

Decentralized yield protocol Yearn.finance said in a Jan. 9 tweet that all users can now create sophisticated Permissionless Vault Factories on its platform. The current version of Vault Factory works with stablecoin-swapping platform Curve Finance and its liquidity provider (LP) tokens and features three premade yield strategies. “Our new Permissionless Vault Factory lets anyone deploy an auto-compounding yVault for any Curve pool with an active liquidity gauge. Yes, anyone. Factory-deployed vaults have no management fees and a flat 10% performance fee. Nice!” As told by Yearn.finance, the first, dubbed “Boosted Factory,” uses Yearn’s vote-escrowed CRV balance of 45.1 million to …

According to a post on January 9, e-Money — a stablecoin project in the Cosmos ecosystem — said it would discontinue the issuance of its euro stablecoin EURR effective March 6, 2023. In explaining the decision, e-Money wrote: "The lack of real-world applications for blockchain has led to low demand for non-USD stablecoins. The upcoming European MiCA legislation is expected to hinder the scalability of Euro-backed stablecoins and limit business opportunities in the sector. European MiCA legislation in its current form favors commercial banks as future issuers of Euro stablecoins, hurting innovation in the European Union." Until the deadline, users …

Sanctions aimed at decentralized crypto mixer Tornado Cash weren’t able to completely cut off its usage, though it has hamstrung the service, a blockchain analytics firm has shared. On Aug. 8, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against the crypto mixer for its role in the laundering of crime proceeds. In a report published on Jan. 9, Chainalysis said the sanctions did have some effect, causing total inflows to the mixer to drop by 68% in the 30 days after the sanctions came into force. 1/ The first section preview of our 2023 Crypto Crime Report is …

An address related to the $190-million Nomad exploit has moved $1.57 million in Ether (ETH) to the sanctioned crypto mixer Tornado Cash. In an alert, blockchain security firm CertiK flagged that a wallet address affiliated with the Nomad hack has transferred 1,200 ETH into Tornado Cash, suggesting that the attackers may be cashing in the funds. The hacker transferred 12 batches of 100 ETH to the sanctioned mixer. The Nomad bridge hack was one of the ten largest crypto hacks in 2022, with more than $190 million worth of digital assets lost. On Aug 1, hundreds of exploiters flocked to …

It’s no secret that in 2022 the world of Web3 and decentralized finance (DeFi) experienced a slew of major exploits and attacks. From the Ronin bridge attack to the Nomad hack, the top 10 exploits alone saw over $2 billion lost. In the Beosin Global Web3 Security Report 2022, it revealed that of 167 major security incidents over the last year those rooted in DeFi were the most vulnerable. DeFi projects were attacked 113 times, which accounted for approx. 67.6% of recorded attacks. This is followed by attacks on exchanges, nonfungible token (NFT) projects, cross-chain bridges and wallets in that …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) investors should buckle themselves up for another big year of exploits and attacks as new projects enter the market and hackers become more sophisticated. Executives from blockchain security and auditing firms HashEx, Beosin and Apostro were interviewed for Drofa’s An Overview of DeFi Security In 2022 report shared exclusively with Cointelegraph. The executives were asked about the reason behind a significant increase in DeFi hacks last year, and were asked whether this will continue through 2023. Tommy Deng, managing director of blockchain security firm Beosin, said while DeFi protocols will continue to strengthen and improve security, he …