Ganesh Swami, CEO of blockchain data aggregator Covalent says there continues to be an “intense demand” for on-chain data analysts, that is yet to be satisfied. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Swami said that analysts are in “intense demand” as there’s a “real need” for data experts to “make sense” of on-chain data, explaining: “There is an unresolved backlog of unfilled data-driven roles. This demand is a testament to how eager blockchain and non-blockchain companies alike are to make sense of their own and competitors’ on-chain data.” Swami explained that while the demand for on-chain data analysts has yet to eclipse their …

A quick response from a number of blockchain security companies has helped facilitate the return of around 70% of the $23 million exploit of decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator Transit Swap. The DEX aggregator lost the funds after a hacker exploited an internal bug on a swap contract on Oct. 1, leading to a quick response from Transit Finance team along with security companies Peckshield, SlowMist, Bitrace and TokenPocket, who wer able to quickly work out the hacker’s IP, email address and associated-on chain addresses. It appears these efforts have already born fruit, as less than 24 hours after the hack, …

Uber is a staple of the gig economy, for better or worse, and a disruptor that once sent shockwaves throughout the mobility space. Now, however, Uber is being taken for a ride. The company is handling a reportedly far-reaching cybersecurity breach. According to the ride-hailing giant, the attacker has not been able to access sensitive user data, or at least, there is no evidence to suggest otherwise. Whether or not sensitive user data was exposed, this case points to a persistent issue with today’s apps. Can we continue to sacrifice our data — and thereby our privacy and security — …

Just a few days after market analysts predicted a 50% drop in NEXO price due to regulatory pressure and investor concerns, a crypto wallet address labeled as NEXO 0x8fd withdrew 7,758.8 Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) — roughly worth $153M — from MakerDAO. On Sept. 26, regulators from eight U.S. states filed a cease-and-desist order against Nexo under the allegations of offering unregistered securities to investors without warning. Moreover, Kentucky regulators accused Nexo of insolvency owing to liabilities exceeding assets when excluding Nexo. Following suit, on Sept. 30, blockchain investigator Peckshield alerted the transfer of 7,758.8 WBTC from MakerDAO. One of the …

The metaverse is a futuristic iteration of the internet, featuring a digital economy and an immersive virtual environment alongside other interactive features. This relatively nascent space has gained so much traction in recent years that conservative estimates suggest that by 2024, its total valuation could top $800 billion. Meta (the parent body behind Facebook and Instagram), Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Nike and others have made Fortune-100-sized metaverse splashes. But with great valuations comes great scrutiny from increasingly tech-savvy financial regulators. Unlike traditional tech products, which often spend years putting growth over revenue, some metaverse projects push questionable monetization schemes on their …

Amber Group has reproduced the recent Wintermute hack, the Hong Kong-based crypto finance service provider announced on its blog. The process was fast and simple, and used hardware easily accessible to consumers. Wintermute lost over $160 million in a private key hack on Sept. 20. Reproducing the hack can help “build a better understanding of the attack surface spectrum across Web3,” Amber Group said. It was only hours after the hack of UK-based crypto market maker Wintermute was revealed that researchers were able to pin the blame for it on the Profanity vanity address generator. One analyst suggested that the …

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you significant developments over the last week. United States Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell has given his verdict on the evolution of the DeFi market, claiming there is a definite need for robust regulation before the nascent market could expand to retail. Maple Finance CEO believes that separating the risk from lending saved DeFi from the market crash. He added that crypto lending has operated as intended through the crypto winter because of the transparency. Members of the Ooki DAO are …

A community-driven platform is making a bold prediction for the future: the worlds of DeFi and NFTs will eventually fuse and form a new, brighter star. Starfish Finance says its infrastructure has been built in anticipation of this happening — and it's based on Astar Network, one of Polkadot's top parachains. The Starfish protocol is based on Balancer V2. Users have the freedom to create liquidity pools of up to eight different cryptoassets on top of a full stack DeFi product suite. Beyond its DeFi capabilities, users can stake NFTs on their native chain through Celer Network’s latest IM framework, …

Major decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap is in the early stages of raising significant funds to further expand its decentralized finance (DeFi) offerings, according to a new report. Uniswap Labs, a DeFi startup contributing to the Uniswap Protocol, is engaging with a number of investors to raise an equity round of $100 million to $200 million, TechCrunch reported on Sept. 30. The startup is working with investors like Polychain and one of Singapore’s sovereign funds as part of the upcoming funding round, the report notes, citing two anonymous people familiar with the matter. According to the report, Uniswap would be valued …

Central bank digital currencies (CBDC) can work well with decentralized finance (DeFi), and they have a lot of potential to boost DeFi adoption, according to a Swiss central bank official. Among many various types of digital currencies, it is CBDC that could provide more stability and lower risks to the development of DeFi, according to Thomas Moser, a governing board member at the Swiss National Bank (SNB). In order to grow, DeFi needs stable money, which is why stablecoins were invented, and stablecoins clearly helped DeFi to become more popular, Moser told Cointelegraph. Despite being polar opposites, centralization and decentralization …

Crypto influencer Lark Davis has refuted new allegations from Twitter “on-chain sleuth” ZachXBT of shilling “low cap projects” to his audience “just to dump them shortly after.” Davis was responding to a Twitter thread posted by Zach on Sept. 29, containing allegations that he profited over $1.2 million through selling tokens from crypto projects which he was allegedly paid to promote without disclosing. In a 17-part thread, Zach pointed to eight examples of what is supposedly Davis’ crypto wallet receiving tokens from new crypto projects, with Davis subsequently tweeting or posting a video on them, and then selling the tokens …

Members of the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) called Ooki DAO have started looking into an appropriate response to the charges filed by the United States Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). On Sept. 22, the CFTC announced a $250,000 penalty and settlement with bZeroX, the creators of the decentralized lending platform bZx protocol which suffered from code exploits in 2020 that led to hundreds of thousands in losses. In addition to this, the CFTC also filed a lawsuit against Ooki DAO over similar alleged violations of digital asset trading laws. In response, Ooki DAO members started to discuss how they should …