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3Commas API leak victims demand refunds and apology for ‘gaslighting’

3Commas finally admitted there was an API leak, after months of refuting community reports that it had occurred. Users were not happy about being "gaslighted."

Victims of the 3Commas API leak are calling for refunds and an apology from the crypto trading platform for being gaslighted over the whole ordeal.

The past couple of months have seen an ongoing back and forth between 3Commas and supposed victims of unauthorized trades coming from their accounts.

3Commas and its CEO Yuriy Sorokin had strongly denied any hack or breach had taken place and had refuted there could have been an inside job from an employee gone rogue. Instead, it suggested any leaked APIs were the result of customers being phished.

On Dec. 28 however, Sorokin finally admitted there had been a sizeable API leak from the firm, confirming a database of API keys shared by a hacker was legitimate:

“We saw the hacker’s message and can confirm that the data in the files is true. As an immediate action, we have asked that Binance, Kucoin, and other supported exchanges revoke all the keys that were connected to 3Commas.”

“We did everything that we could to investigate an inside job, as it was always a possible scenario and on our watch list, but proof of an inside job was not found,” Sorokin added.

The community has been left bewildered by this surprise admission, considering that 3Commas had on Dec. 11 labeled customer reports of a leak as “false rumors shared by bad faith actors using falsified evidence.” 

“Just a reminder: For the last 2 months, you have blamed the victims of the hack. You have defamed the victims as ‘bad faith actors’ and alleged they ‘falsified evidence’, when it turns out 3Commas was the ones who were the bad faith actors, lying and falsifying evidence,” wrote Twitter user Pledditor.

Related: 400M Twitter users’ data is reportedly on sale in the black market

Popular crypto trader CoinMamba tweeted that “you kept lying and saying this was our fault instead of taking responsibility and prevented [sic] further exploits. Are you going to refund the users now?”

“Congrats you morons are what’s wrong with the space,” blockchain sleuth ZachXBT chimed in, after he had been posting about the API leak for weeks.

Comments were just as aggressive in response to the 3Commas tweet confirming the leak, with turgut_oztunc writing: “You are really funny guys. We will see [you in] the court if you don't recover our funds asap.“

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Vitalik Buterin on the crypto blues: Focus on the tech, not the price

The Ethereum co-founder has recommended weary crypto investors to shift away from price watching and focus on the tech instead.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has shared some sage advice for traders feeling the blues of the crypto bear market: Focus on the tech rather than the price.

The Ethereum co-founder made the recommendation in response to a Dec. 3 post from self-described crypto investor CoinMamba, echoing what many crypto investors are likely feeling at the moment.

"After 9 years in crypto I’m kinda exhausted. I want to move on and do something different with my life. Tired of all these scammers and fraudsters," CoinMamba said.

The crypto industry has continued to be bombarded with unsavoury news since the collapse of FTX and the resulting contagion, which recently claimed crypto exchange BlockFi.

BNB Chain-based decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Ankr recently confirmed it was hit by a multi-million dollar exploit on Dec. 1.

Even before that, hackers had already been responsible for the theft of over $2.98 billion in digital assets in 2022, according to statistics from blockchain security firm PeckShield.

A large chunk was from the Ronin bridge exploit, which resulted in $625 million in crypto assets being pilfered back in March. 

However, as a means to combat all the negativity, Buterin suggests moving away from trading / investing “circles” and instead, getting closer to the “tech and application ecosystem.”

"I'd recommend increasing your distance from trading/investing circles, and getting closer to the tech and application ecosystem," he said.

“Learn about ZK-SNARKs, visit a meetup in Latin America, listen to All Core Devs calls and read the notes until you've memorized all the EIP numbers…” he added.

Ether bull and host of The Daily Gwei Anthony Sassano agreed, saying the bear market is the "perfect time" to shift away from market watching and learn more about the tech.

"Much more signal than noise (especially in the Ethereum ecosystem) and the tech side is so much more exciting than the markets anyway."

Ethereum has given investors plenty to focus on this year, with the completion of the long-awaited Merge on Sept. 15, which saw the network shift away from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus.

Buterin later added a new category of milestones to the Ethereum technical roadmap, one that aims to improve censorship resistance and decentralization of the Ethereum network.

"Being in it for the tech is already a significant and positive culture pivot, relative to being in it for price movements," said Buterin in his recent Twitter post.

Related: Vitalik Buterin offers lessons for crypto in wake of the FTX collapse

In November, Buterin told Bloomberg that the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange brought lessons for the entire crypto ecosystem.

He labeled the FTX collapse as a “huge tragedy” but also noted that the problem was in people, not technology — adding that the underlying stability of distributed ledger and the technology powering the crypto asset economy has not come into question.

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