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THORSwap goes into ‘maintenance mode’ to counter illicit funds movement

THORSwap acknowledged the ongoing illicit use of the DEX and are acting to find a permanent block to the misuse.

THORSwap, a decentralized exchange (DEX) powered by multichain THORChain, has entered maintenance mode to prevent bad actors from moving illicit funds through the platform.

On Oct. 6, THORSwap transitioned into “maintenance mode” as an immediate measure to counter the potential movement of illicit funds. The decision comes after consultation with advisors, legal counsel, and law enforcement, according to the original announcement.

Bad actors often use cross-chain platforms like THORSwap to move funds across multiple blockchains, making them untraceable. THORSwap has acknowledged the ongoing predicament and decided to find a permanent block to the misuse.

“THORSwap will remain in this (maintenance) mode until a more permanent and robust solution can be implemented to ensure the platform’s continued security and integrity.”

While most of the community did not welcome the decision to temporarily pull the plug on the platform, the move was attributed to the DEX’s intent to serve its customers for the long term. The company shared no further information on the ongoing investigations and remediation plans. 

THORSwap did not respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.

Related: Binance to shut down BUSD lending by October 25

While THORChain works toward strengthening its security measures before restarting its services, decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol Yield Protocol announced the decision to permanently shut down.

Yield Protocol’s upcoming shutdown was accredited to the lack of business demand and rising regulatory pressures.

“All borrowing and lending will end by December 31st,” confirmed Yield Protocol as it announced canceling the March 2024 fixed rate series launch. Unfavorable crypto regulations in the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom became one of the main reasons for Yield Protocol’s untimely shutdown.

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Pancakeswap integrates Transak for fiat onboarding on multiple chains

Pancakeswap now allows users to purchase crypto with debit card, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and other methods through Transak.

Decentralized exchange Pancakeswap now offers Transak as a provider in its “buy crypto” tab, giving Pancakeswap users an additional option when shopping for crypto, according to an announcement on September 21. Mercuryo and Moonpay were previously providers for this feature, making Transak the third provider to be added.

Caption: Pancakeswap buy crypto tab. Source: Pancakeswap

Pancakeswap is a multichain decentralized crypto exchange (DEX). It’s available on 8 different blockchain networks, including BNB Chain, Ethereum, Base, Polygon zkEVM, and others. It has over $1.3 billion worth of crypto locked in its contracts and does over $150 billion in volume per day, according to crypto analytics platform DeFi Llama.

As with all DEXs, Pancakeswap can’t perform fiat to crypto conversions on its own. Users have to first own cryptocurrency in a wallet before they can use the exchange. Its development team recently implemented the “buy crypto” feature in an attempt to fix this problem by allowing users to onboard with third-party providers like Mercuryo, Moonpay and now Transak. Transak claims to be integrated into over 350 Web3 apps, making it one of the most accessible crypto onboarding services.

According to the announcement, Transak will provide “over 20 different payment options based on global needs,” including debit cards, Google Pay, Apple Pay, bank transfers, and others, and will provide nine different cryptocurrencies across seven different blockchain networks to Pancakeswap users.

Related: MetaMask launches feature to sell ETH for fiat

Pancakeswap’s pseudonymous leader, head chef Mochi, stated that the integration will help make decentralized finance protocols easier to use:

“[I]t's imperative that entry points remain simple yet robust. Transak's expertise in fiat on-ramping, combined with PancakeSwap's platform capabilities, promises an era where diving into decentralized finance is intuitive and barrier-free for all."

Pancakeswap launched a web3 game called “Pancake Protectors” on May 30. The game gives extra perks to holders of the DEXs governance token, CAKE. The token’s inflation rate was reduced to 3%-5% through a governance vote in April.

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1inch Investment Fund Abruptly Accumulates $10,000,000 in Ethereum Amid Market Downturn: On-Chain Data

1inch Investment Fund Abruptly Accumulates ,000,000 in Ethereum Amid Market Downturn: On-Chain Data

A blockchain tracker finds that the investment fund associated with the decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator 1inch (1INCH) abruptly accumulated $10 million worth of Ethereum (ETH) over the weekend. Blockchain tracker Lookonchain notes that the 1inch investment fund wallet also bought a total of 17,000 ETH worth $26.8 million at an average price of $1,569 across […]

The post 1inch Investment Fund Abruptly Accumulates $10,000,000 in Ethereum Amid Market Downturn: On-Chain Data appeared first on The Daily Hodl.

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Cardano DEX MuesliSwap to refund users after slippage confusion

The MuesliSwap team wants to refund users who have lost funds to high slippage due to the way the DEX’s matchmaker was set up.

The team behind the Cardano-based decentralized exchange MuesliSwap has made a decision to refund users that have been hit with high slippage over the past year.

On Aug. 8, the MuseliSwap team said it “fell short in providing adequate clarity” on the slippage feature within its protocol.

Slippage is the price difference between when a transaction is submitted and when the transaction is confirmed on the blockchain.

MuesliSwap users have been paying high slippage for at least a year due to the way the decentralized matchmaker was set up, the team explained.

Matchmakers — who scan for buy and sell orders to match up and fulfill — were able to “fill the limit order and choose whether to return the additional slippage amount or retain the difference at their discretion,” MuesliSwap noted.

The slippage difference was an incentive for decentralized matchmakers, it added, but this caused confusion for users.

“To make amends, we will be refunding affected users who encountered high slippage on the MuesliSwap pools in the last 12 months from our project funds.”

Additionally, immediate action has been taken to remedy the slippage issue in the MuesliSwap order book, it added.

Related: DEX aggregators: The ultimate solution to reduce price slippage in DeFi

Users have been highlighting slippage issues on all Cardano DEXs. On Aug. 4, one trader said:

“Currently completing a LARGE trade on any CARDANO DEX is subject to HUGE slippage which diminishes trader’s value by a large percentage.”

They claimed MuesliSwap was supposedly working on a DEX aggregator to split large trades and limit losses due to slippage.

MuesliSwap is the fifth-largest protocol on Cardano, with a total value locked of $17.3 million, according to DeFiLlama. However, MuesliSwap TVL has tanked 27% since the beginning of the month and is down 68% since its all-time high in April 2022.

In December, MuesliSwap launched an “organic APR” feature that increased token emissions as more liquidity went into pools as a way to incentivize users to add collateral.

Magazine: Deposit risk: What do crypto exchanges really do with your money?

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Curve liquidation risk poses systemic threat to DeFi even as founder scurries to repay loans

A Curve Finance hack sparked a sharp sell-off, and while DeFi traders stepped in to support CRV, the possibility of a contagion-level event remains.

On July 30, Curve Finance, a decentralized exchange on Ethereum, suffered a hack due to a vulnerability in certain pools built using the Vyper programming language.

The price of Curve DAO (CRV) dropped 20.91% on the day of the hack, falling to a two-month low of $0.58.

The next day, the decline in CRV continued to a seven-month low of $0.48 amid fears of liquidation of hefty loans worth $100 million taken by Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov against CRV as collateral.

However, positive developments such as partial repayment of loans and significant negative bets in the derivatives market suggest that CRV may rally in the short term.

The DeFi community comes to save CRV

On Aug. 1, Egorov sold 39.25 million CRV tokens for stablecoins to a number of notable decentralized finance investors like Justin Sun, Machi Big Brother and DWF Labs for a total of $15.8 million, according to Lookonchain data.

The buyers purchased CRV at $0.40 per token, a 25% discount to the market price at the time.

Egorov also partially paid his Tether (USDT) loans on Aave, reducing the principal from $63.20 million to $54.1 million, per DeBank data. The partial repayment of the loan comes as a positive step in reducing the liquidation risk.

Currently, Egorov’s loans on Aave will be liquidated if the CRV price falls to $0.36 or lower, per DefiLlama.

Related: Vyper vulnerability exposes DeFi ecosystem to stress tests

CRV price analysis

The derivatives position of CRV traders suggests that the token may rally in the short term as a contrarian bet.

The funding rate for CRV perpetual swaps, which represents the relative demand for long or short positions, shows traders are actively shorting CRV, as its funding rate fell to -0.1% for eight-hour intervals, per CoinGlass data.

It raises the possibility of a short squeeze in the market, where short holders are forced to buy CRV as its price rallies.

The CRV/USD pair is trending near multiyear lows at around $0.50. If buyers are able to build support at this level, the price can rally in the short to medium term toward the horizontal resistance levels of $0.78 and $1.23.

CRV/USD price analysis. Source: TradingView

A long trade definitely comes with risks, as the hackers are still sitting on 7.1 million CRV tokens worth $4.5 million. If the attackers convert their holdings into stablecoins or more liquid tokens such as Bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH), the price may revisit this week’s low, around $0.48.

Moreover, while Egorov has lowered the liquidation risk slightly, the risk is still not eliminated completely.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Trump Reportedly Hold Private Discussion

Base’s largest DEX LeetSwap halts trading amid exploit concerns

Some analysts have provided possible ways the exchange was exploited and pinned potential initial losses at over $600,000.

Decentralized exchange LeetSwap, which operates on Coinbase’s Base network has announced a pause on trading, citing concerns of a potential exploit.

LeetSwap tweeted on Aug. 1 that it noticed some of its liquidity pools may have been compromised and temporarily stopped trading to investigate. In a subsequent update, the exchange said it is working with on-chain security experts to try to recover locked liquidity.

While the exchange did not share many details, a number of blockchain sleuths have since provided some commentary about how the exploit is likely to have taken place.

Algorithmic market maker Wintermute’s research head Igor Igamberdiev believes the attacker used an exposed smart contract function, allowing them to increase the price of a token which would then allow them to drain wrapped Ether (ETH) from LeetSwap's liquidity pools.

Igamberdiev added the potential exploit has seemingly netted the attacker 342.5 ETH worth over $630,000.

Multiple blockchain security firms including PeckShield, Beosin, BlockSec and CertiK confirmed Igamberdiev's theory and the amount exploited in separate tweets.

Related: Pro-XRP lawyer Jeremy Hogan’s scam tweet bonanza finally falls silent

In an update by LeetSwap roughly an hour and a half after it notified of the trading halt, it said it's working with security experts to find a way to recover liquidity locked on the platform.

It's the second Base-related controversy in a day. Earlier, the developer for a Brian Armstrong-themed memecoin called BALD removed liquidity from the token causing its price to drop.

Allegations flew that the project was an exit scam which the project developer denied.

Asia Express: China expands CBDC’s tentacles, Malaysia is HK’s new crypto rival

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Trump Reportedly Hold Private Discussion

Centralized exchanges will become gateways for DeFi: Finance Redefined

The top 100 DeFi tokens had a mixed week, with most of the tokens continuing to trade in a similar range as the previous week.

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week.

The past week in DeFi saw new advancements in zero-knowledge proofs (ZK-proofs) as a scaling solution as more DeFi protocols embraced the technology.

A new United States Senate DeFi bill attracted a lot of scrutiny — though not necessarily of the positive kind — as many stakeholders came out to slam the “unworkable” legislation.

The CEO of the dydx Foundation made a bold prediction that centralized exchanges will eventually become a gateway for DeFi, while Polygon 2.0 laid the groundwork for decentralized governance.

The top 100 DeFi tokens had another mixed week of ups and downs, with most tokens continuing to trade in the same range as the previous week.

Centralized exchanges will become gateways for DeFi — DYdX Foundation CEO

The dYdX Foundation — an independent DeFi nonprofit founded to support the dYdX protocol — recently launched a public testnet for its latest version, v4. According to the foundation, this puts dYdX ahead of schedule for the impending launch of the v4 mainnet, something the foundation claims represents complete decentralization for dYdX.

As Cointelegraph recently reported, the July 5 testnet launch represented the fourth of five milestones dYdX laid out in its 2022 roadmap toward decentralization.

Continue reading

Polygon 2.0 begins groundwork for decentralized governance

Polygon Labs has started work on an expansion intended to include all blockchains and applications running on the Polygon network, and seeks to democratize the upgrade process and encourage community participation.

On July 19, the company’s developers proposed revamping the governance mechanism for the forthcoming Polygon 2.0 roadmap to establish several layer 2s on the network.

Continue reading

Coin Center and Blockchain Association slam ‘unworkable’ U.S. Senate DeFi bill

Crypto industry advocacy bodies have slammed a newly proposed U.S. Senate bill for what they say is a confused approach to regulating the DeFi sector.

On July 20, crypto think tank Coin Center and crypto advocacy group the Blockchain Association released separate statements describing the legislation as a “messy,” “unworkable” and “unconstitutional” way of regulating DeFi.

Continue reading

Chainlink launches cross-chain protocol bridging blockchain to TradFi

The development firm behind the Chainlink protocol and its native LINK token has gone live with its cross-chain protocol aimed at providing interoperability between traditional financial firms, and public and private blockchains.

In a July 17 post on the Chainlink blog, Chainlink Labs chief product officer Kemal El Moujahid announced that its cross-chain interoperability protocol has launched under early access on Ethereum, Avalanche, Polygon, Arbitrum and Optimism.

Continue reading

DeFi liquidity protocol adds ConsenSys-developed zkEVM rollup Linea

Amid the growing popularity of layer-2 scaling solutions based on ZK-proofs, decentralized finance liquidity protocol Symbiosis has added support for Linea, a zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM)-based scaling solution for cross-chain swaps developed by ConsenSys.

Symbiosis said in a statement that Linea is a developer-ready zkEVM rollup, which means it is Ethereum-compatible and thus lets developers reuse a lot of existing infrastructure for creating multi-asset solutions. Linea comprises 100+ protocols, developer tools and decentralized applications, making it a potentially helpful scaling tool for developers in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Continue reading

DeFi market overview

DeFi’s total market value saw a bullish surge after three bearish weeks. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a bullish week, with most tokens trading in the green. The total value locked in DeFi protocols remained below $50 billion.

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.

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Cosmos-based Osmosis launches concentrated liquidity, lets LPs choose price

The new feature offers higher fees to LPs who provide liquidity within tighter price ranges but also causes them to not earn fees if the price goes outside of the range.

The Cosmos-based decentralized exchange Osmosis (OSMO) has launched a new “concentrated liquidity” feature, according to a July 12 announcement from the app’s developer, Osmosis Labs. The new feature allows liquidity providers (LPs) to choose a minimum and maximum price to offer to buy or sell crypto.

Osmosis user interface. Source: Osmosis

The Cosmos ecosystem is a web of blockchain networks that use the Cosmos software development kit and are connected through the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol. Osmosis is one of the largest decentralized exchanges (DEXs) in the ecosystem, doing approximately $120 million in volume each day, according to data from DefiLlama.

The new feature allows Osmosis LPs to provide liquidity at a minimum and maximum price. If the price falls below their minimum or above their maximum, they will no longer receive fees. On the other hand, they will receive higher fees when the price is within range than they would if they had chosen not to state a maximum or minimum.

According to the announcement, concentrated liquidity will provide a 100x to 300x increase in capital efficiency, meaning that a pool can have significantly less liquidity for the same amount of volume and yet still not cause slippage for traders.

The feature was first introduced to DEXs in Uniswap v3 and has become common throughout the Web3 world. However, the Osmosis team told Cointelegraph that it has been relatively rare in the Cosmos ecosystem before now.

Related: New Cosmos chain will use liquid staking tokens for security

In a conversation with Cointelegraph, Osmosis Labs protocol engineer Alpin Yukseloglu stated that the exchange’s new feature goes further than Uniswap’s original version. The original version of concentrated liquidity only allowed LPs to set minimums and maximums at particular price intervals, called “ticks.” This improved scalability but also created user experience issues when users couldn’t place price points exactly where they wanted them to be.

The version used by Osmosis adds more ticks within each price range, allowing for the setting of more finely tuned minimums and maximums and potentially reducing user frustration, as Yukseloglu explained:

“We’re keeping that scaling, but we’re adding more ticks into each bucket to make it so that you can have those more granularly placed preferences.”

Yukseloglu said Osmosis plans to implement a full-fledged on-chain order book at some point in the future. The feature is “essentially at implementation-level spec right now,” but the team is not yet ready to announce a timeline for its completion. The Osmosis Labs engineer claimed that both concentrated liquidity and the order book are part of a broader Osmosis goal of giving liquidity providers more options.

Crypto futures exchange dYdX is also developing an on-chain order book as part of its move to the Cosmos ecosystem.

In August, Osmosis co-founder Sunny Aggarwal expressed his view that Cosmos IBC is a superior means of securing cross-chain bridges when compared to other options, calling it “the safest bridging protocol in existence.” A critical vulnerability was found in IBC in October, which was patched the following day.

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New York prosecutor charges hacker over $9M exploit of Solana-based exchange

A skilled computer security engineer has been charged with wire fraud and money laundering related to an attack on a decentralized exchange.

A former security engineer for an international technology firm has been arrested and charged for allegedly using a smart contract bug to steal $9 million in cryptocurrency from a Solana-based decentralized crypto exchange.

On June 11, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams announced the “first-ever criminal case” involving an attack on a smart contract operated by a decentralized exchange (DEX).

In a statement, Williams claims the accused — Shakeeb Ahmed — “used his expertise to defraud the exchange and its users and steal approximately $9 million in cryptocurrency.”

Williams said the attack was carried out in July 2022 and was aimed at a Solana-based DEX.

The attack involved exploiting a vulnerability in the exchange's smart contracts to generate inflated fees with flash loans.

These were then withdrawn and laundered through a “series of complex transfers on the blockchain where he swapped cryptocurrencies, hopped across different crypto blockchains, and used overseas crypto exchanges.”

While Williams did not disclose the DEX that was exploited in July, previous reporting from Cointelegraph reveals an unknown hacker exploited Solana-based liquidity protocol Crema Finance on July 2, 2022, stealing $9.6 million in cryptocurrency.

The exploiter later returned most of the funds but was allowed to keep $1.6 million as a white hat bounty.

Similarly, William’s statement also noted that Ahmed decided to return all of the stolen funds except for $1.5 million on condition the crypto exchange did not refer the attack to law enforcement.

“None of those actions covered the defendant’s tracks or fooled law enforcement, and they certainly didn’t stop my Office or our law enforcement partners from following the money,” he said.

Ahmed was arrested in New York and has been indicted on charges of wire fraud and money laundering related to the attack of the Solana-based DEX in July 2022.

Cointelegraph contacted Crema Finance for clarification but did not immediately receive a response.

Related: Crypto hacks and exploits snatch over $300M in Q2 2023

Responding to the recent news, crypto, and startup lawyer "Orlando.btc" commented that the move could be good for the overall DeFi ecosystem.

The indictment indicates that the Department of Justice will “pursue criminal charges if a person intentionally uses a protocol in a way that it was not *intended* to be used,”

Magazine: Should crypto projects ever negotiate with hackers? Probably

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Trump Reportedly Hold Private Discussion

Shiba Inu Altcoin Rips After Shytoshi Kusama Reveals ‘Shibapendence Day’ Ahead of Imminent Layer-2 Launch

Shiba Inu Altcoin Rips After Shytoshi Kusama Reveals ‘Shibapendence Day’ Ahead of Imminent Layer-2 Launch

An altcoin in the Shiba Inu (SHIB) ecosystem is skyrocketing after its lead developer presented the first “truly decentralized exchange” ahead of the launch of Shibarium, the project’s highly anticipated upcoming layer-2 scaling solution. In a new blog post, pseudonymous SHIB developer Shytoshi Kusama unveils “Shibapendence Day,” a celebration for the SHIB community to declare its […]

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Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Trump Reportedly Hold Private Discussion