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Galxe replacing 110% of funds users lost in recent front-end hack, over $400K

The platform was the victim of a phishing scam that routed users to a website that drained their wallets after they approved a transaction.

Galxe is making users whole by 110% if they lost funds in a recent hack, the firm announced on Oct. 10. “We want to express our deepest gratitude to those who are standing by us during this difficult time,” the company said.

Users’ funds will be automatically returned on Oct. 16 to the wallet addresses they were taken from unless they request other handling. The affected users will be paid in Tether (USDT) with the value calculated as of 10:00 UTC Oct. 9.

Users who authenticated transactions on a phishing site on Oct. 6 were affected, Galxe said in a letter to users. The hack lasted just over five hours.

In a preliminary estimate dated Oct. 10, over $396,000 of losses were recorded, in amounts ranging from over $53,000 to just pennies. The company had estimated earlier that around 1,120 users were affected by hack.

Related: Crypto suffered 153% YoY increase in hacks and scams in Q3: Immunefi

Platform co-founder Charles Wayn told Cointelegraph in a written response that Galxe is working with two security firms to track down the hacked funds. In addition, it has improved its domain name service security settings, changed its domain provider and is conducting security audits. Wayn said:

“The incident was mainly caused by [domain registrar] Dynadot resetting our account information and granting permission to an impersonator who provided fake documentation claiming to be an authorized member of Galxe.”

The Galxe protocol is a permissionless self-sovereign identity infrastructure. Its native GAL token fell from $1.20 to $1.15 on Friday, Oct. 6. It reached $1.21 over the weekend with high trading volume through Saturday morning. It had settled at $1.16 at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko.

Magazine: Should crypto projects ever negotiate with hackers? Probably

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TON Foundation launches Ethereum Name Service-like domain names

After launching the TON DNS, the TON Foundation will conduct an auction of the first “.ton” domain names on July 30.

The Open Network (TON) Foundation is the latest cryptocurrency company to upgrade its ecosystem with Ethereum Name Service (ENS)-like domain names.

The TON Foundation on Thursday announced the launch of TON DNS, a new service to allow users to assign human-readable names to crypto wallets, smart contracts and websites.

Similar to other popular crypto-related domain names like “.eth” or “.crypto” the domain zone for TON DNS is “.ton” and will enable users to access decentralized applications in a simple way.

With TON DNS, users will be able to use simple and short domain names instead of typing in a long string of letters and numbers.

A domain name created using TON DNS will not only function as a nickname but will also unlock a wallet address. The TON Foundation also plans to integrate its TON DNS technology into TON Sites and TON Proxy tools that are expected to launch in Q3 2022.

“A .ton domain name, therefore, will be a welcome alternative to centralized domain registries, which have the ability to block a website’s domain arbitrarily,” the announcement notes.

In conjunction with the TON DNS launch, the foundation announced that it will conduct an auction of the first “.ton” domain names on July 30. The auction has been “designed to be as decentralized as possible, with equal conditions” for all participants, the TON Foundation said, adding that it will be run on smart contracts for a period of seven days.

“Notably, coins from the sale of each domain will be removed from circulation — these tokens will be sent to a smart contract from which they will not be able to be withdrawn,” the announcement notes.

Related: 4-digit ENS domains spike in demand this week and continue soaring

The TON DNS launch closely follows the TON Blockchain’s integration with mobile and wallet Telegram bots earlier this year. “The launch of TON DNS will simplify how users engage with the TON blockchain and will continue to make TON even more accessible,” the Foundation said.

According to an announcement on June 30, TON DNS support has also been integrated into services like The Tonkeeper, TON Web Wallet and Tonscan.

The news comes shortly after the TON Foundation announced the completion of mining Toncoin’s entire issuance of 5 billion tokens on June 28. The end of Toncoin mining marked a major milestone in TON's distribution, starting its new era as a fully proof-of-stake blockchain.

Bitcoin Breakout on the Cards Based on History, Says Crypto Analyst Jason Pizzino – Here’s the Timeline

Web 3.0-focused altcoins soar as the need for truly decentralized crypto grows

PRQ, HNS and NEAR lead the altcoin market as interoperability and Web 3.0 functionality begin to emerge as the next hot trend in the crypto sector.

The cryptocurrency market is abuzz on Oct. 25 as the sight of multiple altcoins hitting new all-time highs and Bitcoin's (BTC) return to $63,000 has traders looking for a resumption of the bullish uptrend.

Top 7 coins with the highest 24-hour price change. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the biggest gainers over the past 24-hours were PARSIQ (PRQ), Handshake (HNS) and NEAR Protocol (NEAR).

PARSIQ advocates for interoperability between networks

PARSIQ is a blockchain-based analytics platform that specializes in connecting blockchain activity to real-world applications.

According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro, market conditions for PRQ have been favorable for some time.

The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historical and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.

VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. PRQ price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for PRQ began to pick up on Oct. 22 and climbed to a high of 72 on Oct. 24, just one hour before the price increased 41% over the next day.

The boost in price of PRQ comes as the team behind the protocol has been focused on promoting the interoperability capabilities of PARSIQ, which currently offers support for multiple blockchain networks including Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Polkadot (DOT), and Algorand (ALGO).

Handshake Web 3.0 domains gain traction

Handshake is a decentralized, permissionless naming protocol that aims to be an alternative to the existing Certificate Authorities and naming systems.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $0.213 on Oct. 24, the price of HNS spiked 74% to an intraday high at $0.371 as its 24-hour trading volume surged by 491% to $3.9 million.

HNS/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The rising price of HNS comes as the protocol's domain naming service (DNS) begins to gain traction and users start buying up Handshake domains as it is one of the few DNS providers that supports Web 3.0.

Related: Bitcoin price action in 2021 so far mirrors 2017 — Will it continue?

NEAR Protocol announces an $800 million development grant

NEAR Protocol is a low-cost layer-one protocol designed to make decentralized applications usable on the internet and the project aims to provide interoperability between separate networks.

According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro, market conditions for NEAR have been favorable for some time.

VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. NEAR price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for NEAR began to pick up on Oct. 22 and reached a high of 82 around 41 hours before the price increased 33% over the next day.

The rally in NEAR price comes as the protocol hosts its Nearcon event and also announced an $800 million ecosystem development grant intended to provoke growth in the NEAR ecosystem.

The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $2.634 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 45.5%.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Bitcoin Breakout on the Cards Based on History, Says Crypto Analyst Jason Pizzino – Here’s the Timeline

Hackers Compromise Web Portal Bitcoin.org — DNS Hijack Replaces Site With BTC Doubler Scam

Hackers Compromise Web Portal Bitcoin.org — DNS Hijack Replaces Site With BTC Doubler ScamOn Thursday, the pseudonymous operator of Bitcoin.org told the public on Twitter that the web portal has been “compromised.” The operator, Cobra, explained that the hackers were able to implement a bitcoin doubler scam model and stressed that the site would be down for a “few days.” Website Operator Cobra Warns Bitcoin.org Has Been Compromised […]

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