Features

Magazine and Gray Wolf’s investigation concluded that Bitcoin was not double spent in Ethereum’s 2014 ICO, but illicit actors may have laundered their dirty crypto.

A decade after Ethereums initial coin offering, which raised $18.5 million in Bitcoin by selling roughly 60 million Ether, debates about whether different forms of manipulation tactics were involved still swirl in social media.

One theory questions whether the Ethereum founders double-spent investors funds to artificially inflate the success of the ICO while allowing them to close the sale with a larger share of Ether under their control.

Magazine conducted a joint investigation with Canada-based blockchain forensics experts at Gray Wolf Analytics to determine whether the ICO included double-spending of Bitcoin, an activity deemed fraudulent by the presales terms and conditions. The investigation specifically looked for any Bitcoin that entered the presale wallet, was withdrawn and then looped back in.

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Has Polkadot got bang for buck from a foray into motorsport? 13M watched DOT-sponsored driver Conor Daly as he led the Indy 500 for 22 laps.

Conor Dalys name is synonymous with speed. A legacy of agility and adrenaline courses through his veins, inherited from his father, the legendary Irish Formula One driver Derek Daly. 

Hes also become part of the Polkadot family, so members of the community and staff from its developers, Parity Technologies, headed down to the 108th Indy 500 event on May 26 to watch him race. Daly surged from his 29th-place start out of 33 cars to the front of the pack and remarkably led for 22 laps.

Given that he was driving a pink Polkadot-branded DRR-Cusick Motorsports Chevrolet, he helped get the DOT brand out to a total TV audience of 13.3 million and many more around the world for around 10% of the 200-lap race.

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Since the start of the year, I’ve been living in a cheap island paradise as a Bali crypto digital nomad. Here’s how you can too.

If you rocked up to most workplaces in a bikini, thongs, or a singlet, HR would probably give you a tap on the shoulder. But here in Bali, that kind of casual attire is the norm at the Tribal co-working space in Canggu.

It is a bright sunny day and Ive just jumped off the back of a GoJek moped think Uber but with motorcycles right at the entrance of Tribal. I feel overdressed in socks and shoes.

The pool and the bar are buzzing, and people genuinely look happy to be working, walking around casually sipping from coconuts.

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Crypto voters have become a new battleground for the 2024 presidential election, in a bipartisan shift that has taken Washington by surprise.

In May, the United States Congress voted in favor of two pieces of pro-crypto legislation for the first time, after years of political deadlock. Observers were struck by the support from leading Democrats who acted in opposition to direction from the White House.

Combined with last weeks approval of Ether ETFs, and pressure from the suddenly pro-crypto Donald Trump, pundits are now wondering if crypto voters not only have enough power to affect Novembers presidential election but if they already have. 

The Democrats’ sudden position shift with the White House now saying its willing to negotiate on legislation suggests they could be trying to stem any loss of votes on the issue.

The issue came to the fore in the Senate on May 16, when a bipartisan coalition of 60 senators, including Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, voted to overturn a Securities and Exchange Commission rule known as SAB-121, which made it prohibitive for banks to hold cryptocurrencies on behalf of their customers.

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From Eminem to Snoop Dogg, Drake and Tom Holland — a leaked price list suggests JENNER token ‘scammer’ claimed to provide access to them all.

A former teenage business prodigy from India has been named as the man behind a recent series of celebrity meme coin launches with both Caitlyn Jenner and rapper Rich the Kid alleging they have been scammed by the man, Sahil Arora.

More recently, Iggy Azaleas X account appeared to distance the Australian artist from a project bearing her name that was being promoted by Arora as a presale. The token presale raised more than $300,000, while the JENNER token reached more than a $40 million market capitalization amid social media interest in claims and counter-claims of deep fakes and double-dealing.

Arora rejects accusations that he’s a scammer, telling Magazine that many people have made a lot of money from his tokens and that historical allegations against him are from disgruntled investors who lost money trading.

One of his alt accounts also appears to have retweeted other accounts this week claiming that the very celebrities accusing him of scams are still working with him to drum up media interest in meme coin sales.

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Meme coin fans think “serious” crypto investors are mid-curving it. Serious crypto investors think meme coin fans are idiots.

When Satoshi Nakamoto invented Bitcoin (BTC), the anonymous cryptographer envisioned a world where people would free themselves from the iron shackles of banks and tyrannical governments. 

What he probably didnt expect, though, was a crypto industry teeming with badly drawn frog, cat and dog tokens, along with a sprinkling of racist memes.

With coverage of the fourth Bitcoin halving overshadowed by a speculative mania in meme coins including on the Bitcoin network itself its not surprising to see a very vocal debate over the value of meme coins to the crypto industry. 

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Bitcoin Runes’ debut stirred controversy with high fees and poor initial returns, but supporters say the tokens upgrade the Bitcoin network.

The Bitcoin halving event is usually a one-token show. But this year, it shared the stage with the much-anticipated debut of Runes, a new fungible token protocol that stole the spotlight.

The Runes launch was accompanied by massive hype around the potential of memecoins on the protocol and, to a lesser extent, a fresh functionality for the Bitcoin network to tap into the growing interest in DeFi.

Despite initial enthusiasm, Runes has received its fair share of criticism due to its role in escalating Bitcoins transaction fees and failure to generate profits for most investors. 

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An analysis of crypto heists linked to North Korea reveals private key exploits yield the best results for the regime.

More than 70% of the crypto lost to North Korea-linked hacks since 2020 was stolen via private key exploits, according to Magazines analysis of data from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and DeFiLlama.

The combined figures suggest North Korea was responsible for about $2.4 billion of crypto heists since 2020, of which $1.69 billion was stolen due to compromised private keys.

These cybercrimes are often attributed to the Lazarus Group a notorious hacking syndicate allegedly backed by the North Korean state and allegedly support the hermit kingdoms weapons of mass destruction program.

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Hip hop artists can make more money from an NFT than a year of Spotify streams. But there are plenty of other reasons rappers love crypto.

Fifty years since Kool Hercs legendary DJ set at his sisters party in the Bronx kickstarted hip hop, the world has changed dramatically.

Back in the day, labels and radio were the gatekeepers for which artists would break today, anyone with talent and a cell phone can record music, grow a fanbase, and build a sustainable career from their bedroom.

With all the attention crypto and NFTs received during the 2017 and 2021 bull runs, its no surprise that numerous rappers have dipped their toes in the space, with some seeing spectacular success: Snoop Dogg, Logic, Nas, Ghostface Killah and Eminem, among them. 

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Anti-crypto politicians in Washington are weaponizing disputed claims about crypto funding Hamas to try and pass draconian new legislation.

The Israel-Gaza war has once again thrown the spotlight on crypto, with anti-crypto politicians seizing on exaggerated reports of crypto being used to finance terrorism to introduce harsh new legislation with the potential to crush the industry.

Three days after Hamas carried out its brutal Oct. 7 attack, The Wall Street Journal published an inflammatory article stating that in the past three years, U.S.-designated terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah had raised $134 million in crypto.

The article later corrected following an online backlash became ammunition for the anti-crypto army in Washington, which cited it to push for ever greater restrictions on crypto.

That came to a head over the past week with a bipartisan bill called the Terrorism Financing Prevention Act, introduced on Dec. 8. It obliges the Treasury to identify foreign financial institutions and crypto platforms that have knowingly conducted transactions with U.S.-designated terrorist outfits and enables it to impose sanctions to restrict U.S. bank accounts and block transactions.

Senator Mitt Romney tied the bill specifically to the Israel-Gaza war:

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