HTX reveals the future of Bitcoin DeFi: Babylon staking and fractal scaling

September 24, 2024 Coin Telegraph

$HTX reveals the future of Bitcoin DeFi: Babylon staking and fractal scaling$

Explore how Babylon unlocks yield for Bitcoin holders and how Fractal Bitcoin addresses scalability. Will these projects pave the way for a new era in DeFi?

While Bitcoin is solidifying its position in mainstream finance, opportunities for growth in Bitcoin-based decentralized finance (BTCFi) products are also expanding. Cointelegraph Research recently released a report written by HTX Ventures, which explores how projects such as Babylon and Fractal Bitcoin are pushing the boundaries of BTCFi. It demonstrates how Bitcoin’s evolving programmability will be used to create advanced financial applications.

One of the standout narratives in BTCFi is Babylon’s introduction of Bitcoin-native staking. Historically, there has been no staking on Bitcoin. However, the implementation of Schnorr signatures via Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 340, the Taproot upgrade through BIP 341 — which included Merkelized Abstract Syntax Trees (MAST) — and the update to Bitcoin’s scripting language, Tapscript, in BIP 342, have opened up new opportunities. Bitcoin can now support more complex smart contracts with tens of thousands of spending paths. Babylon leverages these features to enhance both the efficiency and privacy of staking transactions.

According to the HTX report, Babylon has already attracted dozens of projects in an effort to bring liquidity into its ecosystem. Notable examples are StakeStone, which provides native staking yields on different layer-2 networks, and Uniport, an interoperability protocol that ports Bitcoin ecosystem assets such as BRC20 tokens, RGB and Taproot assets to Ethereum. Chakra, a restaking protocol based on zero-knowledge proofs, will also use Babylon.

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Justin Sun said he expects functionality for other cryptocurrencies to gradually be reinstated with full services returning by next week.

Bitcoin (BTC) deposits and withdrawals have returned to the Justin Sun-linked crypto exchange HTX, formerly Huobi, after it suffered a $30 million exploit on Nov. 22.

In a Nov. 26 blog post, HTX said deposit and withdrawal functionality is back for multiple currencies, including BTC, Ether (ETH), Tron (TRX) and Tether (USDT).

In a later post on X (Twitter), Justin Sun said HTX aims to gradually bring back functionality to the remaining cryptocurrencies, which he expects to be done “by next week.”

The majority of the work has been accomplished, and we aim to restore the remaining currencies gradually in the next few days, with all work expected to be completed by next week.
— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) November 26, 2023

HTX’s exchange hot wallets were drained of $30 million and was one of the four hacks in half as many months on Sun-linked or controlled crypto platforms.

The HTX Eco (HECO) Chain bridge — consisting of HTX, Tron and BitTorrent, all linked to or controlled by Sun — was attacked for $86.6 million on the same day as HTX.

The Sun-owned crypto exchange Poloniex also suffered a $100 million attack on Nov. 10, which blockchain security firm CertiK said was likely due to a private key compromise.

On Sept. 24, shortly after Huobi was rebranded to HTX, an attacker stole nearly $8 million in crypto from the exchange’s hot wallet.

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<div>HTX to restore services 'within 24 hours' after .6M hack</div>

Coin Telegraph

"Huobi HTX has now properly handled this attack," the crypto exchange stated.

Crypto exchange HTX, formerly Huobi Global, will resume deposits and withdrawals within 24 hours after suffering a $13.6 million exploit on Nov. 22.

According to its official announcement, the exchange promised to "fully compensate for the losses caused by this attack and 100% guarantee the safety of user funds." In addition, developers wrote, "the amount of funds lost by Huobi HTX this time accounts for a very small amount of the total funds of the platform," noting that the "normal operations" of HTX were not affected by the incident.

The day prior, Huobi suffered a $13.6 million hack to its exchange hot wallets as part of an orchestrated $86.6 million attack against the HTX Eco (HECO) Chain bridge, consisting of HTX, Tron (TRX), and BitTorrent (BTT). All three entities are linked or de-facto controlled by Chinese blockchain entrepreneur Justin Sun.

Like previous incidents, HTX stated that "protecting user assets and information security is our highest responsibility, and we will take all necessary measures to prevent such incidents from happening again." Over the past two months, HTX and Justin Sun-linked entities have been hacked four times. The largest was the $100 million Poloniex exploit on Nov. 10 caused by an apparent private key compromise.

Sun has since stated, "We are investigating the specific reasons for the hacker attack. Once we complete the investigation and identify the cause, we will resume services." A $10 million white hat bounty for the return of stolen funds in the $100 million Poloniex exploit remains open at the time of publication.

HTX exchange loses $13.6M in hot wallet hack: Report

November 22, 2023 Coin Telegraph

HTX exchange loses .6M in hot wallet hack: Report

Coin Telegraph

The incident affected the greater HTX, Tron, and BitTorent ecosystem.

HTX, formerly Huobi Global, suffered an estimated loss of $13.6 million as part of the $86.6 million HECO Chain bridge exploit on Nov. 22.

According to a report by blockchain security firm Cyvers, the losses stem from three compromised hot wallets with users and exchange assets swapped for Ether and distributed to various Ethereum addresses thereafter. Among other coins and tokens, Cyvers says that 1,240 Ether (ETH), 7.3 million Tether (USDT), 1.78 million USD Coin (USDC), and 62,200 Chainlink (LINK) were drained during the attack.

Justin Sun, de-facto owner of HTX and founder of Tron and BitTorrent, both related entities, stated shortly after the exploit that "HTX Will Fully Compensate for HTX's hot wallet Losses. Deposits and Withdrawals Temporarily Suspended. All Funds in HTX Are Secure, and the Community Can Rest Assured."

Earlier in the day, the HECO Chain bridge, a cross-chain bridge created via the merging of the Tron and BitTorrent ecosystem in 2020, was drained of $86.6 million due to an allegedly compromised blockchain operator.

In September, HTX was hacked for $8 million in another hot wallet exploit. At the time, Sun also claimed that "all user assets are SAFU and the platform is operating completely normally." The hack took place less than one month after its rebranding from Huobi Global to HTX, as announced during Token2049 in Singapore.

Data from Nansen show that wallets identified as belonging to HTX hold a combined $2.08 billion in user and corporate assets. Within the past 24 hours, the exchange had $1.3 billion in spot trading volume.

HTX and Heco Cross-Chain Bridge Undergo Hacker Attack. HTX Will Fully Compensate for HTX's hot wallet Losses. Deposits and Withdrawals Temporarily Suspended. All Funds in HTX Are Secure, and the Community Can Rest Assured. We are investigating the specific reasons for the hacker…
— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) November 22, 2023

HTX

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