Aave mulls Chainlink integration to return MEV fees to users

December 23, 2024 Coin Telegraph

Decentralized Oracle Network Chainlink (LINK) Witnesses Rising On-Chain Momentum As Price Surges: Glassnode

December 13, 2024 The Daily Hodl

Pyth Network Unveils Real-Time Bitcoin ETF Price Feeds, Bridging Defi and Traditional Finance

February 20, 2024 Bitcoin.com

DeFi protocol Venus seeks to patch $270K hole from oracle incident

December 11, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Ethereum team lead sees zero interest from university in collaborating

December 3, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Amazon

Peter Szilagyi, Ethereum's team lead, voiced dissatisfaction with his former university's lack of enthusiasm in recommending students for collaboration with Ethereum.

Peter Szilagyi, the team lead of Ethereum, has expressed frustration over his alma mater's lack of interest in providing opportunities for students to collaborate with Ethereum (ETH).

In a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), Szilagyi explained that he had always felt a lack of genuine interest when he returned to his old university to deliver talks about Ethereum.

He stated that the students appeared to be more focused on the price of Ethereum rather than the project itself.

“The audience seems to have been stuck in the number go up aspect; and the organizers always used it as an ad campaign.”

Over the past years I've been asked many times to do talks at my old university about #Ethereum. I did a couple of them, but didn't feel genuine interest.

The audience seems to have been stuck in the number go up aspect; and the organizers always used it as an ad campaign.
— Péter Szilágyi (karalabe.eth) (@peter_szilagyi) December 2, 2023

Szilagyi noted that this year he organized a grant for 9 students to participate in Devconnect, including flights and accommodation.

“I haven't met the students myself, but someone supposedly has.

“Figured lets see if this piqued some interest.
Read more

Chainlink (LINK) pumps 26% in 6 days — Is there room for more?

November 8, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

LINK token continues to strengthen as professional traders and enterprise solution clients enter Chainlink’s ecosystem.

Chainlink's (LINK) token has experienced a remarkable 26% surge between Nov. 2 and Nov. 8, approaching $14, a level not seen since April 2022. This solidified its position as the 10th largest cryptocurrency (excluding stablecoins) by market capitalization.

While the price action is a welcome sight for traders, is Chainlink's current valuation of $8.1 billion justified? Cointelegraph research shows that the impressive price surge is driven by expectations of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and initial signs of institutional adoption. However, let's delve deeper to assess the sustainability of the current rally.

Spot Bitcoin ETF expectations and real world asset tokenization boost sentiment

Bloomberg's ETF strategists, James Seyffart and Eric Balhunas, issued a research note on Nov. 8, which has boosted the confidence of cryptocurrency traders.

New Research note from me today. We still believe 90% chance by Jan 10 for spot #Bitcoin ETF approvals. But if it comes earlier we are entering a window where a wave of approval orders for all the current applicants *COULD* occur pic.twitter.com/u6dBva1ytD
— James Seyffart (@JSeyff) November 8, 2023

In their note, they explain that the window for approving a Bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund is set to open on Nov. 9, as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission concludes its latest round of postponements.

Seyffart maintains a 90% likelihood of approval, but cautions that the regulator's final decision may be delayed until mid-January.

Altcoins have also seen notable price increases in the past seven days, with Trust Wallet Token (TWT) surging by 41%, Immutable X (IMX) by 29%, and NEO by 28%. LINK's appreciation is indicative of the positive sentiment towards altcoins, particularly following Bitcoin's (BTC) apparent stagnation around the $35,500 mark.

Within the Chainlink's ecosystem several positive developments have contributed to the LINK’s recent performance.

On Nov. 7, Vodafone, a major European and North Africa-based telecom company, officially launched its partnership with the Japanese financial conglomerate Sumitomo Corporation, utilizing Chainlink oracles to facilitate transactions and offer diverse applications, including electric vehicle charging stations and toll roads.

This digital platform, known as Pairpoint, enables vehicles and devices to autonomously interact and trade in the emerging Internet of Things (IoT) landscape. Pairpoint leverages Vodafone's existing digital assets platform and has full integration with partners such as MasterCard, HSBC, Deloitte, and IBM.

Apart from IoT, a broader trend appears to be favoring Chainlink's oracle solution. RWA tokenization is poised to become mainstream, as evidenced by HSBC's launch of custody services for regulated securities on Nov. 8.

HSBC's Zhu Kuang Lee has noted the increasing demand for custody and fund administration of digital assets from asset managers and owners. HSBC's press release indicates that the custody service will complement its HSBC Orion platform for issuing digital assets and a recently introduced tokenized gold offering. It's also worth mentioning that HSBC manages approximately $3 trillion in assets globally.

Professional traders’ increased demand for LINK token

Despite the promising future prospects, traders are questioning whether there have been substantial institutional inflows into Chainlink to support the 26% rally in just six days. Unfortunately, there is no foolproof metric to gauge this, but Grayscale's Chainlink Trust (GLNK) presents an optimistic perspective, despite its relatively modest $3.9 million in assets under management.

This over-the-counter instrument is traded through regular stock market brokers, making it accessible to asset managers who cannot directly invest in cryptocurrencies. Notably, GLNK's price is trading at a 320% premium compared to the proportional underlying LINK token holdings held by the fund, indicating robust buying demand.

*Grayscale Chainlink Trust (GLNK) premium vs. LINK. Source: Coinglass*

Further fueling Chainlink's impressive gains is the listing of LINK on the HashKey exchange, a licensed trading platform catering to professional investors in Hong Kong. Although it launched in August 2023, the exchange is affiliated with the same group behind HashKey Capital, a prominent digital asset venture investment firm founded in 2015.

From an on-chain metrics perspective, Chainlink's price surge is supported by increased network activity.

*Chainlink 1-day transaction count. Source: Messari/Coin Metrics*

Notably, the most recent peak occurred on Nov. 7, 2022, coinciding with issues at the now-defunct FTX exchange. Excluding this specific instance, the current two-day average of 7,700 daily Chainlink transactions is the highest since June 2021.

While some valid criticisms have been raised regarding Chainlink's excessive centralization, its oracle dominance remains unchallenged. Consequently, any tailwind for the RWA market should likely have a positive impact on LINK's price, paving the way for further price hikes above $14.

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.

Was Chainlink’s (LINK) 35% rally just a buy rumor, sell the news event?

October 11, 2023 Coin Telegraph

CBDC

LINK outperformed most cryptocurrencies in September, but the recent correction raises questions on the sustainability of the bullish momentum.

Since September, Chainlink (LINK) price has gained more than 25%, outperforming Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and most altcoins. Currently, the project is the leading decentralized blockchain oracle solution and ranks 15th in terms of market capitalization when excluding stablecoins.

In September, LINK's price surged by an impressive 35.5%, but in the month-to-date performance for October, LINK has faced a 10% correction. Investors are concerned that breaking the $7.20 support level may lead to further downward pressure, potentially erasing all the gains from the previous month.

*Chainlink (LINK) 12-hour price index, USD. Source: TradingView*

It's worth noting that the closing price of $8.21 on Sept. 30 marked the highest point in over 10 weeks, but when looking at the bigger picture, Chainlink's price still remains 86% below its all-time high in May 2021. Moreover, over the past 12 months, LINK has shown little growth, while Ether (ETH) gained 21.5% in the same period.

LINK marines placed all their hope on the SWIFT experiment

The LINK bull run began after SWIFT, the leader in messaging for international financial transactions, released a report on Sept. 31 titled "Connecting Blockchains: Overcoming Fragmentation in Tokenized Assets," suggesting that linking existing systems to blockchains is more feasible than unifying different central bank digital currencies (CBDC).

Following a series of tests, SWIFT reported its capability to provide a single access point to multiple networks using existing infrastructure. This system relied on Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) and was said to significantly reduce operational costs and challenges for institutions supporting tokenized assets.

Part of the surge in Chainlink's value can also be attributed to the successful testing of their Australian dollar stablecoin by the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) using Chainlink's CCIP solution. In a statement dated Sept. 14, ANZ described the transaction as a "milestone" moment for the bank. Nigel Dobson, ANZ's banking executive, noted that ANZ sees "real value" in tokenizing real-world assets, a move that could potentially revolutionize the banking industry.

On Sept. 21, Chainlink announced the mainnet launch of the CCIP protocol on the Ethereum layer-2 protocol Arbitrum One, aimed at driving cross-chain decentralized application development. This integration provides access to Arbitrum's high-throughput, low-cost scaling solution. StarkWare, another notable Ethereum scaling technology firm, had previously utilized Chainlink's oracle services.

Changes to Chainlink’s multisig and dwindling protocol fees reduced investor interest

However, the positive news flow was disrupted on Sept. 24 when user @StefanPatatu called out Chainlink on X social network (formerly known as Twitter) for quietly reducing the number of approvals required on its multi-signature wallet. The previous arrangement, which required four out of nine signatures to authorize a transaction, was viewed as a security measure.

Chainlink responded by downplaying the concerns and stated that the update was part of a regular signer rotation process. This explanation did not invalidate crypto analyst Chris Blec's criticism that "the entire DeFi ecosystem can be intentionally destroyed in the blink of an eye" if Chainlink's signers were to ever "go rogue."

Nevertheless, Chainlink's most significant metric, the protocol revenue generated by its price feeds, has been in decline for the past four months when measured in LINK terms.

*Chainlink price feeds revenue on Ethereum. Source: Dune Analytics & @ericwallach*

In September, Chainlink price feeds generated 142,216 LINK in fees (equivalent to $920,455), a 57% drop compared to May. Part of this movement can be attributed to the decline in Ethereum's total value locked (TVL), which has decreased from $28 billion in May to its current $20 billion, representing a 29% decrease. Nevertheless, this doesn't account for the entire difference, and could cause investors to question Chainlink's revenue model sustainability.

It's important to note that Chainlink offers a range of services beyond price feed generation and operates on multiple chains, including CCIP, although Ethereum's oracle pricing services remain the core of the protocol's business.

By comparison, Uniswap (UNI), the leading decentralized exchange, holds a market capitalization of $2.38 billion, which is 42% lower than Chainlink's. Uniswap also boasts $3 billion in total value locked (TVL) and generated $22.8 million in fees in September alone, according to DefiLlama.

As a result, investors have reason to question whether LINK can maintain its $7.20 support level and sustain its $4.1 billion market capitalization.

Ethereum price at $1.4K was a bargain, and a rally toward $2K looks like the next step

March 22, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Ethereum price at .4K was a bargain, and a rally toward K looks like the next step

Burn

ETH’s correlation with tech stocks, its increasing total value locked and its deflationary token economics all suggest that the path to $2,000 is programmed.

Ether's price (ETH) reached $1,400 on March 10, which proved to be a bargain as the cryptocurrency rallied 27.1% until March 21, at the time of writing. However, the three reasons that supported the price gain, including correlation with tech stocks, its increasing total value locked and its deflationary token economics, all suggest that the path to $2,000 is set in stone.

There are numerous explanations for Ether's 19.4% decline over the past six months. The Shanghai hard fork upgrade was delayed from March to early April and after Shanghai, Ethereum's roadmap includes the "Surge," "Verge," "Purge," and "Splurge" updates. In reality, the longer these intermediate steps to achieve scalability take, the greater the likelihood that competing networks will demonstrate efficacy and possibly establish a competitive advantage.

Another potentially concerning issue on the minds of investors is the real chance of price impact when validators are finally able to unlock their 32 ETH deposits following the completion of the Shappela hard fork. While it is impossible to predict how many of the 16 million ETH currently staked on the Beacon Chain will be sold on the market. There is a compelling argument in favor of the transition to liquid staking platforms, as they can use liquid staking derivatives on other decentralized finance networks without sacrificing their staking yield.

Traders could construct a narrative based on regulatory uncertainty, especially after SEC Chairman Gary Gensler's September 2022 statement that proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies could be subject to securities laws. In February 2023, the SEC reached an agreement compelling the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken to cease offering crypto staking services to U.S.-based clients and the exchange also paid $30 million in disgorgement.

Correlation versus application-focused tech companies

To understand why Ether gained 15% in less than three days after briefly trading below $1,400 on March 10, traders must switch from a price-based analysis to a market capitalization comparison. On March 10, Ethereum’s market cap closed at $175 billion.

Oracle, SAP, and Salesforce are similar to Ethereum in that their software enables users to access shared computing resources and resources. This is in contrast to chipmakers NVidia and TSM, infrastructure providers Microsoft and Oracle, and technology companies Apple and Cisco that heavily rely on equipment.

*ETH vs. Oracle (ORCL), SAP (SAP), Salesforce (CRM). Source: TradingView*

The market capitalizations of Oracle, Salesforce and SAP are comparable to Ether's at $233 billion, $188 billion, and $149 billion, respectively. Ultimately, centralized and decentralized solutions permit businesses to integrate their proprietary software so that all third parties and relevant departments can consult, process, share, and store data.

Considering the past six months of data, Ether's price has performed similarly to those companies. The drop below $1,400 on March 10 was illogical if the correlation between application-focused tech stocks and the price of Ether remains valid.

ETH’s total value locked sticks at $30 billion

The Total Value Locked (TVL) of the Ethereum network was $24 billion on November 24, 2022, and increased by 30% to $30 billion by March 21, 2023. Therefore, if no other factors influence the price, one could anticipate a 30% price increase during that six-month period. Except that was not the case on March 10, when Ether traded at $1,400, representing a mere 8% increase from six months prior and indicating a disconnect between the value deposited in the network's smart contracts and the ETH price.

This 22% difference between the 30% increase in TVL and the 8% increase in ETH price indicated that Ether's true value should have been near $1,700, a level that was reached three days later on March 13, 2023. This simple model excludes a number of variables that influence supply and demand and the resulting price level, but it does provide an indication based on historical data.

Ether's deflationary mechanism is in full force

On November 10, 2021, the price of Ether was $4,869, a record high for the cryptocurrency. However, a great deal has changed since then, including the burning of 3,016,607 ETH via the EIP-1559 Improvement Proposal. This equates to an additional $5.4 billion in capitalization that would have otherwise been created, thereby adding to the supply side and restraining price appreciation.

Currently, the market leader Bitcoin (BTC), is trading down 59% from its $69,000 all-time high. That does not necessarily mean Ether should reduce the gap versus Bitcoin, but it shows how discounted ETH currently stands at $1,780. The deflationary standard paves the way for Ether’s perception as a scarce digital asset, which is particularly promising during inflationary periods in the global economy.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors’ alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

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.

DeFi lender Tender.fi suffers exploit, white hat hacker suspected

March 7, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

DeFi lending platform Tender.fi sees $1.59 million of assets drained by alleged white hat hacker taking advantage of a misconfigured oracle.

An alleged ethical hacker has drained $1.59 million from the decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform Tender.fi, leading the service to halt borrowing while it attempts to recoup its assets.

Web3-focused smart contract auditor CertiK and blockchain analyst Lookonchain flagged an exploit that saw funds drained from the DeFi lending protocol on March 7. Tender.fi confirmed the incident on Twitter, citing ‘an unusual amount of borrows’ through the protocol:

We are investigating an unusual amount of borrows that came through the protocol- in the meantime, we have paused all borrowing. Thank you for your patience.
— Tender.fi (@tender_fi) March 7, 2023

The latest update from the platform claims that a white hat hacker has made contact, and discussions are underway to recoup assets taken during the exploit. White hat hackers are also known as ethical hackers and typically look for and take advantage of security flaws in different protocols before returning funds.

The whitehat has made contact over debank and we are currently in discussions on how to remedy this situation. We will update you with more information when we have it.
— Tender.fi (@tender_fi) March 7, 2023

Cointelegraph reached out to CertiK to unpack the situation, which highlighted that the exploiter left an on-chain message which has been verified on the Arbitrum Blockchain Explorer:

*The input data reads: “It looks like your oracle was misconfigured. contact me to sort this out.”*

Lookonchain provided further details of the exploit, citing blockchain data that shows that the white hat hacker borrowed $1.59 million worth of assets from the protocol by depositing 1 $GMX token which was valued at $71 at the time of writing.

Cointelegraph has reached out to Tender.fi to ascertain further details of the exploit and whether funds will be returned by the white hat hacker. DeFi protocols have been the target of hackers in early 2023, with seven different platforms losing over $21 million in February alone. Hackers also took advantage of an oracle exploit in Jan. 2023, seeing over $120 million stolen from BonqDAO.

BonqDAO protocol suffers $120M loss after oracle hack

February 2, 2023 Coin Telegraph

BonqDAO protocol suffers 0M loss after oracle hack

ALBT

An oracle hack allowed the exploiter to manipulate the price of the AllianceBlock token, leading to an estimated $120 million loss, according to Peckshield.

A small decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) has suffered a rather sizeable smart contract exploit, leading to an estimated $120 million being stolen from its protocol.

BonqDAO told its Twitter followers on Feb. 1 that its Bonq protocol was exposed to an oracle hack that allowed the exploiter to manipulate the price of the AllianceBlock (ALBT) token.

Bonq protocol was exposed to an oracle hack, where exploiter increased the ALBT price and minted large amounts of BEUR. The BEUR was then swapped for other tokens on Uniswap. Then, the price was decreased to almost zero, which triggered the liquidation of ALBT troves.
— BonqDAO (@BonqDAO) February 1, 2023

An independent analysis from blockchain security firm PeckShield has estimated the loss from the Bonq hack to be around $120 million, comprising $108 million from 98.65 million BEUR tokens and $11 million from 113.8 million wrapped-ALBT (wALBT) tokens.

While the exploit took effect over several transactions, the largest was $82.19 million at 6:32 pm UTC time on Feb. 1, according to multichain portfolio tracker DeBank.

Most of the high-scale transactions took place on the Polygon network.

How it happened

PeckShield explained that the exploiter was able to change the updatePrice function of the oracle in one of BonqDAO’s smart contracts, which meant that they were able to manipulate the price of the wALBT token.

The @BonqDAO is exploited and its price oracle is manipulated to increase the #WALBT price. Here is the example hack tx: https://t.co/YPxXMr2nkf pic.twitter.com/XrzExHY6m1
— PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) February 1, 2023

This triggered the exploitation of the wALBT and BEUR. The hacker then swapped about $500,000 worth of BEUR for USDC on Uniswap before burning all 113.8 million wALBT to unlock ALBT.

On-chain security observer “Spreek” — who was one of the first to spot the exploit — told his 18,800 Twitter followers that the exploiter later dumped more BEUR and ALBT tokens for $500,000 in USDC and 144 ETH ($236,000).

PeckShield and others noted that the price of the BEUR and ALBT tokens went down considerably in a short period of time:

The actor then walks away by withdrawing the illicit gains with 113.8M #WALBT and 98M #BEUR (valued >$10M). Some of these tokens are then dumped, resulting in major drop! #WALBT dropped by >50% and #BEUR dropped by 34% pic.twitter.com/HEYxrcaB5Y
— PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) February 1, 2023

In a follow up tweet, BonqDAO said it has paused the protocol and is working on a recovery solution.

“Other troves remain unaffected. Bonq protocol has been paused. We’re working on a solution that will allow users to withdraw all remaining collateral without repaying BEUR in the troves. It will be released tomorrow morning CET,” it said.

AllianceBlock — the token issuers of ALBT — also shared the news on Feb. 1, explaining to its 51,300 Twitter followers that an exploiter managed to gain access to 113.8 million ALBT tokens.

The team is in the process of removing all liquidity on Bonq and has halted exchange trading, it said, adding that no smart contracts were exploited on AllianceBlock.

ANNOUNCEMENT

There has been a recent incident involving several ALBT Troves on Bonq, with the attacker gaining access to around 110M ALBT.

The incident is isolated to these Troves. None of our smart contracts was breached or compromised. pic.twitter.com/puntkIPK3G
— AllianceBlock (@allianceblock) February 1, 2023

The announcement from AllianceBlock also added that they would mint new ALBT tokens to those impacted by the exploit up until the time of the announcement.

BonqDAO is a decentralized autonomous organization that aims to provide self-sovereign financial services to individuals and businesses interest-free without giving up ownership of their assets.

AllianceBlock is a decentralized infrastructure platform that connects traditional financial institutions to Web3 applications.

oracle