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February 21, 2023 Bitcoin.com

Fake Ethereum Denver website linked to notorious phishing wallet

February 20, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Hackers continue to create fake Web3-enabled websites to fleece unsuspecting victims’ browser-based wallets, with ETHDenver being the latest victim.

A fake website of the popular Ethereum Denver conference is the latest phishing target of a red-flagged smart contract that has stolen over $300,000 worth of Ether (ETH).

The popular conference saw its website duplicated by hackers this week in order to trick users into connecting their MetaMask wallets. According to Blockfence, which identified the fraudulent website, the smart contract has accessed more than 2,800 wallets and stolen over $300,000 over the past six months.

Another day, another scam.
This time the scammer targeted the @EthereumDenver website. Blockfence is here to protect you and fight scammers together: The scam contract was marked as "High Risk" by our ML algorithm and our partners at @GoplusSecurity pic.twitter.com/Jdtoz2Bgu4
— Blockfence (@blockfence_io) February 20, 2023

ETHDenver also issued a notice to its followers on Twitter warning of the malicious website.

Hello Fellow Bufficorns!!

Please be aware that there is a FAKE ETHDenver website that is asking for you to connect your wallet.

“Go-ETHDenver” is not us. Please report the site! pic.twitter.com/1dt4hYmfvO
— ETHDenver (@EthereumDenver) February 20, 2023

Blockfence CEO Omri Lahav told Cointelegraph that users were prompted to connect their MetaMask wallets via the usual “connect wallet” button. The website prompts a transaction that, if approved, carries out the malicious function and steals the users’ funds.

Blockfence’s research team identified the incident while tracking different trends in the industry. Lahav said that the smart contract executing the scam had stolen over 177 ETH since its deployment midway through 2022:

“Since the smart contract was deployed almost six months ago, it’s possible that it was used on other phishing websites.”

Hackers had gone as far as paying for a Google advertisement to promote the malicious website’s URL, banking on search trends being high, with ETHDenver taking place on Feb. 24 and 25. The fake website appeared second on a Google search, above the actual ETHDenver website.

As Cointelegraph previously reported , hacks and scams continue to be commonplace in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. 2022 saw over $2.8 billion of cryptocurrency stolen through a variety of hacks and exploits.

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China’s digital yuan gets smart contract functionality alongside new use cases

January 20, 2023 Coin Telegraph

CBDC

China's central bank digital currency (CBDC) has seen new use cases in recent days, including buying securities and making offline payments.

China’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) — the digital yuan, or eCNY — has received upgrades giving it smart contract functionality alongside a series of newly unveiled use cases.

The smart contract function was launched on the Meituan app, a Chinese app offering retail and food delivery services, according to a Jan. 17 report by local cryptocurrency media outlet 8btc.

When Meituan users place an order and pay with their e-CNY wallet, a smart contract triggers and searches for keywords and purchased items in their order. If a user buys something on the list of keywords for the day, they go in the draw to win part of a prize.

The prize is a share of a “red envelope” known locally as hongbao containing 8,888 yuan, worth a little over $1,300.

Hongbao are small packets traditionally used for gifting money around Chinese New Year as a gesture of good luck.

*A user prepares to send a digital red packet on the messaging app WeChat. Image: YouTube*

In December last year, the e-CNY wallet app introduced a feature for users to send digital red envelopes in a bid to boost adoption before the Chinese New Year on Jan. 22.

Digital yuan sees new avenues for use

Alongside the latest development, new uses for the e-CNY have also been added over the last few days.

A Jan. 16 report from the China Securities Journal said e-CNY was used to buy securities for the first time. Investors can also use the CBDC to buy securities with the mobile app for Soochow Securities, a local brokerage firm.

The digital yuan wallet app also received an update with users now able to make contactless payments using Android phones even if their device is without internet or power according to a Jan. 11 Yicai Global report.

The new uses for the digital yuan come as China has been struggling with the adoption rate of its CBDC.

A former official from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the country’s central bank, even made a rare public admission in December 2022 saying the digital yuan’s “usage has been low” and “highly inactive” and added, “the results are not ideal.”

On Jan. 10, the PBOC included e-CNY in currency circulation reports for the first time revealing the CBDC represented roughly 0.13% of the 10.47 trillion yuan ($1.54 trillion) in circulation at the end of 2022.

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DeFi auditor nets $40,000 for identifying Uniswap vulnerability

January 4, 2023 Coin Telegraph

DeFi auditor nets ,000 for identifying Uniswap vulnerability

Automated Market Maker

A security firm flagged a now-fixed vulnerability to Uniswap, highlighting the potential for reentrancy attacks on the protocol’s Universal Router smart contract.

Uniswap’s recently launched bug bounty program has led to the discovery of a now-fixed vulnerability of the protocol’s Universal Router smart contract.

The automated market maker released two new smart contracts to its platform in November 2022. Permit2 allows token approvals to be shared and managed across different applications, while Universal Router unifies ERC-20 and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) swapping into a single swap router.

Uniswap also advertised a lucrative bug bounty program to identify potential vulnerabilities in its smart contracts towards the end of 2022 as it looked to assure the safety and efficacy of its protocol.

Smart contract security and auditing firm Dedaub announced that it had received a bug bounty after flagging a vulnerability in the Universal Router smart contract that would have allowed reentrancy to drain user funds mid-transaction.

The Dedaub team has disclosed a Critical vulnerability to the Uniswap team!

Funds are safe - Uniswap addressed the issue and redeployed the Universal Router smart contracts on all its chains

The vulnerability allows re-entertrancy to drain the user's funds, mid-tx.

pic.twitter.com/wFSFsohPvy
— Dedaub (@dedaub) January 2, 2023

According to Dedaub’s breakdown, the Universal Router allows users to perform diverse actions including swapping multiple tokens and NFTs in one transaction.

The router embeds a scripting language for a wide variety of token actions, which could include transfers to third party recipients. If correctly implemented, transfers would go to the recipient within specified parameters.

However, Dedaub identified a vulnerability in which a third-party code was invoked during the transfer, allowing the code to re-enter the Universal Router and claim any tokens that were temporarily in the contract.

Dedaub then suggested a straight-forward remedy, advising the Uniswap team to add a reentrancy lock to the core execution of the new router. Uniswap awarded the auditing firm a total of $40,000 for flagging the vulnerability. The amount included a 33% bonus for reporting the issue during Uniswap’s bonus period in November 2022.

Uniswap classified the issue as medium severity, while further assessment deemed the vulnerability to have high impact and low likelihood. According to Dedaub, the possibility of a user sending NFTs to an untrusted recipient directly was considered user error.

More complex and less likely scenarios were considered valid for reentrancy, which resulted in Uniswap deeming the vector to have a low likelihood. Cointelegraph has reached out to Uniswap to ascertain further details of its ongoing bounty program, amounts paid out and the number of bugs identified to date.

Bug bounties have become commonplace in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space as platforms and companies look to ensure the security of their software, systems and infrastructure.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase recently clarified the terms of its bug bounty, while blockchain security firm Immunefi has facilitated over $65 million worth of bug bounties between ethical hackers and Web3 firms in 2022.

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January 2, 2023 Bitcoin.com

Maple Finance 2.0 overhaul aimed at speeding up the defaulting process

December 14, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Borrowing

The overhaul of the protocol, dubbed "Maple 2.0" comes only weeks after the platform saw two major defaults on the back of FTX's collapse.

Maple Finance is a decentralized credit market powered by blockchain technology. Instead of requiring overcollaterlization of loans, it instead allows managers, called “Pool Delegates” to issue loans from its lending pools based on a set of risk-management criteria, according to the protocol’s documents.

Introducing Maple 2.0.

Maple 2.0 is a fundamental overhaul of the smart contract architecture. The new contracts are modular and robust and will facilitate Maple bringing capital markets on-chain. pic.twitter.com/5GGsMXaXhv
— Maple (@maplefinance) December 14, 2022

However, in the wake of FTX's collap, the platform experienced two major defaults from borrowers on the platform.

On Dec. 1, algo trading and market maker Auros Global missed its payment of 2,400 Wrapped Ether (wETH) following Alameda’s demise, causing the loan to go into a five-day grace period. That grace period has since passed, and the borrower has begun to incur penalties, according to a post by lender M11Credit.

Days later on Dec. 6, crypto hedge fund Orthogonal Trading admitted to having been “severely impacted by the collapse of FTX,” prompting M11Credit to issue a notice of default on the funds $36 million of loans.

The new protocol overhaul, dubbed “Maple 2.0” will upgrade its smart contracts so that defaults such as these can be more quickly handled and settled by Pool Delegate.

Previously, loans could only be put into default if a borrower missed a payment and the grace period passed. This meant that collateral could not be liquidated even if the borrower admitted in advance that they couldn’t make payments.

In a blog post explaining the platform’s new features, Maple said that in the instance that a borrower meets a condition of default, a Pool Delegate will now be able to declare an early default, which will bring the loan payable immediately.

Furthermore, when a borrower doesn’t pay within the grace period, the Delegate can liquidate the loan — meaning all lenders within the pool can realize a loss immediately while recovery is pursued, it added.

The new version of Maple Finance also includes features meant to make quality of life changes to the lending platform.

Withdrawals can now be scheduled and prorated, and lenders can request withdrawals at any time, whereas previously they needed to wait a minimum of 30 days to withdraw after their deposit.

Pool delegates now provide First Loss Capital, making them the first to suffer in the event of a default. The Maple team believes this will more closely align pool delegates' interests with the interest of lenders.

It also introducing automatic compounding of interest so that interest earned is automatically reinvested into the pool, removing the administration of redepositing.

Other changes include the adoption of ERC-4626 standards, allowing for more decentralized finance (DeFi) integrations and partnerships, as well as improved data and dashboards.

Crypto lending platform Maple Finance has unveiled a major protocol upgrade aimed at making defaults and liquidation procedures less cumbersome in the wake of recent defaults.

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Smart Contract

Digital yuan sees new avenues for use

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