Symbiosis integrates zkSync: ‘Natural evolution’ of scaling solutions

April 10, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Cross-chain DeFi platform Symbiosis has integrated zkSync to improve transaction speed and reduce fees on its automated market-making protocol.

Cross-chain automated marker maker Symbiosis has onboarded layer-2 scaling protocol zkSync to improve speed and reduce fees of token swaps on its platform.

The decentralized exchange (DEX) was launched in March 2022. It provides single-sided stablecoin pools that deliver zero impermanent loss to liquid providers. It also facilitates ‘any-to-any’ native asset swaps on its platform across Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and non-EVM networks.

Nick Avramov, co-founder of Symbiosis, told Cointelegraph that the integration of zkSync will provide one-click swaps from Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, BNB, Telos and other blockchains into zkSync and back.

The additional functionality also removes the need for users to switch between different wallets and interfaces. Avramov also confirmed that the integration improves the variety of token swaps through its DEX, supporting any-to-any native swaps to and from zkSync.

The integration of zkSync is also aimed at making liquidity transition to and from zkSync ‘secure, fast and cheap,’ while Avramov also highlighted the importance of layer-2 scaling protocols to various DeFi platforms and services.

“Scaling layers like Optimistic and ZK rollups are extremely important for the next big wave in Web3, mostly because they're lowering entry barriers both in terms of the price per swap and user experience of value-added services built on top.”

The Symbiosis co-founder also highlighted his personal view that ZK rollups could outcompete optimistic rollup solutions like Arbitrum and Optimism. Avramov also believes it is crucial for cross-chain players and interoperability layers to support ZK solutions as soon as possible.

"ZK represents an inevitable and natural evolution among scaling solutions.”

Symbiosis has processed over $100 million in total transaction volume in stablecoins, serves over 12,000 unique wallet addresses and an average of 3,000 daily transactions.

Ethereum-scaling ZK rollups continue to grab headlines in 2023. As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Ethereum layer-2 scaling platform Polygon released its zkEVM to mainnet beta, allowing developers to deploy smart contracts with increased finality and lower costs.

The scaling technology is not only limited to Ethereum or other smart contract blockchains. Swiss-based nonprofit ZeroSync Association is currently developing zero-knowledge proof tools that will allow Bitcoin (BTC) users to expedite the process of verifying individual blocks and, eventually, the entire blockchain.

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Moola Market attacker returns most of $9M looted for $500K bounty

October 19, 2022 Coin Telegraph

attacker

The attacker has scored about a half-million dollar “bug bounty” after choosing to return a majority of the cryptocurrency they exploited from the Celo-based lending protocol.

An attacker has returned just over 93% of the more than $9 million worth of cryptocurrencies they exploited from the Celo (CELO) blockchain-based decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol Moola Market.

At around 6PM UTC on Oct. 18 the Moola Market team tweeted it was investigating an incident and had paused all activity, adding it had contacted authorities and offered a bug bounty to the exploiter if funds were returned within 24 hours.

Analysis of the exploit by Web3 security company Hacken shows the attacker manipulated the price of the protocols’ low-liquidity native MOO token by initially purchasing around $45,000 worth and depositing it as collateral to borrow CELO.

The borrowed CELO, along with further CELO provided by the attacker, was then used as collateral to borrow more MOO, driving up the token’s price. The attacker continued repeating this until the MOO token price had increased by 6,400%.

With the inflated token price, the attacker was able to borrow $6.6 million worth of CELO, $1.2 million of MOO, along with $740,000 of Cello Euros (cEUR) and $644,000 Celo Dollars (cUSD) all worth multiples more than their initial posted collateral resulting in the protocol's loss of around $9.1 million.

Five hours after the initial confirmation of the exploit, Moola Market tweeted it had received just over 93% of the funds exploited, with the attacker seemingly keeping the rest making around $500,000 as a bug bounty.

Following today's incident, 93.1% of funds have been returned to the Moola governance multi-sig. We have continued to pause all activity on Moola, and will follow up with the community about next steps, and to safely restart operations of the Moola protocol. (1/2) https://t.co/UsdN44X70X
— Moola Market (@Moola_Market) October 18, 2022

Moola Market did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.

The attack draws similarities to the $117 million exploit suffered by Mango Markets on Oct. 11 in which Avraham Eisenberg and his team manipulated the price of the Solana (SOL)-based DeFi protocols’ native token to borrow cryptocurrencies with an undercollateralized backing. Eisenberg negotiated to keep $47 million as a “bounty.”

Multi-chain cryptocurrency wallet BitKeep also suffered an exploit late on Oct. 17 with an attacker making off with $1 million worth of Binance Coin (BNB) through a service used to swap tokens, BitKeep says it will fully reimburse any affected users.

The attacks are the latest in a series of exploits to have taken place in October which has also shaped up to be the biggest month ever for hacking activity with the total hacked value reaching around $718 million up until Oct. 12 according to analytics firm Chanalysis.

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‘Undo Button’ developer Kirobo launching decentralized P2P token swaps

July 23, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Atomic Safe Swap

Israeli blockchain tech developer Kirobo is set to launch a P2P token swap solution it claims is cheaper than using exchanges and over-the-counter parties.

Israeli blockchain tech developer Kirobo is launching a decentralized P2P token swap solution.

According to the company the protocol, dubbed “Atomic Safe Swap,” offers a decentralized peer-to-peer trading alternative to centralized marketplace exchanges or over-the-counter (OTC) desks, and is set to launch on July 27. The service is built on Ethereum and supports Ether (ETH) and ERC-20 tokens.

Atomic Safe Swap is an extension of the firm’s retrievable transfer solution,“Undo Button” which enables users to cancel and retrieve crypto transactions.

The Undo Button provides an authentication key that the receiving party must enter for the transaction to be fulfilled. The sender can cancel the trade and retrieve their funds if the receiver hasn’t yet entered the authentication key.

Users can currently connect Ledger and Trezor wallets on the firm’s website to use the service, and it is compatible with Bitcoin (BTC) along with ETH and ERC-20 tokens.

In an announcement Kirobo noted that with the Atomic Safe Swap “the process is the same, except the end transaction, is a two-way transfer executed by smart contract,” and the firm is touting that their solution will be a cheaper alternative to exchanges and OTC parties, along with being free from “risk of error and fraud.”

Undo Button

Asaf Naim, Kirobo co-founder and CEO of Kirobo highlighted the importance of having a secure non-custodial authentication mechanism not only to fight malware attacks but also to protect people from human error — a key issue in crypto.

A tiny mistake in entering a wallet address can result in funds being sent to the wrong address and potentially lost forever. A common method used to combat this has been to conduct a small test transaction so that a sender can verify if they have sent funds to the correct address with minimal financial risk.

Naim told Cointelegraph that the Undo Button negates the need for test transactions. According to the firm, $1.5 billion worth of crypto transactions have been conducted using the Undo button so far, with the solution helping users retrieve more than $6 million via canceled transactions. Naim said:

“The end result is that even inexperienced users can now feel comfortable engaging in activities that were previously complex, expensive, and risky. We expect this service to encourage adoption and use of cryptocurrency, giving a real boost to the ecosystem for years to come."

Naim kept his cards close to his chest regarding future announcements but teased that the firm is looking to integrate Undo Button with other blockchain platforms and exchanges, along with expanding support to other cryptocurrencies.

Without revealing too much, Naim also noted that another key issue in crypto that the firm may be looking at providing a solution for is “losing access to wallets,” including finding a way to retrieve funds in instances where a crypto hodler of the family passes away.

“I think that if you lost access to your wallet and you’ve lost access to your money. I think this is something that has to be dealt with, ” he said.

CoinMarketCap launches Ethereum token swaps powered by Uniswap

June 30, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Binance

CoinMarketCap has launched a token swap feature via integration with Uniswap, and has hinted at supporting additional DEXs and networks in the future.

CoinMarketCap (CMC) has launched a token swap feature on its website through an integration with decentralized exchange Uniswap.

CMC is one of the most well known crypto market data aggregators in the industry and has been owned by Binance since April 2020.

The site’s Ethereum-based token pages now include a swap icon, enabling users to connect a wallet and swap between ERC-20 tokens. The platform supports wallets from MetaMask, Coinbase, Fortmatic, Portis, and WalletConnect.

We're incredibly excited to see Uniswap integrated natively into @CoinMarketCap

Token pages now have a "Swap" icon allowing users to connect to an Ethereum wallet and instantly trade that token through the Uniswap protocol

awesome work on the integration!!! https://t.co/qm4SbcTTCA pic.twitter.com/PwO3mEWJU4
— Uniswap Labs (@Uniswap) June 30, 2021

CMC hinted there may be additional integrations with other DEXs and networks in the future, with its June 29 announcement noting that only Ethereum is supported “at this time” and Uniswap V1 and V2 will be the “first supported DEX for token swaps.”

CMC has seen a significant uptick in website traffic since the beginning of the year, increasing from 101 million total visits in January to 272.32 million visits in May. Binance is the top website referring traffic to the platform, equating to 52.68% of referrals last month, according to data from website analytics firm SimilarWeb.

CMC was founded in 2013 and has become one of the most referenced crypto data websites in the world. In 2019 the platform launched crypto indices on major finance platforms such as th Nasdaq Global Index Data Service and Bloomberg Terminal.

Despite Binance’s public pronouncements that CMC had operational independence after its acquisition in April 2020, some top executives left within months of the takeover. Cointelegraph reported on Aug. 31 2020 that acting CEO Carylyne Chan along with colleagues Jeremy Seow and Spencer Yang all left the firm.

However the Uniswap integration is broadly in line with Chan’s vision for bringing about greater crypto adoption which she outlined to Cointelegraph in August 2020, noting that:

“We’ve all known for a while that better user experiences and simplified interfaces and products will be key to ramping up adoption of crypto.”

Token swap