Opera browser debuts stablecoin wallet MiniPay in Africa

September 13, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Africa

Opera’s new in-browser, non-custodial wallet runs on the Celo blockchain and targets the platform’s user base in Africa for P2P stablecoin transactions.

The web platform Opera revealed its plans to launch a non-custodial stablecoin wallet integrated into its mobile web browser which will be made available to its user base in Africa.

On Sept. 13, the web services provider introduced the MiniPay wallet integration, built on the Celo blockchain, that allows users in Africa to send or receive stablecoins by using their already existing mobile numbers.

Exciting news live from @dappcon_berlin's mainstage! cc: @RegenRene @jorgenarnesen @afishinparis Charles Hamel & Rosette Belesi.

It's finally here! We've partnered with global web innovator @Opera to launch @MiniPay––a first-of-its-kind stablecoin wallet built on Celo to onboard… pic.twitter.com/sEUp0yCKQe
— Celo (@CeloOrg) September 13, 2023

Opera began its operations in Africa 17 years prior and now has over 100 million users on the continent. The launch of MiniPay will begin in the coming months and first start in Nigeria.

Jørgen Arnesen, the executive vice president for mobile at Opera, commented that:

“Users in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa have indicated lingering concerns about high fees, unreliable service uptimes, a lack of transparency around transaction progress and a lack of access to mobile data.”

The new MiniPay wallet will operate with sub-cent fees, and onboard and backup wallets through users’ Google credentials.

It also has integrated with local payment methods including Airtime and MPesa, along with traditional bank transfers to allow its users to add and withdraw stablecoins from the wallet into the local currency.

Arnesen told Cointelegraph that specifically for Africa they developed the Opera Mini browser as a “unique, data-saving technology that allows users to surf the web and gain access to information without having to expend a major part of their monthly income.”

Celo also has a strong user base in Africa and says the integration “opens the door” for more Ethereum-compatible dApps to be built for MiniPay.

Arnesen also mentioned that as the product launches, MiniPay will support Mento stable asset cUSD or Celo Dollar, which tracks the value of USD, on Celo.

“This way, we are not confusing users with multiple currencies at a time, as would be the case in a regular crypto wallet. “

In April of this year, Opera announced a new generative artificial intelligence (AI) integration into its then-latest browser update. The in-browser AI feature, called AI Prompt, gives users “contextual prompts” for web pages or highlighted text.

Last December, it launched a suite of security tools with the aim to protect users against “malicious Web3 actors.”

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Magazine: How to protect your crypto in a volatile market: Bitcoin OGs and experts weigh in

Blockchain active users can be misleading metric: Crypto data scientist

September 13, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

0xScope co-founder Philip Torres says it doesn’t take much effort to spin up thousands of blockchain wallet addresses and pump up user metrics.

Active user count can be a misleading metric for measuring the state of a crypto ecosystem as a small group of users can generate a significant portion of activity across multiple wallets, argues the co-founder of a blockchain analytics provider.

0xScope’s co-founder and chief data scientist, Philip Torres, told Cointelegraph amid the Bitget EmpowerX Summit that between monopolistic founding entities, bots, exploiters and airdrop hunters — as much as 80% of blockchain activity can be generated by just a small number of entities — despite looking healthy on the outside.

“These projects make a claim such as ‘we have 10,000 active users’ — well, we find out using the entity model that you have about 10 to 20 different users that are controlling 10,000 different addresses,” he added.

Top 25 projects based on active users (daily). Source: Token Terminal

“The way they operate on-chain is that one single person can have 10,000 addresses or more, and then it would seem to the outside observer as if those were 10,000 different people,” Torres explained.

The phenomenon isn’t only present in small-scale ecosystems, Torres claimed — essentially all blockchain ecosystems see varying levels of the activity.

He found the average Ethereum user possesses at least 10 addresses, adding that “everything that happens on-chain is not what it seems.”

Ethereum Cumulative Unique Addresses. Source: YCharts

Torres noted there are legitimate reasons why a user would have multiple wallet addresses.

“One of them can be explained easily as ‘privacy concerns.’ People like to have different addresses just to not leave a big enough footprint out there,” he explained.

It could also be due to automated traders deploying multiple strategies on-chain.

“So when we see automatic trading on-chain, usually each address is very focused on a different protocol or different swap, or trading different coins or trading different coins using different strategies.”

However, it has also been used for malicious purposes such as inflating a project’s active user numbers to mislead potential investors, creating a Sybil attack also known as a 51% attack or users trying to game an upcoming token airdrop.

One example came from the anticipated Arbitrum (ARB) airdrop on March 23 which saw two wallets amass 2.7 million ARB from 1,496 wallets in a strategy known as “airdrop farming.” In contrast, the median airdrop size was only expected to be 1,250 ARB tokens, according to CoinMarketCap.

We found 2 super airdrop hunters of $ARB.

0xe1e2 received 1.4M $ARB($1.92M) via 866 addresses and added all 1.4M $ARB to #Uniswap to provide liquidity.https://t.co/sncsZTHrP2

0xbd4e received 933,375 $ARB($1.28M) via 630 addresses.https://t.co/p5vbqXMYxD pic.twitter.com/yK3LzbeC8t
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) March 24, 2023

“On blockchain, it's very easy to control multiple public addresses,” Torres noted.

Torres explained unlike email addresses, creating and controlling multiple crypto wallets isn’t too complicated if you know what you’re doing.

Some use what is known as HD wallets — hierarchical deterministic wallets — which generate a new key pair from a master key pair. Simply put, it's a way to generate multiple public addresses via a master set of mnemonic words.

“It's very easy for one person to control multiple wallet addresses compared to [how], usually, people do not have more than a few emails,” he added.

Magazine: Big Questions: What’s with all the crypto deaths?

PayPal enables US users to sell cryptocurrency via MetaMask wallet

September 12, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

PayPal continues expanding its digital asset services, integrating new methods to sell cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

Global payment giant PayPal continues expanding its digital asset services, integrating new methods to sell cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC).

PayPal on Sept. 11 officially introduced new on and off ramps for Web3 payments, allowing users in the United States to convert their crypto to USD directly from their wallets into their PayPal balance.

According to the announcement, PayPal off ramp feature is immediately available to wallets, decentralized applications and nonfungible token (NFT) marketplaces and is live on MetaMask.

The new on off ramp features are designed to enable customers to buy and sell several cryptocurrencies in the United States.

“Once integrated, web3 merchants can help grow their user base by connecting to PayPal’s fast and seamless payments experience trusted by millions, while leveraging PayPal’s robust security controls and tools for fraud management, chargebacks and disputes,” PayPal noted.

*PayPal's on and off ramps promotion video. Source: YouTube*

PayPal’s on and off ramps promotion video on YouTube included a screenshot from PayPal’s interface allowing users to send 0.0015 BTC ($50) to an external wallet with a $5 network fee and a $2.2 transaction fee. The video didn’t specify what wallet was used as part of the transaction. It’s worth noting that MetaMask doesn’t support Bitcoin transactions on the original BTC blockchain.

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

The latest rollout comes shortly after PayPal partnered with the major hardware wallet firm Ledger to provide a new on ramp integration in August 2023. The integration allowed verified PayPal in the U.S. to buy Bitcoin, Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC) directly on the hardware wallet via native Ledger Live software.

As previously mentioned, MetaMask started rolling out Ether purchases via PayPal for users in the U.S. in May 2023. MetaMask’s parent company ConsenSys and PayPal initially partnered to enable ETH transactions in late 2022.

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MetaMask Wallet Unveils Feature That Allows Users To Cash Out Their Crypto via Bank or PayPal Accounts

September 7, 2023 The Daily Hodl

Web3’s Swiss Army knife of personal finance Changex joins Cointelegraph Accelerator

September 3, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Banking

Changex combines crypto trading and lending with traditional banking features that also include an upcoming Visa debit card.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) gave birth to a wide range of financial services that aim to challenge what traditional finance (TradFi) offers. However, the user experience persists as a major issue hindering the widespread adoption of DeFi apps and solutions. For years, the DeFi ecosystem has been seeking an entry point that can onboard the next wave of users to decentralized apps.

One potential solution is a financial technology (fintech) app that’s catered toward TradFi users and also offers easy-to-use DeFi functionality. This way, users can realize that self-custody, a practice that enables safeguarding digital assets in personal wallets without the help of a third party, can be a way forward and start ditching centralized intermediaries like banks.

While users’ quest to take full responsibility for storing and managing crypto assets picked up the pace with self-custody, the Web3 space created new services to let people swap, spend and earn crypto that utilizes both CeFi and DeFi aspects to help the migration process.

Envisioning a demand and emergence of new sophisticated decentralized financial apps, Changex, an all-in-one mobile wallet, employs a CeDeFi model, combining centralized and decentralized finance in a single screen in a bid to attract users coming from traditional services with a familiar environment.

DeFi meets CeFi

The Changex app offers a crypto trading exchange in a non-custodial environment, leaving the keys to crypto assets with users. Users can buy, sell or transfer crypto on the platform, which also supports buying crypto with debit cards and bank transfers. The exchange supports multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, Polygon and Binance Smart Chain.

DeFi users can take advantage of the most common alternative finance practices, including staking, with lending and stablecoin interests coming later this year, all from within the same app. Changex also gives additional APR on staking rewards with the platform’s native token, CHANGE.

The upcoming Changex Visa Debit Card will give cashback for shopping. Source: Changex

The upcoming Changex Visa Debit Card will give cashback for shopping. Source: Changex

Changex app is also working on issuing European Union-regulated IBANs to users for managing fiat assets, opening the door for cross-border transactions across the EU and bridging the gap between the crypto world and traditional financial systems. Scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2023, the upcoming Changex Visa Debit Card will give cashback bonuses to its owners. Users will also be able to spend their staked assets without impairing APR.

Changex joins Cointelegraph Accelerator

Cointelegraph Accelerator picked Changex as a participant for the expertise of its team, which has over 20 members, an office in Bulgaria and a track record of delivering robust financial solutions. The app provides a user-friendly, streamlined experience, efficiently catering to both Web2 and Web3 users. The product also displayed good traction, with an average of 25,000 monthly active users and nearly $3 million worth of staked assets.

Next for Changex is the integration of the Avalanche blockchain. This integration will also bring several Avalanche-based staking pools. What’s more, Changex is working on releasing a unique leveraged staking functionality on the platform in the coming months. Following that, in the fourth quarter of 2023, Changex will roll out its biggest update - the Changex Visa Debit Card and IBAN - which will enable users to claim complete control over their finances and turn Changex into a comprehensive one-stop-shop for crypto and fiat alike.

Multichain wallet Exodus posts $12.4M revenue, $1.9M net income in Q2

August 24, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Multichain wallet Exodus posts .4M revenue, .9M net income in Q2

Bitcoin Wallet

In the quarter ended June 30, Exodus' revenue declined by 4% year-over-year, but its results were boosted by 6% cost reductions.

Multichain wallet Exodus has released its financial results for the second quarter of 2023, disclosing revenue of $12.4 million, a 4% decrease year-over-year. Net income amounted to $1.9 million.

According to Exodus, its exchange aggregation business accounted for the majority of total revenue in the quarter, totaling $11.6 million. Fiat onboarding revenue rose 220% from 2022 to $561,000. The volume of exchange provider transactions in Q2 was $591.5 million, down 12% from Q2 2022. Bitcoin (BTC), Tether (USDT), and Ether (ETH) were the top assets traded in the quarter, at 27%,16%, and 12% of volume, respectively.

Exodus generates revenue from API integration fees charged to third parties. Monthly active users, however, decreased 6% to 772,839 in the second quarter, from 817,972 last year.

*Exodus cash and digital assets holdings. Source: Exodus*

Despite the decline in revenue, Exodus' results were strengthened by cost reductions of 6% year-over-year, to $7.1 million in the second quarter. A reduction in headcount and cloud infrastructure expenditures contributed to the lower expenses, the company said, adding that ”the Exodus team stood at approximately 195 full time equivalents as of June 30, 2023, a decrease from 290 as of June 30, 2022."

Amid the bear market, Exodus also slashed its administrative and marketing allocations by 65% in the quarter, resulting in expenses of $4 million. Total general and administrative expenses represented 32.2% of company revenue, a significant decrease from 87.1% in the second quarter of 2022.

As of June 30, Exodus held $55 million in cash, cash equivalents, and U.S. Treasury Bills, as well as $46.2 million worth of Bitcoin, claiming to be one of few public companies holding over 1,000 Bitcoin in corporate treasury.

Among major developments in the quarter, the company rolled out an integration with Robinhood Connect, allowing users to purchase and hold cryptocurrencies in Exodus through Robinhood's cash and so-called buying power. Exodus also added full support for Arbitrum and Optimism, along with Matic staking.

“Accordingly, the next step for Exodus is to provide our technology to other companies, often called Wallet-as-a-Service or Infrastructure-as-a-Service," said JP Richardson, CEO and co-founder of Exodus.

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Atomic Wallet faces lawsuit over $100M crypto hack losses: Report

August 23, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Atomic Wallet faces lawsuit over 0M crypto hack losses: Report

Coin Telegraph

Plaintiffs in a new class action suit against the hacked crypto wallet Atomic Wallet say the firm didn't share any information about the hack with clients, and didn't report it to the police.

A group of disgruntled cryptocurrency investors have launched a class action against Atomic Wallet, which suffered a major breach and $100 million in losses in June.

Dozens of high-net worth investors from Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States are part of the class action against Atomic Wallet, the German business media agency bne IntelliNews reported on Aug. 21.

The lawsuit is being coordinated by German lawyer Max Gutbrod and Boris Feldman, a co-founder of Moscow legaltech firm Destra Legal.

Gutbrod, former partner of over two decades at Baker & McKenzie in Moscow, reportedly claimed that the lawyers are representing about 50 clients who lost a total of $12 million in the aftermath of Atomic Wallet’s breach two months ago. He said:

“We are working on recovering the assets for our clients and we will be filing a class action against Atomic Wallet [...] They didn’t give our clients any information about the hack or go to the police to report it.”

Atomic Wallet, the noncustodial cryptocurrency wallet, suffered a massive $100 million exploit in mid-June 2023. The breach affected at least 5,500 crypto accounts on the platform. Crypto analytics firms like Elliptic subsequently linked the heist to the North Korean cybercrime group Lazarus Group, which is believed to be responsible for stealing billions in crypto through various thefts.

While initial reports blamed Lazarus for the attack on Atomic Wallet, the new claims suggested that there may be another culprit.

According to Feldman’s allegations, it is much more likely that a Ukrainian group had orchestrated the hack. His firm Destra has been working on the case with blockchain analytics at Match Systems, who work on their own investigation on behalf of the investors.

“They have found traces of involvement of Ukrainian hacker groups,” Feldman reportedly said.

As previously reported, Atomic Wallet didn’t clarify what conditions exactly led to the exploit in June. The firm only laid out the four most “probable” causes, including a virus on user devices, an infrastructure breach, a man-in-the-middle attack or malware code injection. Atomic Wallet also continued to reiterate that less than 0.1% of app users were affected.

Soon after going through the hack, the cryptocurrency wallet apparently continued operating as usual.

Atomic Wallet did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Big Questions: Did the NSA create Bitcoin?

BlockFi opens crypto withdrawals for eligible US users following court order

August 17, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bankruptcy

The lending platform halted client withdrawals amid filing for bankruptcy in November 2022, but later petitioned the court for authorization to return user funds.

Many customers at defunct crypto lending firm BlockFi have reported being able to withdraw funds for the first time in months following an order from a United States bankruptcy court.

In an Aug. 17 update on X, BlockFi said it had opened withdrawals for wallets of eligible users in the U.S. in accordance with a bankruptcy court order. The lending firm said the withdrawals did not extend to many wallets controlled by international users, but legal proceedings were ongoing.

“As authorized by the Court in the Wallet Order, eligible clients at this time include U.S.-based BlockFi Wallet account holders who [...] did not withdraw or transfer more than $7,575 worth of digital assets from their BlockFi Interest Account (BIA) or BlockFi Private Client (BPC) on or after November 2, 2022 [and] did not hold any trade-only assets in their Wallet at the time of Platform Pause on November 10, 2022, at 8:15 P.M. E.T.,” said BlockFi in its notice to users.

Earlier today, we opened withdrawals of digital assets from BlockFi Wallet accounts for eligible clients in accordance with the authorization provided by the Court in the Wallet Order: https://t.co/wOc3Fk0VpH
— BlockFi (@BlockFi) August 17, 2023

BlockFi was one of many firms that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States in 2022, including FTX, Celsius Network, and Voyager Digital. The lending platform halted client withdrawals in November 2022, but filed motions that December to return user funds.

A court order filed on Aug. 16 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey gave BlockFi the legal authorization to open withdrawals for the first time in nine months. Many X users have already reported being able to access their funds, but some based outside the U.S. said they still were not eligible.

Today is a good day. Blockfi wallet funds finally released for qualified wallet holders. Feels like new funding secured for myself.
— ☘️coronalight no (@dillyflippd) August 17, 2023

BlockFi reported on Aug. 2 that the bankruptcy court had conditionally approved its restructuring plan, adding it planned to prioritize recovering funds from firms including Alameda Research, FTX, Three Arrows Capital, Emergent and Core Scientific. The lending firm also faces a $30-million fine from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which the regulator said in June it would postpone collecting until BlockFi’s users were repaid.

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PayPal to roll out Cryptocurrencies Hub for select users

August 14, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The Cryptocurrencies Hub is key for PayPal to reinvent itself as a crypto-inclusive platform. The service will allow for the sale and purchase of cryptocurrencies among other functionalities.

Payments giant PayPal, soon after launching the dollar-backed stablecoin PayPal USD (PYUSD), updated its terms and conditions to introduce Cryptocurrencies Hub — a feature that allows users to hold and interact with Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrencies in their PayPal account.

The latest PayPal terms and conditions detail the prerequisites for crypto users interested in using the platform for cryptocurrencies. The Cryptocurrencies Hub is key for PayPal to reinvent itself as a crypto-inclusive platform. According to the company, the service will allow for the sale and purchase of cryptocurrencies. In addition, it will facilitate the payment for purchases via PayPal using the money stored after the sale of cryptocurrencies.

*PayPal Cryptocurrenies Hub as explained in terms and conditions. Source: PayPal*

The Cryptocurrencies Hub will also be crucial to convert between PYUSD and other crypto assets. PayPal further clarified:

“Any balance in your Cryptocurrencies Hub represents your ownership of the amount of each Crypto Asset shown. You will not hold the digital Crypto Assets themselves in your Crypto Asset balance.”

However, not all PayPal users will get to explore the new feature as the company will decide its access from person to person. For starters, to be eligible for Cryptocurrencies Hub, a PayPal user must have “a personal PayPal account and a Balance Account in good standing.” In addition, PayPal will also verify the required identifying information — which includes name, physical address, date of birth, and taxpayer identification number — provided by the users:

“You can only use your Cryptocurrencies Hub as part of your Balance Account by accessing it through your personal PayPal account. If you are a Hawaii resident, we will not allow you to establish a Cryptocurrencies Hub at this time.”

Upon rollout of the feature, Cryptocurrencies Hub will be directly linked to the users’ PayPal account and can be accessed using the existing credentials.

The launch of PayPal USD divided the crypto community as contradicting speculations around its impact on crypto took center stage.

This is the Ethereum contract address for PayPal's stablecoin.

I can't believe i get to tweet that.

We've come so far. pic.twitter.com/S6kSqcV4ut
— RYAN SΞAN ADAMS - rsa.eth (@RyanSAdams) August 7, 2023

While many envision PYUSD to fast-track Ether’s (ETH) mainstream adoption, it could also spell trouble for decentralization and personal control of assets, warns the community. Several smart contract auditors highlighted that PYUSD’s smart contract contains “freezefunds” and “wipefrozenfunds” functions, which they claim are textbook examples of centralization attack vectors in Solidity contracts.

Newly discovered Bitcoin wallet loophole let hackers steal $900K — SlowMist

August 10, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin

A series of attacks drained the wallets of BTC users by exploiting a faulty random seed generation algorithm.

A newly discovered vulnerability in the Libbitcoin Explorer 3.x library has allowed over $900,000 to be stolen from Bitcoin users, according to a report from blockchain security firm SlowMist. The vulnerability can also affect users of Ethereum, Ripple, Dogecoin, Solana, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash and Zcash who use Libbitcoin to generate accounts.

SlowMist Security Alert

Recently, #Distrust discovered a severe vulnerability affecting cryptocurrency wallets using the #Libbitcoin Explorer 3.x versions. This vulnerability allows attackers to access wallet private keys by exploiting the Mersenne Twister pseudo-random…
— SlowMist (@SlowMist_Team) August 10, 2023

Libbitcoin is a Bitcoin wallet implementation that developers and validators sometimes use to create Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrency accounts. According to its official website, it is used by “Airbitz (mobile wallet), Bitprim (developer interface), Blockchain Commons (decentralized wallet identity), Cancoin (decentralized exchange)” and other applications. SlowMist did not specify which applications that use Libbitcoin, if any, are affected by the vulnerability.

Cointelegraph reached out to the Libbitcoin Institute through email but had not received a comment at the time of publication.

SlowMist identified cybersecurity team “Distrust" as the team that originally discovered the loophole, which is called the “Milk Sad” vulnerability. It was reported to the CEV cybersecurity vulnerability database on Aug. 7.

According to the post, the Libbitcoin Explorer has a faulty key generation mechanism, allowing private keys to be guessed by attackers. As a result, attackers exploited this vulnerability to steal over $900,000 worth of crypto as of Aug. 10.

SlowMist emphasized that one attack in particular siphoned away over 9.7441 BTC (approximately $278,318). The firm claims to have “blocked” the address, implying that the team has contacted exchanges to prevent the attacker from cashing out the funds. The team also stated that it will be monitoring the address in case funds are moved elsewhere.

Four members of the Distrust team, along with eight freelance security consultants who claim to have helped discover the vulnerability, have set up an informational website explaining the vulnerability. They explained that the loophole is created when users employ the “bx seed” command to generate a wallet seed. This command “uses the Mersenne Twister pseudorandom number generator (PRNG) initialized with 32 bits of system time,” which lacks sufficient randomness and therefore sometimes produces the same seed for multiple persons.

*Bx seed command producing the same seed twice. Source: Milk Sad information site*

The researchers claim to have discovered the vulnerability when they were contacted by a Libbitcoin user whose BTC had mysteriously gone missing on July 21. When the user reached out to other Libbitcoin users to try to determine how the BTC could have gone missing, the person found that other users were also having their BTC siphoned away.

Wallet vulnerabilities continue to pose a problem for crypto users in 2023. Over $100 million was lost in a hack of the Atomic Wallet in June, which was acknowledged by the app’s team on June 22. Cybersecurity certification platform CER released its wallet security rankings in July, noting that only six out of 45 wallet brands employ penetration testing to discover vulnerabilities.

Wallet

DeFi meets CeFi

Changex joins Cointelegraph Accelerator

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