The dust hasn’t settled on the BNB Chain exploit that took place last Thursday where a hacker made off with at least $100 million. Now, there are several reports of another exploit on Mango Market, a Solana-based trading and lending platform.
These occurrences and many others have once again brought to the fore discussions surrounding the vulnerabilities of DeFi and if it is truly capable of taking over the world of finance.
On a bright note, the United Kingdom has passed a digital document bill that could see it adopt blockchain technology. And, on our weekly follow-up of the Terra drama, Do Kwon this week accepted an interview invite from Journalist Laura Shin. More details about the aftermath of the Terra ecosystem crash are expected to be seen when the report is up.
Now, here is a bit of detail on these stories and many more from the crypto space this week.
Here we go:
Binance unveils $500 million crypto mining project
In the early hours of today, Binance Pool announced the launch of a $500 million miner lending project to support BTC mining and other mining infrastructure, providers.
The Binance Smart Pool is a service allowing users to get higher profits by auto-switching hash rates to mine different digital assets using the same algorithm. The official announcement from Binance reads:
“As one of the world’s leading crypto mining pools, Binance Pool has a responsibility to help maintain a healthy digital asset ecosystem. In light of current market conditions, Binance Pool is launching a $500million lending project to support crypto miners and digital infrastructure providers.”
With this project, Binance said that it will focus on providing debt financing to both, public and private Bitcoin miners. Besides, Binance also plans to support different crypto asset infrastructure companies globally. Binance Pool will be offering $500 million worth of loans for an 18 to 24-month term.
The interest rates for the loan will range from 5% to 10%.
The Miner Lending Project should come as a big relief for crypto miners who have been looking for fresh capital support during this year’s crypto winter.
Read also: Here are 3 cryptocurrencies you should consider buying this October
$117 million lost in Mango Market hack
Solana-based DeFi trading platform Mango Markets suffered a major hack on Tuesday, losing $117 million. According to blockchain auditors, OtterSec, the attacker was able to manipulate the value of his collateral to take higher loans from the platform.
“The [MGNO] governance token was valued for far more than it should be. With that, [the attacker] was able to take out large loans against it and then drain Mango’s [liquidity] pools. It’s like a lending-borrowing race: if you have overvalued collateral, you can then borrow against that collateral, and that’s what they did.”
Joshua Lim, Derivatives Lead at Genesis Global Trading, threw more light into the incident explaining that the hacker offered 483 million units of perpetual contracts and then funded another account with 5 million USDC to purchase the contracts at $0.03 per unit.
The attacker started moving the spot price to $0.97 per unit and took out a $116 million loan leaving the platform with a negative balance. Assets withdrawn include BTC, USDC, MNGO, etc.
The United Kingdom passes digital document bill
The legislation necessary to enable the use of blockchain technology as a solution for the storage of documents has been approved by the UK government. The announcement was made in a press release yesterday.
The Electronic Trade Documents Bill, which was passed on Wednesday, in the House of Lords, would make it possible for electronic paperwork to be legally recognised and will result in a reduction in carbon emissions by at least 10% and reduce the estimated 28.5 billion paper trade documents printed and flown around the world daily.
According to the UK Digital Secretary, Michelle Donelan:
“The UK was central to establishing the international trade system in the nineteenth century, and we are once again leading the world to boost global trade in the twenty-first century. Our digital-first plans will make it easier for the country’s firms to buy and sell around the world – driving growth, supercharging our economy, cutting carbon and boosting productivity.”
According to the press release, electronic papers will also improve security since they will be simpler to track. This is something that might be accomplished via the use of blockchain and distributed ledger technology.
Related post: UK announces plan to become ‘global hub’ for crypto assets
This decision moves the United Kingdom closer to achieving its objective of becoming a ‘hub for cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.
Google will start accepting crypto payments
Beginning in 2023, Google will begin accepting crypto payments for its cloud services through a partnership with Coinbase. According to a CNBC report, the official announcement was made on Tuesday during Google’s Cloud Next conference.
Some of Google’s cloud services customers are crypto companies, which is why, starting next year, the company has decided to give them the option to pay using cryptocurrencies.
In order to offer crypto payments, Google has decided to use Coinbase Commerce, which is the solution offered by the well-known crypto exchange to integrate cryptocurrency payments on websites.
Do Kwon accepts an interview invite
Do Kwon, CEO of the defunct Terra Labs is going to be the subject of an upcoming interview with the crypto journalist and author Laura Shin, according to confirmation on her Twitter page.
The interview is going to be held on Friday morning and it will be available on YouTube and on every podcast platform.
A Twitter user questioned her about whether or not she compensated Do Kwon for his participation in the interview. Shin’s response was straightforward: “Of course not.”
It is unclear which of the various scandals that have recently surrounded Kwon will be addressed during the interview. Recall that authorities have been targeting Terra’s creator in the past few months. He, however, refuted rumours that he is on the run.
According to him, he is not even trying to evade capture by the police and is instead actively moving around.
Here is all from us this week, see you same time next week!
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