GM Readers!📪 It's BitDegree Insider, and let's see what's cookin' in the Web3 kitchen.
⭐️Today's selection:
- 🎰Crypto Casino - Hacked
- 😎Cool Facts Tuesday
- 👌Selected Meme of The Day
- 📰Bite-Sized News
TROUBLE AT THE WORLD'S LARGEST CRYPTO CASINO
The world's largest crypto-casino, Stake, has been hacked. Oh, the irony in the name of the casino. Because, apparently, there's a lot at stake right now.
Thousands and hundreds of thousands of tokens in ETH, DAI, USDT, and USDC were stolen.
Details of the hack are being clarified, but one thing is certain:
The loss amounts to approximately $41 million.
And this happened due to the hacking of hot wallets.
REMINDER: Hot wallets are those crypto storage pieces of software that maintain a constant connection to the internet. As opposed to that, cold wallets are hardware devices that store your cryptos offline
This time, the casino is definitely not winning, just as its customers.
TL;DR: The world's largest crypto-casino, Stake, has been hacked. The loss amounts to approximately $41 million.
COOL FACTS TUESDAY
FACT #1Ethereum Matters
Vitalik Buterin, the brains behind Ethereum, gets real about one of the network's big issues: too many centralized nodes.
He believes the secret solution to it lies in making nodes cheaper and easier to run, highlighting this as one of Ethereum's major hurdles to overcome.
This is possible thanks to the concept of 'statelessness.' It implies moving away from using centralized web providers for verifying the state of the network, like Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Almost 60% of nodes are under its control. According to some experts, this makes the network vulnerable to a centralized point of failure, which would affect the entire blockchain.
Statelessness is a central element of updates in stages named The Verge and The Purge. However, as Buterin himself admitted, he believes solving the problem in the near future is unlikely. In his opinion, it will take about 10-20 years.
Apart from statelessness, other important milestones from the roadmap should be launched more quickly. These are simplification of technical documentation, spreading of staking, and scaling.
By the way - here is the latest roadmap. Insider fact about it: 'tick' = means that it is not achieved yet, but will be a key milestone!
TL;DR: Buterin acknowledges a major problem with too many centralized nodes and proposes 'statelessness' as a solution to reduce reliance on services like AWS. However, he anticipates it may take 10-20 years to fully address this issue while emphasizing the need for quicker implementation of other roadmap milestones, such as simplifying documentation, expanding staking, and scaling Ethereum.
FACT #2Bitcoin Matters
The guys from Galaxy Research have revealed an interesting fact:
About 40% of the Bitcoin supply has been in an inactive state for more than three years.
This indicator points to optimistic sentiments and potential resistance to market fluctuations.
It was also added that long-term holders of the first cryptocurrency, who acquired their assets during a bear market, are currently concerned but not panicking.
Such is the statistic, even though, as of today: the trading volume of Bitcoin is at its lowest level in nearly five years.
TL;DR: Galaxy research reveals that approximately 40% of Bitcoin has remained inactive for over three years, suggesting optimistic sentiments and resilience to market volatility among long-term holders. Despite Bitcoin's lowest trading volume in nearly five years, those who acquired their assets during a bear market remain concerned but not in a state of panic.
TO "STAKE" IS A MISTAKE?
The news about the $41M crypto casino heist can teach us several lessons:
- There are plenty of scammers in crypto, you can't be too careful.
- Casinos are risky. Crypto casinos are risky².
- Hackers gained access to casino customer's wallets. They were not safe enough. Lack of self-custody.
- The casino was called "Stake". Many people will draw the conclusion that "To Stake was a mistake."
But the keyword here is "wallets". They were not secure enough. And everyone realized that when it was already too late.
It's easy to get dizzy from the variety of crypto wallets fighting to get our attention, so people skip the research part and make uninformed choices.
Well, here at BitDegree, we know the value of your time. So, we just published a new review. A review of Bitamp, the Bitcoin Wallet. You can read it right here.
Whether you love it or hate it, no matter how you rate it, we're here to provide you with an objective review of the Bitamp Wallet.
Save your time, save your crypto, get informed!
SELECTED MEME OF THE DAY
BITE-SIZED NEWS
- Legal Industry Rakes in Massive Fees Amid Crypto Company Failures. Amid the tide of failing cryptocurrency firms, the legal industry is making a fortune.
- Cybercriminals Use Government Sites to Trick MetaMask Wallet Holders. A new wave of cryptocurrency scams is targeting MetaMask users.
- Nima Capital Vanishes After Offloading 9 Million Synapse (SYN) Tokens. Synapse may have become a rare victim of venture capital rug pull.
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With close to a decade of experience in the FinTech industry, Aaron understands all of the biggest issues and struggles that crypto enthusiasts face. He’s a passionate analyst who is concerned with data-driven and fact-based content, as well as that which speaks to both Web3 natives and industry newcomers.
Aaron is the go-to person for everything and anything related to digital currencies. With a huge passion for blockchain & Web3 education, Aaron strives to transform the space as we know it, and make it more approachable to complete beginners.
Aaron has been quoted by multiple established outlets, and is a published author himself. Even during his free time, he enjoys researching the market trends, and looking for the next supernova.