Author: Arijit Sarkar

Aarika Rhodes on Bitcoin Day

Arijit Sarkar

Aarika Rhodes, an elementary school teacher-turned congressional candidate, recently featured in the Bitcoin Day Sacramento 2022 event to discuss the impact of Bitcoin (BTC) in local politics.  Speaking to Cointelegraph, Rhodes highlighted the difficulty for grassroots candidates like herself to compete against established members of the US Congress. Our campaign has officially adopted Lighting for campaign contributions.⚡️ This revolutionary technology creates accessibility and looks towards the future. I am excited to provide this option to our supporters across all 50 states. #Bitcoin — Aarika for CA-32 (@AarikaRhodes) November 30, 2021…

OpenSea planned upgrade stalls as phishing attack targets NFT migration

Arijit Sarkar

Just yesterday, OpenSea announced a smart contract upgrade, which requires users to migrate their listed NFTs from Ethereum (ETH) blockchain to a new smart contract. As a direct result of the upgrade, users that don’t migrate over from Ethereum risk losing their old, inactive listings — which currently require no gas fees for migration. Major nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea has reportedly fallen victim to an ongoing phishing attack within hours after announcing a week-long planned upgrade to delist inactive NFTs on the platform.  However, the urgency and short deadline…

Multichain recovers $2.6M stolen funds, to reimburse losses on condition

Arijit Sarkar

After a month-long fight against an ongoing exploit, cross-chain router protocol Multichain announced the recovery of nearly 50% of the total stolen funds, worth nearly $2.6 million of cryptocurrencies. The team has also released a compensation plan to reimburse the users’ losses. On Jan. 10, blockchain security expert Dedaub alerted Multichain about two vulnerabilities in its liquidity pool and router contracts — affecting eight cryptocurrencies including wrapped ETH (WETH), wrapped BNB (WBNB), Polygon (MATIC) and Avalanche (AVAX). 1/3 We recently identified the “phantom functions” code pattern, which would have led…

OpenSea smart contract upgrade to delist inactive NFTs on Ethereum

Arijit Sarkar

OpenSea, one of the most popular nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace, has rolled out an upgrade to its smart contract, a proactive measure to weed out inactive listings on the platform. As a part of the planned upgrade, all OpenSea users will need to migrate their NFT listings — currently hosted over the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain — to the new smart contract. The new contract is live! Start migrating your listings now: https://t.co/W1w9ciCK2D — OpenSea (@opensea) February 18, 2022 According to the OpenSea announcement, the NFT listings created before Feb. 18…

Here’s the scoreboard of crypto ads

Arijit Sarkar

Super Bowl commercials have always been an intrinsic part of the annual National Football League (NFL) championship and for business, a fair sign of making it in the real world. This year, however, marked a new milestone for the crypto community as FTX, eToro, Crypto.com and Coinbase debuted crypto ads in Super Bowl 2022. With rising demand in crypto — recently fueled by nonfungible tokens (NFT), meme tokens and the Metaverse — Super Bowl crypto ads stole the limelight from traditional businesses on social media platforms like Twitter. Let’s gauge…

Ethereum’s average and median transaction fee slip, lowest in six months

Arijit Sarkar

The infamous transaction fees of the Ethereum (ETH) ecosystem underwent a decremental phase from Jan. 10 to record the lowest average and median fees of $14.17 and $5.67 — lowest since September 2021.  Data from Blockchair shows that the average transaction fee of ETH in January was $53.03, which at its peak was $70.83 back in May 2021. Just within a month, the average fees saw an almost 73.3% decline as evidenced by the following chart. Additionally, the resultant median transaction fee also witnessed an 81.02% drop from January’s $29.88.…

Bitcoin network hash rate explodes to a new all-time high of 248.11 EH/s

Arijit Sarkar

The Bitcoin (BTC) network has recorded a new hash rate all-time high of 248.11M TH/s as of Feb. 12, 2022, further securing the decentralized ecosystem through a growing network of global BTC miners.  The hash rate correlates to the computing power required by a miner’s computer equipment to confirm a transaction. The recent spike in BTC’s network hash rate ensures further security against attacks by deterring bad actors from confirming fraudulent transactions. Bitcoin hash rate over the past year. Source: YCharts As evidenced by the above screenshot, the network hash…

Netflix announces new series on Bitfinex hack involving 120,000 Bitcoin

Arijit Sarkar

Streaming and production giant Netflix will soon produce a documentary series on the infamous Bitfinex hack — one of the biggest financial crimes from 2016 stealing 119,756 Bitcoin (BTC) — worth $72 million at the time.  The Netflix documentary will be centered around a New York-based couple and their link to laundering nearly 120,000 BTC tied to the crime. According to Netflix, the documentary will be directed by American filmmaker Chris Smith with Nick Bilton as the co-executive producer. The announcement read: “Netflix has ordered a documentary series about a…

Hungary’s central bank chief wants EU-wide crypto trading and mining ban

Arijit Sarkar

György Matolcsy, Governor of the Hungarian National Bank, has proposed a blanket ban on all cryptocurrency trading and mining operations across the European Union.  Governor Matolcsy cited the recent crypto ban imposed by China in a blog post shared by the Hungarian central bank a.k.a. Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB) titled “Time has come to ban crypto trading and mining in the EU.” He also pointed out the Russian central bank’s proposal that calls for a blanket ban on domestic cryptocurrency trading and mining. Reciprocating the proposals for a crypto ban,…

FBI warns against rising crypto romance scams during Valentine’s week

Arijit Sarkar

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a warning against the rise in romance scams in the San Francisco Bay Area, with the latest trend involving cryptocurrencies.  Just a few days ahead of Valentine’s day, the FBI San Francisco field office alerted the public about the rise in romance scams based on the complaints filed with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). A romance scam involves creating fake accounts and convincing unwary investors — both men and women — to transfer funds under the pretext of…