Crypto Mountains

2023-04-25 23:30:00 ​Google Cloud broadens Web3 startup program with 11 blockchain firms

Along with Google, 11 blockchain firms are now part of the Google Web3 startup program to help accelerate startups.

Technology conglomerate Alphabet has expanded the Google for Startups Cloud Program .

As of April 25, the program now includes Web3 firms such as Alchemy, Aptos, Base, Celo, Flow, Hedera, Nansen, Near, Polygon, Solana and Thirdweb. The same day, blockchain analytics firm Nansen announced that it has partnered with Google Cloud to provide real-time blockchain data for startups. Its database currently contains over 250 million wallet labels.

Currently, Google Cloud has two product suites for Web3 startups, distinguished by whether the firms have raised funding. Pre-seed companies can receive up to $2,000 Google Cloud credits valid for two years with access to events such as Paris Blockchain Week, Consensus and TOKEN2049 Singapore, where Google will participate.

For seeded startups, benefits include $200,000 over two years for Google Cloud and Firebase usage as well as $12,000 in Google Cloud Enhanced Support credits and 12 months of free Google Workspace Business Plus. Furthermore, Web3 projects, including Aptos, Celo, Flow, HBAR Foundation, Near and Solana Foundation, would provide grants of up to $1 million each in fiat or tokens to such firms.

Seeded firms can also access up to $3 million in funding from Polygon Ventures. Meanwhile, the Base Ecosystem Fund will provide priority reviews for entrepreneurs, while Coinbase Ventures will also introduce them to its listing teams and applicable venture capitalists. Other perks include up to $10,000 in Alchemy credits with VIP support and gasless contract deployment with Thirdweb.

Alex Svanevik, co-founder and CEO of Nansen, commented, “We are able to provide real-time intelligence to level the crypto playing field,” thanks to the partnership with Google Cloud. Open / Comment

2023-04-25 15:00:04 @UnitedTeleBot

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24 hours: UTBAI +4.43%
7 days: UTBAI +18.21%
30 days: UTBAI +131.53% Open / Comment

2023-04-22 23:30:00 ​Gemini to launch derivatives platform outside the United States.

The platform's first derivatives contract will be a BTC perpetual contract denominated in Gemini dollars (GUSD), followed by an ETH/GUSD perpetual contract.

United States-based crypto exchange Gemini announced on April 21 the upcoming launch of a derivatives platform outside the U.S. The move comes amid a tightening and uncertain regulatory environment for crypto firms in the country.

Dubbed Gemini Foundation, the offshore division will offer services to users based in Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Argentina, Bahamas, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Bhutan, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Chile, Egypt, El Salvador, Guernsey, Israel, Jersey, New Zealand, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent & Grenadine, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Uruguay, and Vietnam. It will not offer services for customers in the United States.

The platform's first derivatives contract will be a Bitcoin perpetual contract denominated in Gemini dollars (GUSD), followed by an ETH/GUSD perpetual contract shortly thereafter.

Eligible customers will be able to trade both spot and derivatives products, as well as convert USD and USD Coin into GUSD on a 1:1 basis. Fees, profits and losses will also be processed in GUSD. The default leverage is set to 20x, with the maximum possible leverage at 100x.

Unlike traditional futures contracts, perpetual contracts never expire. Perpetual futures trading is not regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Exchanges offering crypto futures contracts, like BitMEX, are not available for U.S. customers.

The move comes a few days after Gemini revealed plans to establish a new engineering hub in India. The exchange's founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss recently announced "big plans for international growth this year in APAC.” Earlier this month, Gemini filed a pre-registration with the Ontario Securities Commission to become a restricted dealer in Canada. Open / Comment

2023-04-21 14:00:04 ​MAPay and its crypto subsidiary MPayz, a global healthcare technology firm with a focus on decentralized payment networks, unveiled its partnership with the Ministry of Public Health and Family Welfare in the Government of Maharashtra, India, to provide NFT technology that will store personal health data on the blockchain for the first time. Built on Algorand, the first deployment will introduce upwards of 100 million NFTs for this purpose.

MAPay will use its proprietary NFT technology to enable secure, decentralized storage. This application for NFTs will help eliminate intermediaries in the healthcare system that routinely cause bottlenecks, introduce risk, and drive up costs for all parties – including patients; public, private, and government health providers; insurance companies; and banks. See the full press release here:

https://rb.gy/jkecc3

https://link.mpayz.io/MS91 Open / Comment

2023-04-19 23:30:00 ​ Coinbase’s Base network gets OpenZeppelin security integration

Contract upgrades, admin changes and protocol tweaks can now be made using standard APIs that were previously unavailable on Base.

The OpenZeppelin Defender smart contract security platform has now integrated with Coinbase’s Base network, allowing Web3 app developers on Base to automate security tasks.

According to an April 19 announcement from blockchain cybersecurity firm OpenZeppelin, app developers on Base can now use the Defender software to create multi-signature admin contracts and timelocks, employ Relayers to store keys and sign transactions along with creating automated “sentinels” to monitor the blockchain and react when events occur.

These tools can be used for routine but sensitive admin tasks such as upgrading contracts, tweaking numerical parameters, or pausing a contract should an emergency occur according to the program’s documentation.

The Defender app was available on Ethereum and most other networks in the past, but as it was not integrated with Base, developers could not use it on the new testnet until now.

OpenZeppelin's CTO Jonathan Alexander stated in the announcement that the integration will make smart contracts "more secure and expansive” while Base lead Jesse Pollak signaled excitement at the team-up saying that “security is key for a thriving onchain ecosystem."

Coinbase announced the launch of the Base test network on Feb. 23. It plans to produce a mainnet version as a layer-2 of Ethereum once testing is complete.

Some Ethereum users have speculated that Coinbase wants to help onboard institutional investors to Web3 through the new network as it will feature Masa Finance identity verification tools.

OpenZeppelin is most known for its library of open-source smart contracts which are often modified by developers and used for their own purposes throughout the Ethereum ecosystem. Open / Comment

2023-04-16 23:30:00 ​Hundred Finance loses $7 million in Optimism hack.

The attacker reportedly manipulated the exchange rate between ERC-20 tokens and hTOKENS to steal over $7 million from the protocol.

Multichain lending protocol Hundred Finance has experienced a significant security breach on the Ethereum layer-2 blockchain Optimism. According to the protocol on Twitter, the losses sit at $7.4 million.

Hundred Finance announced the exploit on April 15, saying it had contacted the hacker and was working with various security teams on the incident. Although the protocol didn't reveal how the attack was executed, blockchain security firm Certik noted that it was a flash loan attack:

Flash loan attacks take place when a hacker borrows a large amount of funds via a flash loan (a type of uncollateralized loan) from a lending protocol. The hacker then combines it with other techniques to manipulate the price of an asset on a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform.

In Hundred's case, the attacker manipulated the exchange rate between ERC-20 tokens and hTOKENS, allowing them to withdraw more tokens than originally deposited, according to Certik. The blockchain security firm continued:

"The exchange rate formula was manipulated through Cash value. Cash is the amount of WBTC that the hBTC contract has. The attacker manipulated it by donating large amounts of WBTC to the hToken contract so that the exchange rate goes up."

Certik says that large loans were taken out under the manipulated exchange rate. Hundred Finance is preparing a postmortem report on the incident.

This attack comes almost nearly 12 months after Hundred was exposed to another exploit on the Gnosis Chain. At that time, the hacker drained all the protocol's liquidity through a re-entrancy attack. Over $6 million was lost. In the same exploit, the hacker also stole funds from the Agave protocol. Open / Comment

2023-04-16 17:15:00 Yuna | @Yuna_ETH | ERC20

$YUNA has been on a massive +600% run ever since the last time we posted about the cryptocurrency.

The next-gen dog breed cryptocurrency is currently breaking through the $9M Market Cap milestone, and is expected to reach $100M+ soon.

$YUNA has been listed on 6 exchanges within 5 weeks, and is currently about to start the onboarding process for MEXC Exchange and ZT Global, making a total of 8 exchanges already!

It really seems like this cryptocurrency will be the next dog coin that everyone needs during this new market cycle!

The roadmap is full of utilities as well, and the project runs on decentralization!

TG: https://t.me/Yuna_ETH

Chart: https://dexscreener.com/ethereum/0x99b975590364dfdea0ed8550d0d862c78e07c43d Open / Comment

2023-04-15 16:00:04 ​AirDAO: 5 Million AirBonds Airdrop

AirDAO is holding an airdrop of 5 million BOND tokens to celebrate its blockchain’s fourth anniversary. The airdrop rewards its community for supporting AirDAO’s blockchain over the past four years since launching on April 16th, 2019.

AirDAO is a community-governed layer one blockchain and ecosystem of web3 dApps, powered by the native token, AMB. AirDAO brings the benefits of Web3 to a global audience with a suite of powerful products in an intuitive, all-in-one interface that makes DeFi more accessible to the average user.

The airdrop will start at 12 PM UTC on Sunday, April 16th, and end at 12 PM UTC on Wednesday, April 26th. Active users who’ve contributed to the ecosystem with on-chain activity will be eligible to claim airdrop rewards. AirDAO will reveal the five eligibility criteria throughout the airdrop period, with one announced to the community every two days. Users must hold at least 1000 AMB tokens in a self-hosted wallet to participate in the airdrop.

Eligible airdrop participants can claim BOND tokens — the native token of the upcoming AirBond Marketplace. BOND tokens are AMB that will be vested and made tradable for AMB on the marketplace when the beta version goes live, soon after the airdrop ends.

Join AirDAO’s airdrop here
DYOR: Twitter | Telegram Open / Comment

2023-04-13 23:01:05 Ether staking withdrawals: Crypto exchanges set calendar for unstaking

Ethereum mainnet successfully completed the Shapella upgrade on April 12. The successful execution of the Shapella upgrade means Ethereum validators can finally withdraw their staked Ether on the Beacon chain.

A total of 126,955.07 ETH were withdrawn by validators at the time of writing. Presently, 248,043 out of the 559,549 active validators, or about 44% of them, have the ability to request a partial or full withdrawal. The majority of withdrawals currently vary between 2.8- 3.2 ETH, indicating the majority of the validators are only withdrawing their staking rewards.

The average price of staked ETH is $3,149 and it could be another reason why validators are not withdrawing the whole amount. The ETH price is currently trading just under $2,000 with the price acting as key resistance.

Major crypto exchanges have announced their support for the ETH unstaking with several exchanges already processing withdrawal requests. Coinbase, the world’s first publicly listed crypto exchange announced that ETH unstaking is now live on their platform. Open / Comment

2023-04-11 00:00:00 ​Etherscan hides zero-value token transfers to deter address-poisoning attacks.

Address poisoning is a phishing scam that can affect users who have received unwanted tokens and don’t check their addresses carefully when sending crypto.

According to an April 10 post from Etherscan, the blockchain explorer has disabled the display of zero-value token transfers on its website by default. From now on, users must manually switch on the display from the website’s setting page. Etherscan said it had made the update to deter “address poisoning” attacks that have phished and spammed unsuspecting users.

“Preventing scams and attacks in a neutral and scalable way is an infinite cat-and-mouse game… please feel free to share your feedback as we continue to improve.”

Address poisoning is a type of crypto scam where an attacker sends a token with near-zero or no value to a user’s address to “poison” it. Afterward, the transaction will be recorded in the soft or hard wallet’s history and can be selected when making transfers. The purpose of the scam is to trick the user into sending coins to the scam address by mistake. To do this, hackers use sophisticated software to create scam addresses that look very similar to “poisoned” addresses, with the same few beginning or ending characters.

That said, the scam is only classified as phishing. Neither the unwanted coins nor the addresses receiving such tokens can compromise users’ funds. However, unwanted nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, can potentially compromise an address through interactions, such as moving it to different accounts.

Sample of zero value tokens that will be hidden by Etherscan.

Blockchain hardware wallet firm Ledger suggests users hide their unsolicited NFT collections upon receipt. While address poisoning cannot be stopped, Ledger recommends users refrain from retrieving deposit or destination addresses from their transaction history and always double-check that each character of the destination address matches the input address when sending crypto. Open / Comment