Hi everyone, my name is Cryptokid and I'm a cryptocurrency enthusiast with over 5 years of experience in the industry. I'm passionate about educating others
HTX, Formerly Huobi, Recovers $8M in ETH From Hacker Centralized cryptocurrency exchange HTX, formerly known as Huobi Global, was able to recover $8 million in stolen Ethereum (ETH). October 9, 2023 by Hope C HTX Has Recovered $8m In ETH From Hacker Centralized cryptocurrency exchange HTX, formerly known as Huobi Global, was able to recover $8 million in stolen Ethereum (ETH) following a hacking incident in September that drained $7.9 million from a hot wallet, shortly after the exchangeâs rebrand which drew comparisons to failed exchange FTX. Justin Sun, the exchange investor and advisor, said on X that he had made contact with the hacker, who agreed to fully return the assets in exchange for a 250 ETH bounty from HTX. Sun praised the hacker for making "the right choice," and emphasized customer security is HTXâs top priority. According to Immunefi, in the second quarter this year, decentralized finance (DeFi) hacks amounted to $228 million across 79 incidents, while centralized exchanges saw $37 million lost across two incidents. Let us know what you loved about this article, what could be improved, or share any other feedback by filling out this short form.
Letâs take a look back at some more unexplained crypto phenomena, such as the mysterious philanthropic Pineapple Fund.
Pineapple Fund is a charitable organization founded in 2017 by a single individual, whose identity is still a mystery.
They donated 5,057 Bitcoin to 60 organizations working for the good of society in various fields. At the time, the donated Bitcoin was valued at $55 million.
The creation of Pineapple Fund was announced through a post on Reddit. An anonymous person hiding behind the nickname âPineâ wrote, âMy aims, goals, and motivations in life have nothing to do with having XX million or being the mega rich. So Iâm doing something else: donating the majority of my bitcoins to charitable causes.â
Most of the funds went to various medical research projects, environmental protection, and human rights.
Vitalik Buterin shared his thoughts on what prevents people from moving to cryptocurrency.
The Ethereum co-founder recently highlighted four main factors that prevent people from moving into the blockchain space.
Here they are:
1. Affordability: For people to go to DeFi, the transaction price must be low. 2. Reliability: Frequent technical failures are highly undesirable; they spoil the impression and disappoint new adherents. 3. Ease of use: The system should be intuitive and accessible to anyone with any level of technical knowledge, not just Ph.D.s. 4. Security: People are afraid of hacks and hacker attacks, and they are afraid of the prospect of losing all their assets if they lose their keys.
Microsoft recently had a major data leak, and among the documents was information about the corporationâs plans to create cryptocurrency wallets for Xbox.
Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox, immediately gave a comment in the style of âa lot of our plans have changedâ but, at the same time, did not say more specifically whether gamers should expect a cryptocurrency wallet or not.
In general, Miscrosoft does not confirm or deny the plans, but weâre hoping that if there is indeed a crypto wallet in the future, it will bring us closer to mass adoption of cryptođ
Are crypto transactions anonymous? Crypto transactions on blockchains are âpseudonymous,â meaning they can be traced to wallet addresses (via public keys) but have no direct connection with peopleâs identities. Every transaction is open to the public, and anyone with an internet connection can view them. The date, the amount sent and received, the wallet addresses â all of this data is impossible to conceal. However, if you use a non-custodial wallet, it will be impossible to identify you as the walletâs owner (unless you deanonymize yourself). For example, if you send crypto from a centralized exchange to your non-custodial wallet, the exchange now knows who the non-custodial wallet belongs to since you must pass Know Your Customer requirements by showing your ID. Therefore, if you practice the basics, you can be completely anonymous on the blockchain, and no one will ever know your personal information.#HotTrends #GALA #pixel #BTC #PYTH
Bitcoinâs mining difficulty has once again reached an all-time high.
As a result of another recalculation, the complexity of mining Bitcoin, known as âdifficulty,â has increased by 5.48%. The indicator updated the maximum to 57.12 T.
Still confusing?
Then letâs break down what Bitcoin mining difficulty is.
Itâs quite simple: Bitcoinâs code is organized in such a way that increases the difficulty when more new miners join the network.
The higher the complexity, the more computing power miners need to solve the blocks.
Because miners must invest in more po$$werful hardware, which uses more energy and results in higher electricity bills, the constant rise in mining difficulty eventually makes mining less profitable. $BTC #DeFiChallenge #FutureofDeFi #CryptoTradingBots#DeFigoesMainstream #DeFiEthereum2.0
Is Satoshi Nakamoto Back? Twitter Account Revived After 5 Year
Is Satoshi Nakamoto Back? Twitter Account Revived After 5 Years The account had been dormant since 2018 and was tagged instantly with community notes from the Bitcoin community. Who was the inventor of Bitcoin anyw?
Did Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of Bitcoin, finally return to the crypto scene he created? No, but the Twitter account @satoshi wants to make you think so, with a new post Tuesday focused on the 2008 white paper.
The apparent reactivation of an account bearing Nakamoto's name and a "verified account" blue checkmark calls into question the value of the blue checkmark. âBitcoin is a predicate machine,â the account bearing the name Satoshi Nakamoto posted on Monday. âOver the following months, we shall explore different aspects that were not explicitly contained within the white paper.â
It was the second post on the account this week. Prior to those tweets, the last activity was in October 2018.
Bitcoin is a predicate machine. Over the following months, we shall explore different aspects that were not explicitly contained within the white paper. These aspects are all parts of bitcoin, and are important. Twitter users added community notes to the post, clarifying that the @satoshi account was connected to Craig Wright, who has claimed for years to be Satoshi Nakamoto.
Ager-Hanssen left his post last week, and has been tweeting constantly about Wright and developments at nChain since then. He even remarked on the appearance of the blue check mark on the @satoshi account yesterday.
For nearly a decade, Wright has claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin, the largest digital currency by market capitalization. Wright has been involved in several legal battles surrounding Bitcoin, including one involving 12 Bitcoin Core developers. The developers are backed by the Jack Dorsey-backed Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund in a dispute over 111,000 Bitcoin allegedly stolen from the Mt. Gox.
Over the years, several names have surfaced, including Wright's, of possibly being the bitcoin
Yes, yes, weâve already published a post about hodling, and youâre aware that hodling is a buy-and-forget investment. That is, a hodler buys up cryptocurrencies for certain amounts at certain time intervals and avoids monitoring daily trading charts.
But the question of âwhen to sell?â is always relevant!
Here are two main answers to this question:
1. Hodl until you get the growth you want. 2. Hodl until a certain point in time.
For example, you may decide that you will sell all (or part) of your assets when you see your investments double, even if it takes 10 years. Maybe youâll decide to sell your coins the day Bitcoin hits the $100,000 mark. Or when you have the amount you need saved up, you buy a home.
The second option might look like this: You buy crypto for the next 10 years and sell all or part of it in 2033, even if there are tempting price hikes before then.
Of course, these are just rough ideas, but even with an investment strategy as simple as hodling, you need to be clear about your goals.#opbnb #ETH #Layer2 #BTC #crypto2023
Warren Buffett has truly been one of the most consistent critics of cryptocurrencies.
By his definition, Bitcoin is âprobably rat poison squared,â and the cryptocurrency market is a place where âdubious individuals are trying to screw over people who dream of getting rich by looking at their neighbors who got rich by buying stuff none of them know anything about.â
âPeople start being interested in something because itâs going up, not because they understand it or anything else. But the guy next door, who they know is dumber than they are, is getting rich, and they arenât,â he said. âAnd their spouse is saying, Canât you figure it out, too? It is so contagious. So, thatâs a permanent part of the system.â
Not the most optimistic reasoning, is it?
But letâs not forget that Buffett, although a great investor, is still a human being, who, by the way, has also made big mistakes in analyzing assets in his career (just like all of us).
The reality is that many reputable economists, entrepreneurs, and investors believe in the bright future of our industry đȘđđ#opbnb #ETH #crypto2023 #BTC #Layer2
Once again, we marvel at the ingenuity of scammers: TikTok has been flooded with âBitcoin giveawaysâ from âElon Musk.â
TikTok videos of Elon Musk supposedly giving an interview to Fox News or other well-known news media have surfaced where he advertises crypto giveaways.
The attackers encourage viewers and users to register an account on a âplatformâ and then ask them to enter a promo code mentioned in the TikTok video to receive âfree Bitcoin.â
After entering the code, the fake site will make it look like itâs sending you cryptocurrency.
But to withdraw the âgiftedâ Bitcoin, you need to activate your account for 0.005 BTC (about $132). If you do this, the money goes straight to the scammers.
The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the attackers also demand identification for KYC procedures. As weâve mentioned before, having any personal data leaked on the internet, especially in the crypto world, is very, very bad.
Today, we decided to answer this popular question, and the answer is: We have no idea đ
You know very well that nothing can be guaranteed in crypto. However, itâs important to note that most analysts agree that the next bull cycle will happen in 2024â2025.
Some analysts promise the beginning of the next crypto spring within the next one to three months. However, this doesnât mean that Bitcoin will skyrocket to $100,000; rather, the market will form an upward trend that will steadily lift Bitcoin and altcoins to new all-time highs.
Whether this is accurate or not, no one knows.
But reputable crypto proponents and analysts believe weâll enter a bull market within the next year or twoâitâs up to you to decide what to do with this information đ#opbnb #ETH #Layer2 #BTC #Layer2
Mark Cubanâs cryptocurrency wallet was robbed for $870,000.
The American billionaire and owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA basketball team, Mark Cuban, reported he was the victim of a hack.
Hackers withdrew USDC and USDT stablecoins, ETH, and a number of other coins from his wallet.
How did this happen?
Cuban believes that he downloaded a fake version of MetaMask. Many scammers create fake browser extensions or MetaMask applications, tricking users into providing their private keys or passphrases. Once they have access to a wallet, hackers can easily empty its contents.
Weâve said it many times: Always pay attention to where you download programs from. No one is immune to hacks, and, naturally, the money cannot be returned to the entrepreneur.#opbnb #ETH #Layer2 #BTC #crypto2023
Changpeng Zhao said that, to attract the next 100 million people to the crypto market, weâll âhave to try harder.â
CZ said that to start, we need to simplify the ways in which cash can be exchanged for cryptocurrency. It is the lack of simple and convenient tools that is hindering expansion.
This answer may seem too âsimple,â but if you think about it, the crypto industry, like any other, needs money. And the harder it is for the average user to buy cryptocurrency, the less money enters our market.
Since the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange last year, many banks have stopped working with crypto platforms, with government regulators tightening requirements for crypto.
But we continue to believe in the market anyway đ
But itâs getting easier to enter the world of crypto: Take our free introductory crypto course if you donât believe us =)
Always disconnect your wallet from DEXs and other decentralized services. Always log out when you finish your session.
This is one of the most basic security rules that many people neglect. First of all, if you forget to log out, you have no way of knowing whether the service you were using was compromised.
Second, if a hacker gains access to your laptop or phone, they can easily steal all of your crypto with a single click.
An unknown user paid $510,000 in network fees to transfer 0.074 BTCđ€·ââïž
On Sept. 10, an unknown user paid 1,982,108,632 satoshis ($510,750) as a fee to miners for transferring 0.074 BTC.
To date, this is the largest payment in dollar equivalent for a transaction confirmation.
Meanwhile, the average commission on the Bitcoin network is 0.000084 BTC ($2.18).
How did this happen?
Most likely, the sender made a mistake when forming the payment.
Representatives of the F2Pool mining pool that mined the block said they would temporarily set aside this 19.8 BTC, but if the sender of the transaction doesnât show up in 3 days, the money will be distributed among the miners.
Ex-CEO of the Thodex crypto exchange receives prison sentence of 11,000 years đ€·ââïž
The former CEO of the Thodex crypto exchange, Faruk Fatih Ăzer, has been sentenced by a Turkish court to imprisonment for 11,196 years. The court in Istanbul found Ăzer and two of his relatives guilty of fraud, running a criminal organization, and money laundering.
Thodex is a Turkish cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2017. In April 2021, its founder, Ăzer suddenly left the country, and the platform ceased operations. More than 2,000 Thodex customers sued the exchange, accusing the platform of fraud and the theft of millions of dollars.
The total damage to users is still unknown. However, the indictment says 356 million Turkish liras ($13 million), with local media reporting figures as high as $2 billion.#BinanceTournament #CYBER #pepe #crypto2023 #Binance
The incident was reported by Vitalikâs father, Dmitry Buterin. The attackers published a post with a phishing link to a mint of âcommemorative NFTs in honor of the arrival of proto-danksharding in Ethereum.â
And in a matter of hours, they were able to steal nearly $700,000 worth of assets.
Among the assets they stole were several high-value nonfungible tokens (NFTs), including CryptoPunk #3983 and CryptoPunk #1751, worth 153.62 ETH and 58.18 ETH, respectively.
Vitalik, a co-founder of Ethereum, hasnât commented on the hack yet, but the link has been removed. Apparently, he has restored access to his account. We are awaiting further developments.#BinanceTournament #CYBER #pepe #crypto2023 #Binance
Why Bitcoin is a Ponzi Scheme & Altcoins aren't, and how to fix it
 I think there hasnât been a question I was asked more at networking events, or when people ask me what I do: âIâve read, Bitcoin is nothing else than a Ponzi Scheme!â
Sounds so easy to respond to, doesnât it? âBitcoin isnât a Ponzi Scheme becauseâŠâ Right, why isnât it??
If you throw this question at a Bitcoin super fan, you will mostly get meaningless answers without any substance such as:
âOh, look at this moron, he doesnât understand Bitcoin otherwise, he wouldnât even ask such a question!â, or:
âDonât listen to this person, he is a banker/journalist/scammer/(fill in your ad hominem attack role)!â, or:
âNo, Bitcoin is the Best Money!â, or:
âNo, but all the other Shitcoins (read: Altcoins) are and this person is just trying to shill his shitcoin!â, or:
âHow can it be a Ponzi Scheme if it has been around for 15 years?â, or:
âIf Bitcoin was a Ponzi Scheme, Gold would be one too!â, or:
âWho cares if it is⊠Fiat Money is also a Ponzi Scheme, so?!â, etc.
Some of these answers are plainly wrong, others donât address the actual argument, while others simply try to divert. Looking at the pyramid of argumentation (the level of how to refute an argument), the way these people respond comes from them either not having a high IQ, them not understanding the actual subject, them not knowing how to explain the subject, or them knowing of being wrong, and an ad hominem attack or ridiculing the other person is the only way out for them.
In this article, I want to admit that the way Bitcoin is set up and pushed by many fans, it is indeed a Ponzi Scheme. However, I also want to explain how we as an industry can be better and make it not be one!
So, what is the actual refutation to Bitcoin potentially being a Ponzi Scheme⊠and if it is one, how can we fix it? Letâs first define what a Ponzi Scheme is: Named after Charles Ponzi, a Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment scheme that operates by using funds from new investors to pay returns to earlier investors, rather than generating legitimate profits from actual investment activities. This creates the illusion of a successful and profitable investment, enticing more people to invest. However, as the scheme relies on a continuous influx of new investors to pay returns, it eventually collapses when there are not enough new investors to sustain the payouts. This leads to significant financial losses for those involved, except for the initial orchestrators of the scheme who may have already profited.
So, it all centers around the âactual investment activitiesâ and not just paying off earlier investors with your new investment. In an investment into a Business, the question is, will the investment be used for the business to generate more profits. In an investment into a non-Business, like Bitcoin, the question is, whatever you are buying, what can you use it for. For example, if we all invested in Oil, it would be difficult to argue that this is a Ponzi Scheme because in the worst case, we can always use the oil. We could argue we overpaid, but it definitely would have NOT been a Ponzi Scheme. The same is the case when investing in a Business. The Business could fail, and the money is gone, but it would have NOT been a Ponzi Scheme.
In a Ponzi Scheme, there are ALWAYS people who lose. Aka, it is a net-zero sum game. Every dollar someone wins, is a dollar someone else loses. In a proper business, it is always positive sum, as actual value is created. The way the value is created, is not by new investors, but by the business itself. It doesnât require new money (aka make these people lose) to pay off old money (aka make these people win). It just requires the business to be useful. The same applies to commodities or precious metals. Sure, if you buy Oil or Gold from someone, you pay this person money (you lose at this moment and the other person wins), but maybe you didnât buy the Oil or the Gold as an investment. You actually wanted to use it. Somethingâs utility in the investment market can be seen easiest, if you imagine it not being able to be traded, aka removing the price. If a stock is not traded, you still have the right to the underlying assets and future cashflows. If they donât come, you lose your investment. If they come, you profit. With commodities like Oil, Rare Earths, etc. you can always put these things to use. Even Gold, is used for Industrial Use, and if you were to get kilos of Gold, but would not be allowed to ever sell it, you could still turn it into beautiful jewelry.
How about Bitcoin? The biggest challenge for Bitcoin in this regard is that you canât use Bitcoin for anything. Since it exists only digitally, it has no application in the physical world directly. It canât be used to build anything. You canât use it for anything like you would use Oil or Rare Earths. There is absolutely nothing priced in Bitcoin, because all the stores accepting Bitcoin actually accept dollars, so this is nothing else than betting on price and not actual utility. Your car doesnât care about the oil price. It just wants a liter of fuel for 10k of driving. No f-s given about the oil price. How many points of acceptances for bitcoin, or presidential candidates who take bitcoin for donations, or exchanges, or Bitcoin business, donât care, if the Bitcoin price is 1 USD, 10,000 USD or 1 Million USD? ALL OF THEM. AKA: Zero utility apart from Price.
In Bitcoin, there is this famous saying: âWe all gonna make itâ or WAGMI. But actually, looking at this, it is an entire lie. The early investors are going to make it, while the newer ones can only make it, if they also find people who buy Bitcoin from them, as otherwise, there is nothing how they can use it. So, actually, it should be: âWANGMI⊠We all NOT gonna make it!â
How is this different to Altcoins? Most altcoins, especially the smart contract platforms, actually have utility on chain. Coins like Ethereum, DeFiChain, Solana, Polkadot, etc. all have native utility for Decentralized Finance, NFTs, etc. You need the coin for consensus and voting, you need it as collateral, you need it for decentralized exchanges, you need it for tokenization, you need it for gas fees like in a car, and much, much more. So, if the market price for ETH, DFI, SOL or DOT would suddenly disappear, the blockchain ecosystem itself wouldnât even know or wouldnât even car. Just like a car doesnât give a f**k about what the fuel costs⊠it will eat the same number of liters, no matter what.
If we look at the typical comments from before, we can now answer them in an easy fashion:
âOh, look at this moron, he doesnât understand Bitcoin!â -> Ad Hominem without actually answering anything
âDonât listen to this person, he is a banker/journalist/scammer/(fill in your ad hominem attack role)!â -> Ad Hominem without actually answering anything
âNo, Bitcoin is the Best Money!â -> Contradiction without actually explaining what âBest Moneyâ is, why Bitcoin should be the best money, etc.
âNo, but all the other Shitcoins (read: Altcoins) are and you shilling a shitcoin is just trying to detract attention away form Bitcoin!â -> Trying to deflect while actually being wrong. Most Altcoins have strong utility.
âHow can it be a Ponzi Scheme if it has been around for 15 years?â -> Trying to deflect while forgetting, that a Ponzi Scheme can last for decades. For example, Bernie Madoffâs lasted for almost 20 years and probably would have lasted even longer had the SEC not started to investigate.
âIf Bitcoin was a Ponzi Scheme, Gold would be one too!â etc. -> -> Trying to deflect while actually being wrong. Gold actually has utility.
âWho cares if it is⊠Fiat Money is also a Ponzi Scheme, so?!â -> Trying to deflect with something that is irrelevant. Fiat is indeed a Ponzi Scheme, but the reason, Fiat Money lasts so long, is the name itself: The government says âIt shall beâ and puts its entire military behind it. This also explains, why the US has been fighting every single war they have been fighting over the past 20 years: to support the dollar does not lose its global reserve status.
If you accept, that if Bitcoin doesnât change going forward, it would be a pure Ponzi Scheme, you also understand the current approach by many bitcoin hardliners, is sadly quite destructive:
Even though past performance says nothing about future performance, a huge deal is made about the price movement of the very early years. However, since the time that over 90% of all bitcoin people came into the space (after 2017), basically no returns were made, which is highlighted by the average bitcoin investment being down.
All focus is spent on recruiting more money. Nothing is done to make Bitcoin useful itself. Actually, the exact opposite, some people say nothing should change. If no new money could enter the system, Bitcoin would be dead. In any smart contract altcoin, the coin would still be used for the protocol.
People like Michael Saylor are being put on a pedestool to attract even more money. Fake Models like the Stock to Flow model are being created, to give the impression we could know where the price goes.
Politicians, sometime more corrupt than others, prey on this community. The community in return, uses any possibility to build up the image of people buying Bitcoin.
Countries like El Salvador are being used as an example of Bitcoin adoption. When data is very clear, that basically none of that is happening in El Salvador, and the entire move functions more like a marketing move for El Salvador.
Pushing for Institutional Adoption and a Bitcoin Spot ETF goes against everything, Satoshi pushed for: Wallstreet. Now, Bitcoin Laser Eye Fans are celebrating it, as it âpumps their bagsâ. Zero additional value is being added, though.
Governments Mining Bitcoin is being sold as something valuable to Bitcoin, when it has absolutely nothing to do with Bitcoin. It is a pure Fiat Transaction: Use USD to buy Computers, use Computers to mine Bitcoin, sell those Bitcoin right away at a profit. If you have access to cheap electricity and cheap capital, mining Bitcoin is a no-brainer.
Bitcoin is NOT âthe Best Moneyâ just because people say so without giving any bit of proof. It is not an inflation hedge as we have seen over the past years. So, all that is left, is motivating people to stack more sats, as this is the source for everything: more new money, so the old money can cash out.
So, I know, the facts I present here, donât look rosy for Bitcoin right now, and if that were it, I would wholeheartedly say that Bitcoin is a Ponzi Scheme while most Altcoins arenât. But how do we fix it? We do so by making Bitcoin useful! Bitcoin is programmable, so we can give it utility, by building things on top:
In the past, Omnilayer allowed for applications
Right now with Taproot and Ordinals, we have more opportunities.
Drivechains (sidechains) are aiming to bring utility to Bitcoin
Projects like Stacks, DeFiChain and others, who try to build around Bitcoin, are bringing utility to Bitcoin
Wrapping Bitcoin and bringing it to smart contract platforms, is making Bitcoin useful, though centralized
Why do many Bitcoin Hardliners oppose the above? Two main reasons:
some actually know Bitcoin is a Ponzi Scheme, and understand that complexity is the enemy of execution. The easier you keep the message and the scheme, the easier it is to attract new money. More Building on top, increases complexity, which could bring failure.
the main firm behind Bitcoin âBlockstreamâ, has very clear interests with Lightning, etc. and so far, everything that was built that hasnât benefited them directly, has been attacked by them. Sadly, their influence is massive.
So, while the situation is dire for Bitcoin, it is not lost. Nevertheless, if this works out, then WAGMI. And if that is what you invest for with Bitcoin, then we are fully aligned. It is, for example, why my organization Cake Group holds Bitcoin on its balance sheet or why we invest in projects like DeFiChain or Ordinals that bring utility to Bitcoin. However, if nothing changes, other than a Bitcoin Spot ETF, with a rising BTC price, I will use this moment to shed off my last bitcoins and never look back.
ChatGPT made Bitcoin predictions for 2024, 2028, 2032, and 2050.
Some crypto enthusiasts have asked ChatGPT to make Bitcoin predictions, and weâll tell you what it thinks BTC will be worth in 2024, 2028, 2032, and 2050.
The chatbot presented two scenarios for each of the given time periods.
Of course, you shouldnât trust the predictions of chatbots since theyâre not at all made for this kind of thing (at the moment at least). Having said that, artificial intelligence is nevertheless pretty adept at instilling confidence in Bitcoinâs future, donât you think?đ #BinanceTournament #CYBER #pepe #crypto2023 #Binance $BTC