Crypto News Weekly Digest
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2022-07-09
Crypto market loses $670 million in Q2 globally
The global cryptocurrency market lost at least $670 million in the April-June quarter (Q2), and 97 percent of the losses were due to hacks and scams. The crypto losses in the second quarter were up 52 percent from $440 million in the same period last year. It is also notable that blackhat hackers are now primarily targeting and exploiting DeFi (decentralised finance).
In the first 6 months of 2022, scammers stole ~ $ 2 billion in cryptocurrency
In the ETH ecosystem alone, 32 crypto projects were hacked for a total amount of more than $1 billion
The most common type of crypto fraud are investment scams. People lost crypto worth over $185 million in the US via romance scams in the first quarter this year, as fraudsters use new means to rob their victims, with romance scams featuring prominently.
PennyWise virus spreading on YouTube
The malware is obfuscated with an unknown crypto tool and uses multithreading to be more efficient in stealing data.
Once running, the malware obtains the path for several different browsers it targets:
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More than 30 Chrome-based browsers
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More than 5 Mozilla-based browsers
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Opera
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Microsoft Edge
The malware then grabs the username, the machine name, the system language, and the timezone from the victim's operating system.
It can steal data from 30 crypto wallets and browser extensions and is dangerous even for cold wallets. PennyWise can take screenshots from messengers to determine the location of an infected device.
Stagnation in the NFT segment intensified in June
The trading volume of the leading collection tokens fell by more than 50%, in some cases - up to 90%. Once again, the dynamics of the segment are reflected by the leading marketplace OpenSea. The trading volume at the end of the month was the lowest in 2022 - $695 million.
Crypto broker Voyager Digital files for bankruptcy
Voyager’s decision is part of the domino effect of crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital’s liquidity problems. The Singapore-based firm filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy last Friday. According to writer Frances Coppola, nearly 50% of Voyager’s total assets were from its loan book, and nearly 60% of the loan book consisted of loans to Three Arrows Capital.
Crypto companies – and lenders in particular – have faced solvency issues in recent weeks, with several stopping customers from withdrawing their funds. Celsius kicked off this trend last month, announcing in mid-June that it would suspend withdrawals. CoinLoan, CoinFLEX, and Voyager itself all announced restrictions or outright halts on withdrawals in recent days, Nikhilesh De and Danny Nelson reported today.
Voyager’s VGX token plummeted to a low of $0.20 hours after filing for bankruptcy and is now trading at around $0.21, 12% down in the last 24 hours.
Estimated assets of the company range from $1 to $10 billion, and the number of creditors exceeds 100,000 people
Meta to shut down digital wallet Novi amid crypto crash
Facebook parent Meta has announced it will shut down its digital wallet for cryptocurrency, Novi, on September 1, 2022, barely a year after it started the project.
The product didn't even make it to a full launch, closing its doors at the pilot stage. Meta said the Novi app and its integration with WhatsApp will no longer be available and users will not be able to sign in to their accounts after the expiry date.
The move coincides with the mayhem in the cryptocurrency space, with prices crashing to new lows.
It also said that from July 21, users will not be able to add currency to the wallet and "strongly advised" users to withdraw their money.
Customers in the US and Guatemala can withdraw the money and get it in their bank accounts. Guatemala users can also opt to get their money in cash from the nearest withdrawal location.
Bitcoin and Ethereum Mining Revenue Slashed Significantly in June
Data from The Block Research indicates that Bitcoin mining revenue dipped by over 26% in June. Miners of the Satoshi coin raked in $668 million in rewards across June as leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin lost more than a third of its value.
Even with the reducing proportion of returns to Bitcoin miners, the network has remained consistent in hashrate. Over the last week, the blockchain’s computational power ranged between 261.4 EH/s and 182.3 EH/s, though only a few mining rigs have been logging a profit.
Indicative of the persistence of these Bitcoin miners is that the 110 Terrahash Bitmain Antminer SJ19 Pro is currently being run at profitability of -$0.28, down from $4.63 on May 27. Despite seeing its share of the worse conditions, Bitcoin overturned an overperforming Ethereum that had consistently been more profitable to miners from as far back as April 2021. In June, Bitcoin repaid its miners 1.26 times better than Ethereum did.
Bitcoin mining revenue being more than Ethereum’s after such as long period of dominance of the latter paints the picture of how bad things fared for Ethereum miners. The Block Research found that Ethereum’s mining revenue shrunk by 45.5% across June relative to May. A sum of $528 million went to Ethereum miners as revenue.