Bitcoin Price Tumbles Resulting in Newest Crypto Market Crash
BTC (bitcoin), the most dominant cryptocurrency tumbles down below the $45K mark resulting in the newest market crash. BTC (bitcoin) went down to as low as $43,563 in data by Crypto.co dropping more than $10K of its value in an hour. Prices of other major cryptocurrencies like ETH (ethereum), BNB (Binance Coin) including “ETH killers” SOL (Solana), and ADA (Cardano) also plummeted.
BTC (bitcoin) has recovered 10% of its value with its price at $47,940. But what could be the reason behind the current BTC (bitcoin) price crash? According to a report by Coindesk, this is a result of “uncertainties caused by the Omicron variant of COVID-19 and the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) growing discomfort with high inflation”.
Despite the current price crash, the crypto market cap is still hovering at $2T in data by Coinmarketcap. But some investors have taken advantage of the current situation to fill their bags of crypto gems particularly of BTC (bitcoin). One of them was El Salvador President Nayib Bukele announced in a tweet that the country has purchased an additional 150 BTC at an average price of $48,670 each.
El Salvador just bought the dip! 🇸🇻
150 coins at an average USD price of ~$48,670 🥳#Bitcoin🎄
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) December 4, 2021
It can be recalled that Microstrategy founder and CEO Michael Saylor has also been on a buying spree for BTC (bitcoin) whenever a price crash happens.
UK RUSI on the Lookout for NFTs as New Means of Money Laundering
The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) dubbed as the “world’s oldest and the UK’s leading defense and security think tank” is now on the lookout for NFTs as new means of facilitating money laundering.
In a report published on its website on Dec. 2, the UK think tank stated the risk associated with NFTs given its popularity today.
“This technology can raise alarm bells from a money laundering and financial crime perspective”.
It has also reiterated that the risk is even higher since NFTs are usually purchased using cryptocurrencies which have been long associated with illicit and criminal activities. Hence, RUSI made a strong recommendation for a KYC policy to be implemented by exchanges facilitating these purchases in order to mitigate the risk.
“A system of ‘know your customer’ policies and ongoing monitoring, similar to those used in the traditional art market and in compliant cryptocurrency exchanges, needs to be implemented”.
It has also raised the concern that NFTs can be exploited just like in the case of physical art which has become a practice for money launderers. Forgery can also be a case for digital artworks with RUSI stating the forgery of a limited edition Banksy print sold online in the amount of £244,000. For an unknown reason, the hacker returned the funds the following sale. RUSI also warned of a possibility of an art heist in the NFT realm and other novel risks.
RUSI also recommended further mitigating these risks by implementing regulations similar to cryptocurrencies with online NFTs auction houses and a KYC is very necessary.
“NFT marketplaces need to ensure that there is an option for two-factor authentication for consumers and confirm that cyber security measures are in place to protect against opportunistic hackers”.
As further stated by RUSI, “with KYC in place, strong cyber security measures, and a stolen art registry, risks associated with NFTs can be alleviated without hindering its growth.
Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht JoinS the NFT Craze
Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road launched his own edition of NFTs, the “Ross Ulbricht Genesis Collection.” His NFT collection is minted on the Ethereum network which he described as a depiction of his life story as stated in a blog post.
Ulbricht revealed that he came from an artistic family and he started to draw at a young age. He stopped drawing at the age of 20 but at 29 while spending time in prison, he started to draw again.
“Suddenly, sitting in prison, I had time for drawing again. I reconnected with my artistic side, producing illustrations that told the story I was going through. I was able to connect to those of you in the free world through my art. The isolation I felt was tempered by it”.
And surprisingly, his latest NFT passion gave him hope and made him realize that despite receiving a life sentence in prison, his life is not yet over.
“It does not end with “…and then he was arrested and spent the rest of his life in prison.” I am still alive. I am still here. I can still make a difference”.
Ross Ulbricht Genesis Collection auction will run on the SuperRare NFT platform, curated by Entoptic on December 2-8.
This has been the most meaningful project of our lives
December 2nd || Ross Ulbricht Genesis Collection
Presented by @EntopticNFT
Featuring art by @LEViTATE_AV
Released on @SuperRareWe love you @RealRossU @Free_Ross #freeross <3 pic.twitter.com/AJFmcJsC9m
— Entoptic (@EntopticNFT) November 22, 2021
The proceeds of the auction will be forwarded to his legal fund and to children with parents behind bars.
In 2013, Ross Ulbricht was arrested by the FBI for running the Silk Road, an online black market and the first modern darknet market engaged in buying and selling illicit drugs, weapons, poisons, including services like computer hacking. In 2015, he was convicted for his narcotics dealing and money laundering and was sentenced to life imprisonment. 69,000 BTC was seized from him at that time which has ultimately associated cryptocurrencies with illegal activities like drugs and money laundering.
BadgerDAO Falls Victim to Latest Hacking
BadgerDAO, a DAO that enables bitcoin to be used as collateral across DeFi applications becomes the latest victim of hacking after losing $120 million from the attack.
Although prior reports state that the DAO has lost $10M from the security breach, PeckShield revealed in a tweet that the protocol’s actual loss was $120.3 million.
Here is the current whereabouts as well as the total loss: $120.3M (with ~2.1k BTC + 151 ETH) @BadgerDAO pic.twitter.com/fJ4hJcMWTq
— PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) December 2, 2021
The problem was first reported by users at 9 pm EST through the DAO’s Discord channel and the exploit occurred through the user interface and not the DAO’s protocol contracts. Tritium, a Badger core contributor stated on Discord:
“It looks like a bunch of users had approvals set for the exploit address allowing [the address] to operate on their vault funds and that was exploited.”
This was later confirmed by PeckShield to Decrypt. Users that have interacted with the malicious contract are now advised to cancel permission from their wallets. BadgerDAO has also made an official announcement of the hacking incident on its Twitter official account.
Badger has received reports of unauthorized withdrawals of user funds.
As Badger engineers investigate this, all smart contracts have been paused to prevent further withdrawals.
Our investigation is ongoing and we will release further information as soon as possible.
— ₿adgerDAO 🦡 (@BadgerDAO) December 2, 2021
The tweet had since received furious replies from the protocol’s users.
This is a disgrace!!! My sons university fees were all in this, our lives have been destroyed!
— Bitcoin mother (@BitcoinBombz) December 2, 2021
The recent hacking resulted in the plummet of BADGE, BadgerDAO’s governance token by more than 15% in data by Coingecko.
In its last update, BadgerDAO stated that it is now closely working with forensics experts and authorities to resolve the issue.
Badger continues to work closely with forensics experts at Chainalysis and Mandiant, and with law enforcement authorities in the US and Canada, to understand the full scale of the incident and to work towards remedial action.
— ₿adgerDAO 🦡 (@BadgerDAO) December 3, 2021
