WhiteboardCrypto Newsletter - Oct 26

Welcome back to this week's edition of our WhiteboardCrypto Newsletter!

3rd-party Fiat-to-Crypto onramp breeched

A third-party payment platform called Transak was hacked via a phishing attack on an employee’s laptop. Some personal identifying info like names and birthdates were taken for approximately 1.14% of users, but supposedly no info like social security numbers or other financial data was breeched. Transak is working with law enforcement and is reaching out to the affected users directly. But, this can also be a prime opportunity for scammers to take advantage of the situation by sending fake emails and gathering personal info that way, so please be very careful and confirm that whatever emails you receive are from the legit source. If you’re unsure, you can contact Transak’s customer support directly or email them at [email protected].

Learn more here.

Nigeria released Binance exec

After 8 months in a Nigerian prison and growing health concerns, Tigran Gambaryan, Binance’s head of financial crime compliance, was released on humanitarian grounds. Gambaryan actually helped create ways for law enforcement to trace crypto, but after being invited to Nigeria to discuss a money laundering case against Binance, he was detained. The case is ongoing against Binance, but the crypto community is quite happy he has been released.

Learn more here.

Ethereum roadmap update

Vitalik released a blog on Oct. 20 detailing The Scourge, one important upcoming piece of Ethereum’s roadmap. In it, he expresses concern over the possibility of increasing centralization that would make 51% attacks, censorship and MEV extraction more likely. A key feature the Ethereum Foundation needs to consider is lower the staking rewards as the supply of staked ETH rises, while also offering other rewards for solo stakers who would then be less likely to invest. It’s good to see that the core team building Ethereum is considering the biggest threats to the ecosystem and how to make the L1 healthier, especially when so many people are fearing the parasitic nature of L2s.

Learn more here.

Remember Maker?

The popular creator of the DAI stablecoin, and now the USDS stablecoin, had rebranded earlier this year to Sky. But the community seems uncomfortable with that as it’s hard to shift a brand to a different name after it’s already been so popular. So, there’s a governance proposal to change it back—or at least discuss changing it back. The rebrand came with a new governance token, the new stablecoin, and a change in the protocol. But, unsurprisingly, many people want to keep the well-known MKR token, Dai, and name, because that’s what the public is used to.

Learn more here.

Zero-knowledge Proofs drive decentralized ID

The Argentine capital Buenos Aires has used Zksync Era—Ethereum’s scaling protocol that uses zero-knowledge rollups—to allow its citizens to have decentralized digital identities. This tech gives residents control over their identities, such as who receives what information. For instance, if you’re buying alcohol and need to prove you are of drinking age, instead of handing over a license that shows your birthdate, address, and full name, you can just show this app that will confirm yes or no, you are of legal age. This is super important for privacy and security, and we hope that the use of this tech spreads to other jurisdictions too.

Learn more here.

Kraken releases L2

The popular centralized exchange Kraken is decentralizing by going onchain with the creation of a new L2 called Ink. They are joining Optimism’s Superchain to share in Ethereum’s security and be interconnected with other L2s to make integrating with the crypto ecosystem easier. They’ll have a testnet ready for Devcon in mid November and will have hacking contests to test the network. They hope to launch mainnet early next year.

Learn more here.

Thanks for reading and I hope you learned something!

- Theodore