Cutting-edge computer technology designed to mimic the human brain is being used by hackers to create lifelike videos of celebrities and politicians. But now, bad actors are using this readily available tech to target everyday social media users in cryptocurrency scams.
Last Christmas, Philip Martin sat down at his computer to check his cryptocurrency balance. Before he knew what was happening, hackers stole his life savings.
The U.S. Department of Treasury today sanctioned cryptocurrency mixer Blender.io used last month by the North Korean-backed Lazarus hacking group to launder funds stolen from Axie Infinity’s Ronin bridge.
In the wake of the attack, Sky Mavis (the bridge’s creator) revealed that hackers breached the Ronin bridge on March 23 to steal 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC tokens in two transactions worth $617 million at the time, the largest cryptocurrency hack in history.
The previous most significant theft of cryptocurrency was the $611 million Poly Network hack in August 2021.
Crypto’s biggest skeptics see plenty of reasons to criticize the industry, but generally at the heart of most complaints is a belief that crypto is contributing very little to society while burning massive amounts of energy.
While crypto’s believers could squabble over the former point until they’re blue in the face, the latter is a little harder to deny. Bitcoin uses an estimated 204.50 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity per year at current rates according to the oft-cited tracker built by Digiconomist, this number is equal to the power consumption of Thailand. Meanwhile Ethereum’s energy footprint is half the size but still comparable to the power consumption of Kazakhstan. In 2018 the United States reported its total consumption of electricity as 4,222.5 TWh.
For some legislators, those numbers are hard to swallow. This week, the New York State Assembly passed a bill that had team crypto up in arms. The bill blocks the formation of crypto mining firms in the state that rely on non-renewable power. It notably doesn’t apply to existing facilities. A corresponding bill is currently making its way through the Democrat-controlled state senate. everyone, and welcome back to Chain Reaction.
Decentralized finance is built on blockchain technology, an immutable system that organizes data into blocks that are chained together and stored in hundreds of thousands of nodes or computers belonging to other members of the network.
These nodes communicate with one another (peer-to-peer), exchanging information to ensure that they’re all up-to-date and validating transactions, usually through proof-of-work or proof-of-stake. The first term is used when a member of the network is required to solve an arbitrary mathematical puzzle to add a block to the blockchain, while proof-of-stake is when users set aside some cryptocurrency as collateral, giving them a chance to be selected at random as a validator.
To encourage people to help keep the system running, those who are selected to be validators are given cryptocurrency as a reward for verifying transactions. This process is popularly known as mining and has not only helped remove central entities like banks from the equation, but it also has allowed DeFi to open more opportunities. In traditional finance, are only offered to large organizations, for members of the network to make a profit. And by using network validators, DeFi has also been able to cut down the costs that intermediaries charge so that management fees don’t eat away a significant part of investors’ returns.
Good telescope that I’ve used to learn the basics: https://amzn.to/35r1jAk.
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Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about new interesting proposition on how to terraform Venus using floating continents.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Venus.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2203.06722.pdf.
#venus #terraforming #nasa.
Continue reading “New Idea From NASA: Trillions of Floating Balloons To Terraform Venus” »
BlackRock announced on Wednesday its new iShares Blockchain and Tech ETF (IBLC), which allows investors to gain exposure to the blockchain sector without any direct investments in cryptocurrencies.
The exchange-traded fund tracks US and international companies involved in the “development, innovation, and utilization of blockchain and crypto technologies,” BlackRock said. Currently, the fund has over $4.7 million in net assets across 34 holdings, excluding cash positions and derivative exposures.
The ETF is a “gradual entry point into the blockchain ecosystem” and includes holdings like crypto exchanges, crypto miners, and underlying technologies, said Rachel Aguirre, BlackRock’s head of US iShares product, at a Wednesday panel event.
The notorious whistle-blower acknowledges he was the sixth person who participated in an elaborate 2016 ceremony that led to the creation of zcash, a leading privacy protecting cryptocurrency now valued at $2 billion.
