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DeFi

Developers don’t know enough about zero-knowledge security – and it’s a ticking time bomb – DL News

Financial Block Staff

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Developers don't know enough about zero-knowledge security – and it's a ticking time bomb – DL News

Brian Pak is CEO and co-founder of ChainLight, a blockchain security company specializing in smart contract audits and on-chain monitoring.

Zero-knowledge words, once relegated to academic articles and crypto forums, have become commonplace.

ZK technology allows one party, like a blockchain protocol, to prove to another party that something is true, such as a person’s age, while keeping that information completely confidential.

ZK crypto succeeds in scaling the Ethereum smart contract network. More than a dozen ZK-based networks, commonly known as ZK rollups, run on Ethereum, with a 4 billion dollars value of deposits.

But despite all the hype, there’s one big problem. Lack of knowledge about ZK is a ticking time bomb.

Most crypto developers still know very little about this complex topic.

And as more developers begin experimenting with ZK technology, it creates major security risks, and even prevents the technology from reaching its true potential.

At the same time, ZK technology promises to revolutionize the crypto industry, so getting developers and the broader user community up to speed is imperative.

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ZK developers are “out of date”

In 2022, co-founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin pointed out security risks of ZK stacks, such as bugs in the circuit’s constraint code.

These codes are essential in ZK rollups because they define and enforce rules for cryptographic proofs ensuring the validity of transactions.

Bugs in these codes can lead to serious security vulnerabilities, such as incorrect proofs or unauthorized access to funds.

Since Buterin’s warning, developers have identified several other vulnerabilities in projects using ZK technology.

In November, ChainLight discovered a bug in ZK Sync Era’s ZK circuits, which could have allowed a hacker to steal $1.9 billion.

Also in 2018, a Zcash cryptographer discovered a vulnerability in zero-knowledge proofs underlying the protocol. If not fixed, the bug could have allowed an attacker to create fake Zcash tokens without being detected.

Such vulnerabilities are a sad indictment of a new form of technology that is clearly not understood by enough people.

Many developers who write the code and the security professionals who must sign off on its security are simply overwhelmed.

And it’s no surprise: everyone will tell you that a PhD level in mathematics is necessary to understand the security aspects of ZK technology.

This means that the number of people qualified to audit ZK code is limited, as are the resources needed to train them.

And the lack of experts to properly audit ZK code is not the only problem.

ZK rollups, such as zkSync Era and StarkNet, are developed in-house and therefore peer review processes are not as thorough as the standards seen in academia.

I will remain skeptical of the security of ZK technology until the peer review process is more standardized.

ZK not reaching his potential

Lack of understanding of ZK technology also prevents it from realizing its full potential.

This is due to a lack of trust in the technology which leads manufacturers to choose more familiar frameworks.

For example, one of the main touted benefits of ZK stacks is instant finality.

This means that as soon as proof of a block is verified on the Ethereum mainnet, the results are final. This notably allows for instant asset withdrawals and also improves security.

Optimistic rollups, the main rival to ZK rollups, require a seven-day waiting period to withdraw assets.

There is a growing consensus that ZK rollups are the best solution for scaling Ethereum beyond optimistic rollups.

Some go so far as to describe them as “Holy Grail» of scaling solutions.

Co-founder of Immutable Robbie Ferguson described ZK rollups as “by far the easiest way to scale high-throughput transactions.”

But, in reality, most developers are still not using the technology to its true potential because they are simply not comfortable with using some of its unique features due to its complexity.

For example, none of the existing ZK accumulations really have the instantaneous purpose announced.

The coding is so technical that developers might be afraid of making a mistake, leading them to choose not to implement the instant finality.

Instead, protocols have what’s called a lead time, in which there is a window of about a day to detect an exploit and roll back changes before they are finalized.

With this, the security of ZK rollups comes with a major compromise and giving up one of its most important advantages.

Only a better understanding of ZK technology will allow manufacturers to maximize its potential without compromising safety.

Security by design

Across Web3 – not just the ZK sphere – projects aren’t taking audits seriously enough.

Many projects view audits simply as stamps of approval to give themselves a reputable appearance, rather than the rigorous security exercises they should be.

There are several cases where known bugs have crept into new DeFi protocols, costing investors millions.

For example, several protocols that derived code from the Compound v2 lending protocol, such as Hundred Finance and Onyx Protocol, did so blindly and did not consider known attack vectors in the code.

Instead, developers should strive to create protocols that are secure by design, meaning they are built in a way that protects against attacks first and foremost.

Building by design starts with staying abreast of threats to the ecosystem.

If a project does not have the resources to perform a thorough audit, it should still track hacks that occur on other projects so that they are not victims themselves.

While failing to create secure protocols by design would be a problem for any project, it is particularly detrimental in the case of ZK technology.

For example, let’s take a look at existing ZKEVMs – ZK rollups that perfectly replicate Ethereum’s operating system.

Many ZKEVMs rely on manually defined circuits, which require human involvement and use young and untested libraries.

The likelihood of developers making errors in this environment is high, making ZK rollups more vulnerable to the risk of attacks.

As investors pile into ZK rollups, incentivized by possible token airdrops, they become lucrative targets for the next major crypto heist.

Solutions

Implementing security early in the development cycle and on an ongoing basis, for example through bug bounties, can help solve this problem.

There is no doubt that ZK technology is a game changer for Ethereum, and constant development is fundamental to scaling the blockchain.

However, the solutions offered by ZK rollups live up to their potential to cause security issues.

Startups must first be honest about whether they are using ZK technology because it is necessary or because they are jumping on the bandwagon.

If they are certain to be first, then they need to be aware of the risks and building with security by design is absolutely fundamental.



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We are the editorial team of Financial Block, where seriousness meets clarity in cryptocurrency analysis. With a robust team of finance and blockchain technology experts, we are dedicated to meticulously exploring complex crypto markets with detailed assessments and an unbiased approach. Our mission is to democratize access to knowledge of emerging financial technologies, ensuring they are understandable and accessible to all. In every article on Financial Block, we strive to provide content that not only educates, but also empowers our readers, facilitating their integration into the financial digital age.

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DeFi

Haust Network Partners with Gateway to Connect to AggLayer

Financial Block Staff

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Haust Network Partners with Gateway to Connect to AggLayer

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, August 1, 2024, Chainwire

Consumer adoption of cryptocurrencies is a snowball that is accelerating by the day. More and more people around the world are clamoring for access to DeFi. However, the user interface and user experience of cryptocurrencies still lag behind their fundamental utility, and users lack the simple and secure access they need to truly on-chain products.

Haust Network is a network and suite of products focused on changing this paradigm and bringing DeFi to the masses. To achieve this goal, Haust Network has announced its far-reaching partnership with bridgeseasoned veterans in rapidly delivering revolutionary blockchain utilities for projects. The Gateway team empowers blockchain developers to build DAOs, NFT platforms, payment services, and more. They drive adoption of crypto primitives for individuals and institutions around the world by helping everyone build their on-chain presence.

Gateway specializes in connecting sovereign blockchains to the Aggregation Layer (AggLayer). The AggLayer is a single unified contract that powers the Ethereum bridge of many disparate blockchains, allowing them all to connect to a single unified liquidity pool. The AggLayer abstracts away the complexities of cross-chain DeFi, making tedious multi-chain transactions as easy for the end user as a single click. It’s all about creating access to DeFi, and with Polygon’s technology and the help of Gateways, Haust is doing just that.

As part of their partnership, Gateway will build an advanced zkEVM blockchain for Haust Network, leveraging its extensive experience to deploy ultra-fast sovereign applications with unmatched security, and enabling Haust Network to deliver its products to its audience.

The recently announced launch of the Haust Wallet is a Telegram mini-app that provides users with access to DeFi directly through the Telegram interface. Users who deposit funds into the wallet will have access to all standard send/receive services and generate an automatic yield on their funds. The yield is generated by Haust Network’s interconnected network of smart contracts, Haustoria, which provides automated and passive DeFi yielding.

As part of this partnership, the Haust Network development team will work closely with Gateway developers to launch Haust Network. Gateway is an implementation provider for Polygon CDK and zkEVM technology, which the Haust wallet will leverage to deliver advanced DeFi tools directly to the wallet users’ fingertips. Haust’s partnership with Gateway comes shortly after the announcement of a high-profile alliance with the Polygon community. Together, the three will work to build Haust Network and connect its products to the AggLayer.

About Haust Network

Haust Network is an application-based absolute liquidity network and will be built to be compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Haust aims to provide native yield to all users’ assets. In Telegram’s Haust Wallet, users can spend and collect their cryptocurrencies in one easy place, at the same time. Haust operates its network of self-balancing smart contracts that interact across multiple blockchains and then efficiently funnel what has been generated to Haust users.

About Gateway

bridge is a leading white-label blockchain provider that offers no-code protocol deployment. Users can launch custom blockchains in just ten minutes. They are an implementation provider for Polygon CDK and have already helped projects like Wirex, Gnosis Pay, and PalmNFT bring new utility to the crypto landscape.

About Polygon Labs

Polygon Laboratories Polygon Labs is a software development company building and developing a network of aggregated blockchains via the AggLayer, secured by Ethereum. As a public infrastructure, the AggLayer will aggregate the user bases and liquidity of any connected chain, and leverage Ethereum as the settlement layer. Polygon Labs has also contributed to the core development of several widely adopted scaling protocols and tools for launching blockchains, including Polygon PoS, Polygon zkEVM, and Polygon Miden, which is currently under development, as well as the Polygon CDK.

Contact

Lana Kovalski
haustnetwork@gmail.com

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DeFi

Ethena downplays danger of letting traders use USDe to back risky bets – DL News

Financial Block Staff

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Ethena downplays danger of letting traders use USDe to back risky bets – DL News
  • Ethena and ByBit will allow derivatives traders to use USDe as collateral.
  • There is a risk in letting traders use an asset partially backed by derivatives to place more bets.

Ethena has downplayed the dangers of a new feature, which will allow traders to put up its synthetic dollar USDe as collateral when trading derivatives, which are risky bets on the prices of crypto assets.

While allowing users to underwrite their trades with yield-bearing USDe is an attractive prospect, Ethena said there is potential risk in letting traders use an asset partially backed by derivatives to place even more derivatives bets.

“We have taken this risk into account and that is why Ethena operates across more than five different sites,” said Conor Ryder, head of research at Ethena Labs. DL News.

The move comes as competition in the stablecoin sector intensifies.

In recent weeks, PayPal grown up the amount of its stablecoin PYUSD in circulation 96%, while the MakerDAO cooperative plans a rebrandingaiming to increase the supply of its DAI stablecoin to 100 billion.

US dollar growth stagnates

It comes as Ethena has lost momentum after its blockbuster launch in December.

In early July, USDe reached a record level of 3.6 billion in circulation.

That figure has now fallen by 11% to around 3.2 billion.

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New uses for USDe could boost demand for Ethena’s products.

This is where the new plan, announcement Tuesday with ByBit, one of its partner exchanges, is coming.

Ethena users create USDe by depositing Bitcoin or Ether into the protocol.

Ethena then covers these deposits with short positions – bearish bets – on the corresponding asset.

This creates a stable support for USDe, unaffected by price fluctuations in Bitcoin or Ether.

Mitigate risks

While using USDe as collateral for derivatives trading is proving popular, it is unclear what the effects will be if the cryptocurrency market experiences major fluctuations.

Using derivatives as collateral to place more bets has already had disastrous effects.

In June 2022, Lido’s liquid staking token stETH broke its peg to Ether following the fallout from the Terra collapse.

Many traders who used looping leverage to increase their stETH staking yields were liquidated, creating a cascade that caused the price of Ether to drop by more than 43%.

Ethena Labs founder Guy Young said: DL News His office and his partners have taken many precautions.

Ethena spreads bearish bets supporting the USDe across the five exchanges it partners with.

According to Ethena, 48% of short positions supporting USDe are on Binance, 23% on ByBit, 20% on OKX, 5% on Deribit, and 1% on Bitget. website.

In doing so, Ethena aims to minimize the impact of an unforeseen event on a stock market.

The same theory applies to the distribution of risks across different supporting assets.

Fifty percent of USDe is backed by Bitcoin, 30% by Ether, 11% by Ether liquid staking tokens, and 8% by Tether’s USDT stablecoin.

Previous reviews

Ethena has already been criticised regarding the risks associated with USDe.

Some have compared USDe to TerraUSD, an undercollateralized stablecoin that collapsed in 2022.

“It’s not a good design for long-term stability,” said Austin Campbell, an assistant professor at Columbia Business School. said as the USDe launch approaches.

Young replied to critics, saying the industry needs to be more diligent and careful when “marketing products to users who might not understand them as well as we do.”

Ethena has since added a disclaimer on its website stating that USDe is not the same as a fiat stablecoin like USDC or USDT.

“This means that the risks involved are inherently different,” the project says on its website.

Tim Craig is DL News DeFi correspondent based in Edinburgh. Feel free to share your tips with us at tim@dlnews.com.

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DeFi

Cryptocurrency and defi firms lost $266 million to hackers in July

Financial Block Staff

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Crypto companies, defi lost $266m to hackers in July

In July 2024, the cryptocurrency industry suffered a series of devastating attacks, resulting in losses amounting to approximately $266 million.

Blockchain Research Firm Peck Shield revealed in an X post On August 1, attacks on decentralized protocols in July reached $266 million, a 51% increase from $176 million reported in June.

The most significant breach last month involved WazirX, one of India’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, which lost $230 million in what appears to be a highly sophisticated attack by North Korean hackers. The attack was a major blow to the stock market, leading to a break in withdrawals. Subsequently, WazirX launched a program in order to recover the funds.

Another notable incident involved Compound Finance, a decentralized lending protocol, which suffered a governance attack by a group known as the “Golden Boys,” who passed a proposal who allocated 499,000 COMP tokens – valued at $24 million – to a vault under their control.

The cross-chain liquidity aggregation protocol LI.FI also fell victim On July 16, a hack resulted in losses of $9.73 million. Additionally, Bittensor, a decentralized machine learning network, was one of the first protocols to suffer an exploit last month, loming $8 million on July 3 due to an attack targeting its staking mechanism.

Meanwhile, Rho Markets, a lending protocol, suffered a $7.6 million breach. However, in an interesting twist, the exploiters research to return the stolen funds, claiming the incident was not a hack.

July 31, reports The Terra blockchain protocol was also hacked, resulting in a loss of $6.8 million across multiple cryptocurrencies. As crypto.news reported, the attack exploited a reentrancy vulnerability that had been identified a few months ago.

Dough Finance, a liquidity protocol, lost $1.8 million in Ethereum (ETH) and USD Coin (USDC) to a flash loan attack on July 12. Similarly, Minterest, a lending and borrowing protocol, saw a loss of $1.4 million due to exchange rate manipulation in one of its markets.

Decentralized staking platform MonoSwap also reported a loss of $1.3 million following an attack that allowed the perpetrators to withdraw the liquidity staked on the protocol. Finally, Delta Prime, another decentralized finance platform, suffered a $1 million breach, although $900,000 of the stolen funds was later recovered.



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DeFi

The Rise of Bitcoin DeFi: Then and Now

Financial Block Staff

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The Rise of Bitcoin DeFi: Then and Now

The convergence of Bitcoin’s robust security and Layer 2 scaling solutions has catalyzed the emergence of a vibrant DeFi ecosystem.

By expanding Bitcoin’s utility beyond simple peer-to-peer payments, these advancements have opened up a new frontier of financial possibilities, allowing users to participate in decentralized lending, trading, and other complex smart contract operations on Bitcoin.

Read on to learn about the rise of Bitcoin-based decentralized finance and how the space has expanded to accommodate a new generation of native assets and features.

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What is DeFi?

Decentralized finance (DeFi) represents a paradigm shift in financial services, offering internet-based financial products such as trading, lending, and borrowing through the use of decentralized public blockchains.

By implementing blockchains, smart contracts, and digital assets, DeFi protocols provide financial services through a decentralized ecosystem, where participants do not have to deal with intermediaries when transacting.

What is Bitcoin DeFi?

The inherent limitations of the Bitcoin mainchain in supporting the intricacies of decentralized finance have created the need to develop smart contract-based Layer 2 solutions.

Additionally, the advent of the Ordinals protocol in 2023, which facilitated the emergence of fungible token standards such as BRC-20 and Runes, catalyzed the growth of DeFi on the Bitcoin blockchain.

This expansion in protocol diversity has broadened the applications of the world’s leading cryptocurrency network beyond the core base-layer use cases around value preservation and transactional capabilities.

Therefore, Bitcoin DeFi has become a nascent sector within the digital asset market, after previously being a missing essential part of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Bitcoin DeFi in its early days

Integrating decentralized finance (DeFi) concepts into the Bitcoin ecosystem has been a journey of innovation and perseverance. Early attempts to bridge the gap between Bitcoin’s fundamental simplicity and DeFi’s complexities have spawned pioneering projects that, while laying essential foundations, have also encountered significant obstacles.

Colored coins

Colored coins represented an early foray into tokenizing real-world assets on the Bitcoin blockchain. By leveraging the existing network to track ownership of assets ranging from stocks to real estate, this approach highlighted Bitcoin’s potential as a platform beyond digital currency. However, scalability and practical implementation challenges have limited its widespread adoption.

Counterpart

Building on the colored coins, Counterparty has become a platform for creating and trading digital assets, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs), on Bitcoin.

The introduction of popular projects like Rare Pepe NFTs has demonstrated the growing appeal of digital collectibles. However, constraints around user experience and network efficiency have hampered its full potential.

These early experiments, while not fully realizing their ambitions, served as valuable stepping stones, informing Bitcoin DeFi’s subsequent developments. Their challenges highlighted the need for more sophisticated infrastructure and protocols to harness the full potential of decentralized finance on the Bitcoin network.

Bitcoin DeFi Today

Today, building DeFi applications on Bitcoin is primarily done in the realm of Layer 2 (L2) networks. This architectural choice is motivated by the limitations of Bitcoin’s base layer in supporting complex programmable smart contracts.

Bitcoin’s original design prioritized security and decentralization over programmability, making it difficult to develop sophisticated DeFi protocols directly on its blockchain. However, the recent emergence of protocols like Ordinals, BRC-20, and Runes, while not DeFi in their own right, has sparked possibilities for future DeFi-like applications on the main chain.

In contrast, L2 solutions offer a scalable and programmable environment built on Bitcoin, enabling the creation of various DeFi products.

By expanding Bitcoin’s capabilities without compromising its core principles, L2s have become the preferred platform for developers looking to build DeFi applications that encompass trading, lending, staking, and more.

Leading L2 networks such as Lightning Network, Rootstock, Stacks, and Build on Bitcoin provide the infrastructure for these efforts. Some of these L2s have even introduced their own native tokens to the network, further expanding Bitcoin’s DeFi ecosystem.

Essentially, while Bitcoin’s core layer presents challenges for DeFi development, its security and decentralization have provided a foundational layer for the innovative L2 landscape to thrive.

Bitcoin Layer 2 offers a promising path to building a robust and thriving Bitcoin-based DeFi ecosystem that offers trading, staking, lending, and borrowing. All you need is a DeFi Wallet like Xverse to access the new world of decentralized financial services secured by Bitcoin.

Conclusion

The integration of DeFi principles into the Bitcoin ecosystem, primarily facilitated by Layer 2 solutions, marks a significant evolution in the digital asset landscape.

Building on the foundational work of pioneers like Colored Coins and Counterparty, the industry has evolved into more sophisticated platforms like Rootstock, Stacks, and Build on Bitcoin to create a thriving Bitcoin-powered DeFi ecosystem.

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