DeFi
North Korean hackers infiltrate cryptocurrency job sites in ‘silent war’ that nets $600 million – DL News
- Fake candidates test cryptography’s adoption of anonymity.
- According to the UN, 4,000 North Koreans are trying to break into the tech sector by finding jobs.
- “There is a kind of silent war going on,” says one expert.
Hiring in the crypto industry has never been easy.
Finding skilled developers is difficult, as is managing remote workers across multiple time zones.
Now, recruiting staff in the cryptocurrency space is about to get even more difficult.
A DL News An investigation has revealed that fake candidates are flooding job sites with falsified resumes.
Additionally, mounting evidence suggests that a number of these fake candidates appear to be North Korean nationals attempting to infiltrate crypto projects for malicious purposes, including collecting sensitive data, hacking, and stealing assets.
“It’s an operational risk for the industry,” said Shaun Potts, founder of Plexus, a crypto recruitment firm. DL News“It’s a permanent phenomenon, in the same way that hacking is a common practice in the technology sector. We can’t stop it, but we can minimize the risks.”
Concealing identities
According to the United Nations Security Council, more than 4,000 North Koreans have been forced to seek work in the Western tech sector while concealing their identities. This includes the crypto industry.
Over the past seven years, North Korean hackers have stolen $3 billion worth of crypto assets in 58 suspected cyber thefts, the council said in a recent 615-page report.
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While it is unclear how many of these thefts were carried out with the help of fake employees, experts fear this trend may only be beginning.
“They illegally sell resources, computer labor, forced labor and computer hacking.”
— Taylor Monahan, MetaMask
That’s because it’s a very lucrative business. According to the UN, this fake recruitment system alone earns North Korea up to $600 million a year.
“They have very limited amounts of resources that they can sell to China,” said Taylor Monahan, principal security researcher at crypto wallet MetaMask. DL News“So they generate income by illegally selling resources, doing computer work, doing hard labor and hacking computers.”
New challenge
This development presents a new challenge for a sector that is becoming mainstream. With the launch of Bitcoin ETFs, Wall Street has embraced crypto as an asset class. DeFi mainstays such as Solana and Aave are recording increasing income and develop their activities.
The last thing crypto needs is an army of fake job applicants as the industry grows and demand for new recruits increases.
Ten of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, including Coinbase and Binance, have recorded more than 1,200 new openings in May. Layoffs are also slowing down.
According to data from Layoffs.fyiThe number of unemployed people in the cryptocurrency sector fell dramatically in the first quarter compared to the same period last year.
“They just added a few new roles so it shows up differently in LinkedIn search.”
— Karolis Kundrotas, Durlston Partners
“Everyone I know is either working on another project or is unavailable,” said Zak Cole, co-founder of crypto venture studio Number Group. DL News“How are we going to attract new talent?”
The answer: cast a wider net.
AI Research
Instead of going to a formal recruiting agency, Cole and his co-founders used an artificial intelligence tool called Applyr AI to screen candidates. It uses AI to flag keywords in resumes that match their criteria.
The results are mixed. In a video interview with Number Group, one candidate who had listed Dutch as his mother tongue hung up when asked to speak in that language.
Another candidate’s GitHub profile — a LinkedIn for programmers — was only created a month ago, even though he was applying for a senior developer position.
On another resume, a candidate for a remote job listed a state penitentiary in Texas as his home address.
When asked if he was actually living in a prison, the applicant replied: “Yes.”
Cole’s biggest concern was making sure the candidates were who they said they were.
He said a pattern emerged as he went through them and arranged interviews: Many refused to turn on their cameras.
Video calls
Often, what they said in interviews contradicted what was written on their resume. In other words, they lied.
“They all have the same type of storyline,” Cole said. He added that their backgrounds were also blurred if they appeared on camera and were calling from a room with other people.
Karolis Kundrotas, a crypto industry consultant at recruiting firm Durlston Partners, said many candidates copy real LinkedIn profiles.
“It’s the exact same experiences and the same type of education as a real person,” he said. “They just added a few new roles so it shows up differently in LinkedIn search.”
Kundrotas said video calls are also key because you can see if the person is quickly reading additional information before responding.
One candidate did just that during a shared video call with DL News.
The applicant indicated that he had extensive knowledge of non-fungible tokens and crypto games, but had never heard of “Axie Infinity,” one of the largest and most well-known games in the industry.
Naturally, this is a major red flag.
Avoid background checks
Besides being a huge waste of time, these fake candidates also undermine a core pillar of crypto ethics.
Anonymity and pseudonymity are highly prized values in the cryptocurrency space. The tendency of project teams to avoid background checks and work at lightning speed like startups makes them a prime target for illegitimate hiring schemes.
For this reason, Potts says 95% of his clients have stopped hiring pseudonymous developers.
“People underestimate the security of many cryptocurrencies,” said MetaMask’s Monahan. “It’s actually not that uncommon for a random project to hire someone to do a job and then quickly move it forward.”
Perhaps this is what North Korea’s dormant candidates are counting on.
Monthly salary of $60,000
Some North Korean employees in the crypto industry earn up to $60,000 per month and hold multiple full-time and freelance jobs.
According to the UN report, the richest keep 30% of their income and give the rest to the authorities in Pyongyang.
Considering the reports of extreme poverty In North Korea, the sums are enormous for individuals.
This is why startups must remain vigilant.
“They will continue to flood job boards, build resumes, and attack crypto companies and projects as long as it is effective,” Monahan said.
Their work also has a geopolitical dimension.
Erin Plante, vice president of investigations at Chainalysis, said there are evidence North Korea partly funds its nuclear weapons program by hacking cryptography sites. The Lazarus Group, a North Korean hacking operation, attacked Ronin Bridge for $540 million in 2022, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.
In 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Lazarus.
If North Korea is using fake candidates as part of this program, that’s a major problem, said Adam Zarzinski, CEO of blockchain analytics firm Inca Digital.
“There’s a silent war going on,” said Zarzinski, a former U.S. Air Force judge advocate. DL News.
Liam Kelly is a DeFi correspondent at DL NewsContact us at liam@dlnews.com.
DeFi
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
DeFi
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.
DeFi
Cryptocurrency and defi firms lost $266 million 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.
DeFi
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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