The news about a critical exploit on the BNB Chain was announced by the Binance team with all withdrawals and deposits suspended on the network. It was 6th Oct when the Binance blockchain paused temporarily due to a cross chain bridge exploit.
The official announcement of the temporary pause was made through the twitter account of Binance. Binance gave an update that the blockchain was "under maintenance" suspending all withdrawals & deposits.
The exploit was seen as connected with a cross-chain bridge on BSC Token Hub. A deep insight to the matter has uncovered that 2 million BNB worth roughly $566 million has been taken. Out of that, around $7 million worth has previously been frozen, yet the attacker is trying to bridge the assets from BSC onto the Ethereum, Fantom, and Arbitrum blockchains.
That such a little amount of assets were stolen highlighted the potential gain of BNB's gamble to pause the chain instead of risking more resources getting away. Blockchains are purportedly decentralized intended to work beyond the impulse of solitary entities: you shouldn't simply flip an off switch.
Venus Protocol Reaction:
Venture protocol reacted in a tweet regarding the whole exploitation matter. They stated that: “Venus Protocol experienced NO EXPLOIT and funds are SAFE! The possible BNB threat actor has used the Venus platform to open an over collateralized position of app. $254M and borrow app. $147.5M against 900K BNB Tokens deposited.”
They also stated that:
“There are 2 options next:
*The borrower refunds hir/her loans, liquidity returns to the protocol immediately and APY drops back to normal.
*He/She doesn't refund and disappear with the borrowed stablecoins = the account will accumulate interest and slowly get liquidated.”
Crypto Community Reaction on Exploit:
A lot of people were shocked on this exploit and was questioning the security of BNB blockchain. While on the other side, many were seeing it as a misfortune event as many hacking were incidents taking place in the recent days and they were saying that it’s just the hacker’s luck to break into the BNB chain.
In all this chaos, several node providers played essential part in handling the chance of a more regrettable exploit. Tether likewise added to avoiding additional misfortunes by blacklisting the exploiter's address.
At long last, in the early hours of 7th October, BNB chain stated that it was making progress toward restoring the chain within an hour and as per the updates, the restoring of the chain will guarantee that the hacker has no access to the chain.
With the introduction of the new cryptocurrency format in the financial system, various companies have shown an eager interest in accepting it as their mode of payment as well. This has led to various initiatives and steps being taken to facilitate it and ensure the smooth flow of crypto assets from one agency to another. This has started occurring in various industries across different sectors and many have even benefitted from it. It has also given rise to several international ties like Ukrainian supermarket chain that are born out of crypto agreements.
This article looks at one such initiative that has been taken by Binance. Binance has finally decided to initiate a partnership with the Ukrainian supermarket chain to accept crypto through the Pay wallet. This article has tried to throw some light on this decision and give the readers a clearer picture of what it entails.
The announcement made by Binance on this matter
This Friday, Binance a well-established firm, announced that it has entered into a partnership with VARUS, which is a Ukrainian supermarket chain. This was done to facilitate the payment for groceries being made through the use of Pay wallet which belongs to Binance. Its decision to partner with a grocery company has been reached after considering the vastness of the industry. It has almost as many as 111 shops in 28 different cities of the country.
By making the payment feasible through pay wallet the authorities have further stated that with this system in place, it will be much easier for customers to get access to cryptocurrency almost immediately. It will also get them faster deliveries in different parts of the country. However, for the time being, the fast delivery facility is available for nine cities. These cities are, Kyiv, Dnipro, Kamianske, Kryvyi Ri, Zaporizhzhia, Brovary, Nikopol, Vyshohorod, and Pavlograd.
Further statements were given by the authorities at Binance
Further announcements have also been made by the company which has come up with various new features as well. For example, they have also added that a reward fun promotion shall also be made available to the users. In this new feature, each customer who places an order from the Varus delivery program, and makes a payment through the Binance pay shall be rewarded with UAH 100. However, there is one condition that all must adhere to, which is a user must first place an order of UAH 500 to enjoy the cashback reward.
Similar initiatives are taken by other companies
This is not the first initiative of its kind taken in the field of cryptocurrency. There have been other steps that have followed a similar trend. For example, a company named Whitepay also launched a similar program in which customers could easily ace an order for electrical appliances and make easy payments through cryptocurrency. It was a system in place specifically for the Ukrainians to make them use crypto with much more ease and efficiency.
Conclusion
The new initiatives are n by Ukraine in the field of crypto and to promote the use of cryptocurrencies across various platforms, it has created a new wave of reformation for the industry. The same has been stated by the founder of Ethereum in a Summit at Kyiv, in which he said that the kind of initiatives being taken in Ukraine can potentially make it the next Web4 hub. He further stated that a country has the potential to become one only when its citizens show a keen interest in utilizing the technology available. It is only when every citizen comes together to help in furthering its cause and help it develop, only then the country can become a Web3 hub.
Slow transition speed and high cost have been two of the biggest hurdles for Ethereum. The platform focuses on decentralization and security. Though there is a lack of scalability. Hence, there is always a spike in traffic, and transaction speed and cost also tend to be solved. At the recently held Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC) in Paris, co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that the network was only "40 percent complete". The reasons were the hurdles.
Buterin anticipated a future where Ethereum can hit the speed of 100,000 transactions per second (TPS). Buterin has also mentioned five key events that required it to happen. What the events mean for Ethereum, and how much time it will take, all are going to be explained in this article.
Overview Of The Merge :
The Ethereum community and developers consider the Ethereum Merge as one of the most critical and remarkable upgrades in the history of cryptocurrency. It is going to shift Ethereum's consensus protocol from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS). The upgrade will automatically render mining obsolete along with shifting to staking for block validation and addition. This merger will massively decline the energy consumption of the network. According to some predictions, the power requirement is going to decrease by 99.9 percent.
This upcoming merge is wished to increase throughput. But the improvement is not predicted to be very massive. Ethereum developers are expecting the transaction speed will increase by a maximum of 10 percent. It will reduce the fee.
The Surge :
The move to PoS alone may not impact a massive enhancement in transaction speeds. But, it will open up the ways for future innovations, like sharding. It will massively affect the network performance.
Sharding is the secondary blockchain branch. It helps to process some transactional data and reduce the pressure on the mainnet or main blockchain. It will raise the throughput along with helping to bring down gas fees. An official Ethereum blog post noted, that Sharding should occur sometime in 2023. It will depend on how quickly and smoothly the Merge will work.
What Is The Verge :
The Verge refers to the technical updates like ‘Verkle proofs’ and ‘clientless states’. The updates are wished to optimize storage on the Ethereum blockchain. It also reduces node size. This helps to enable any network participants with a laptop along with a few megabytes of space to join in the validation process.
About The Purge :
This stage starts with 'purging' previous data that is not needed at present time. This process will decrease file sizes enough. It is for tiny computing units such as mobile phones to be able to run Ethereum nodes because of the need for low storage.
The Splurge Explained :
This stage is associated with minor changes. It will be done to ensure that the blockchain will be there permanently and run at its maximum capacity. Additionally, the assumption is that by this stage, the user will have a version of Ethereum that will be the best. It can be or can continuously process close to 100,000 transactions. presently, the network is actively searching for potential issues including preparing for emergencies.
Conclusion :
The Merge is a crucial and remarkable milestone for the Ethereum network, regardless of the whole crypto market. Though, this is not the ultimate destination. There is a long way waiting to climb before Ethereum is 100 percent complete. But, mainly the reduction of fees and increase in transaction speed is going to help out the users across the network. Bitcoin is continuing with the PoW mechanism, but Ethereum's improvement led major users to shift into the network.
Binance is the most popular and the biggest crypto trading platform when it comes to the trading volume. The platform allows users to buy or sell various digital currencies. Along with this, users also have the ability to review and compare other crypto options to do the trading. With $40 billion daily trades, Binance has become the world's biggest trading platforms.
On 8th Sept. 2022, this leading digital currency trading platform launched the Binance Account Bound (BAB) token on BNB Chain which is suppose to work as a "soulbound token". BAB is basically launched to utilize as an identity proof for KYC verified Binance users. These soulbound tokens can't be transferred as each user on BNB Chain has its own unique token. In this way, a verified Binance client ID must be utilized to mint one BAB token on a BNB Chain. They are, notwithstanding, revocable, after which tokens will be locked for 72 hours.
However, remember that getting a BAB Token is completely optional for Binance users and it is not a compulsory requirement to use any products or services offered by Binance.
Everything you need to know about BAB:
Binance Account Bound (BAB) tokens or the soulbound tokens are mainly launched for Binance users who get verified after completing the whole KYC verification process. In simple words, these tokens are identity credentials for them. They are will issued on the BNB Chain by Binance and it is indicated that several other projects on BNB Chain will also be introducing the BAB tokens to their users as identity credentials. When a Binance verified user creates a BAB token, that particular user will be given the access to participate in building the supporting projects on the chain and get rewards. However, the complete details related to it are not revealed yet.
Till now, there are 15 projects that have partnered up with Binance to offer their users benefits related to the BAB tokens. The benefits include the things like exclusive airdrops, community and membership benefits, benefits on the social gaming metaverse, access to play-to-earn protocol, privileged reward programs along with many other VIP perks. This partnership news was also confirmed by BNB Chain.
BAB Features:
The token is non-transferable, which means that it can't be transferred by the user to another user. It’s unique for everyone.
It is revocable and users who have the token can simply revoke their BAB tokens.
One user ID that is verified by Binance is allowed to mint one BAB token just on the selected chain.
The launch of BAB tokens was encouraged by the whole community and the BNB chain users supported the whole idea behind it. For the first time in Web3, by minting BAB token to their wallet address on BNB Chain, Binance users will get exclusive access to programs which will be linked to real-world use cases.
So, that’s all for now, do let us know what do you all think about this token launch.
The fourth BTC halving was scheduled to take place in 2024 but according to many resources, the chances are that it can take place sooner i.e. maybe at the end of 2023. Before getting deep into it let’s just dive into what halving actually is.
All you need to know about fourth BTC Halving:
Bitcoin halving is an occasion where the compensation for mining new BTC blocks is halved. Because of the halving, miners get half less BTC for authenticating the transactions. This event of halving happens after every four years or technically speaking, after every 210,000 blocks. In simple words, through the halving process, Bitcoin makes a fake inflation that decreases by half by every four years till it is issued and being used.
How does halving works:
Bitcoin halving works on account of its network's fundamental blockchain technology software which directs the rate at which new Bitcoins are made. The software requires PCs in the blockchain network to contend to verify exchanges known as Bitcoin mining. Bitcoin miners are rewarded by the mining with a few new Bitcoins when they can demonstrate that the exchanges that have been chosen by them are valid. These transactions are confirmed in bunches known as blocks, and the blockchain network is coded to halve the reward received by miners after every 210,000 blocks.
Why is it important?
Well, a lot of you might be thinking that why the halving takes places after every 4 years or so and what the purpose is. The reason behind it is that through Bitcoin halving the quantity of new Bitcoins made each block reduces which decreases the quantity of new Bitcoins accessible and raises the price of getting one.
And, as you all may already know that a constant demand and decreased supply can simply result in a higher cost. Because of the fact that it restricts the supply of new Bitcoins while keeping a steady demand, halving results in Bitcoin's most prominent surges.
The Next BTC Halving…
The fourth BTC halving, which was at first planned to occur in 2024 is now suppose to take place sooner than the scheduled date. As per the news roaming around, BTC's next halving will occur in one year and 157 days, and that implies we can now expect it in December 2023. "That Martini Guy" who is a well known crypto influencer, likewise talked about this new development in his latest tweet. The fact that it is now going to take place sooner is a good sign for BTC, as the information suggests that halving is occurred due to significant price surges. For instance, during the 2020's BTC halving, Bitcoin was at the price of $8,500 and after halving in only a couple of months it went up to more than $27,000. However the whole picture appears to lean in the favor of buyers in the market.
