Binance Immediately Identifies KyberSwap Exploit Suspects 

Binance Immediately Identifies KyberSwap Exploit Suspects 

by | Nov 8, 2022 | Binance, News

The top cryptocurrency exchange Binance has identified two suspects who are allegedly responsible for the hack of $265,000 from decentralized exchange (DEX) protocol KyberSwap earlier this week.

Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the CEO of Binance, exposed this information on Twitter recently. The company has shared the info with KyberSwap along with the appropriate law enforcement agencies.

The Attack :

KyberSwap has faced a cyber attack

on September 1. The DEX protocol faced an unhealthy security breach which allowed hackers to steal assets.  It was worth thousands of dollars to users.

According to the project, the bad actors shared malicious code on the protocol’s Google Tag Manager (GTM). It has prompted false approval that allowed them to transact assets in their wallets.

The platform also shared that the hackers smartly launched the bad script. It was targeted to whale wallets on Ethereum and Polygon. Further KyberSwap added that exploited users would be fully compensated.

The hack came to know and immediately stopped within two hours of its launch. The protocol offered that the bad actors would be rewarded with a 15% bug donation if they returned the stolen assets.

Binance As Crypto 'Big Brother :

Hardly two days after the theft, the Binance investigation team announced that they had been able to track and identify two scammers who are suspected or may be responsible for the hack. The company also noted that they had appointed government authorities in the incident for further investigation.

Similar to KyberSwap, Binance has assisted with several hacked protocols to identify the bad actors along with recovering some stolen assets.

As the biggest crypto exchange by trading volume, the proactive and unselfish efforts of Binance to help investors from other ecosystems weren’t neglected.

As one of the users stated, “Binance is now playing as a big brother in the crypto space. Binance has gone beyond securing its platform to keep the entire crypto ecosystem safe.”

CZ stated that Binance has never been lawfully integrated in China and has never fixed business in a manner compatible with the Chinese organization, Cointelegraph.

Notably, the company succeeded to recover nearly $450,000 stolen from the Defi platform Curve Finance last month. It was reported that the recovered funds were 83% of the total assets exploited from the protocol.  The platform stated that the hackers transferred the assets to the exchange through different techniques. They expected to bypass the firm’s security team.

Since the platform, Binance, continues to make an effort to make the global crypto industry safer for investors and users, some user groups of the crypto community think that the company is now acting as a “big brother” role in the whole crypto market.

According to Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao, CEO of Binance, the theft of information had been noted to the Kyber team. Since both sides are eager to catch the hackers, Binance has also begun to work with law enforcement as of the recent information.

Conclusion :

Notably, there have been so many exploits and theft in the crypto market over the past couple of months. Since the market fell and started a crypto winter, bad actors took it as their opportunity. Platforms like Solana, Cardano, etc. have suffered from several exploits. The theft is mainly happening through smartly executed ideas. Phishing scams and fake airdrops are mentionable. Users' wallets are drained through luring through free tokens. In multiple cases, hacking links are also used as the weapon of scams. Nowadays, Twitter scams are also very famous in the crypto market. Where fake posts and links are circulated through the social media platform. Users are trapped in that kind of scam believing it is real.

Binance founder CZ counteracts conspiracy theorists

Binance founder CZ counteracts conspiracy theorists

by | Oct 20, 2022 | Binance

Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, the CEO of Binance, has responded to critics and conspiracy theorists who assert that Binance is a "criminal enterprise" rooted in China and "secretively belongs in the clutches of the Chinese government."

CZ's reaction to criticism was published in a blog post through Binance on Thursday. It arises from a Twitter argument with a former writer from the Washington Post, who questioned him by asking, "While I have you here, who's Guangying Chen?"

History of Binance

In terms of the total trading volume of cryptocurrencies daily, the cryptocurrency exchange known as Binance is now the biggest such exchange on the whole globe. It was established in 2017 and has its headquarters in the Cayman Islands, where it is also registered.

Changpeng Zhao, a programmer who had formerly invented high-frequency trading software, is the one who first conceptualized and launched Binance. Binance's headquarters were originally located in China, however, they were subsequently relocated outside of the country in response to the Chinese government's increased oversight of cryptocurrency activities.

In 2021, the United States Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service opened an investigation against the cryptocurrency exchange Binance based on suspicions of money laundering and tax violations respectively. Binance was given an order by the Financial Conduct Authority of the United Kingdom to cease any regulated business in the United Kingdom by the month of June 2021.

How did the conspiracy start?

The conspiracy theorist added that the query is in regard to a conspiracy theory that asserts that his close buddy and fellow Chinese citizen Guangying Chen is the hidden owner of Bijie Tech (a firm which he established in 2015) and potentially also Binance.

However, CZ clarifies that Chen is a coworker of his that he met via a friend and that he employed her to "manage the back office" at Bijie Tech before actually hiring her once again at Binance. He adds that conspiracy theorists subsequently associated her as a covert owner of the businesses given that she was one of the few to have originally stayed in China.

Some websites, such as Scam Binance, assert that Chen at one point controlled 93% of the shares in both Bijie Tech and Binance. This is only one of the allegations made by these websites. According to CZ, the root of such claims was an "old campaign that a rival ran through an anonymous website."

Because of this, she and her family have been the focus of attention and harassment from members of the media as well as internet trolls. VZ asserts that he would not have urged her to carry out what appeared like such a harmless move at the time if he had been aware of how much of a detrimental effect this would have on her life. He claims that he would have avoided doing so.

Relationships with China

CZ went as far as detailing some of his difficult personal and business-related encounters with Chinese officials, and he vehemently refuted the assertions that his firm had close relations with China and its government. CZ also forcefully disputed the claims that his company has close links to China.

According to CZ’s claims, the fact that few Binance employees, including himself are of Chinese ethnicity make the industry a very obvious target for hate. As a result, media, special traders, as well as policymakers, do not approve of the Binance blockchain.

Even though Binance has never been formally established in China and has never operated culturally like a Chinese firm, tales about Chinese infiltration continue to circulate, according to CZ.

CZ noted that Binance has operations in several countries, including France, Spain, Italy, UAE, and Bahrain, and that the company has established a team throughout the world. CZ also added that "we are aggressive in seeking great talent, no matter where they originate from:"

Final Thoughts

Binance was officially established as a company in the Cayman Islands in 2017, however the company does not yet have a designated headquarters. The blockchain was the biggest centralized cryptocurrency exchange in the world as of October 2021, having amassed an estimated 28.6 million cryptocurrency users at that time. A former official at Binance said that the firm is valued at more than 300 million dollars in November of 2021.

Binance to Issue ‘Soulbound’ Tokens Who Are Done With Know-Your-Customer Requirements

Binance to Issue ‘Soulbound’ Tokens Who Are Done With Know-Your-Customer Requirements

by | Oct 15, 2022 | Altcoin News, Market, Market News, News

Binance is presently one of the crypto platforms that is dominating the global market. The exchange became very user-friendly along with its specialty of the mechanical ecosystem. This top cryptocurrency exchange Binance is about to issue a soulbound tokens on the BNB blockchain. According to an official announcement, It is for all users who will complete their know-your-customer (KYC) procedure.

What Is Soulbound Token?

Last month, the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, announced that it is prepared to issue Binance Account Bound (BAB). BAB was introduced as the first-ever Soulbound Token (SBT), which is developed on the BNB Chain. BAB was planned to launch as a pilot project initially and is expected to only be accessible through the Binance mobile app.

The concept of soulbound tokens was first revealed in a blog post by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin in January. He explained this new asset class as non-transferable digital tokens. It represents social identity in a decentralized ecosystem.

Soulbound tokens will work as an identity passport across the BNB chain. These tokens are unique and non-transferable. The users who don't want to share their identity across the entire network can avoid the token.

Binance's soulbound token is named Binance Account Bound (BAB). According to the official release, it will allow enthusiast users to participate in developing projects while earning rewards.

The SBT concept was first made public by Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin. E. Glen Weyl and Puja Ohlhaver were also present at that time. Buterin disclosed the flaws of transferability and commercial viability features of NFTs.

Soulbound is a new and unique token standard that could potentially form an essential developing block for the Decentralized ecosystem. Buterin explained multiple ways of using SBTs. For instance, from university degrees to education credentials and web3 credit scores, this token can be utilized.

The use of KYC in the crypto market started with an intense investigation this week. It happened when decentralized exchange dYdX requested its users to complete a "liveness check" through webcam technology. Though, several users stood against the platform's scheme. The questions raised regarding the relationship between decentralization and KYC.

How Would It Work?

The token was planned to be an opt-in feature that will allow only those Binance users in compliance with Know-your-customer (KYC). It will allow the users to mint their BAB directly on their wallets while using the platform.

BAB was mainly introduced to act as online identification for Binance. The token can also be utilized by third-party protocols to ensure BAB tokens for several activities such as airdropping NFTs, avoiding bots, and a DAO using it for quadratic voting, etc.

The official blog post noted the ​​BAB token is the first-ever Soulbound Token about to launch on the BNB Smart Chain. It will focus on the issues of the user's identity in the decentralized society. The token is a non-transferable and non-financialized token as earlier it was mentioned.

According to the official announcement, 'transferability' may not be the main attraction of decentralization. Because it can be troublesome considering the distribution of governance power.

Therefore, BAB is certainly unique from traditional digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum. These coins represent momentary sums.

According to the platform, "Since we begin to explore how identity proof will function in Web3, whether it will be in the form of a provable skillset or an earned title, further use cases for the BAB token will increase. This sense of responsibility paves the rudder for a more efficient decentralized community and space."Binance believes that additional use cases for BAB will increase in the future as the web3 landscape rapidly starts to dominate the market.

BNB Chain temporarily paused network after $100M cross-chain Bridge exploit!

BNB Chain temporarily paused network after $100M cross-chain Bridge exploit!

by | Oct 11, 2022 | BNB, Market News, Project Spotlight

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.

Let’s take a look at Binance’s decision to partner with a Ukrainian supermarket chain for accepting crypto through Pay wallet

Let’s take a look at Binance’s decision to partner with a Ukrainian supermarket chain for accepting crypto through Pay wallet

by | Sep 23, 2022 | Market, News

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.

Ukrainian supermarket chain

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.