Socket Launches Synthetix Bridge
The bridge allows users to zap into a synth asset from any non-synth asset in a single transaction.
Solana Slope wallets become compromised.
Sepolia upgrade is planned for August 17th.
Socket launches a Synthetix bridge.
StarkNet updates its Voyager block explorer.
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Interoperability protocol Socket has launched a Synthetix bridge for transferring tokens from any chain into the Synthetix Ecosystem. The bridge allows users to zap into a synth asset from any non-synth asset in a single transaction. Socket’s Refuel feature is also integrated into the bridge, allowing users to bridge native gas tokens on the destination chain. Synthetix is a synthetic assets protocol that allows users to stake the protocols native SNX tokens to mint sUSD. Users can then trade sUSD for synthetic assets that can be used across DeFi apps such as Lyra. Synthetix currently holds $624 million TVL across Ethereum and Optimism.
An exploit in the Solana ecosystem has led to more than $4 million worth of SOL and SLP tokens being drained from over 9k unique wallets. Initially, Slope and Phantom mobile wallets users across iOS and Android reported funds being stolen. Details on Solscan revealed that the transactions were being signed by a user's own keys, indicating a critical seed phrase compromise. The hack was first believed to be a supply chain attack or an entropy flaw in private key generation. A supply chain attack occurs when an application ships an update while there is malicious code in software from third-party vendors. It seemed possible because only users from mobile wallets were affected. Solana Status later discovered that the exploit was isolated to the Slope wallet. Compromised Phantom wallets were tied to users that reused the same seed phrase from Slope. Any user that generated or imported a seed phrase into the Slope mobile wallet is affected by the exploit. Affected users should transfer out funds into a new wallet as soon as possible. Slope reportedly logged user seed phrases in their servers over POST, leading to the compromise of private keys.
The Sepolia testnet is scheduled to undergo its first post-merge execution layer upgrade on August 17th. The upgrade will cause peers, who do not have the same sequence as Nodes, to be disconnected. As per EIP-2124, the upgrade will check whether a peer has completed all upgrades between Frontier Thawing and Gray Glacier. Sepolia node operators are required to update their execution layer client prior to the upgrade. Goerli and Ethereum mainnet will undergo the same post-merge upgrade once the networks have transitioned to PoS. Ropsten will not be upgraded since it is no longer maintained by the Ethereum Foundation. Consensus layer clients are not affected by this upgrade.
StarkNet has updated its UI and front end for its Voyager block explorer. Users can view transaction data for StarkNet Alpha Mainnet and the StarkNet Goerli testnet. The block explorer features a tab for Blocks, Transactions, Contracts, Messages, and Events. StarkNet refers to wallet addresses as contracts. The block explorer was built by Nethermind using StarkNet’s node implementation called Juno. Since launching in November 2021, StarkNet Alpha Mainnet has processed more than 450k transactions from 208k contracts. StarkNet is a permissionless L2 network powered by zk-Rollups.
Gitcoin Grants announced the dates for GR15, which will take place from September 7th to the 22nd. Gitcoin is a quadratic funding platform for supporting public goods. Gitcoin facilitated $9.4 million in value transfer during its last funding round in June. Gitcoin is also running a Money Legos Virtual Hackathon between August 8th-23rd.
Magic Eden Expands To Ethereum
The largest Solana NFT marketplace now supports Ethereum NFTs as part of an effort to become a multi-chain platform.
Magic Eden integrates Ethereum NFTs.
Mint Square goes live on StarkNet mainnet.
Robinhood lays off 20% of employees.
Polygon vesting contract unlocks 1.38 billion MATIC tokens.
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Magic Eden, the largest Solana NFT marketplace, has announced support for Ethereum NFTs as part of an effort to become a multi-chain platform. The integration includes ETH compatibility for the Magic Eden Launchpad, a minting platform for creators. EZU, a sister collection of the NFT project Psychedelics Anonymous, will become the first ETH NFT on the launchpad. Magic Eden users will be able to mint launchpad NFTs or make marketplace purchases in either ETH or SOL. ETH NFT listings on Magic Eden will be aggregated from other marketplaces. The platform will not be holding ETH NFTs in escrow, as it currently does for listed Solana NFTs. Magic Eden plans to roll-out cross-chain trading analytic tools in the coming months.
NFT marketplace Mint Square is now live on StarkNet mainnet. Users can mint, buy, sell, and make offers on StarkNet NFTs directly on the marketplace. There is currently only one NFT collection on Mint Square called Pxls. The platform also lists NFTs from the Aspect marketplace as well as the Mint Square storefront, which shows NFTs minted directly on the platform. Currently, users can customize their profile and claim a username. Mint Square supports on-chain royalties payments to creators. The launch of Mint Square comes just one day after Aspect.co went live on StarkNet mainnet, taking the title as the first NFT marketplace on the network. StarkNet mainnet is still in an Alpha phase with a state reset planned for Q4. Aspect warns that NFTs may not be migratable.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev announced that the company is laying off approximately 23% of its employees amid a reorganization. Tenev cited the broad macro environment, inflation, and the crypto market crash as reasons for the changes. He also stated that customer trading activity and assets under custody had reduced in the last quarter. Robinhood had cut 9% of its workforce last quarter as part of a focus on cost discipline. Robinhood is switching to a General Manager business structure. Robinhood Crypto is also facing a $30 million fine from the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) in relation to AML and cybersecurity compliance issues.
1.38 billion MATIC tokens, approximately 14% of the token’s total supply, have been released from Polygon’s vesting contract. 640 million of the unlocked MATIC tokens (6.4% of total supply) belong to the founders, which have committed to staking the tokens. 46 million of the unlocked MATIC (5.46% of MATIC supply) are being held by the Polygon Foundation for future use. The token unlock was part of Polygon’s initial distribution vesting schedule. The founders' token share was set to unlock in October 2021 and April 2022, but they did not claim the tokens at the time. Polygon says that most of the founder's tokens have been staked in the past.
Gucci announced that select U.S. stores now accept ApeCoin as payment for merchandise. Gucci already accepts Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and Litecoin via a partnership with BitPay. ApeCoin (APE) and Euro Coin (EUROC) were recently added to BitPay’s list of supported tokens. ApeCoin is the native token of the Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem.
$150 Million Drained From Nomad Exploit
The exploit was tied to a flaw within the Replica smart contract code.
Nomad exploit drains $150 million.
ENS hits record revenue for July.
The eth.link domain is secured.
Coinbase Prime supports ETH staking.
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Nomad, an optimistic cross-chain messaging protocol, suffered an exploit resulting in more than $150 million worth of assets being drained from the bridge contract. The exploit was tied to a flaw within the Replica smart contract code, which allowed users to pass any amount of arbitrary data. This enabled anyone to withdraw significantly more assets than they deposited. The first round of attackers drained assets in increments of 100 WBTC and 200 WETH. Once the attack mechanism was known, hundreds of users copied the original hacker's transaction calldata, replaced the receiving address, and executed the transaction. This created a frenzy of transactions draining funds from the bridge. According to data from DeFi Llama, Nomad’s TVL dropped from $190 million to less than $5k as the bridge was drained. Some users who drained the bridge were white hats, aiming to secure the funds before they were fully drained by the attackers. Nomad has since stated they are working with law enforcement on the situation and plan to publish an address for white hats to return funds to. Evmos and Moonbeam are among the affected chains from the hack. Threads on the hack: Spreekaway | Samczsun | 0xfoobar
eth.link, a tool that allows .eth ENS domain holders to access their domain over HTTPS, failed to have its DNS domain renewed. The eth.link domain, along with all ENS pages on the site, presented users with a uniregistry renewal page. The eth.link gateway expired on July 26th, which was later renewed by an unknown entity that changed nameserver records. eth.link is owned by Virgil Griffith, an Ethereum developer sentenced for violating sanctions related to delivering presentations at the Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference in North Korea. ENS core developer Nick Johnson stated he’s previously reached out to Griffith’s family about transferring the domain to TNL. Johnson later revealed that EasyDNS CEO Mark Jeftovic was able to secure the domain and is now held somewhere safe where it can be renewed on time. eth.link is back online and fully operational. eth.limo is also an alternative tool with the same features. ENS domain holders can simply add .link or .limo to their ENS in a web browser to access their record information over DNS. Update: Please verify the current status of eth.link before interacting.
ENS has hit a new record in monthly domain registrations, hitting 378K new .eth registrations for the month of July. ENS previously hit a record of 365k domain registrations in May. The protocol also doubled its monthly revenue from $3.3 million in June to $6.8 million in July, marking its highest earning month. ENS saw some of its highest-priced secondary domain sales in July, including 000.eth for 300 ETH and an additional 3 domains which sold for 100 ETH each. The entirety of revenue generated from ENS registrations goes directly to the ENS DAO. The domain name service also does not charge a royalty on secondary market sales. More than 500k wallets now hold an ENS domain.
Decentralized oracle provider Empiric Network announced a developer partnership with StarkWare. As part of the partnership, Empiric Network will further build out StarkNet-native oracle infrastructure that gives protocols access to real-world data. This includes yield feeds, volatility feeds, correlation feeds, and on-chain weather data. Empiric Network was already the first protocol to launch the first oracle on StarkNet. Empiric currently supports over 20 price feeds on the L2 network, which are being used by StarkNet-native protocols such as zkLend. Last month, Empiric raised a $7 million seed round led by Variant Fund.
Coinbase Prime, an integrated brokerage platform for institutions, now offers Ethereum staking. U.S. domestic institutional clients can create a wallet and stake ETH from their Coinbase Prime account. Coinbase will hold the withdrawal keys in their cold storage custody vault. Coinbase also supports staking for Solana, Polkadot, Cosmos, Tezos, and Celo.