Crypto No Longer a Criminal Safe Haven — #6
Crypto No Longer a Criminal Safe Haven — #6
Edit: Apologies for the delayed release… we’ve been hard at work with Gnars. If you haven’t checked your Twitter feed, Gnars is launching in a few hours. Anyway, hope you enjoy the read… stay Gnarly!
Another week, yet another bust: but this isn’t your ordinary catch. After 6 years, the authorities finally caught up to the Bitcoin hackers of Bitfinex back in 2016. Talk about a $3.6 billion heist! More on that later…
So, welcome back to ART HAUS Weekly! In case you’re new here, we cover the top events in the NFT and Crypto world throughout the week; all summarized in this newsletter!
This week was intense… so get ready for a hell of a story.
Finalizing Plans In The Haus
It seems like @NounsDAO will be entering the Superbowl…
Will Gnars? Probably Gnarthing, but stay tuned to find out!
I’m hyped for Gnars… we’re launching really soon. Are you?
Do follow our Twitter for regular Gnars updates as well as join our Discord to vibe along.
The Gnars giveaway is ending in a bit too, so be sure to drop your tags!
Finally, don’t forget to check out our Gnars site for more related links to Gnars.
Till then, stay Gnarly!
News Of The Week: The $3.6 Billion Bust
For once, good triumphs over evil. This week, the U.S. Department of Justice made its largest seizure; $3.6 billion worth of Bitcoin.
In this metaphorical game of cat and mouse, the 2016 Bitfinex hackers slipped up and the authorities were able to recover most of the funds. Well, guess which exchange’s going to give out freebies this month!
Going back to the issue, what exactly happened? Who stands to benefit? And most importantly, what does this mean for the future of crypto?
2016 Rewind Time
Bitcoin earned its name as the “Currency for Criminals” back in the day when people traded it to circumvent traditional financial systems and regulations.
This, coupled with infamous hacks in Bitcoin’s infancy, ultimately lead to many people dismissing BTC as a bubble.
Well, the 2016 Bitfinex hack was one of these factors. Bitfinex was amongst the largest cryptocurrency exchanges back in 2016, a place for trading cryptocurrencies. However, hackers exploited flaws in the system to reroute Bitcoins in over 2000 wallets to theirs, essentially stealing 120,000 Bitcoins.
At the time, they were already worth a huge sum of 72 million dollars (the price of BTC plunged 20% hours after the breach). For this reason, the hackers decided to keep the Bitcoin stored in a cold wallet and let it appreciate in value.
How Authorities Tracked The Criminals
Then came 2017, when the hackers tried testing the waters with small amounts of Bitcoin withdrawals. They experimented with Alphabay (dark web currency exchange), but it got shut down by regulatory authorities in the same year. As a result, they pivoted to the Russian marketplace Hydra.
In 2020, the price of Bitcoin spiked. Using privacy tools to mask their identities and prevent tracing on the blockchain, the hackers transferred small amounts of Bitcoins to thousands of other wallets.
They were able to fly under the radar of authorities as well as crypto justice vigilantes, converting Bitcoin to FIAT and depositing it into their bank accounts.
While hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoins had already been converted to FIAT, 80% of the initial funds were still stuck in the cold wallet.
Catching The Big Fish
Since 2016, there have been massive advancements in security in the crypto world. Protocols like KYC (Know your customer) verified the real identity of users of a crypto exchange, and various security groups were coming up with tools to track the laundering of money across blockchains.
While these measures surely helped the authorities in their hunt for the hackers, it was probably the Alphabay takedown that led to the final catch. Shutting down Alphabay meant that the authorities had access to internal logs of the site, and this helped them link the various Bitcoin transactions of the hackers.
Finally in January, the authorities found passwords to various addresses in a cloud drive, which linked back to Lichtenstein and Morgan(aka RAZZLEKHAN), the hackers behind this saga. The majority of Bitcoin was then seized from these wallets, and the hacker couple is currently under investigation.
So What Now?
A simple transaction log back in 2017 led to the final revelation of the culprits. Sweet blockchain technology proving its worth!
The authorities are looking to return the stolen funds to victims of the hack in 2017. Well, they must be in for a pleasant surprise.
Looking at the bigger picture, we realize how useful blockchain technology really is, and it’s heartening to see governments and organizations making use of this to deal justice in our crypto community. Indeed, this signifies hope for a bigger, brighter, and better blockchain-run world!
News Daily
07.02.2022
DappRadar, also known as the app store for decentralized applications, recently released a report which shows enormous NFT sales this January. NFT marketplaces like veteran OpenSea as well as recently hyped LooksRare have generated the bulk of the sales.
Read on for more details on the report.
DappRadar Report Record-Breaking NFT Sales for January 2022
08.02.2022
In yet another controversial move, OpenSea has delisted the community-loved V1 Punks collection from their marketplace. Cryptopunks is one of the OG NFT collections, launching way before NFTs rose in popularity.
In case you have no idea why an almost identical V1 Punks collection exists, do give this piece a read!
OpenSea Delists CryptoPunks v1 Despite Their Recent Revival
09.02.2022
AssangeDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization made to help Julian Assange through his court battles to freedom, purchased this NFT by the Wau Holland Foundation. All of the funds will go to supporting Julian Assange’s legal battles.
This news piece covers quite a bit on Julian Assange’s controversial WikiLeaks foundation, it’s a pretty interesting read.
“Clock” NFT Sells for $52.7M to Help Fund Julian Assange’s Legal Defense
10.02.2022
Will EV and blockchain tech finally come together? I guess… even without Elon Musk! Alfa Romeo, an Italian auto company, will be using NFT and blockchain technology for data purposes in their new electric hybrid model; expected to launch in late 2023.
More details on how this works in the news piece!
This Alfa Romeo Electric Car Is Fitted With NFT and Blockchain Tech
11.02.2022
Ether is now the 24th largest asset in the world in terms of market cap, recently surpassing retail giant Walmart. Standing at a market cap of around $350 Billion at the time of writing, Ether still has a long way to go if it wants to beat Bitcoin, which is standing at an $800 Billion cap.
More details on ETH are in the article below.
Ether Beats Walmart To Become The 24th Largest Asset In The World
12.02.2022
Did you know that NFTs can help protect and preserve forested areas in the Amazon Rainforest? Well the Moss Amazon NFT collection aims to do just that. Appealing to the climate-conscious community, their NFT pre-sale sold out in less than an hour!
This piece gives a more in-depth introduction to what Moss does and how it helps protect the Amazon Rainforest.
NFTs Used to Preserve Areas of the Amazon Rainforest
13.02.2022
Just a little behind popular collections like BAYC and CryptoPunks, Doodles is another top 20 NFT collection listed on OpenSea. Today, they announced a partnership with Coinbase, one of the biggest crypto exchanges. Other NFT projects like CryptoKitties and even Adidas will be in this partnership with Coinbase.
What a huge collaboration this is going to be!
Coinbase NFT Announce Doodles As Their Official Launch Partner
Art Haus Blog Releases
If not for Ethereum, where would NFTs be? Nowhere… initially. But is that the case now? Probably not.
Solana Vs Ethereum: The Battle For NFT King
In recent years, another competitor Solana has been stealing NFT market share from leader Ethereum. After all, the contender has a faster network, lower gas fees, and has a revolutionary proof-of-history concept for greater minting efficiency!
Inspired by my ever-growing desire to start flipping NFTs, I decided to do a deep dive on the Solana NFT space, and discovered tons of pros and cons about going into NFTs in the Solana ecosystem.
Thinking about diversifying your NFT investments… in different blockchains? This article will give you a bit of insight into that.
Podcasts: Worth A Listen
Creating The “Binance” Of NFTs
Ori Levi, the founder of a multi-chain NFT marketplace NFTrade, joins the Zima Red Podcast in this episode. While most other NFT marketplaces mainly focus on digital assets from a single blockchain, NFTrade makes it a point to focus on multi chains in the NFT world.
With a ton of NFTs from different blockchains, NFTrade has tons of potential and big plans for the future. In this episode, they discuss the bigger picture of the NFT marketplace - how different chains should be linked instead of being traded in isolation.
Collector Spotlight: Famed Art Collector Adam Lindemann on Bridging Art Worlds
Adam Lindemann, investor, artist, writer, and also the founding father of New York-based gallery Venus Over Manhattan, joins the PROOF podcast. There, they talk about traditional art forms in the modern world, as in the physical pictures and paintings.
The podcast slowly progresses to the topic of NFTs, and how traditional and digital art share similarities in a certain sense. Do give this episode a listen, it provides a really unique perspective on art in general.
Crypto Security Horror Stories, Personal Best Practices, and Preserving Privacy Online
In this podcast episode by Delphi Digital, they are joined by an expert Logan from Crypto Security, a crypto-security consultancy agency. This episode takes a dive into all things concerning security in the crypto world, from social engineering attacks to best security practices.
If you’d like some technical insight into the cybersecurity crypto space, this one’s for you.
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Wrap Up
And that’s it for this week’s blurb! Hope you enjoyed the quick sum up of the events that happened this week.
As always, stay tuned for updates from the Haus!
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