Hash Rate Soars, New Yield Farms, & Crypto Security Tips

Chart of The Day: BTC Miners Send Hash Rate Soaring

• Hash rate is defined as the total combined computational power used to mine and process transactions on Proof-of-Work Blockchains.
• For context, a higher hash rate is indicative of more miners securing the network by verifying the blockchain’s transactions.
• Last year, we saw BTC’s hash rate dropped significantly from 200M TH/s to 61M TH/s after China implemented its ban on crypto mining. China held more than 50% at the start of 2021, but as the ban started taking effects, it has since dropped to 0% as miners move their operations out of China.
• As a result of the ban, USA now holds the largest share of BTC’s global hash rate at 35.4% as of August 2021. Though a little outdated, it shows where the miners could be moving to. (Unfortunately, August 2021 is the most recent geographical data that is available by Cambridge.)
• Since the hash rate dip, it has swiftly recovered in just a few months and just this week, it hit 248M TH/s hash rate, the highest it has ever been. This means that the number of miners has been growing even as some move out of China. This spike could be a result of miners finishing the migration of their farms from China to other countries and starting to operate again.

Primitive on Arbitrum, Airdrops, Stablecoin Farms & Yearn Assets

[Excerpt from our weekly Yield Insights]

• Drachma is a decentralized non-custodial automated market maker (AMM) which features “Curve style” hyper-efficient low-slippage swaps for both pegged and unpegged assets. Drachma will be a fair launch with no VCs, private, or team allocations. 100% of the tokens will be used to incentivize liquidity for the pools on Drachma as well as the Drachma token itself. Learn more about it here.
• Yield Calculations are currently unavailable on Drachma, the reason detailed below. To access Drachma, you’ll need to configure your MetaMask to run Metis Andromeda’s Mainnet using this guide.
• Bridge: You can deposit and withdraw assets onto the Metis network using https://bridge.metis.io/home. You can also withdraw assets faster using Celer at https://cbridge.celer.network/#/transfer.
• Emissions: Of the 100M total supply, 45% of the tokens will be used for liquidity mining rewards on the AMM to incentivize greater liquidity for users. Another 45% of the supply will be used to incentivize LP bonds via protocol-owned liquidity. 8% of the supply will be allocated to LP farming rewards. Although bonds are the predominant way the protocol will be incentivizing and owning liquidity, farms will also be established to complement these efforts. Learn more about the emissions here.
• For the full report, see our weekly Yield Insights where we profile the latest yield farms.

CryoSecurity: Crypto Security Horror Stories, Personal Best Practices, and Preserving Privacy Online

[Excerpt from Delphi Podcast]

• In this episode, we sit down with security expert Logan from CryoSecurity, a cryptocurrency security consultancy firm. We discuss lesser known attack vectors, social engineering attacks, personal best practices, and much more!

👤 Logan’s background

• Background in crypto systems, cryptology, & finding ways to attack crypto systems
• In 2015, helped build security systems for funds entering the space + physical security through privacy
• In 2017, started CryoSecurity consulting firm with a partner

👜 Securing hot wallets

• Some funds need to manage their own assets because there isn’t enough support from custodial solutions
  • Need to move nimbly to act on alpha (i.e. new unsupported chains & protocols)
• Need to build custom solutions for each client
  • Do risk modeling and threat assessments for exact security exposure
  • Craft security infrastructure based on asset type, frequency of movement, & type of interactions

😱 Security horror stories

• Retirement attacks: Malicious random number generators for private keys
  • Private keys are deterministic — The person who put out the code can decide when to go and sweep the funds
• Reclaiming funds against bots 🤖
  • After losing private keys through social engineering attack, ETH in wallet gets swept, other ERC20 tokens remain
  • When put additional ETH to try to get other tokens out, the ETH is swept instantly; becomes a battle to out-maneuver the bots
• Ledger breach in July 2021: Emails & physical addresses held by Ledger were breached
  • Attackers spoofed Ledger and sent out emails/physical mail to the addresses saying, “Hey, there’s been a breach on Ledger servers. You need to reset your mnemonic and download software here.”
  • The email directed people to malicious software that looks exactly like Ledger Live asking people to input their 12/24-word mnemonic
• 🧠  If people understood wallet infrastructure, they would know that even if ledger servers were breached, they aren’t exposed because the mnemonics are generated locally on that hardware device
• You can do your own threat modeling to assess your potential pain points & attack vectors to narrow them down while still being functional

To access the Podcast Transcript and Notes, visit the podcast page here!

Notable Tweets

NYSE NFT Marketplace Soon?

NYSE fills with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to be marketplace for NFTs just like with stocks

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-15/nyse-wants-to-be-the-marketplace-for-nfts-just-like-with-stocks

— unfolded.(@cryptounfolded) February 16, 2022

Airdrop of X2Y2, a New NFT Marketplace

We’re live! ⭕️ 🥳 💖

✅ Release of the X2Y2 #NFTMarketplace
✅ #Airdrop for all @opensea users
✅ NFT & $X2Y2 staking
✅ Only 2% trading fees

Claim your free $X2Y2 on 👇

— X2Y2 ⭕️ | NFT Marketplace (@the_x2y2) February 16, 2022

Axelar Raises $35M at $1B Valuation

📢Big News: Axelar raises $35M Series B financing round at a $1B valuation🚀

This investment will power the growth of the network, the team and new cross-chain integrations.

https://bit.ly/3I44v6k

— Axelar Network( @axelarcore) February 15, 2022