Binance Times: Midweek News
Binance Suspends Deposits & Withdrawals on Ronin Network Temporarily
In response to the unprecedented Ronin Network hack, Binance has temporarily halted trading with the Ronin Network. Withdrawals of Wrapped Ether (WETH) on the Ethereum Network have also been paused along with converting WETH for ETH. Binance and other CEXs (Centralised Exchanges) are working with Ronin, Axie Infinity, and law enforcement as the investigation into this mind-boggling hack continues.
Honestly, I cannot understand how this has played out so far. For starters, this is now the largest hack in crypto history with around $625 million USD worth of ETH (173 600) and USDC (25.5 million) taken. This is big enough news on its own, BUT no one noticed for 6 days! WHAT?
How could the team behind Ronin Network or Axie Infinity not notice? If a user hadn't complained that they couldn't withdraw their ETH from the bridge, when would they have noticed?
This hack has highlighted the obvious issues with having only 9 validators, and only requiring 5 of those to reach consensus to approve a withdrawal like this. Four of the validators belong to Sky Mavis and were comprised by the same back door that allowed the hacker to gain the fifth validator. The fifth was operated by the Axie DAO but wasn't even supposed to still be there. It was created to help during a time of high gas fees back in November 2021 and was only supposed to be active for a month. BUT after the month passed, whitelist access wasn't automatically revoked, so, the hacker was able to take advantage, and here we are today. A very expensive lesson in housekeeping.
Ronin network released a community update following the hack on March 29th, with updates on the 30th.
Updated Key Points
We are in the process of conducting a thorough investigation; working with Chainalysis to monitor the stolen funds and Crowdstrike to handle forensics and the setup of surveillance tools.
While the investigations are ongoing, at this point we are certain that this was an external breach. All evidence points to this attack being socially engineered, rather than a technical flaw.
We are committed to ensuring that all of the drained funds are recovered or reimbursed, and we are continuing conversations with our stakeholders to determine the best course of action.
Ronin network states that all user AXS, RON, and SLP are safe, but with the bridge drained of ETH and USDC how are users going to cash out? $625 million USD worth is a lot. If my maths is right, that's 0.03125% of the entire crypto market! Ronin also increased the number of validators required from 5 to 8 out of 9 around eleven hours before the official announcement.
In my view, a successful hack in crypto is only half the battle, the other half is cashing out without being caught. No easy feat with blockchain transparency. Ronin network has said that they are looking to recover/reimburse all the lost funds. With that in mind, it seems that Ronin and Axie Infinity are hoping/relying on the hacker not being able to achieve the second step and returning some, most, or all the stolen funds. $625 million is a bit much to reimburse. Most of the funds are still sitting in the hacker's wallet.
While the investigations are ongoing, at this point we are certain that this was an external breach. All evidence points to this attack being socially engineered, rather than a technical flaw.
I'm not sure how there can be no technical flaw when a validator RPC node was not closed when its use was finished. Or how the 4 Sky Mavis validators were compromised. And what does 'socially engineered mean? Lots of questions, what happens next will be interesting to see.
The latest (30/03/22) high-yield offerings for Binance's Earn Wednesday are out, there are some great opportunities on offer this week.
120 day Locked Staking products for ONE (15.79% APY), NEO (13.56% APY) WAVES (10.89% APY), and ALGO (8.24% APY) are on offer with nice low minimum staking amounts.
Flexible Savings products have been added for WAVES (5% APY) which will tie in nicely with the locked staking offering.
Locked Savings products for LUNA and SAND (both 10% APY) have also been added. These are only locked for 7 days so unless you have much more than the minimum required, it's probably not worth pulling out early from other locked products.
Liquidity Farming is now offering UNI and SUSHI pools. There are now 4 UNI Pools for BTC, BNB, BUSD, and USDT ranging from 5.71% (BTC) to 13.20% (USDT). The same pairs are on offer for the SUSHI pools and current yields range from 17.36% (BNB) to 22.07% (BTC).
Remember, providing liquidity is a high-risk activity, the yields will fluctuate daily, and your rewards are affected by the volume of trade in said pools. Plus, impermanent loss is a thing that you must take into consideration when you decide to withdraw.
In other news
The Klaytyn (KLAY) network upgrade and hard fork was completed this morning (31/03/22). This is version 1.8.0 and release notes can be found here.
The Tezos (XTZ) network upgrade will be happening tonight around 1 am UTC and should take about an hour. Deposits and withdrawals will be suspended during this time. More information on the upgrade can be found here.
Referrals
If you are not already signed up to Binance, there are currently a couple of referral codes you can choose from.
Binance has launched a new Lite referral mode today (31/03/22). $100 USDT cashback vouchers rewards are on offer along with an additional $130 000 USD prize pool in cash vouchers. To successfully qualify, new users need to click the referral link here and use my Lite referral ID: CPA_00ZLZOEZO5). New users will have to complete KYC within 7 days, AND deposit $50 or equivalent within 14 days of their registration. USDT cashback vouchers refund the equivalent of the spot trading fees you incurred in USDT daily, while the voucher is valid.
Standard referrals are also available, this referral will reward you with a lifetime discount on spot and futures trading fees. If this sounds more appealing to you, please click here and use my referral ID: 121442089.
And that's all for this Midweek edition of the Binance Times. Thanks for reading.
*Originally published on Publish0x
