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Cross-Chain DeFi Site Poly Network Hacked; Hundreds of Millions Potentially Lost (coindesk.com) 85

Posted by msmash from the security-woes dept.
Cross-chain decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Poly Network was attacked on Tuesday, with the alleged hacker draining roughly $600 million in crypto. From a report: Poly Network, a protocol launched by the founder of Chinese blockchain project Neo, operates on the Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. Tuesday's attack struck each chain consecutively, with the Poly team identifying three addresses where stolen assets were transferred. At the time that Poly tweeted news of the attack, the three addresses collectively held more than $600 million in different cryptocurrencies, including USDC, wrapped bitcoin (WBTC), wrapped ether (WETH) and shiba inu (SHIB), blockchain scanning platforms show.

"We call on miners of affected blockchain and crypto exchanges to blacklist tokens coming from the above addresses," the Poly team tweeted. The $600 million figure would place the Poly Network hack among the largest in crypto history. Tether froze approximately $33 million in relation to the hack, Tether CTO Paul Adroino tweeted. About one hour after Poly announced the hack on Twitter, the hacker tried to move assets including USDT through the Ethereum address into liquidity pool Curve.fi, records show. The transaction was rejected.
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Cross-Chain DeFi Site Poly Network Hacked; Hundreds of Millions Potentially Lost More

Cross-Chain DeFi Site Poly Network Hacked; Hundreds of Millions Potentially Lost

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  • Few investors really hold that much of their portfolio in cash. Mostly you want to hold something of physical value, like ownership in a company, real estate, commodities, or precious metals. Stocks being a good way to increase the value over time.

    • Except that crypto != currency. This needs to be stressed more often.

      Pretty much all cryptocurrencies form value as (very) speculative assets. And some, like the so-called "stablecoins", are downright scams.

      • Except that crypto != currency. This needs to be stressed more often.

        Pretty much all cryptocurrencies form value as (very) speculative assets. And some, like the so-called "stablecoins", are downright scams.

        Explain current stock value in a not-quite-post pandemic where billionaires gained trillions in wealth as entire industries were shuttered and continue to remain shuttered today. IPOs worth billions where they blatantly state they have never made a profit, and may never make one.

        Not to mention the non-stop printing presses that have been "easing" for endless quarters now.

        If you're looking for the punch line, it's pretty much the house of cards of US currency. Rather pointless to try and single out the st

        • Sure. Explain to me why BTC gained 18% last week.

          • Sure. Explain to me why BTC gained 18% last week.

            No one, is questioning the utter insanity of the crypto market.

            Explain the stock market that has the gall to laugh at crypto right now. THAT is the challenge.

            • It was a rhetorical question. Your reply to "cryptocurrencies are not currency" was some big gotcha regarding how stocks market form value. Well, i don't get the point, because the exact thing applies to BTC et al just as well.

              If not more. At least with the stock market i can evaluate fundamentals.

            • Please stop with the false tu quoque fallacy.

        • Explain current stock value in a not-quite-post pandemic where billionaires gained trillions in wealth as entire industries were shuttered and continue to remain shuttered today.

          Simple. You are conflating two different groups.

          There were "billionaires who gained trillions in wealth" because their companies gained value because they were positioned in industries such as on-line gaming, meeting, shopping, and delivery.

          There were million and billionaires who lost millions in wealth because they had most of their assets in things like movie chains, retail real estate, restaurants, hotels, etc. that were shut down by the pandemic.

          IPOs worth billions where they blatantly state they have never made a profit, and may never make one.

          It is called gambling. The investors are gambling that

      • Except that crypto != currency. This needs to be stressed more often.

        Why should this be stressed, if it's not longer true?

        What do you imagine makes something a "currency" anyway?

        I think that needs definition before you can declare crypto is not currency. and fiat (like the dollar and the euro) are....

        Is it only currency if you can use it to snort coke?

        • Why should this be stressed, if it's not longer true?

          Looking up the definition of currency might help. A hint though: anything that has double-digit value swings is pretty useless as a reserve of value.

          Cryptocurrences are "currency" in the same way baseball cards, or stocks are.

          • Except with stocks and baseball cards, it's much easier to figure out the value of the asset in that the value is tied to something physical. I can check card auctions and get a rough idea of what my card is worth (and cards generally increase their value over time). I can check how much a company is worth based off of the assets they hold and how much money they make among other things. The value of crypto is what? whatever people will pay for it at the time, crypto's value is pretty much what people think

          • Looking up the definition of currency might help. A hint though: anything that has double-digit value swings is pretty useless as a reserve of value.

            Hmm, what was the increase in housing prices over the past year.... or the annualized CPI right now assuming the same level of increases all year as we have had to date.

            Of yeah, it's 13.2% [cnbc.com] (though that was June, higher now) and approaching 10-12% [bls.gov] for this year, respectively.

            I totally agree with you about thing with double digit value swings not being stores of

            • I'm sorry, why are you relating housing prices with currency? Because the USD projected inflation for this year is 4-5% - which, yeah, is stupidly high. But predictable. And a third of that value you pulled out of thin air.

              Hey, mortgages are at a all time-low [themortgagereports.com] right now. Imagine if that meant anything.

              • Because the USD projected inflation for this year is 4-5%

                How does that work exactly, with the CPI for the year currently at 5.4% [nytimes.com]??? Do you seriously expect us to believe that magically CPI will be negative for the entire remainder of the year, even as the cost of everything heads up and up?

                You are utterly delusional; You can response but I'll not be reading more of your delusions. I hope you can fare well is what is to come over the next few years, but I seriously doubt it. Good Luck, and I truly mean

                • This will blow your mind, but it turns out there's waaay more to price indexes than just inflation.

                  I know!

      • Intrinsic vs Extrinsic value. Crypto is 100% extrinsic and only worth what someone else is willing to pay. May as well trade pokemon cards.

    • They weren't holding it in cash (or e-coin). The company was holding it for them.

      It was like keeping gold in a bank safe deposit box where no one locks any doors.

    • What nonsense is this? No investors hold literal *cash* that can be lost (stolen) or burned, which seems to be the "risk" that you are referring to. Cryptocurrencies are more like poker chips. But I think if you had the casino hold your chips overnight and someone "broke in" and "stole" them, you'd probably still want your money back.

    • Few investors really hold that much of their portfolio in cash.

      Few investors hold cash because holding cash is not investing, it is saving.

      Mostly you want to hold something of physical value, like ownership in a company, real estate, commodities, or precious metals.

      Ownership in a company isn't physical. Commodities are actually contracts. Real estate is a physical asset. Precious metals may or may not be actual physical assets as precious metals are often commodities.

      Stocks being a good way to increase the value over time.

      One invests in stocks for just that reason. Buying equities is investing. Holding on to currency is just savings.

  • I have never seen a stat of crypto losses relative to financial institutions as a percent. IE for each 1000 dollars transacted 1 dollar is lost to theft fraud. Say compare it to stock brokers who transact trillions? per day. There was the hack with I think it was Bank of India that was significant, although was stopped midway so the thieves did not get all the money they were after.

    • Not sure that'd be of much value though, because the impact of a hack in the cyrptoverse is far more damaging than bank fraud.

      In the real world, transactions can be reverted.

      • Sometimes, but can't some crypto be reversed as well. The bank of india example I cited was not reversible if I remember right. The hackers moved the money before it could be traced. And of course if someone manages to cash a check that is fake, the cash they get is untraceable unless pre-marked. But how the brokers can transact the amounts they do for as little as they charge is just amazing to me. I could trade millions of dollars worth of some stock in seconds for less than 10 bucks I think, well if I h

  • News reports like this need error bars on the reported value. It was $600 million at time of writing, but to properly convey what's happened, it should be reported as $600 million ± $200 million. Don't believe me? Wait 20 minutes.

    • Good luck explaining error bars to journalists. They probably think it's a place where the waitstaff consistently short-changes you.
  • South Park called it only partly correctly. They were referring to banks, which are actually about as safe as it gets for $$$$. Crypto on the other hand? Yeah this is what youre gonna get.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • The larger centralised exchanges will more often than not reimburse "investors" when a hack like this occurs.

    But in DeFi world, as you "hold custody over your assets", game over if there's a hack - there is NOBODY to help.

    Decentralised cryptocurrency exchanges compound the risk of the cryptocurrency casino considerably.
    If it wasn't enough that you are participating in an insane casino gamble, by using a DEX, you basically take whatever tiny protections you may have had away.

    "But it's freedom from 'the man'!

  • Do the people who deposited the cons get replacement ones? If so, who mines them? If not, are they just out the value of their coins?

    What about the stolen coins? If they're blacklisted, it is that they cease to exist? If so, that would put more deflationary pressure on the system and increase the riskiness of cryptocurrency as a means of exchange.

    Fortunately for me, these are all just mental exercises.

    • Do the people who deposited the cons get replacement ones?

      They lose them.

      What about the stolen coins? If they're blacklisted, it is that they cease to exist?

      For bitcoin, they can't be blacklisted unless the majority of the network agrees. So the coins will not be lost. You can try to prohibit the exchanges from converting them to cash, or track the person down when they do convert it to cash.

  • 600 million got stolen but the catch is this exchange was able to go to other large exchanges and tell them not to accept the transactions. In a decentralized system that shouldn't be possible. It seems that the crypto community has just managed to create a series of banks that they call exchanges instead. I mean I guess that's good if they can recover the assets but it means that when you want to regulate or to seize control of crypto it's going to be super easy because you just need to seize control of th

    • I guess you've never heard of the 51% attack. The ability to control the network seems to be a feature of crypto rather than a bug.

    • They asked the miners not to validate it, but good luck, it's like herding cats. You'd need 50+% to do so. It's not the exchanges that matter, they can huff and puff all they want, it's the miners, or potentially later the validators in ETH 2.0, that decide what transactions go into which block. Mining pools don't necessarily care about any particular exchange, 1 ETH = 1 ETH as far as they're concerned.

      The trading on exchanges happens with a layer of abstraction where currency isn't actually moving from one

  • ...nothing. Yup.

    So, do their customers get new 'tokens'?

  • because cash in the bank has (some) insurance and cash under the mattress can be physically protected. Crypto can be stolen anytime by anyone with skills.

  • Enabling criminal activity (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ritz_Just_Ritz ( 883997 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @04:35PM (#61677389)

    Yet another example of crypto currency being just as vector for criminal activity rather than any true store of wealth. I'm sure the guilty party has already converted that haul into (gasp) fiat currency where it will disappear from view and re-appear as a Lamborghini parked somewhere in Eastern Europe, and eventually after passing through the laundry more fiat currency in bank accounts in Cyprus.

  • This is why BTC.

  • Makes it more obvious this whole thing is basically organized crime.

  • This is after all a well regulated financial institution backed by insurance and the government. Even if a company like this screws up the users aren't left out of pocket.

    Oh wait... Crypto.

    Never mind then. Enjoy your freedom.

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