This Week [In] Crypto: Billions Recovered, Wash Trades, Trillion Rubles in Taxes

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We saw everything from recovering billions of dollars to white hat hackers saving Coinbase to Samsung’s crypto wallet announcement. Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to get our weekly round-ups right in your inbox.

$4.4 million stolen in a cross-chain hack

On Feb. 5, a blockchain infrastructure that aims to raise and unite the financial internet, called Meter was hacked. As a result, 1,391 Ethereum (ETH) and 2.74 Bitcoin (BTC) were stolen. The stolen funds were worth $4.4 million at the time of theft.

The company is working on a remuneration plan for WETH and BND and requested all liquidity providers to remove their funds from liquidity pools.

The platform offers a high-performance Ethereum Virtual Machine Compatible sidechain. The sidechain is expected to seamlessly operate with decentralized apps (DApps). 

North Korea funds its missile program with stolen crypto, UN says

According to an official report by the United Nations, North Korea uses the stolen crypto to fund its missile program. It targeted crypto exchanges in Asia, Europe and North America and stole more than $50 million in digital assets at least.

One of the most popular on-chain security firms, Chainalysis, reported more than $400 million stolen by North Korea. Furthermore, some South Korean media companies’ data show more than $1.7 billion worth of crypto thefts.

Crypto taxes in Russia could reach 1 trillion rubles

Russia’s crypto value reaches $214 billion, making it one of the largest crypto holders in the world.

According to a recent report, around 17 million Russians have cryptocurrency wallets with a 12% share in the total crypto market capitalization of $1.87 trillion last year.

The report, which collected some data from the authorities, says that the government could collect 1 trillion rubles worth $13 billion of crypto tax each year. Moreover, 15% of Russia’s GDP could come from the crypto market.

“…it is practical to study the experience of countries where cryptocurrency is a digital expression of value and is not a means of payment, while cryptocurrency exchange for goods is treated as a barter transaction,” said Sergey Katyrin, the Head of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The US Department of Justice captured 94,636 Bitcoins

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) seized $3.6 billion worth of BTC from a couple in New York. The stolen funds date back to a 2016 hack of the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, which represents 80% of the $4.5 billion stolen in 2016.

Now that the government has announced the return of the stolen digital assets, people are pouring in and claiming parts of them.

According to the report, bitcoin was traded at around $600 and the price has surged more than 7,200% since August 2016.

Melania Trump’s NFT was a bizarre wash trade

The former first lady of the United States, Melania Trump, sold her first non-fungible token (NFT) of her hat for $170,000, but was met with an ironic disappointment, according to the Blockchain.

The NFT was created on the Solana blockchain and sold for 1800 SOL, but the data shows that it came right back to its creators.

Trump’s representatives told Motherboard that “the nature of Blockchain protocol is entirely transparent. Accordingly, the public can view each transaction on the blockchain. The transaction was facilitated on behalf of a third-party buyer.”

Samsung dives deeper into the crypto ecosystem

The South Korean tech giant, Samsung, recently unveiled its latest flagship smartphone lineup in the “Unpacked 2022” event. Furthermore, Samsung announced a cryptocurrency wallet that will allow users to “access and explore complex digital products.”

Samsung’s direct competitor, Apple, has fallen short when it came to crypto payments and accessing the decentralized ecosystem. Apple announced on Feb. 8 to improve its “Apple Pay” system along with a “Tap to Pay” crypto payments platform.

A white-hat hacker saved one of the largest crypto exchanges

A white-hat hacker that goes by “Tree of Alpha” found a critical vulnerability on Coinbase’s trading platform. 

The hacker started by asking for emails on Twitter and soon reported to issue to Coinbase developers. Thankfully the vulnerability was swiftly taken care of after disabling trading on its Advanced Trading platform. 

Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO, publicly thanked the hacker in a tweet reading:

“@Tree_of_Alpha you’re awesome – a big thank you for working with our team,” said Armstrong. “…love how the crypto community helps each other out!”

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