16/01/23

2022: The Events That Shaped Web3

Category

Written by

Read time

29 min

The year of 2022 was a year of great highs and new lows for the Web3 industry. We rode into 2022 on the back of 2021’s NFT craze, only for the collapses of major players and a looming global recession to drive the industry’s total market cap from 2.4 trillion down to an all-time-low of roughly 0.8 trillion.

Web3edge’s 0xPhillan ventured through hundreds of news articles across all of 2022 to summarize the key major events that brought together – or pushed apart – the Web3 community in 2022, summarized in one long timeline.

If I missed any key events, message me on Twitter! – 0xPhillan

Each item in the timeline is color-coded by its impact on the Web3 community:

  • Green: positive impact
  • Red: negative impact
  • Gray: neutral impact

Enjoy!

|

JANUARY
January 28, 2022 • HACK/EXPLOIT

Qubit Finance’s Qbridge Protocol hacked for $80m

Hackers stole over $80m from Qubit Finance, a DeFi protocol on Binance Smart Chain. In total, the address linked to the hack stole 206,809 Binance Coin (BNB).

The hacker exploited the QBridge smart contract’s deposit functionality to mint 77,162 qXETH (Ether bridged via Qubit). The protocol was made to believe that the hacker had deposited funds, when in fact they hadn’t.

FEBRUARY
February 03, 2022 • TECH

Dune Analytics raises $69.420m (nice) at a $1bn valuation

Dune Analytics, a platform that enables users to create data charts and dashboards on cryptocurrency metrics, has raised $69.4 million in a Series B funding round led by hedge fund Coatue, valuing the company at $1 billion.

Dune plans to use the funding to build a community of up to one million analysts, expand its team, build an API, and support more blockchains. The platform, which currently has 10,000 analysts and 100,000 pieces of analysis, charges $390 per month per user for its paid data product. Dune’s Series B round brings its total funding to date to $80 million.

February 04, 2022 • HACK/EXPLOIT

Wormhole Bridge haacked for over $320m through smart contract exploit

The Wormhole bridge, a token bridge between networks, experienced a security breach resulting in the loss of 120,000 Wrapped Ether (wETH) tokens (~$325 million).

The exploit was due to Wormhole’s failure to validate “guardian” accounts, which resulted in the hacker minting 120,000 wETH with no ETH backing it on the Solana side of the bridge. The bridge’s Ether supply was later replenished by Jump Crypto ensuring wETH was backed 1:1, making users whole again.

February 08, 2022 • OTHER

AssangeDAO raise

The AssangeDAO, a DAO that raises funds for the defense of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, raised over 17,442 ETH (~$56 million) since launch on February 3, surpassing the previous record of 11,613 ETH (~$45 million) raised by the ConstitutionDAO.

Funds raised by the AssangeDAO will be used to purchase an NFT produced by digital artist Pak in collaboration with Julian Assange, with proceeds going to Assange’s defense fund to cover legal fees and a publicity campaign.

February 08, 2022 • HACK/EXPLOIT

Bitfinex Hackers arrested

The US Department of Justice seized $3.6bn in bitcoin in the largest financial seizure in its history. The funds were stolen in a major hack of cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex in 2016, when 119,754 bitcoin – then worth $72m – were transferred from users’ accounts into a single wallet. The bitcoin appreciated in value over time to a value of $3.6bn.

When small amounts began to be transferred to exchanges on the dark web in 2017, investigators began to trace transactions to people in the real world. In June 2021 a married couple from New York, were arrested and charged with money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the US.

February 14, 2022 • OTHER

Coinbase Superbowl ad so popular the app crashed

Coinbase’s 60-second Superbowl ad which consisted almost entirely of a colorful bouncing QR code was so popular, that it crashed the Coinbase app. When scanned, the QR code brought users to a promotional website, offering a limited time promotion for new users.

Sources: theverge.com

February 16, 2022 • OTHER

Binance Smart Chain (BSC) renames to BNB Chain

In a move that appears to confuse users well into the end of 2022, Binance decides to rename Binance Smart Chain (BSC) to BNB (“Build and Build”) Chain. Binance also has an asset “BNB” (Binance Coin) which is the gas token that fuels transactions on BNB Chain.

BNB Chain is comprised of:
– BNB Beacon Chain (previously Binance Chain) – BNB Chain Governance (Staking, voting)
– BNB Smart Chain (BSC) (Previously Binance Smart Chain) – EVM compatible, consensus layers, and with hubs to multi-chains.

February 20, 2022 • HACK/EXPLOIT

Opensea smart contract exploit

Attackers stole hundreds of NFTs from users on OpenSea through a phishing scam, with an estimated loss valued at over $1.7 million. The attack exploited a weakness in the Wyvern Protocol, the standard underlying Opensea’s NFT smart contracts.

Victims of the attack signed a partial contract with a general authorization and large portions left blank. The attackers then completed the contract with a call to their own contract in which they transferred ownership of the NFTs without payment.

MARCH
March 15, 2022 • TECH

Stargate (Layer0) launch

LayerZero is a new protocol for cross-chain messaging that aims to offer the security of on-chain light nodes with the cost-effectiveness of middle chains. This is achieved through the use of ultra light nodes (ULN), which perform the same validation as on-chain light nodes but use decentralized oracles to stream block headers on demand. The protocol also has a user application (UA) configurable on-chain endpoint, which is made up of two parties: the Oracle and the Relayer.

While cross-chain messaging isn’t a new concept, the way that LayerZero implements it and the flexibility of the protocol led to a surge in interest in the project throughout the crypto industry. The protocol aims to offer a range of use cases, including state sharing, bridging, lending and borrowing, swaps, governance, and more.

March 15, 2022 • REGULATION

EU parliament votes against PoW ban

March 16, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Metamask surpasses 30 million users

March 18, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

TIME releases first NFT-based issue of TIME magazine featuring Vitalik Buterin

Sources: time.com

March 21, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

TIME magazine to accept Apecoin for digital subscription

Sources: twitter.com

March 23, 2022 • REGULATION

Thailand bans crypto as means of payment

March 25, 2022 • REGULATION

Kenya’s Central Bank reiterates stance opposing crypto

March 27, 2022 • HACK/EXPLOIT

MetaMask discovers vulnerability in Chrome wallet, users urged to update ASAP to avoid crypto losses

Users of MetaMask were in for a scare when the MetaMask team announced they had found a vulnerability in Chrome that affects the Metamask Chrome plugin. Users were advised to update to the latest version of Chrome ASAP to avoid potential losses of funds.

While there were no reports of losses from this vulnerability, the news quickly spread to every corner of Web3.

March 28, 2022 • OTHER

Russia-Ukraine war & $100m donated

War is awful. While war brings out the worst in people, it also brings out the best in others.

Thanks to Web3 technologies, people affected by the war have been able to protect their wealth and receive financial aid through donations from people across the globe. Not only have the number of Bitcoin addresses holding non-insignificant amounts of bitcoin risen dramatically since the war broke out, Uniswap set up a dedicated donation page for the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian government auctioned an NFT to raise funds.

March 28, 2022 • REGULATION

Ghana CBDC Development: New Central Bank Document Outlines Key Motivations for Issuing the Digital Currency

March 29, 2022 • HACK/EXPLOIT

Axie Infinity Sidechain “Ronin Network” Hacked For $625m

The Ronin Network suffered a major crypto hack, with losses estimated at more than $625m in USDC and ether.

The gaming-focused network was hacked through a “backdoor” in its gas-free RPC node. The attacker was able to forge fake withdrawals and then transfer 173,600 ether and 25.5 million USDC to a fresh Ethereum address.

Sources: coindesk.com

March 29, 2022 • OTHER

Disappearing NFTs (metadata removal)

In early 2022, riding off the NFT craze from late 2021, users on NFT marketplaces noticed the content of their NFTs disappearing – or in some cases, their NFTs disappearing entirely.

After a large wave of confusion swept through Web3 newbie circles, they were eventually educated on how NFTs work. The NFT, a container which houses a reference to an artwork, lives on the blockchain. The artwork that is referenced, however, does not. This led to references that were stored on centralized servers to be deleted off the internet. In other cases, when artwork violated the terms of service of a marketplace, the marketplace ommitted the NFT from showing up in the users’ profiles.

Sources: vice.com

APRIL
April 01, 2022 • NFT

AZUKI Airdrops “Something Special” to holders, turns out to be new “BEANZ” collection

April 09, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Robinhood launches Web3 wallet

April 19, 2022 • HACK/EXPLOIT

Beanstalk Farms

The Beanstalk stablecoin protocol suffered a hack with $182 million losses across ETH, the BEAN stablecoin, and other assets being taken by a hacker. The hacker used a flash loan, which allows for the borrowing and repaying of an asset within a single complex transaction.

Beanstalk Farms, the team behind the Beanstalk protocol, has asked the DeFi community and centralized exchanges to help limit the hacker’s ability to withdraw funds.

April 30, 2022 • HACK/EXPLOIT

FEI Protocol Attack

On April 30, 2022, the Fei Protocol experienced a hack that resulted in the loss of approximately $80 million in Ethereum and other assets. The hacker exploited a reentrancy security loophole in the Rari Fuse pools, which allowed them to borrow assets and withdraw all the deposited collateral.

The attack occurred through a series of complex transactions involving multiple protocols, including flash loans, decentralized exchanges and custom smart contracts.

April 30, 2022 • NFT

Otherdeed for Otherside Causes Massive Gas Fees on Ethereum

The sale of Otherdeed non-fungible tokens (NFTs) caused Ethereum gas prices to rise to unprecedented levels.

Data from @Hildobby’s Ethereum Gas Dashboard Dune Analytics

Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs launched the sale of Otherdeed NFTs, representing digital land deeds on their new venture, the Otherside metaverse. 55,000 NFTs sold out almost instantly, with Yuga Labs raking in $319m in NFT sales revenue. The minting of the NFTs required ETH for gas fees, leading to numerous users paying between $6,500 and $14,000 in gas fees due to the networks dynamic scaling of gas prices in relation to network congestion.

April 30, 2022 • TECH

Major Solana Outage Plagues the Network

Solana, a smart contract platform launched in 2020, has experienced a number of network outages. According to co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, outages were the result of both congestion and spam events.

The blockchain network, which produces blocks every 400 milliseconds, has since experienced many more outages, bringing into question Solana’s security model.

MAY
May 06, 2022 • TECH

HOP Protocol Airdrop

Hop DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization that will govern the ongoing growth and direction of Hop Protocol, a cross-chain bridge solution for decentralized networks.

Data from @Hildobby’s HOP Airdrop Dashboard on Dune Analytics The initial supply of 1 billion HOP tokens, was distributed through an airdrop to early network participants, liquidity providers, bonders, Discord and Twitter users, external Hop contributors, and past Authereum users.
Data from HOP Airdrop Announcement on Mirror.xyz

May 09, 2022 • COLLAPSE

The Collapse of Terra/LUNA and UST, and Do Kwon on the Run

The Terra network and its stablecoin, terraUSD (UST), experienced a rapid rise in popularity and value, with Terra’s market cap exceeding $40 billion at its peak. UST, which is a stablecoin, is meant to be pegged to the value of the US dollar, meaning that one UST is equivalent to one US dollar. However, in May 2022, UST depegged and the value of UST fell to 35 cents on May 9. The value of the LUNA companion token fell from $80 to a few cents by May 12.

The downfall of Terra was attributed to a number of factors, including concerns over UST’s ability to maintain its $1 peg, the use of non-transparent methods to support the peg, and questionable actions by Terra’s founder, Do Kwon. The collapse of Terra resulted in significant losses for investors, a global manhunt for Terra founder Do Kwon and increased regulatory scrutiny for the entire Web3 space.

The LUNA token would later be renamed to LUNC (LUNA Classic), while the name LUNA would be given to the new Luna 2.0 token that was built to ensure continuity of the Luna ecosystem without Do Kwon’s involvement. The launch of Luna 2.0 also led to controversy as the token lost 70% of its value and the UST stablecoin was depegged.

May 12, 2022 • REGULATION

Bitcoin recognized as legal virtual property in Shanghai

Sources: watcher.guru

May 20, 2022 • NFT

Goblintown NFT Launch

The Goblintown NFT collection is arguably characterized by its unattractive art style, irreverent nature and lack of utility. Nonetheless, when Goblintown launched in May 2022 it quickly sold out, with the floor price rapidly climbing to over $2,500.

Sources: nftnow.com

May 23, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

eBay launches NFT collection

May 24, 2022 • TECH

Uniswap’s cumulative trading volume surpasses $1tn

Uniswap’s cumulative trading volume breaks past US$1 trillion in only 3 years of operation.

Sources: twitter.com

May 30, 2022 • HACK/EXPLOIT

Hacker cashes in $800k in Luna 2.0 Oracle Exploit

A bug on Anchor Protocol’s lending and borrowing platform allowed some users to profit significantly from the launch of Luna 2.0.

The bug caused the price oracle of LUNC (Luna Classic) to go to $5 despite the actual value being significantly lower. One user was able to deposit around $100 million worth of Lido Bonded Luna tokens, which were only worth around $200,000, and withdraw a loan of 40 million UST for a profit of $800,000.

Sources: coinlive.me

May 31, 2022 • TECH

Optimism (OP) token launches, followed by airdrop

Optimism launched the OP token, a governance token for the Optimism Layer2 network. The airdrop rewards early adopters and active users of projects in the Optimism ecosystem, and also welcomes active users of the Ethereum network who can help scale Ethereum’s innovations, culture, and values to Optimism’s Layer 2 network.

May 31, 2022 • REGULATION

Singapore Partners with Institutions to start Digital Assets Pilot

JUNE
June 01, 2022 • REGULATION

South Korea to Launch ‘Digital Assets Committee’ to Oversee Crypto Exchanges

June 02, 2022 • REGULATION

Number of Addresses Holding Coins Above 1 BTC Reached an ATH

Glassnode reports that addresses holding 1 BTC have reached an all-time-high on June 2nd. Shortly thereafter on June 6th, the number of addresses holding 0.1 BTC also reached an all-time-high. The figures from Glassnode show that BTC addresses continue to grow steadily throughout the year, indicating increased adoption of Bitcoin.

Data from Glassnode Studio BTC Addresses Chart

June 03, 2022 • REGULATION

Japan Passes Stablecoin Bill That Enshrines Investor Protection

Sources: bloomberg.com

June 07, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

PayPal Lets Users Transfer Cryptocurrencies to External Wallets

Sources: theblock.co

June 08, 2022 • HACK/EXPLOIT

Elrond network hacked for $113m, network reset with fix

An hacker attacked the EGLD-ESDT swap contract, which controls the creation and exchange of Wrapped EGLD (WEGLD) for EGLD tokens. The attacker deployed a malicious smart contracts on the network. Using the contracts, the attacker transferred 1.65 million EGLD worth roughly $113m. The attacker managed to sell roughly 800k EGLD, which was sold on centralized exchanges and bridged to ETH and USDC. While figures differ between sources, the total losses are reported to be anywhere between $10m and $54m.

The attack caused the Maiar Exchange to be halted by the team, and later the Elrond network was reset with fixes put in place by the Elrond team.

June 08, 2022 • NFT

Yuga Labs Has Destroyed Private Key with Unlimited Minting BAYC Permissions

After pseudonomyous dev “foobar” revealed that a single private key had the authority to mint an unlimited number of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs, essentially reisking the market to be flooded with BAYC NFTs and crashing the price, Yuga Labs announced that they have burned the contract owner. There will not only ever be 10,000 BAYC NFTs.

June 09, 2022 • REGULATION

Japan’s Government Approves New Policy to Increase Crypto Adoption

June 10, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Bloomberg Terminal Has Increased Its Coverage to 50 Crypto Assets

June 10, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Mastercard Brings Its Payments Network to Web3 and NFTs

June 10, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Fidelity Investments CEO Reaffirms Crypto Commitment

Sources: coindesk.com

June 10, 2022 • NFT

Founder of NFT Project mfers Announces Retirement and Transfers the Smart Contract to the Community

Sartoshi, the pseudonymous founder of the mfers NFT collection announced his retirement from the project, passing the reigns on to the community. The NFT project is categorized by simple stick-figure artwork reminiscent of early 2000s MS Paint artwork.

The mfers NFT project led to many spin-off projects, including Azuki mfers amongst others.

Sources: mirror.xyz

June 12, 2022 • COLLAPSE

Crypto lender Celsius files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Crypto lender Celsius Network filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after pausing customer accounts due to “extreme market conditions” in June, with the price of their token dropping to US$0.12 shortly thereafter, coming from a 2022 all-time-high of 1.85 in January.

The company had $1.2bn in debt, with $4.7bn in customer holdings among its $5.5bn in liabilities. The majority of Celsius’ liabilities represent customer holdings, and the company had only $167m in cash left to support “certain operations” during its restructuring process.

The bankruptcy follows those of Voyager and BlockFi, which both suffered losses after lending to crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, which defaulted on its loans.

June 13, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Boxing Superstar Manny Pacquiao Will Launch Pacman NFT Collection

Sources: forkast.news

June 14, 2022 • REGULATION

El Salvador Finance Minister: Bitcoin Crash Poses Extremely Minimal Fiscal Risk

June 16, 2022 • COLLAPSE

Voyager Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

Voyager Digital, a New Jersey-based cryptocurrency brokerage, filed for bankruptcy in New York in July 2022 after defaulting on unsecured loans to Three Arrows Capital, a Singapore-based hedge fund that went insolvent earlier in the year.

Voyager CEO Steve Ehrlich said in bankruptcy papers that the company’s financial woes began with the collapse of the Terra blockchain ecosystem in May 2022 and the resulting contagion. Voyager was also reportedly underwater on positions in Lido staked ether and the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. Voyager had lent Three Arrows $650 million, which was “one of the largest unsecured loans in the history of the digital asset industry,” according to Ehrlich.

June 16, 2022 • REGULATION

Kazakhstan to let crypto exchanges open bank accounts

June 16, 2022 • REGULATION

Bank of Kyrgyzstan Issues Warning About Cryptocurrencies and Crypto Payments

June 20, 2022 • REGULATION

Iran cuts off energy to authorized miners

June 24, 2022 • HACK/EXPLOIT

Horizon Bridge exploit causes $100m in losses

The Horizon Bridge, which connects the Harmony layer-1 blockchain to the Ethereum network, Binance Chain, and Bitcoin, was exploited for around $100 million in altcoins.

The attack was made possible by the bridge’s multisig wallet on Ethereum, which only required two out of four signees to drain the funds. The attack resulted in the theft of various tokens and eventually the Horizon Bridge was halted to prevent further losses.

Sources: medium.com

June 30, 2022 • TECH

Circle launches EUROC, a fully-reserved stablescoin pegged to the EURO.

EUROC, the Euro equivalent of USDC, is a fully collateralized stablecoin pegged to the value of the Euro launched on the Ethereum network. EUROC uses the same exchange model as USDC, meaning it is always redeemable 1:1 to its pegged currency.

Sources: twitter.com

JULY
July 01, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Casual Brand TOMMY HILFIGER Has Filed Trademark Applications Related to NFT

July 01, 2022 • REGULATION

Crypto Traceability and Market Rules Agreed by EU Lawmakers

July 01, 2022 • REGULATION

EU Agrees on Landmark Crypto Authorization Law, MiCA

Sources: coindesk.com

July 02, 2022 • COLLAPSE

Crypto Hedge Fund Three Arrows Files For Chapter 15 Bankruptcy

Crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) has filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy. Chapter 15 bankruptcy filings stop creditors from seizing a company’s assets in the US, essentially protecting the firs US assets while a liquidation is carried out in the British Virgin Islands.

The hedge fund collapsed after suffering significant losses from the failure of LUNA and Terra, which it had a large position in. The founders of 3AC, Zhu Su and Kyle Davies, defaulted on loans and are now facing legal proceedings. The company owes over $3bn, with its largest creditor being Genesis with a $2.3bn loan. 3AC’s default on debts also contributed to the insolvency of Celsius Network and Voyager Digital.

July 04, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Visa Launches Black Card bitcoinblack in the UAE

July 04, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

ENS Domain Name 24 Hours Trading Volume Up 281.02%

July 05, 2022 • REGULATION

Bank of England Committee Calls for Enhanced Crypto Regulation

Sources: coindesk.com

July 05, 2022 • REGULATION

Brazil Creates Crypto-Dedicated Investigation Unit

July 07, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Reddit is launching a new NFT avatar marketplace

July 11, 2022 • NFT

GameStop NFT Launch

GameStop, a troubled US brick-and-morter video game retailer, announced the launch of their NFT marketplace aptly named “GameStop NFT”.

After the first month of operation, the platform recorded over $22m in trading volume.

July 11, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Brazilian Users Can Now Pay Bills with Bitcoin from Within the PicPay App

July 15, 2022 • REGULATION

The Financial Planning Association of Australia Supports Crypto Rule Book and Regulation of Exchanges

July 26, 2022 • REGULATION

Central African Republic Begins Public Sale of Sango Coin

Sources: theblock.co

July 27, 2022 • REGULATION

Chainalysis Is Spinning Up Government Solutions for Agencies

AUGUST
August 01, 2022 • HACK/EXPLOIT

Nomad Bridge hack and “decentralized crowd looting” leads to $190m of assets removed from bridge

Cryptocurrency bridge, Nomad, has suffered a hack that resulted in almost $200m of its funds being drained. The hack was a result of a misconfiguration of the project’s main smart contract that enabled anyone with basic knowledge of the code to authorize withdrawals to themselves. As a result, people who saw funds being stolen using this method were able to substitute their own addresses and replicate the attack.

This incident described as “the first decentralized crowd-looting of a 9-figure bridge in history”. Given the repicability of the hack, many whitehat hackers pre-emptively withdrew funds from the platform to prevent malicious actors from seizing the funds and signalled their intent to return the funds on-chain. Roughly $9m of the $190m drained have been returned to Nomad.

August 05, 2022 • OTHER

Solana Sybil Attack Artificially Inflates TVL

Two brothers, Ian and Dylan Macalinao, have been accused of engaging in a Sybil attack on the Solana blockchain. The attack involves creating multiple fake accounts or nodes to manipulate a system and is alleged to have been used to inflate the Total Value Locked (TVL) on Solana. The brothers are said to have used various anonymous identities to build a network of protocols that would utilise double-counted assets to boost the TVL of the Solana ecosystem artificially. Ian Macalinao is alleged to have written a blog post in March in which he described how he aimed to “maximize Solana’s TVL” by building protocols that stacked on top of one another.

August 08, 2022 • REGULATION

Crypto Mixer Tornado Cash Sanctioned by US Government

On August 8, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) designated the cryptocurrency mixer, Tornado Cash, as a sanctioned entity. OFAC alleges that North Korea, specifically the North Korean hacker group “Lazerus”, has used the privacy tool to launder over $100 million worth of cryptocurrency in order to support the government’s weapons of mass destruction program.

The OFAC designation led to the removal of Tornado Cash’s website, Github account, and IPFS gateway, as well as Circle’s blacklisting of seven addresses associated with Tornado Cash. OFAC’s action prompted a range of DeFi protocols to block transactions with addresses associated with Tornado Cash, even if those addresses had not directly transacted with the sanctioned addresses.

The action also raised questions about the decentralization of Web3 and the vulnerability of its infrastructure to centralized points of failure. Some in the cryptocurrency community have questioned OFAC’s designation of Tornado Cash as an entity, arguing that it is simply a tool and not an organization.

August 08, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Coca-Cola Launches International Friendship Day NFT on Polygon

August 16, 2022 • TECH

Starkware Launches Recursive Proofs to Boost Layer 2 Scaling

Starkware has launched recursive proving, a new technology for its starkEx and Starknet scaling solutions that aims to increase the speed and reduce transaction fees by improving scalability. Recursive proofs are a new concept in the race to scale blockchains through rollups, which execute transactions separately from the Ethereum network, but post transaction data to the network. Rollups aim to increase scalability by solving the problem of data availability, which is one of the largest scalability bottlenecks.

Recursive proving allows Starkware to take hundreds of single proofs, each attesting to thousands of transactions, and roll them into another single proof. This is the fourth major milestone for Starkware’s scaling efforts, following STARK scaling, Cairo, and SHARP.

Sources: theblock.co

August 18, 2022 • REGULATION

South African Reserve Bank Encourages Friendly Behavior with Crypto

August 19, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Grease Monkey Games Has Received Financial Support from Epic Games to Develop a New Blockchain Motorsport Game

August 19, 2022 • REGULATION

The Central Bank of the Philippines: Don’t Engage with Unregistered Virtual Asset Service Providers

August 22, 2022 • COLLAPSE

Hodlnaut Reports $193 Million Financial Shortfall as It Seeks Court Protection

Singapore-based cryptocurrency lender Hodlnaut has suffered a financial shortfall of nearly $200m and is facing police proceedings in Singapore. The company filed for creditor protection on 16 August, seeking time to resolve its financial issues. In an affidavit filed on 12 August and obtained by The Block, Hodlnaut said it had an outstanding liability of SGD 391m ($281m) compared with assets of SGD 122m ($88m). The company, which had managed $750m at its peak in March, is exploring the option of allowing “limited exits” at 25 cents on the dollar

Sources: theblock.co

August 22, 2022 • REGULATION

Australian Treasurer: Government Will Improve the Way System Manages Crypto Assets

August 25, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Reddit Starts Airdrop of Polygon-Based “Collectible Avatars”

Sources: coindesk.com

August 25, 2022 • TECH

Nvidia CFO: Falling Crypto Prices and Changes in Consensus Mechanisms Impacted Demand for Its Products

Nvidia has reported Q2 financial results for the three months ending July 31, which showed a 19% drop in revenue to $6.5bn and a 59% drop in net income to $656m. The company’s gaming division saw a 44% drop in revenue from the previous quarter to $2.04bn, which Nvidia attributed to “challenging market conditions”. Nvidea GPUs were popular for use in Ethereum mining rigs.

Nvidia’s CFO, Colette Kress, said the company has “limited visibility” on how the crypto market affects demand for its gaming products, adding that “volatility in the cryptocurrency market” has in the past impacted demand and the company’s ability to accurately estimate it. The Ethereum Merge is expected to further drive down demand for GPUs and crypto mining hardware.

August 26, 2022 • REGULATION

Over 20 Crypto-Related Businesses Shut Down in Herat, Afghanistan

Sources: bloomberg.com

August 30, 2022 • OTHER

Founder of Turkish Crypto Exchange Thodex Arrested in Albania

Faruk Fatih Özer, the founder of Turkish crypto exchange Thodex, has been arrested in Albania. Faruk Fatih Özer disappeared in 2021, taking with him funds from 400,000 users (about $2.7 billion). Albanian Interior Minister Bledar Çuçi revealed that the process of Özer’s extradition has already begun.

SEPTEMBER
September 05, 2022 • REGULATION

Iran Starts Licensing Crypto Miners Under New Regulatory Framework

September 06, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Sony Music Files NFT and Metaverse Trademark Applications for Columbia Records Logo

September 07, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

KPMG Report: The Crypto Market is Maturing

Sources: theblock.co

September 08, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Switzerland’s SEBA Bank Launches Institutional Ethereum Staking

Sources: decrypt.co

September 15, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Fortnite Creator’s Epic Games Store Launches First NFT Game

Sources: decrypt.co

September 15, 2022 • TECH

The Ethereum Merge is Successful, Ethereum is now PoS

In “The Merge” the original proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism for the Ethereum mainnet was replaced with a proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism using the Beacon Chain.

While forks are not out of the ordinary, the Merge was special in that such a seismic shift in consensus was achieved without affecting Ethereum users or holders and no action was required on the part of users or holders to upgrade their wallets or funds in light of The Merge.

As a result of the merge, the Ethereum network’s hashrate is now 0 and energy consumption of the network is estimated to have reduced by 99.95%.

September 16, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

HSBC’s CEO: HSBC Will Not Be Offering Crypto Services

September 20, 2022 • HACK/EXPLOIT

Wintermute hacked for $160m

Cryptocurrency market maker Wintermute has lost $160 million in a hack of its decentralized finance (DeFi) operation.

The hack was the result of a compromised Ethereum vanity address owned by Wintermute. The attacker used the smart contract admin privileges of the address to move out funds from Wintermute’s DeFi operations.

September 21, 2022 • REGULATION

US Treasury Official Says Crypto Mixers Are Concern in Enforcing Sanctions

September 22, 2022 • TECH

ETHW, the proof-of-work hardfork of Ethereum, launches alongside The Merge

“The Merge” marked Ethereum’s shift from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS). However, with the shift in conesnsus mechanisms, a large community of Ethereum miners were left behind with now (mostly) useless mining hardware. Chandler Guo believes that there is still value in an Ethereum network secured by proof-of-work, and hard-forked the network creating Ethereum PoW (ETHW).

The challenge in forking Ethereum comes from the dApp layer built on Ethereum, and the various providers that support the ecosystem: a token such as USDC could exist, technologically speaking, on the new chain, however there would not be any collateral backing the token. These are one of many challenges faced by the network, but only time will tell if there is truly a need for a proof-of-work Ethereum.

September 28, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Christie’s Launches NFT Marketplace Christie’s 3.0

Sources: nftnow.com

September 30, 2022 • REGULATION

Chief Fintech Officer at Monetary Authority of Singapore: Resolute Crackdown on Crypto Speculation

Sources: bloomberg.com

OCTOBER
October 01, 2022 • OTHER

Elon Must Takes Over Twitter

Sources: nbcnews.com

October 07, 2022 • REGULATION

Namibia’s Central Bank: Bitcoin Can Be Accepted as Payment

October 07, 2022 • HACK/EXPLOIT

Binance Suffers $100m Blockchain Bridge hack

Hackers stole at least $110m in cryptocurrency from Binance, the world’s largest exchange, by exploiting a vulnerability in the BSC Token Hub cross-chain bridge. The vulnerability enabled the attackers to forge messages, minting new BNB tokens, but the majority of the 2 million BNB stolen, worth around $430m, could not be transferred following the suspension of BNB Chain. Hackers were only able to bridge out about $110m.

October 11, 2022 • HACK/EXPLOIT

Mango Markets Loses $116m in Market Manipulation Attack

An attacker stole $116 million worth of tokens from the Solana-based DeFi platform Mango Markets. The attacker took advantage of limited market liquidity to artificially inflate the price of Mango Markets’ native token, MNGO, by purchasing large quantities of perpetual contracts and using new investors as exit liquidity to cash out. The hacker then used the increased value of their MNGO holdings to acquire a loan for $116 million using various tokens on the platform, including Bitcoin, Solana, and Serum. This drained all of the liquidity from Mango Markets and caused the price of MNGO to drop significantly. The development team for Mango Markets halted deposits and initiated an investigation into the incident.

On December 27th, 2022, the attacker is eventually apprehended in Puerto Rico and charged with commidities fraud and commodities manipulation.

October 18, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Walmart CTO: Crypto Will Play Very Important Role in Payments Disruption

Sources: decrypt.co

October 18, 2022 • TECH

Optimism Introduces Modular Components OP Stack

The Optimism Collective has developed the OP Stack, an open-source blueprint for highly scalable and interoperable blockchains, which they believe will form an emergent structure called the Superchain, which will power the collective. The aim is to make it easy to build your own blockchain, and the Optimism Collective believes that the future will arise in the form of a group of highly integrated chains, rather than a multi-chain or mono-chain system. The OP Stack is designed to be simple and modular, with the goal of becoming an open source standard across the Ethereum ecosystem.

October 18, 2022 • TECH

Aptos Launches Mainnet, Closes Comments on Aptos’s Discord and Telegram Channels

Layer-1 blockchain Aptos launched its mainnet, with claims it can process 160,000 transactions per second (TPS). However, some community members report the mainnet fell short of the TPS expectations, with Aptos’ blockchain explorer showing around 4 TPS at launch. Users have also reported difficulty in sending transactions, while others have accused the Aptos team of closing its Discord and Telegram channels to prevent discussion of launch issues. Despite the reported issues, Aptos said the network is “performing as expected” and that comments on its Discord and Telegram channels were closed to “protect the community from scams”.

Along with the launch, Aptos airdropped roughly 20 Million $APT tokens to 110,235 early network participants

October 20, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Warner Bros Releases Ethereum-Compatible ‘Lord of the Rings’ NFTs

Sources: decrypt.co

October 27, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Google Introduces Cloud-Based Blockchain Node Service for Ethereum

Sources: coindesk.com

October 27, 2022 • REGULATION

National Bank of Kazakhstan to Integrate CBDC on BNB Chain, Says CZ

Sources: twitter.com

October 27, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Blockchain.com Partners with Visa to Offer Crypto Debit Card

October 28, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Gucci Creates Metaverse Hub Gucci Vault Land in The Sandbox

Sources: nftgators.com

October 30, 2022 • REGULATION

Vitalik Buterin Shares Thoughts on Regulatory Policy Goals

Sources: twitter.com

October 31, 2022 • REGULATION

Hong Kong Government Issues Policy Statement on Development of Virtual Assets

October 31, 2022 • OTHER

Elon Musk Asks to Introduce Paid Verification on Twitter to Solve Bots Account Problem

Twitter is the primary news source for everything related to Web3, which is why it is lovingly referred to as “Crypto Twitter” or “CT”. The news of paid verification was quickly picked up by Crypto Twitter with mixed reactions.

Sources: theverge.com

NOVEMBER
November 03, 2022 • REGULATION

India introduces crypto capital gains tax

November 03, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Meta to Support Minting and Selling Polygon NFTs on Instagram

November 05, 2022 • TECH

Vitalik Buterin Releases Updated Ethereum Roadmap

Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has announced a new roadmap for the Ethereum network with the aim of increasing decentralization and trust in the network. Following the successful Merge, there are now five further phases remaining in the network’s roadmap:

1. The Surge: focuses on improving scalability and decentralization.
2. The Scourge: aims to improve Ethereum’s security through the implementation of new technologies.
3. The Verge: focuses on improving the usability and adoption of Ethereum.
4. The Purge: improves the sustainability of Ethereum by reducing its environmental impact.
5. The Splurge: enabling new capabilities and innovations on the Ethereum platform.

November 07, 2022 • REGULATION

EU Commission Set to Propose Legislation for Digital Euro

Sources: theblock.co

November 09, 2022 • COLLAPSE

CZ: Binance Topped up the SAFU Insurance Fund to $1 billion USD Equivalent Again

Binance has increased its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) to $1 billion worth of various cryptocurrencies, according to a tweet from Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.

Binance SAFU (Secure Asset Fund for Users) is a cryptocurrency emergency insurance fund established by Binance. The fund is designed to provide financial protection to Binance users in the event of a hack or other security breach that results in the loss of user funds. In the event that a security breach results in the loss of user funds, the SAFU will be used to compensate affected users. The fund includes Binance’s ecosystem token BNB and stablecoin BUSD, as well as bitcoin.

The move to top up the fund comes amid speculation about liquidity issues at rival exchange FTX, which later filed for bankrupcty on November 11th, 2022.

November 11, 2022 • COLLAPSE

Centralized Exchange FTX Collapses and files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, Sam Bankman-Fried flees to the Bahamas

FTX, a major cryptocurrency exchange, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on November 11, 2022, following a lack of liquidity and gross mismanagement of funds.

The CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, who resigned amidst bankrupcty proceedings, was arrested on December 12 in the Bahamas and faces eight criminal charges including wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accuses Bankman-Fried of using customer funds as a “personal piggy bank” for private investments, including real estate and political campaign donations. The value of FTX’s native token, FTT, plummeted, leading to declines in other cryptocurrencies and affecting other exchanges such as BlockFi, which also filed for bankruptcy.

This is still a developing story, with contagion spreading far and wide across the industry.

November 15, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Nike to Launch Web3 Platform .Swoosh

November 15, 2022 • COLLAPSE

Blockfi bankruptcy

BlockFi, a cryptocurrency lender, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New Jersey due to “crypto market volatility” and a broader market downturn, as well as losing $80m when crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital collapsed and a $50m fine from the Securities and Exchange Commission. California’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation has also temporarily suspended BlockFi’s license to make and broker loans for 30 days. BlockFi had significant exposure to FTX, which filed for bankruptcy two weeks ago, and was also hurt when another crypto lending platform, Celsius, filed for bankruptcy in June.

November 21, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

J.P. Morgan Chase’s Crypto Wallet Trademark Submission Approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

November 22, 2022 • COLLAPSE

Genesis’s Fundraising Target Reduced from $1 Billion to $500 Million

Cryptocurrency brokerage firm Genesis struggles to raise $1 billion and may have to file for bankruptcy if it cannot do so. To avoid bankrupcty, Genesis proactively calls in a restructuring expert.

Genesis has faced a liquidity crunch since FTX’s bankruptcy filing and has been trying to raise at least $1 billion, including from Binance. The lending business of Genesis Trading, Genesis Global Capital, temporarily suspended redemptions and new loan originations in the wake of FTX’s collapse and the earlier Three Arrows Capital implosion. Parent company Digital Currency Group gave Genesis Trading a $140 million equity infusion after it said its derivatives business had $175 million locked up on the FTX platform.

November 22, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Game Maker Rockstar Games Bans NFTs on Third-Party Servers

Sources: theblock.co

November 25, 2022 • TECH

StarkWare Open Sources Cairo 1.0, StarkNet to Support Cairo 1.0 in Q1 2023

StarkWare announced that its programming language Cairo 1.0 is open source, which is the first step towards open-sourcing the StarkNet stack.

November 25, 2022 • TECH

Ethereum Core Developers Signal Support for ‘Proto-Danksharding’

Ethereum developers are planning to implement EIP-4844, a scaling proposal known as “proto-danksharding,” in a future mainnet upgrade. This feature, which will introduce a new type of transaction called “shard blob transactions” to the Ethereum network, aims to improve scalability and allow for off-chain data to be temporarily stored and accessed by Ethereum nodes. It is expected to be deployed on the mainnet in the coming year and could potentially be rolled out with or after the Shanghai upgrade. EIP-4844 is intended to make Ethereum even cheaper when used in conjunction with Layer 2 solutions like Optimism and Arbitrum, which can already reduce transaction costs by up to ten times compared to the Ethereum base layer.

Sources: theblock.co

November 28, 2022 • MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Japanese Social Giant LINE’s Crypto Exchange Bitfront to Close

DECEMBER
December 01, 2022 • TECH

Proof-of-Reserves Becomes Hot Topic Following FTX Collapse

Centralized exchanges (CEXs) are known for being intransparent in regards to their customer holdings as well as information regarding their solvency. Some believe that further transparency could have prevented the FTX collapse earlier in the year. Following the collapse of FTX, proof of reserves (PoR) has become a popular area of discussion as a means to improve transparency by verifying asset backing.

Proof of reserves (PoR) is a method of verifying that a trading platform or crypto firm has 1:1 backing across the digital assets it holds in custody on behalf of its customers. A third-party organization may be enlisted to conduct the attestation, which is published to help investors understand the financial state of the firm and whether it has sufficient funds to cover customer deposits. PoR protocols using a Merkle Tree proof can verify the validity of user balances and transactions through cryptographic proofs, and may be published on a regular basis or provided in real-time, without revealing sensitive customer information.

December 16, 2022 • NFT

Former President Trump releases Trump Digital Trading Cards NFT Collection

Former President Donald Trump has released a collection of 45,000 fantasy NFTs called “Trump Digital Trading Cards,” which feature images of him in various costumes. The tokens, which are minted on Polygon, cost $99 and can be purchased with ether (ETH) or in fiat currency. Customers who purchased one of the digital trading cards were entered into a “sweepstakes” to receive experiences with Trump, including a zoom call, a dinner in Miami or a cocktail hour at Mar-a-Lago.


Subscribe to the Web3edge newsletter and never miss new content!


SHARE THIS PIECE

Related content