Is crypto still worth playing?
Over the past week, every day I’ve seen news about XX protocol being hacked, XX data being leaked, or XX project’s API getting compromised. So many projects were hit this week—it’s never been this relentless before.
♦️Protocol incidents:
- Initia (around 10/23–24): chain halted; attackers minted tokens and drained about $2.6–2.7 million through the bridge
- X100 (10/24): governance seat taken over; about $4.85 million in USDT
- DotSwap V1 (10/25, officially announced on the 27th): about 8.5 BTC, worth $685,000
- Bloom Trading (10/26): about $950,000 drained from users
- Predictfun (officially confirmed on 10/27): about 400,000 USDT (says it will reimburse the full amount)
- Tranche Vault (Avalanche) (10/28): about $1.01 million drained through a flash loan
- Myriad Markets (10/26): admin wallet hacked; at least 10 markets forcibly resolved (the team says the funds have been recovered)
- WAX cross-chain bridge (10/22): ongoing/being confirmed; reported losses are around $75,000
- Electrum (10/24–25): malicious servers replaced transaction history; at least one user signed a real transaction after being prompted to raise the fee (amount undisclosed)
- Zipcoin (10/22): shut down after its code repository was compromised
- Swell (10/22–23): deposits and withdrawals suspended following an Admin/NAV incident
♦️Data leaks:
- Keystone: buyer information and WebAuth verification keys stolen; 18,800 units of inventory need to be voided
- Foundation Passport: over 23,000 phishing attempts; around 5,600 mailing addresses, 5,200 phone numbers, and other data may have been exposed
- Udesk customer service script: SlowMist found that login data could be stolen and deposit addresses changed (plugin supply chain)
- Bithumb: office system hacked; employee information confirmed leaked, while member data is still under investigation
Can we blame AI for all this? If you hadn’t released such powerful tools, how could someone with only limited computing power have found so many vulnerabilities, or broken in so quickly? I know the fault isn’t with the knife, but with the person wielding it—but the knife itself lowers the cost of committing a crime.
That week, humanity finally remembered the fear of being ruled by AI.
AI is such a great thing, and there’s nothing wrong with people using it to make money. But there are all kinds of ways to make money—you can’t keep going about it the wrong way!
Over the past week, every day I’ve seen news about XX protocol being hacked, XX data being leaked, or XX project’s API getting compromised. So many projects were hit this week—it’s never been this relentless before.
♦️Protocol incidents:
- Initia (around 10/23–24): chain halted; attackers minted tokens and drained about $2.6–2.7 million through the bridge
- X100 (10/24): governance seat taken over; about $4.85 million in USDT
- DotSwap V1 (10/25, officially announced on the 27th): about 8.5 BTC, worth $685,000
- Bloom Trading (10/26): about $950,000 drained from users
- Predictfun (officially confirmed on 10/27): about 400,000 USDT (says it will reimburse the full amount)
- Tranche Vault (Avalanche) (10/28): about $1.01 million drained through a flash loan
- Myriad Markets (10/26): admin wallet hacked; at least 10 markets forcibly resolved (the team says the funds have been recovered)
- WAX cross-chain bridge (10/22): ongoing/being confirmed; reported losses are around $75,000
- Electrum (10/24–25): malicious servers replaced transaction history; at least one user signed a real transaction after being prompted to raise the fee (amount undisclosed)
- Zipcoin (10/22): shut down after its code repository was compromised
- Swell (10/22–23): deposits and withdrawals suspended following an Admin/NAV incident
♦️Data leaks:
- Keystone: buyer information and WebAuth verification keys stolen; 18,800 units of inventory need to be voided
- Foundation Passport: over 23,000 phishing attempts; around 5,600 mailing addresses, 5,200 phone numbers, and other data may have been exposed
- Udesk customer service script: SlowMist found that login data could be stolen and deposit addresses changed (plugin supply chain)
- Bithumb: office system hacked; employee information confirmed leaked, while member data is still under investigation
Can we blame AI for all this? If you hadn’t released such powerful tools, how could someone with only limited computing power have found so many vulnerabilities, or broken in so quickly? I know the fault isn’t with the knife, but with the person wielding it—but the knife itself lowers the cost of committing a crime.
That week, humanity finally remembered the fear of being ruled by AI.
AI is such a great thing, and there’s nothing wrong with people using it to make money. But there are all kinds of ways to make money—you can’t keep going about it the wrong way!