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Balancer, a decentralized exchange, is in hot water again. Their website got hacked and the hackers stole $238,000.
According to the team, it was a Domain Name Service (DNS) attack, which involves redirecting the IP address – a number that identifies a computer connected to the internet – a URL resolves to.
The good okay news? There is no compromise on the smart contract and only the users transacting on the website were impacted.
If you've used Balancer's website lately, you might be at risk. Hackers are sneaking away with people's money and stashing it in a mystery account. Right now, they've snagged about $238,000.
Balancer's team is on it. They've even had a $2 million reward in the past for anyone who finds bugs. But for now, maybe steer clear of using their site and wait for the response from the team.
Please do NOT interact with the balancer UI until further notice!
This isn't Balancer's first rodeo with hackers. Just earlier this month, they lost a ton of money, and they've been upping their security game ever since.
Always double-check the website you're using, especially when you’re trading tokens.
Yesterday, we wrote about the success of The Merge.
A reader noted that for the first time since Ethereum switched to proof-of-stake (The Merge), the network's blockspace is on track to post a financial loss.
We're talking about $15.9 million in the red this month!
Blockspace profitability is a big deal—it shows the economic health of a blockchain.
When the Ethereum blockspace isn't making money, it's a red flag that things like user activity and transaction volumes are slumping.
Blockspace is the commodity that powers the heartbeats of all cryptocurrency networks. Blockspace is the closest thing in crypto to “digital real estate”.
In the blockspace market, miners are the producers, mining pools are the auctioneers, and users are the bidders.
Ethereum switched to proof-of-stake in September 2022. Since then, this has been the first major dip in profitability. Until now, it had raked in gains of $414 million in 2023.
While Ethereum's base layer is struggling, some layer-2 networks like Arbitrum and Optimism are holding strong. They're still profitable and have active user bases.
The drop in profitability is linked to drops in stablecoin and NFT transactions. Specifically, trading volumes for popular stablecoins like USDT and USDC are down a staggering 90% from their March 2023 highs.
Blockchain Capital: $580M
Blockchain Capital launches two new funds for a total of $580M
https://www.blockchaincapital.com/
This is a special newsletter. Every week, we deconstruct the best crypto trends and share those insights with you.