2024-03-29 06:40

The malware has already impacted hundreds of thousands of players and the numbers are still growing, as per malware market informer @vxunderground. A mysterious group of cybercriminals has released an infostealer targeting gamers who cheat in video games, stealing their bitcoin holdings and impacting hundreds of thousands of players. Game developer Activision Blizzard is working with cheat providers to help the affected players. Video game cheaters may have finally met their match as a mysterious group of cybercriminals has reportedly released an information stealer malware targeting gamers who cheat in Call of Duty, stealing the bitcoin (BTC) holdings of some players. The malware has already impacted hundreds of thousands of players and the numbers are still growing, as per malware market informer @vxunderground. “It should be noted that some of these accounts are also not cheaters,” @vxunderground added. “Some users impacted utilized gaming software for latency improvement, VPNs, and certain controller boosting software.” Call of Duty cheat code provider “PhantomOverlay” was first to notice the suspicious activity after users reported unauthorized purchases. Rival cheat providers like Elite PVPers confirmed similar attacks to @vxunderground in the past week. The stolen data includes freshly stolen credentials, with some victims also reporting their Electrum wallets were also drained. The total amount of crypto stolen is still unknown. Call of Duty developer Activision Blizzard (ATVI) is reportedly working with the cheat code providers to help the affected players. The current estimated number of compromised accounts includes over 3.6 million Battlenet accounts, 561,000 Activision accounts, and 117,000 Elite PVPers accounts. Meanwhile, PhantomOverlay claimed the number of hacked accounts “are inflated” in a Telegram broadcast message on Wednesday. Exploiters have targeted game cheaters for years. In 2018, a supposed cheat for the massively popular video game Fortnite turned out to be malware designed to steal bitcoin wallet login details. Fortnite players were again targeted in 2019, with hackers blocking access to a user's entire computer data. https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/03/29/call-of-duty-cheaters-allegedly-lose-their-bitcoin-as-hackers-target-gamers-with-malware/

2024-03-29 06:32

The price surge implied that the token could debut with a market cap of over $500 million. Decentralized finance protocol Ethena will airdrop 750 million ENA tokens to USDe holders on April 2. Aevo's prelaunch futures tied to ENA surged over 20% early Friday. Prelaunch futures tied to decentralized finance protocol Ethena’s impending governance token ENA surged on Friday, implying a market capitalization of over $500 million at inception. The ENA/USD pre-debut futures listed on the decentralized exchange Aevo changed hands at 73 cents during the Asian trading hours, representing a 22.29% gain on a 24-hour basis. Ethena, home to the $1.3 billion USDe token, will airdrop 750 million ENA, equating to 5% of the total supply, to USDe holders on April 2. Traders who unlock, unstake, or sell their USDe before April 1 will not be eligible for the airdrop. The stated airdrop figure and the going market price implied by prelaunch futures mean the token could debut with a market capitalization of $547.5 million. The market cap is determined by multiplying the circulating supply with the going market price. Meanwhile, ENA's fully diluted market value (FDV) could be over $10 billion. The FDV uses total supply to calculate the market value. The double-digit surge in the ENA prelaunch futures likely resulted from Binance announcing a launchpool for users to stake their BNB and FDUSD farm ENA tokens. Binance launch pool, often called a centralized yield farming service, is a popular way for users to participate in early-stage projects. “The @ethena_labs prelaunch market on Aevo is up 20% on the back of their Binance Launchpool announcement,” Aevo said on X. ENA farming on Binance launchpool will start on March 30 at 00:00 UTC and be open for three days. The leading cryptocurrency exchange will list ENA on April 2, allowing trading in ENA/BTC, ENA/USDt, ENA/BNB, ENA/FDUSD and ENA/TRY pairs. Aevo’s pre-listing perpetual futures are similar to “I owe you” or IOU futures offered by some exchanges. Once the token goes live, the pre-listing perpetuals reference the token’s spot price and collect funding rates from traders to keep perpetuals in sync with the spot price. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/03/29/ethenas-prelaunch-futures-surge-22-as-ena-token-is-set-to-go-live-next-week/

2024-03-28 17:10

"As a result of his unprecedented fraud, Bankman-Fried faces 25 years in prison, forfeiture of over a billion dollars and restitution to his victims." Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, released this statement on social media platform X (formerly twitter) after Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison: Samuel Bankman-Fied orchestrated one of the largest financial frauds in history, stealing over $8 billion of his customers' money. His deliberate and ongoing lies demonstrated a brazen disregard for customers' expectations and disrespect for the rule of law, all so that he could secretly use his customers' money to expand his own power and influence. The scale of his crimes is measured not just by the amount of money that was stolen, but by the extraordinary harm caused to victims, who in some cases had their life savings wiped out overnight. As a result of his unprecedented fraud, Bankman-Fried faces 25 years in prison, forfeiture of over a billion dollars and restitution to his victims. Today's sentence will prevent the defendant from ever again committing fraud and is an important message to others who might be tempted to engage in financial crimes that justice will be swift, and the consequences will be severe. Here are the full press releases from the U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York and Office of Public Affairs. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/03/28/statement-of-us-attorney-damian-williams-on-the-sentencing-of-sam-bankman-fried/

2024-03-28 17:08

Ethereum fees for "blobs" – the blockchain's new dedicated class of cheaper data storage – spiked Wednesday after a project called Ethscriptions created a new way of inscribing data, known as “blobscriptions.” The Ethereum blockchain just a couple weeks ago completed a landmark upgrade to create a dedicated space for storing data – known as "blobs," under a plan to reduce fees while also relieving congestion. But already, a new project has come along to jam up the so-called blob space, sending fees soaring and providing the nascent blob market with its first big stress test. Ethereum gas fees for blobs spiked Wednesday after a project called Ethscriptions created a new way of inscribing data, or minting inscriptions, on the data blobs, called “blobscriptions.” According to the Dune Analytics dashboard, the blob base fee soared to at least 582 gwei ($266) on Wednesday. As of writing on Thursday, the blob base fee had subsided to around 18 gwei ($8.69). “As widely predicted, it looks like March 27, 2024, will be remembered as the day that the ‘blobs are free EIP-4844 launch discount’ party came to a close – courtesy of Blob Inscriptions,” Matt Cutler, the CEO of Blocknative, wrote on X. EIP-4844 is the name of the proposal that ushered in the new blob market, incorporated as part of Ethereum's landmark Dencun upgrade completed on March 13. The blob space is especially crucial for the myriad layer-2 networks like Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon and Coinbase's Base that have been built atop Ethereum to process transactions more quickly and cheaply than is possible on the main chain. As part of the process, the layer 2s need to park reams of data on Ethereum, accounting for a huge portion of their overall costs. In a blog post on Thursday, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin acknowledged that the Blobscriptions episode had pushed the new blob-fee market into "price discovery mode," but he added that the data fees still remained far cheaper than they would have been under the old system of parking data as "calldata" in a regular Ethereum transaction. "Blobs are not free, but they remain much cheaper than calldata," Buterin wrote. “From here, important scaling work, both in increasing blob count and in improving rollups' ability to make the best use of each blob, will continue to take place, but it will be more incremental.” https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/03/28/ethereum-hit-by-blobscriptions-in-first-stress-test-of-blockchains-new-data-system/

2024-03-28 13:52

DOGE prices tend to move on speculation about the token's use on X, the Elon Musk-owned social media giant. The dogecoin (DOGE) price surged to its highest level since December 2021 on Thursday, with trading volumes and futures open interest rising significantly. Several posts from prominent Dogecoin community members on X speculated about the token's implementation on the platform, especially in relation to a new payment branch being awarded more licenses in the U.S. Dogecoin (DOGE) surged to its highest since December 2021 on Thursday amid bullish sentiment and speculation about the use of the dog-themed meme coin on the social-media platform X. DOGE exchanged hands at 22 cents in European afternoon hours, a 17% gain over 24 hours. The broader market was little changed, with bitcoin (BTC) steady at around the $70,000 level and the broad-based majors index CoinDesk 20 showing no change. The token tends to react to payments-related developments at any Elon Musk-owned company, such as X or Tesla, and several social-media posts from prominent Dogecoin community members speculated about the token’s usage on X, likely fueling trading interest. “Dear #Dogecoin, with X's new payment branch being awarded more licenses in the U.S., many are speculating about the implementation of crypto payments in the platform,” Dogecoin developer @@mishaboar said in an X post Thursday. “Early this month, Elon said X is very close to landing a money transmitter license in California. Getting the license in NY will still take a few months,” he added. CoinGecko data shows that trading volume for DOGE shot up to $7 billion in the past 24 hours from an average of $3 billion earlier in the week, even as broader crypto volumes remained lower amid little volatility. Elsewhere, futures tracking the tokens saw open interest rise to nearly $2 billion across crypto exchanges from $1 billion on Monday, indicative of rising bets on price volatility. Speculation about the token’s usage on X has been around since Musk bought the company in 2021, given his endorsement of the token. Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, has accepted DOGE payments for merchandise purchases in the Tesla Store since 2021. X said in January it planned to launch a peer-to-peer payments service this year. However, there has been no official communication on whether DOGE will be a payment option. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/03/28/dogecoin-bets-jump-to-2b-as-price-reaches-highest-level-since-2021/

2024-03-28 13:30

The former FTX CEO was convicted of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy in November, a year after the once-giant cryptocurrency exchange collapsed. FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday for his conviction on seven different fraud and conspiracy charges. Bankman-Fried was accused of running a massive fraud in FTX and Alameda, which collapsed dramatically in 2022, losing customers some $8 to $11 billion. NEW YORK — Sam Bankman-Fried must spend 25 years in prison for the fraud and conspiracy scheme that ultimately undid his once-giant cryptocurrency exchange FTX, a federal judge ruled on Thursday. As he prepared to deliver the sentence, Judge Lewis Kaplan said Bankman-Fried never offered "a word of remorse for commission of terrible crimes." Kaplan said Bankman-Fried's attempt to craft a positive and altruistic persona in the public eye was, at least in part, "an act." He rejected the defense's argument that Bankman-Fried was not at risk of committing future crimes., "Mr. Bankman-Fried's name is pretty much mud right now around the world," but he is "persistent" and "a great marketing guy," said the judge while explaining why the FTX CEO deserved a lengthy sentence. Kaplan judge announced his decision after a two-hour hearing in a Manhattan courtroom during which prosecutors, Bankman-Fried's attorney, a victim, a lawyer who spoke on behalf of other FTX victims and Bankman-Fried himself delivered comments. This followed Bankman-Fried's conviction on seven criminal counts in November, a year after FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The former FTX CEO will appeal his conviction, according to his lawyer Thursday, a process that couldn't begin until Kaplan's sentencing decision. Bankman-Fried was also fined $11 billion, which includes forfeiture agreements to sell assets like a private jet. "Today's sentence will prevent the defendant from ever again committing fraud and is an important message to others who might be tempted to engage in financial crimes that justice will be swift, and the consequences will be severe," Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement on social media platform X. "The scale of his crimes is measured not just by the amount of money that was stolen, but by the extraordinary harm caused to victims, who in some cases had their life savings wiped out overnight." “A beautiful puzzle” Bankman-Fried’s attorney Mark Mukasey told Judge Kaplan that his client “doesn’t make decisions with malice in his heart – he makes them with math in his head,” adding “Anybody who really knows Sam, they’ll say he’s not a greedy, power hungry fiend…really, he’s an awkward math nerd.” Mukasey repeatedly referenced Bankman-Fried’s autism and social awkwardness, and his commitment to altruism, calling him “a beautiful puzzle” with “a tireless work ethic and a completely, off the chart, mind-blowing intellect,” and asked the judge to not destroy the prime of his client’s life. “Don’t deprive him of the opportunity to meet a partner and have a baby,” Mukasey told the court. Bankman-Fried speaks When it was his turn to speak, Bankman-Fried said he was more concerned with the FTX customers waiting for their money to be returned than his “emotional life” or “hypothetical future kids.” "My useful life is probably over. It's been over for a while now," said Bankman-Fried, who has spent the last six months in the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn. As he walked into the courtroom on Thursday – his parents and a crowd of assorted onlookers watching on from the court's viewing gallery – Bankman-Fried was noticeably thinner than he had been during last year's trial. Bankman-Fried's signature curly mop of hair – which had been trimmed down for his October trial – looked fuller but more unkempt than it had previously. Bankman-Fried, wearing a tan prison jumpsuit with short sleeves, spoke for several minutes as a U.S. Marshall stood directly behind him. Bankman-Fried repeated his long-standing claim that "there were enough assets, there are enough assets" for FTX's creditors to get paid back in full. Bankman-Fried told the court that righting the ship after his company’s self-induced “liquidity crisis” – which he called “in part, my doing” – would have made for “an unpleasant few weeks,” but he insisted “FTX would have survived” even if Alameda, the trading shop he tried to rescue using FTX customer funds, was forced to shut down. Even if creditors do receive their funds back now, they would be "deprived of the gains" seen by the broader crypto market over the past several months, he said, echoing a concern stated by FTX creditors in victim impact statements filed by the DOJ over the past few weeks. Bankman-Fried extended compliments to three of his former friends – and key government witnesses – Nishad Singh, Gary Wang and Caroline Ellison, expressing regret for his lead role in FTX's collapse. “I’m sorry about what happened at every stage…at the end of the day, I failed everyone I cared about,” Bankman-Fried said, adding, "I was responsible." Focus on customers Bankman-Fried spoke after an FTX creditor and an attorney who represents a class action suit against the bankruptcy estate – both of whom used their time to claim that the FTX bankruptcy estate is mishandling customer funds. All three said the estate's proposed payouts to creditors are lower than they should be given current market prices. Adam Moskowitz, the attorney who represents the class, offered a line of support for Bankman-Fried during his brief statement before the court, saying the former CEO – alongside other former FTX executives – had helped his team recover some of the funds FTX had lost. "Sam and his team have been helpful to us," he said. "I would ask on behalf of the victims that you honorably and respectfully consider [that]." Weighing a sentence Bankman-Fried faced up to a century in prison, based on a report from a probation officer. Kaplan wasn't bound to this recommendation. Bankman-Fried's defense team – a different group of lawyers than the ones who represented him during the five-week trial – asked for no more than 6 1/2 years, while U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors sought 40 to 50 years behind bars. During his reading of the sentence, the judge virtually eviscerated Bankman-Fried and his testimony during last year's trial. Bankman-Fried posed "enormous harm" to creditors, had demonstrated "exceptional flexibility with the truth" during his testimony and showed an "apparent lack of remorse." "When he wasn't outright lying, he was evasive, hair-splitting [and] dodging questions," the judge said, adding that he was "trying to get the prosecutor" to rephrase questions. Despite his apparent frustration with Bankman-Fried, Kaplan ultimately decided that 50 years in prison – let alone 100 – was "substantially greater than is necessary" and recommended that he serve out his sentence in a medium or low-security federal prison. He additionally recommended that the prison be as close to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Bankman-Fried is from, as possible, to facilitate family visitation. Kaplan said that his recommendation was based on Bankman-Fried’s lack of violent history and the fact that his notoriety, autism diagnosis, and association with wealth would make him extra vulnerable in a maximum security prison. Bankman-Fried will need to serve a minimum of 85% of his sentence, a requirement established by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, which allows for a maximum of 15% of a federal sentence allowed to be shaved off for good behavior. This is of course, dependent on what his appeal looks like and whether it is successful. His team has 14 days to file an appeal from the day the sentence is entered into the record, which Judge Kaplan said may happen as soon as later Thursday. Before the day began The DOJ said Bankman-Fried deserved a severe penalty, citing the fact that FTX, which was once valued at $32 billion, lost essentially all its money due to his malfeasance. During the trial, prosecutors said Bankman-Fried stole $8 billion of customer money to fund venture-capital investments, real-estate purchases, political donations and more. Prosecutors submitted dozens of victim impact statements from former FTX customers as evidence, saying the sheer scale of the fraud Bankman-Fried was convicted on supported a harsher penalty – though one that was half what he technically could face. Defense lawyers argued, on the other hand, that Bankman-Fried didn't intend to defraud customers, had shown remorse and had attempted to resolve FTX's bankruptcy after it began, saying the DOJ's proposal was extreme. Their supporting letters spoke more to Bankman-Fried as a person than to FTX and its collapse, with writers pointing to his veganism and anecdotes from his youth. Several letters said Bankman-Fried appeared to be neurodivergent and thus might not have understood the severity of the situation. Former New York Police Department officer Carmine Simpson, his fellow inmate in a Brooklyn detention facility who pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor, wrote a letter saying Bankman-Fried, a vegan, has been forced to eat poorly in jail. Read all of CoinDesk's SBF trial coverage here. CORRECTION (March 28, 2024, 15:48 UTC): Corrects the story after Reuters changed their report on the length of SBF's sentence. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/03/28/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-sentencing/