Arrested Tornado Cash Developer Linked to Russian Security Service
Plus this week's dev spotlight
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Dev Spotlight 👨💻
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Top News This Week
ENS Domains Surpass 2M, Dogecoin-Ethereum Bridge to Go Live In 2022, Ethereum Announces Mainnet Merge and Coinbase Introduced Wrapped Staked ETH
After taking five months to reach 1 million users, it took 3.5 months for ENS domain names to reach two million, marking a new milestone. There were 379,000 new .eth registrations in July 2022. These ENS domain names can function as NFTs, website addresses, or cryptographic hashes.
The Dogecoin-Ethereum bridge is expected to go live throughout 2022, according to Blue Popper, which is the entity behind the development of the bridge.
This will allow users to move Dogecoin to the Ethereum blockchain and the other way around, where the meme-coin can be used in smart contracts, decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, as well as NFT marketplaces.
Ethereum’s blog officially published a post showcasing that it is moving towards Proof-of-Stake (PoS). Based on the blog post, the Bellatrix upgrade is scheduled for epoch 144896 on the Beacon Chain, which will occur at 11:34:47am UTC on Sept 6, 2022.
Furthermore, the Terminal Total Difficulty value triggering The Merge is 58750000000000000000000, which is expected to occur between Sept 10-20, 2022.
Coinbase also launched a new asset consisting of Ether (ETH) tokens that are staked as well as wrapped through the crypto exchange, where it will add Coinbase Wrapped Staked ETH (cbETH) on the Ethereum network as an ERC-20 token, which will enable customers to use their staked ETH while earning rewards on the exchange.
FTX Grew in Revenue by 1,000% Throughout the Crypto Craze Based on Data From Leaked Financials
FTX has seen an explosive level of growth throughout the previous year, which was driven by its global trading business based on audited financials.
The exchange took revenue from under $90 million in 2020 to more than $1 billion throughout the previous year as cryptocurrencies reached their all-time high.
The U.S. business was only a small part of the top line due to the fact that it accounted for less than 5% of the overall revenue.
The Chief Executive Officer of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, has expanded the empire as FTX also bought startups across Switzerland and Australia.
130 Bored Ape NFTs Marked as Stolen or Suspicious, and Nike Topped the List of NFT Sales With $185M in Revenue
One of the most popular and used NFT marketplaces on a global scale, OpenSea, has marked a total of 130 NFTs connected to the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection as stolen or suspicious based on their estimation.
Furthermore, Nike topped the list of NFT sales in the fashion brands space, as they made $185 million in terms of revenue. Alongside this list, Dolce & Gabbana (D&G), Tiffany, Gucci, and Adidas joined the top ranks. Based on the data, Nike has amassed nearly $1.3 billion in transaction volume from secondary trading.
Tether Ignored the Treasury's Sanction of Tornado Cash, and Tornado Cash Developer Alexey Pertsev Worked for the Russian Security Agency
The Treasury Department sanctioned Tornado Cash, which is essentially a cryptocurrency mixer that masks transactions between wallets. Tether, however, ignored the sanctions and chose not to blacklist Tether-holding addresses the Treasury Department has targeted.
Furthermore, the developer behind the crypto mixer Tornado Cash, known as Alexey Pertsev, was reportedly linked to Russia’s security agency known as FSB, in a report from the intelligence firm Kharon.
Alexey Pertsev worked for a Russian entity Digital Security OOO back in 2017 and was working as a developer of smart contracts, alongside being an information security specialist.