Today in Crypto: Tender.fi Hacker Returns Stolen Funds, Hedera Confirms Exploit and Turns Off Mainnet Proxies, Meta Mulling Decentralized Text-based App

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
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Security news

• A whitehat hacker that had targeted decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Tender.fi returned $1.6 million stolen on Tuesday, receiving an ETH 62.15 bug bounty. The team’s report noted that “although the borrower had deposited just 1 GMX of collateral, the user was able to borrow $1.59 Million dollars worth of assets” on March 7. Following the negotiation, “the borrower had made good on their word by repaying all of the loans” minus the bug bounty.
• The core team of the Hedera network confirmed there was a recent exploit on the network in which hackers stole funds via users’ accounts on decentralized exchanges (DEXs). “Today, attackers exploited the Smart Contract Service code of the Hedera mainnet to transfer Hedera Token Service tokens held by victims’ accounts to their own account,” they tweeted and added: “To prevent the attacker from being able to steal more tokens, Hedera turned off mainnet proxies, which removed user access to the mainnet. The team has identified the root cause of the issue and are working on a solution.”

Social network news

• Meta is working on a decentralized text-based app, codenamed P92, MoneyControl reported. It will support ActivityPub, the decentralized social networking protocol powering Twitter rival Mastodon and other federated apps. “We’re exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates. We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests,” a Meta spokesperson said.

Regulation news

• Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it’s seeking public comments on a draft regulation prohibiting virtual asset service providers (VASPs) from providing or getting involved in any type of crypto staking and lending transactions. Essentially, it said, the draft regulation would prohibit digital asset business operators from: accepting deposits of digital assets from the customers and lending, investing, staking, or employing such digital assets; accepting deposits of digital assets from the customers and paying them regular interests or other types of benefits from their own source of fund unless those activities are in accordance with the sale promotion rules; and advertising, persuading, or acting in any other manners to support the deposit taking and lending services of other service providers. 

Blockchain news

• Calypso Pay, the crypto processing and acquiring platform of Calypso Group, announced the launch of its own blockchain and the first significant update of its platform. Calypso Pay 2.0, said the press release, decreases transaction fees by up to 20%. The company increased the speed by two times and added auto conversion services, the commission is now deducted in the same currency used for the transaction, and the minimum payment threshold is lowered from $100 to $1, while users can top up and withdraw with no limits, among other benefits.

NFT news

• Starbucks Oddisey, the coffee company’s Web3 loyalty program, unveiled its first set of limited edition non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on March 10, consisting of 2,000 digital ‘Stamps’ in the ‘Siren Collection’. The program is in invitation-only beta, and it allows its members to complete certain activities such as quizzes and in-store purchases to earn Stamps and additional points. These NFTs can be collected or resold on the Nifty Gateway marketplace.

Investment news

• Digital asset business Fineqia International‘s analysis of global Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) with cryptocurrencies as underlying assets revealed a 1% increase in the Assets Under Management (AUM) value during February, while the crypto market value increased by 1.5% during the same period. Total crypto ETP AUM increased to $28bn from $27.7bn between February 1 and March 1, while the total number of ETPs listed dropped to 155 from 164. The overall value of cryptocurrencies remained over the $1trn mark, closing the month at $1.07trn, slightly up from $1.05trn in January, it said. The year-on-year data show a 37% decrease in the total crypto market capitalization compared to the $1.7trn total value observed on March 1, 2022.

Gaming news

• Startup Broadside introduced BONES, a new rewards system for Broadside holders, built with Top Dog Studios. BONES is not a crypto, and the press release said that “as we continue to expand the Broadside universe, it might make sense to convert BONES into a cryptocurrency in the future, but we didn’t need BONES to be a token for the things it needs to do today.” The team also announced the C-suite team at Dazzle Ship, the metaverse studio building Broadside, with the latter’s co-founder Matt Mason officially stepping full-time into the CEO role at Dazzle Ship.