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Your crypto security in the context of the FTX collapse

Your crypto security in the context of the FTX collapse

In light of recent events, we are here to reiterate that the safety and security of our users’ funds has always been and always will be Young Platform’s priority, both now and in the future

That is why we want to present to you, as well as our entire community of over 1 million people, the measures we are taking to achieve this goal. Young Platform offers innovative and ambitious products, but operates in a cautious and considered manner. This means that our project wants to contribute to the growth of the cryptocurrency industry with responsibility and sustainability. The best way to do this is through transparency.

First of all, we want to reassure you on a few important aspects: 

  • The total balances in your wallet are immediately accessible for withdrawal and are deposited with selected providers that offer some of the best guarantees on the market in terms of soundness and transparency, as well as appropriate insurance cover in the event of negative events such as cyber attacks and/or hacking;
  • Young Platform does not use the deposited funds in any way;
  • Funds are retained by Young Platform in a 1:1 ratio;
  • Young Platform is not financially exposed to FTX or Alameda Research and the FTT token has never been supported by our exchange.

Here are the measures we take to ensure the safety of our users:

  1. We keep your funds safe
    As stated before, we work tirelessly to secure your assets on our platform. In concrete terms, this commitment translates into choosing an industry leader for asset safekeeping such as Fireblocks. We also ensure that all your funds are always available on demand and that you can withdraw when you wish.
  1. We choose industry-leading security protocols
    Young Platform uses the best security protocols. This way we can guard your data and funds from every angle. From asset protection, to privacy protection, risk control and user security alerts.
  1. We work with institutions on compliance initiatives
    At Young Platform, we work closely with Italian and European regulators and institutions to ensure high security standards. Young Platform was the first Italian cryptocurrency exchange to undergo regular audits by an auditing firm and to register with the Organismo Agenti e Mediatori (OAM), which requires the provision of quarterly reports to the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance.
  1. We provide all the tools for a responsible approach to cryptocurrencies free of charge
    Young Platform has everything you need to decide how to use your funds: up-to-date security guides, industry news, resources to get an overview of possible risks. All this is available on our Academy and our Blog. You can start reading about self-custody best practices, or learn more about what happened to FTX and why Young Platform is not involved in the affair.
  1. We work for platform transparency
    We are satisfied with our procedures that guarantee a safe experience for users, but security is a job that never stops. That is why we are looking further and trying to improve on our achievements. In this regard, Young Platform is taking further measures, integrating new systems to improve the technical solutions for the safekeeping of customer assets in the long term and to make them more transparent.

Young Platform recognises its responsibility to create a reliable and secure environment. In this mission, contact with users is crucial. We are proud to offer you comprehensive support through our Support Team. If you have any questions or concerns, our team is available to answer them at any time.

Thank you for your trust in us,

Young Platform Team

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Binance and FTX: what’s happening in the crypto world?

Binance and FTX: What's happening in the crypto world?

The Binance and FTX case explained point by point. What is happening in the crypto world? How is the community reacting?

2022 is turning out to be a busy year for the cryptocurrency sector. In recent days, a succession of events, from Binance’s sale of FTT tokens to the news of the FTX exchange’s bankruptcy, has shocked the market ; which is currently experiencing a major decline. In this article, you will find an account of the story in all its passages and the reactions of the community. What is happening in the crypto world?

Who is involved in the affair?

Before getting to the heart of the matter, let’s summarise who the main actors involved are:

  1. Binance: one of the largest and most widely used centralised cryptocurrency exchanges, founded in 2017 and based in the Cayman Islands;
  2. Changpeng Zhao: CEO and founder of Binance, also known as CZ;
  3. FTX: another centralised exchange, founded in 2019 and based in the Bahamas. Its utility token is FTT;
  4. Sam Bankman-Fried: also referred to by the initials SBF, founder of FTX and Alameda Research;
  5. Alameda Research: a trading company whose CEO is Caroline Ellison. Alameda Research was founded by SBF and is these days accused of being not so transparently connected with FTX.

The relationship between Binance and FTX over the years

Binance and FTX are two of the leading centralised exchanges (CEXs) competing for supremacy in the crypto sector. Last year they generated 30% of all trading volume on CEXs together, totalling $27.5 trillion. Binance and FTX have not always been business rivals, in fact the two companies have been very close in the past. In 2019 Binance was one of FTX’s earliest backers and investors, and the partnership between the two exchanges continued until 2021 when FTX bought back its shares in Binance for $2.1 billion, most of this sum was settled in FTT tokens.

The crucial moments of the Binance vs FTX saga

Twitter has become the stage for all the key events in the crypto world. In order not to get lost in the memes, let’s clarify by following all the steps of the Binance-FTX affair.

• 6/11: CZ announces that Binance will sell all its FTT tokens

With a tweet on his personal profile, CZ announced on the 6th of November that he would be selling all FTT tokens held by Binance, due to ‘recent revelations that have come to light’. On this occasion CZ assured that the Binance team would try to minimise the impact on the market of this transaction (spoiler: the crypto market devolved into chaos) and that the decision was made looking at the mistakes that were made in the past with LUNA, the crypto that collapsed in May 2022. The founder of Binance also explained that this was in no way a move to harm a competitor.

Within hours of the publication of this tweet, the price of the FTT token dropped more than 10%. CZ’s decision threw users into a panic (ever heard of FUD?) and in 72 hours more than $6 billion was withdrawn from FTX.

• What are the ‘recently emerged revelations’ CZ is talking about?

The ‘revelations’ referred to by CZ are rumours about the financial difficulties of FTX and Alameda Research. On the 2nd of November, CoinDesk published a report on the financial state of FTX and Alameda Research. Alameda’s balance sheet showed that the trading company is ‘heavily’ dependent on the FTT token, which it uses as collateral. In other words, the FTX exchange would be involved with Alameda much more than SBF has always claimed. For CZ this proved problematic, as the lesson learned from the collapse of Terra (LUNA) is: “never use a token that you created yourself as collateral”. In general, FTX and SBF have been accused of a lack of transparency.

Reinforcing these allegations, Reuters claims that FTX secretly transferred USD 4 billion to Alameda between May and June.

• 6/11: Caroline Ellison of Alameda denies everything

The managing director of Alameda Research, Caroline Ellison, denied the rumours circulating about the trading company, explaining that Alameda also owns other assets besides the FTT token. Ellison also proposed that CZ buy Binance’s FTT tokens for $22 each. 

• 7/11: SBF’s denial makes an appearance (now deleted from Twitter)

On the 7th of November, SBF wrote on Twitter that all rumours are unfounded: ‘a competitor is trying to attack us with false rumours. Assets are fine’. The tweet, however, was deleted.

• 8/11: FTX blocks withdrawals and news of takeover arrives

After the blocking of withdrawals on the FTX exchange, news came of a possible takeover by Binance. CZ stated that FTX had asked for Binance’s help and that the acquisition would have the protection of users as its primary purpose. The founder of Binance then signed a non-binding agreement.

• 9/11: Justin Sun at work with FTX

On the 9th of November, Justin Sun, the founder of the Tron blockchain, said he was working with FTX to find a solution and protect the holders of Tron tokens on FTX.

• 10/11: Binance backs off

‘Following corporate due diligence and the latest news regarding the mismanagement of client funds and alleged investigations by US agencies, we have decided not to pursue the potential acquisition’. With these words, CZ announced that Binance would no longer buy FTX. In a series of tweets, CZ went on to explain how the failure of FTX is a defeat for the entire industry and that regulation of crypto is likely to be increasingly aggressive from now on.

• 11/11: FTX files for bankruptcy

After scrambling for funds (about $9 billion) to solve liquidity problems, on the 11th of November, SBF resigned as CEO of the exchange and FTX filed for bankruptcy.  

The secondary effects of the FTX crisis

On the 10th of November, the crypto market opened with -16.1% for BTC, -24.1% for ETH and -43% for SOL. The uncertainty of the situation made itself felt. The crypto that seems to be suffering the most in this situation is SOL, Solana’s coin. Why SOL in particular? SBF has always been a supporter of Solana, almost becoming its unofficial ‘ambassador’. In recent years, SBF has supported Solana and helped the project to grow. This close relationship has contributed to the drop in the price of SOL. Anatoly Yakovenko, founder of Solana, reported on Twitter that Solana Labs has no equity in FTX.

Among the companies that instead have dealings with FTX are venture capital firm Sequoia, which has alerted its shareholders to a $213.5 million exposure in FTX, and Galaxy Digital with $76.8 million. Amber Group said it has 10 percent of its funds locked up on SBF’s exchange, while Crypto.com has $10m (an insignificant amount according to CEO Kris Marszalek). Kraken stated that it has 9,000 FTT tokens but is not in contact with Alameda.

The FTX crisis has mainly affected user confidence, we see the issues raised by the community.

The reaction of the crypto community

The first topic discussed by those in the crypto world is the enormous power CZ and Binance have shown themselves to have over the markets. For some, it was CZ that engineered the whole affair that led to the collapse of FTX, starting with the insolvency rumours circulated. Beyond that, as in the case of Elon Musk and Twitter, CZ’s actions influenced the market. On this consideration, there are those who have dusted off the issue of the crypto world’s cult of personalities, suggesting that what is needed is true decentralisation that does not make the future of projects depend on the decisions of individuals. Isn’t that why Satoshi Nakamoto chose never to reveal his identity?

On the challenge of centralisation versus decentralisation, Stani Kulechov of Aave and Hayden Adams of Uniswap spoke out. The former argued that the only regulation for crypto is decentralised finance itself.

Adams also expressed himself in the same vein: ‘the basic financial infrastructure, such as the ability to exchange value, is too important to be controlled by corruptible centralised entities. This is one of the many reasons why I work on DeFi and decentralised exchanges.

For some, the collapse of FTX was the perfect opportunity to reaffirm the supposed superiority of the ideals of decentralisation. On the other hand, there are those who point out that these ideals at the moment seem to remain unchanged. Even for the most established dapps, security remains a challenge. At the moment, CEXs remain the connecting link between users, cryptocurrencies and traditional systems. It is up to the latter to ensure the security of users through regulations.

Could a single crypto regulation make a difference?

The absence of clear and unique rules for all industry players is another perspective from which to look at recent events. Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, pointed out that the FTX crisis is a symptom of this lack in the US. A country from which cryptocurrency exchanges flee because of oppressive policies, and that paradoxically find themselves with full freedom once they move abroad.

On the European side, Stefan Berger, a member of the European Parliament’s economic committee, explained that with the MiCA (Market in Crypto Assets) in place, an episode like FTX would never have occurred.

Meanwhile, in a press release from the 10th of November, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation announced that it had opened an investigation into the collapse of the FTX exchange.

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Young Platform on the FTX collapse

“FTX never passed Young Platform’s due diligence checks and we have never had any dependence on FTX. AUM are safe,” guarantees Italy’s largest exchange

The crisis affecting the FTX exchange was triggered by revelations concerning the balance sheet of Alameda, a company founded by CEO Sam Bankman-Fried

Turin, the 10th of November 2022 – The liquidity crisis that hit the FTX exchange, one of the largest in the world, has caused an earthquake in the cryptocurrency sector. However, it is one of a different nature than the collapse of LUNA at the beginning of the year. It is related to the particular condition of the companies FTX and Alameda Research.

The management model represented by Young Platform, Italy’s leading exchange community, differs markedly from what emerged from press reports concerning FTX and Alameda. This can be traced back to the managerial activities of Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of FTX as well as founder of Alameda. The latter company was dedicated to hedge fund and trading activities, and was also previously administered by Sam Bankman-Fried.

“FTX never passed Young Platform’s due diligence checks and we never had any dependence on FTX, so our clients’ Assets under management are safe. Moreover, the FTT token was not even listed on our platform, which means that no Young Platform client has lost money in connection with the FTX affair,” assures Mariano Carozzi, president of the Italian cryptocurrency trading platform, which has over one and a half million members.

FTX and Alameda Research were not as separate as advertised, according to news site CoinDesk, who had learned about Alameda’s balance sheet, causing solvency doubts to arise. This revealed that Alameda’s main asset was the FTX exchange’s token FTT, worth about $3.86 billion out of $14.6 billion in total assets.

Not only that, but the third largest asset was USD 2.16 billion of ‘FTT collateral’. This is therefore a huge component of the balance sheet, but what matters more is the quality of the asset. Not only did half of the balance sheet come from their own centralised entity, but it was linked to an illiquid token whose intrinsic value is almost impossible to calculate. Moreover, in the last period, the exchange had been active in acquiring companies in crisis. So, the balance sheet shows the consequences of these purchases, which may have been economically advantageous but financially very demanding.

“Young’s economic situation is very different, we have recently strengthened our capital endowment with a significant capital increase underwritten by leading Italian institutions, the working group and our business organisation. Moreover, we have never been attracted by financial transactions that, even if advantageous, were nevertheless risky”. This was highlighted by Andrea Ferrero, CEO of Young Platform, referring to the financing round led by Azimut in June and in which a pool of investors participated, including Banca Sella and United Ventures.

Young Platform represents a principled model for managing cryptocurrencies in a secure manner that is beneficial to customers and the company itself. The platform’s goal is to provide access to state-of-the-art crypto products while maintaining a conservative approach to business operations, security and financial resilience. This approach is also embodied in our choice of excellent partners, even at this difficult time for the market, such as our industry-leading custody service Fireblocks.”“Bitcoin is experiencing a moment of high volatility in the short term, but as an asset it does not change its intrinsic value and this makes us confident, despite everything,‘ Carozzi concludes. ‘In addition to the turbulence and inflation of the period, our industry has to deal with regulatory and normative uncertainties that still need to be remedied by institutions, in order to reward quality operators. The great virtue of cryptocurrencies so far has been their ability to learn from their mistakes and strengthen themselves accordingly. We believe that the best players will be rewarded in any regulatory and market environment’.

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Who stole Sex.com? The domain that took everyone to court

Sex.com: the internet domain theft worth 14 million dollars

In 1995, one of the most expensive domains in Internet history was stolen under mysterious circumstances. Here is the story of the theft of Sex.com!

Would you expect drama, mystery and bounty hunters from the affairs of an Internet domain? The reports from the Web are surprising, especially those from the beginning of its history. Similarly to the Crypto.com domain, Sex.com was disputed by many. At stake were court cases, millions of dollars and an epic scam. If blockchain had been involved in this story and if Sex.com had been an NFT domain, would things have turned out differently?

The mysterious theft of the Sex.com domain

This story takes place mainly in a US courtroom. On one side we find Gary Kremen, an engineer and businessman, who was clever enough in the 1990’s to register a series of generic domains such as Jobs.com, Housing.com and Sex.com. On the other, Stephen Cohen, a hardened fraudster, who became his worst enemy. Kremen had registered the domain Sex.com in 1994, the year he also founded the online dating site, Match.com.

Eight months after registering the domain, the engineer received an unusual message informing him that the email associated with the Sex.com domain had been changed. For Kremen, this was suspicious and upon checking, he realised that the domain ownership information had been changed. In other words, Kremen was no longer listed as the rightful owner of Sex.com. The engineer immediately called the indicated helpline number to ask why instead of his name there was that of a stranger, on the phone he found Cohen’s calm voice: ‘because the domain is not yours’. From here on, for the next twenty years, Kremen and Cohen will chase each other playing cops and robbers between the United States, Mexico and the rest of the world.

Could blockchain save the Sex.com domain?

It was initially unclear how Cohen had managed to pull off the theft of Sex.com, a domain worth millions of dollars even then. Apparently, Cohen cheated Network Solutions, the company that had sold the domain to Kremen, by posing as the new owner with a forged letter. Once he had obtained the domain, Cohen started to run the site by selling advertisements and earning half a million dollars a day. All this at a time when there was no Google or search engines, and people surfed the Internet using domain names directly. And not surprisingly, the word ‘sex’ attracted many curious people. Daily visitors to the Sex.com site hit record figures for the time.

Would the theft of the Sex.com domain happen with blockchain? Unlike traditional internet domains managed by centralised providers, the certification of ownership of NFT domains is immutably recorded on the blockchain and therefore difficult to falsify. Perhaps it would not have been so easy for Cohen to steal Sex.com if it had been an NFT domain. You cannot send letters to the blockchain and ask it to modify a smart contract. As with all NFTs, the NFT domain information is transparent and certifies that it is unique and in your possession. And anyone at any time can verify this. This is why NFT domains are used to keep your identity safe on the Internet. 

Manhunt in Mexico and Sex.com today

After five years of litigation, Kremen won the case and a precedent was set. Domains are in effect property, even if intangible, and therefore can be stolen. In 2001, Sex.com was returned and Cohen was ordered to pay Kremen $64 million in damages for lost profits from the use of the site. Here begins the second part of the incredible story of the Sex.com domain. Cohen, in order not to reimburse Kremen, fled across the border to Tijuana. The engineer then plastered the Mexican city with ‘wanted’ signs worthy of an old western film and thus unleashed bounty hunters who were unsuccessful. Kremen is still looking for Cohen.

Meanwhile, in 2006, Kremen auctioned Sex.com, which was bought by Escom for USD 14 million. After just four years, Escom was forced to sell the domain because it could not repay its debts and was about to face a lawsuit for insolvency (another trip to court). In 2010, Sex.com passed to Clover Holdings for USD 13 million. Currently, the domain is associated with a pornography site where users can upload and share with other users.

The story of the internet domain Sex.com is key to understanding why the internet needs the blockchain. On the Ethereum Name Service, a platform to buy NFT domains on Ethereum, the NFT domain “Sex.eth” was registered in 2019. While Unstoppable Domains‘ “Sex.crypto” was sold for 230 ETH (about $90,000) in 2020, making it the most expensive “.crypto” domain to date.

Will history repeat itself? Maybe even NFT domains with a ‘sex’ theme will be contested like Sex.com, for sure there will be a blockchain to support them with all its advantages.

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6 ways to use your Monuverse NFT

6 ways to use your Monuverse NFT

In preparation for the release of Episode I of Monuverse’s NFT collection, let’s explore 6 ways of using them

Let’s recap how the collaboration between Monuverse and Young Platform works, explained in full in this article.

By the 9th of November at 5 p.m. (UTC), Club members who want to attempt to be whitelisted must register with their wallet address on the whitelist page (check your email for link and password).

Those who are on the whitelist will be able to purchase and mint a maximum of 3 NFTs at the advantageous price of 0.07 ETH each on 11 November from 5 pm to 7 pm (UTC).

Once purchased, you can display your NFTs on OpenSea and similar applications.

Remember you will be able to see the real image or video you have purchased  only after the Reveal phase is completed.

Once you have obtained the NFT and discovered its contents, there are 6 benefits and uses to which you have access.

1. Protection and promotion of cultural heritage

You are officially a Web3 philanthropist: by purchasing an NFT, you are helping to fund the preservation of the Peace Arch. And, by purchasing future Episodes, you will do the same for other monuments.

For Episode I, the Milanese monument protection organisation will receive 12% of the royalties from your purchase in the primary market (minting), while in the secondary market it will receive 1%.

In metaverse galleries, on compatible social networks and on your screens at home, you will be able to display and promote your work freely. The blockchain will irrefutably tell your story about how you helped preserve an artistic work.

2. Web3 Community

Crypto communities are typically found on messaging and social apps, e.g. Discord, Reddit, Telegram, while projects and teams communicate mainly on twitter (for now). Monuverse also has a Discord server for its patron community and a Twitter profile for official communications.

As is often the case, the possibility of participating in events and conversations with the team is much higher for owners of rare NFTs.

3. PFP and Avatar

There are different types of NFTs. Among them, PFPs are very popular on social media. They are simply NFTs used as profile pictures, so they are usually static images representing the face of a character. The NFTs of the Bored Ape Yacht Club for example are widely used as profile pictures.

An Avatar, on the other hand, is a 3D version of a character. It is usually used in video games or simply in a metaverse and is often customisable through accessories and skins.

Monuverse gives its community a PFP and an Avatar in the metaverse it is building, and you can use them not only on Monuverse, but on most Web3 applications.

Each Episode corresponds to PFPs and Avatars that reflect the historical period or culture of the chosen monument. So, for example, for Episode I, centred on the Arch of Peace, characters from the Napoleonic era will be distributed.

4. Whitelist

Owning a Monuverse NFT grants you priority access to the whitelist of future episodes. This means that you can mine your NFT at a cheap price compared to the public sale price. The rarer your NFT is, the more likely it will be to be whitelisted.

5. Voting rights

You can vote with the rest of the community to choose the next monuments that Monuverse will commit to replicate and protect. From the roadmap, the team also plans to create a more extensive voting system for the community and a DAO to reward active user participation.

6. Buying and selling

Of course you can resell your Monuverse NFTs either before the Reveal phase or afterwards, on the secondary market of OpenSea and other aggregators such as LooksRare, Rarible, x2y2. You can sell as many as you want; giving up ownership of all NFTs. However, this also means giving up the community and its benefits.

Moreover, selling is only an option if you think that the NFT you own may be in such demand on the market that it will bring you a significant profit for you in the chosen period. 

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Young Platform signs a partnership with the world’s leading Web3 domain provider

Young Platform signs a partnership with Unstoppable Domains

A partnership has been secured between the world’s leading provider of Web3 domains, Unstoppable Domains, and Italy’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, Young Platform.

Turin, the 2nd of November 2022 – Young Platform, Italy’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, has signed a partnership with Unstoppable Domains, the world’s leading provider of Web3 domains. The partnership will allow more than 1.5 million people in Italy, present within the Young Platform ecosystem, to educate themselves on the Web3 world and to receive a free credit to purchase a Web3 domain.

The partnership was signed by Andrea Ferrero, Co-Founder and CEO of Young Platform and Sandy Carter, SVP and Channel Chief of Unstoppable Domains. Young Platform is a scale-up founded in Turin in 2018, which today has names such as Azimut, United Ventures and Banca Sella among its investors. 

This is a blockchain-based collaboration, bringing NFTs and cryptocurrencies together. Founded in San Francisco, California, Unstoppable Domains allows people to create Web3 domains that can become a fundamental part of their digital identity. A Web3 domain, in its simplest form, is a name (example: alicesmith.nft) that exists as an NFT on the blockchain. This allows the owner of the domain to have all associated data under their direct control. They are also able to use it as a digital identity across hundreds of web3 Dapps, wallets and exchanges. These use cases can be summarised in one fundamental concept: data sovereignty. Data sovereignty means that only the owner has the right to decide who or what can access their data, what data they want to share with which apps as well as how it is used.

In Web2, it is difficult, if not impossible, to move data from one app to another because big technology companies create closed ecosystems. For example, we can publish the same content on all Meta services or use the same account for all Amazon services, but using the same content or credentials on both is impossible.

By contrast, the definition of Web3 is based on content sovereignty: there are no companies asking for data in exchange for services. Instead, developers create services, and users use and pay for them without relinquishing control of their data. All this is possible thanks to blockchain technology, which makes the ownership of all kinds of tokens immutable and secure with cryptography. Smart contracts are crucial for this too, as they make it possible to build decentralised applications (DApps).

Young Platform is positioned as the Italian entry point for the cryptocurrency market, and it now has over 1.5 million registered users. Young’s proprietary token (YNG), based on Ethereum, was first distributed free of charge only through educational features (such as the Step app), and then introduced to the market in June 2022. In the same month, Young Platform closed a EUR 16 million investment round led by Azimut. The ‘cryptocompany’ aims to create a team of 110 employees by the end of the year.  Having taken its first steps in the i3P incubator of the Politecnico di Torino, today, Young Platform aims to become a smart digital bank, natively focused on digital services with solid foundations based on regulatory compliance and dialogue with regulators. The company retains a mix of talent and experience, thanks to an advisory board of professionals from high finance and the tech world, as well as the ability to aggregate an aware and resilient community.

“Unstoppable is giving the power of the Internet back to the people. We’re excited to partner with Young Platform to expand access to Web3 through strong crypto education and access to Web3 domains,” says Sandy Carter, SVP and Channel Chief of Unstoppable Domains.

“This powerful integration is just one step in an exciting journey to facilitate Web3 adoption. We are excited to partner with Unstoppable Domains, and are confident that this implementation is just one of many more exciting collaborations to come,” says Andrea Ferrero. “Unstoppable Domains is doing an amazing job of paving the way for a decentralised identity. Suffice it to say that your Unstoppable Web3 domain is your wallet address, your decentralised web access and your universal username, all at the same time. Web3 was introduced in our educational paths and integrated in our products. Thanks to this effort, it’s now accessible to everyone, also in Italy.” 

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Crypto.com: the story of the internet domain worth millions of dollars

The Story of the Million Dollar Sale of the crypto.com domain

The story of the million-dollar sale of the Crypto.com internet domain tells of the importance of having a recognisable name on the web!

To those of us who use the Internet on a daily basis, the decisive role of Internet domains may escape your attention. Between the late 1990s and the beginning of the new millennium, domains were the subject of real speculation. In even more recent times, the sale of certain addresses has reached astronomical figures. Such is the case of the Crypto.com domain, registered in the 1990s and resold for millions of dollars in 2018. The story of the million-dollar sale of the Internet domain Crypto.com provides much food for thought on the importance of identity on the Web!

‘Crypto.com’ is not the real name of the exchange

You may not know that ‘Crypto.com’ is not the original name of the well-known centralised cryptocurrency exchange. The company was founded in Hong Kong in 2016 by Bobby Bao, Gary Or, Kris Marszalek and Rafael Melo. It was created under the name ‘Monaco’. Only a few years later, in 2018, the exchange was renamed ‘Crypto.com’, thanks to the purchase of the rights to the internet domain of the same name. The company spent a huge amount of money to obtain this domain, fighting with the previous owner who for many years refused any offer. How much was Crypto.com bought for? The negotiation has always remained secret, but the estimated figure is between 5 and 10 million dollars.

Who was the owner of the Internet domain Crypto.com?

The first owner of the Crypto.com domain was Matt Blaze, a professor and cryptography researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, who registered it in 1993 at the beginning of his academic career. Blaze had deposited the domain for free at the time, because it was not until 1995 that the organisation that managed the Domain Name System (DNS) decided to monetise domain registration. Blaze used the domain Crypto.com as the address of his personal cryptography-themed blog in which he shared resources and tried to dispel the myth that cryptography is a business for criminals. As early as 2000, a company called ‘Crypto.Com, Inc’, which dealt in encrypted communication services, made the first proposal to buy the domain owned by Blaze. But it was only with the cryptocurrency boom, around 2016, that Blaze was inundated with offers for Crypto.com. However, the professor never intended to give up his valuable domain, stating repeatedly and publicly that Crypto.com was not for sale.

Crypto.com, a valuable internet domain (for many reasons)

Throughout its history, Crypto.com has proved to be a valuable domain because it is unique and capable of communicating a precise identity, that of the cryptocurrency world. Anyone who uses it will immediately be associated with the sector it represents.

The Crypto.com domain was so coveted that a potential buyer came to Blaze’s office at the university, begging the professor to accept his offer.

But why did Blaze so strongly oppose the sale of the Crypto.com domain? Again, the question of identity returns. In a nutshell Blaze argued that the domain should refer to a cryptography project and not a cryptocurrency project, since the original meaning of ‘crypto’ relates to the former semantic field. Blaze criticised the use of the term ‘crypto’ to refer to cryptocurrencies; ‘crypto’ originated as an abbreviation of ‘cryptography’ and not ‘cryptocurrency’. The professor did not want to fuel the association of cryptography with cryptocurrencies, which he personally has always viewed with suspicion and little connection to cryptography.

In support of this thesis, Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, a journalist with expertise in hacking and cybersecurity, also spoke out in 2017. Franceschi-Bicchierai showed how on Google News or according to vocabulary, ‘crypto’ referred to cryptography. “Think, for example, of the term ‘crypto wars’ (‘Crypto Wars’), which refers to government (originally the US) efforts to undermine and slow down the adoption of unbreakable communication systems”. The journalist’s contribution also includes a statement by Emin Gün Sirer (who had not yet founded Avalanche) in which he explained that cryptography in cryptocurrencies is an ‘ancillary’ element and that the real innovation is the use of blockchains as consensus mechanisms and distributed systems.

This was the case in 2017, but now the situation is definitely reversed. Language has evolved and searching for ‘crypto’ on Google means coming across content and information exclusively related to the world of Bitcoin&Co. Today in dictionaries, the first meaning is ‘abbreviation for cryptocurrency’, only the second is ‘relating to crypto’.

The Million Dollar Sale of the Crypto.com Domain

Suddenly, however, in 2018 Blaze writes on his blog: ‘over the past few years I have received a growing series of offers, many of them obviously not serious, but some of them frankly attention-grabbing, for the Crypto.com domain. I ignored most of them, but it became increasingly clear that keeping the domain made less and less sense for me. Earlier this year, I entered into confidential discussions with some serious potential buyers. Last month, I reached an agreement to sell the domain.

The cryptographer Blaze had actually sold the Crypto.com domain to cryptocurrency exchange Monaco for a few million dollars. After the purchase, the former company ‘Monaco’ implemented the rebranding operation to become ‘Crypto.com’ as we know it now. The case of Crypto.com is just one of many examples of how important a domain name can be in the identity of a brand. Being recognisable on the Internet, with the most appropriate name, becomes a (million-dollar) business matter. The Hong Kong exchange’s operation has ensured that its brand is directly identified with its product, crypto.

Many other crypto-themed domains have had a similar history to Crypto.com and have passed into the hands of companies in the industry. Among these Internet domains are Tokens.com sold for $500,000, Cryptoworld.com for $195,000, Eth.com for $2 million and Bitcoinwallet.com for $250,000.

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Polkadot: new parachains on board, here comes auction No. 30!

Polkadot parachain auctions: 4 new projects in October 2022

Which latest projects won Polkadot’s parachain auction? There are four of them and they will be active in the Relay Chain from October 2022. Find out what they are all about!

Almost a year after the launch of the first parachain auctions on Polkadot, the Dotsama (Polkadot + Kusama) ecosystem is experiencing the peak of its technological development. According to GitHub data, more than 500 programmers per day were working on Polkadot’s infrastructure in September 2022. Polkadot’s developers, together with those of Ethereum and Cosmos, are the most active in the industry. At the end of September, the Polkadot team released an updated roadmap presenting upcoming features, including the launch of paratherads, i.e. blockchains that pay for the use of Polkadot’s Relay Chain without participating in auctions. In total, 30 auctions have taken place already and there are 27 active parachains on Polkadot (41 on Kusama). Let’s look at the four projects that won the auctions for Polkadot parachains between the end of August and the beginning of October 2022.

What are parachain auctions on Polkadot?

Parachain auctions on Polkadot are ‘sales’ of slots on the Relay Chain. Polkadot is a multichain ecosystem that offers its infrastructure to build blockchains with specific use cases. Projects that win one of the slots can develop their own blockchain idea using the core network for the consensus mechanism and security, becoming parachains for all intents and purposes. These are ‘candlestick’ auctions, i.e. auctions that end at a random time during a period of about a week. At the end of the auction, the project that has collected the most DOT, the Polkadot coin, wins. To participate in the auctions, various projects bid by locking in DOT (bonding) collected internally within the project or through crowdloans among the community. The slots on Polkadot last for a maximum of 2 years (96 weeks). After the end of the period, the DOTs in bonding are released and are made available again to the project that had initially blocked them. 

1. Aventus Network

Aventus Network won the 26th auction for Polkadot parachains by raising 200,000 DOT (approximately $1.2 million). It is a blockchain founded in 2016 with the aim of making decentralised services on Polkadot and Ethereum accessible to companies that want to include them in their customer offerings. Aventus Network thus proposes the development of NFTs, video games, loyalty programmes, event tickets, and supply chain management. One of the projects already using Aventus Network to manage its tokenomics and blockchain transactions is FruitLabs, the social network for gamers. On FruitLabs, gamers get PIP token rewards when they share their gameplay.

2. Watr

The winner of Polkadot’s 27th parachain auction was Watr, a blockchain that wants to introduce a method to market a ‘new class of ethical commodities’. By definition a ‘commodity’ is a raw material e.g. oil, coal, sugar. Watr was created to make commodity trading ethical and tracked via blockchain. The services this new parachain wants to offer are the tokenisation of non-digital assets (real world) and management of production chains. Watr’s project is still in its infancy: the whitepaper is in the works these days as well as the tokenomics of their WATR token. The mainnet is scheduled to launch in January 2023. To win its slot, Watr raised 125,224 DOT ($778,893) at auction.

3. OAK Network

OAK Network, with OAK standing for On-chain Autonomous Kernel, is the winning parachain of the 28th auction with 149,998 DOT in bonding ($932,990). OAK Network’s target sector is DeFi. Specifically, the project wants to build tools for ‘event driven’ automated payments and trading: ‘one of the great opportunities of blockchain technology is the concept of “programmable money”. The ability for entrepreneurs to create, trade and use digital assets globally will likely have the same impact as when people were able to create and consume information globally through the web’. According to the OAK team, this opportunity is not adequately exploited because “today most transactions on the blockchain are simple one-off events”. What OAK is aiming for is to create a DeFi hub to enable buying and selling transactions at certain prices or events as well as recurring transactions. In a nutshell, it is about creating tools for automated trading. Before offering itself as a parachain on Polkadot, OAK network tested its chain with the Turing Network project, a parachain on Kusama.

4. Bitgreen

The fourth new project that will be operational on Polkadot from October is Bitgreen. Already from its name, you can guess the distinct environmental vocation of this parachain. Bitgreen wants to offer itself to NGOs and Web3 projects to support important sustainability initiatives on topics such as renewable energy, forest conservation and the development and support of local communities. For example, Bitgreen enables the creation and trading of carbon credits.

Together with Sequester, another project that aims to provide tools to minimise the environmental impact of the Dotsama ecosystem, Bitgreen suggested to turn the parachains’ micro-fees into carbon credits. This initiative aims not only to make Polkadot’s ecosystem neutral but also positive in terms of its environmental footprint.

Bidding for the Polkadot No. 30 parachain auction is active from the 18th of October (17:53 UTC) for approximately five days. The winning project will win a slot on the Relay Chain usable from the 20th of November 2022 to the 25th of September 2024.

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Is Do Kwon a fugitive? What happened to the founder of Terra (LUNA)?

What happened to Terra (LUNA) founder Do Kwon after the allegations?

Do Kwon maintains that the charges against him are invalid and that LUNA was never a scam but only a failure

Following the collapse of the Terra blockchain, its crypto LUNA and its algorithmic stablecoin UST ; the founder of the entire ecosystem, Do Kwon was charged by the South Korean government for violating the Financial Services Commission’s Capital Markets Act. An international arrest warrant has been issued in this regard and Do Kwon’s whereabouts remain unknown at the moment. What happened to the Terra founder after these accusations? Complaining about the misinformation and over-politicisation of the case, Kwon gave crypto journalist Laura Shin an interview on the 18th October 2022. He recounts his defence against the charges and explains his reasons.

What happened after the LUNA collapse: charges and arrest warrants

After Terraform Labs and Do Kwon were accused of violating South Korea’s financial markets law, the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor’s Office obtained an arrest warrant in September 2022 for Kwon, who had been living in Singapore since after the collapse of LUNA and UST. A few days later, the Singapore police stated that the crypto entrepreneur was no longer in the city-state and his whereabouts have since been untraceable. As a result, it was reported that Do Kwon was a fugitive. Subsequently, Kwon also received a ‘red notice’ from Interpol, i.e. an international arrest warrant asking local law enforcement agencies to locate and provisionally detain a person and make him available to the judicial authority that originally requested the arrest.

Do Kwon’s defence argues that the Financial Markets Act can only be applied to securities, and LUNA as a cryptocurrency is not legally a security. The accusation would therefore be unfounded, because Kwon and his company would not have done anything illegal. A spokesperson for Terraform Labs explained to the Wall Street Journal how South Korean prosecutors had broadened the definition of ‘security’ in response to public pressure over the bankruptcy of UST and LUNA, which has since been renamed ‘LUNA Classic‘: ‘We believe, as do most in the industry, that LUNA Classic is not, and never has been, a security, despite changes in interpretation that Korean financial officials may have adopted recently’.

What happened to Do Kwon, the founder of Terra?

To sum up, after the charges and various arrest warrants, Do Kwon:

  1. Claims that the charges brought against him by South Korea are invalid since there is no real crypto regulation in the country;
  2. Did not respond to the Interpol arrest warrant because he says he never received it in person;
  3. Confirms that he is not a fugitive;
  4. Reiterated that he had not set up any scam and that LUNA and UST were a failed market experiment;
  5. Took full responsibility for the matter and apologised to the holders and supporters of the project.

Let’s look at these points specifically.

Where is Do Kwon?

In this delicate situation, Do Kwon unexpectedly gave an interview on the 18th of October with the aim of shedding light on the events and challenging some false information. This is the second time that Do Kwon has publicly exposed himself after the more than $40 billion collapse. The interviewer is Laura Shin, a crypto journalist who edits the podcast “Unchained” and recently published the book “The Cryptopians”, from which a TV series is to be made by producers Playground Entertainment.

The interview can be divided into two parts, the first focusing on the political and judicial events involving the founder of Terra, and the second on the technical aspects of the collapse of UST.

During the interview, Kwon reiterated the issue of ‘securities’, suggesting that the accusations by South Korea’s Financial Services Commission are not lawful and not even within their jurisdiction. In Kwon’s view, the case of the crypto LUNA is just a pretext to regulate the market by exploiting a moment of crisis. After all, he pointed out, there is no clarity among governments around the world on the issue: are cryptos securities?

Asked by Shin why he had not responded to the arrest warrant, Kwon explained that he had never personally seen this document and that news of his arrest warrant had only reached him through the media, and with contradictory reports. On the issue of ‘absconding’, Kwon repeated what he had already expressed in a tweet, namely that he is not hiding but does not want to reveal his whereabouts for security reasons. Since May 2022, Do Kwon received ‘visits’ and attempted break-ins at both his Singapore and Seoul residences from people embittered by the collapse of Terra. Therefore his whereabouts remain a mystery also to protect his family and associates. This is why Kwon has neither confirmed nor denied that he is in Singapore at the moment, while assuring that he is not a fugitive and is not making efforts to escape. Among other things, Kwon is not worried about losing his Singapore passport.

Do Kwon also denied reports that some of his funds (USD 67 million) had been blocked, claiming that the reports were untrue.

Do Kwon explains the causes of UST’s failure

Shin led the discussion on the reasons behind the failure of the UST algorithmic stablecoin, asking whether the algorithm was in fact insufficient to maintain the peg to the dollar. Do Kwon replied that the algorithm was fully functional and that in designing UST, the Luna Foundation Guard had never taken on the role of ‘market maker‘ to defend the stablecoin peg. However, its intervention had only been necessary on a few occasions. At one point Bitcoin reserves were used to bridge the volatility of UST. Kwon pointed out that Bitcoin (and Avalanche) purchases prior to the collapse had the sole purpose of making UST backed by all the large and promising cryptocurrencies.

For Kwon, the algorithmic stablecoin failed not because of the algorithm but because the economic system that supported it was not sufficiently robust.

Between the 7th and 8th of May 2022, when UST slowly started to lose its peg, Kwon didn’t think it was a big problem because stablecoins develop through cycles, and time would solve the problem. In the following days, he decided to use LFG funds to buy UST (buy-back) but in the meantime the price of LUNA dropped dramatically because people started to panic sell.

Kwon explained that, at the moment, the distribution of the LUNA 2.0 tokens is not proceeding as planned because the LFG is unable to dispose of its digital assets due to the ongoing process. He has no idea when the situation might be unblocked, Kwon is keen to emphasise that this is not a ‘refund’. Terra’s project has never been like a shop that provided goods in exchange for money and was ready to refund if it did not work out. Shin asked whether Kwon’s personal funds could help compensate for the losses and he replied that they would not be enough to make up the difference.

The intentions and regrets of Terra’s founder

Do Kwon, urged by his interviewer, took the opportunity to apologise to the people who lost money by believing in LUNA, saying that it is not at all easy to live with this responsibility. However, Kwon points out that LUNA was never a scam but only a market experiment gone wrong. He was the first to believe in the project and that he has always tried to build on the values of transparency and integrity. In short, failure does not necessarily mean scam. According to Kwon, it is his duty to provide a correct representation of the facts in order to put those who continue to work in the Terra ecosystem in the right light (he denies that he is still involved in the project).

Do Kwon concluded the interview by saying that his life is currently in a phase of reflection and that he will need a couple of years to humbly process and internalise what has happened: Terra, LUNA and UST ‘were never about money, fame, success’. Kwon continues to believe in the need for an algorithmic and decentralised stablecoin and is still keen to contribute being very young. Any regrets? Kwon would have liked to focus more on Terra’s technological development in the expansion phases rather than on the public relations part. He would also have liked to build a dialogue with people on social media instead of sounding a bit arrogant.

Paraphrasing, Kwon said ‘I think the hardest thing about the current situation is having to come to terms with an astronomical loss. It is difficult to put into words, but the magnitude of the financial, emotional and economic damage that has occurred is not easy to bear’.

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Binance Smart Chain hack, what happened?

Binance Smart Chain attacked by a hacker, what happened?

The Binance Smart Chain was attacked by a hacker, what happened? Here are the causes and price collapse of the BNB crypto

On the night between Thursday the 6th and Friday the 7th of October 2022, the Binance Smart Chain was attacked by a hacker. The perpetrator managed to steal around $100 million in different cryptocurrencies. Following the attack, the Binance team took prompt action, suspending transactions on the blockchain and thus severely limiting the amount of money that could have been stolen. Find out what happened to the Binance Smart Chain during the attack on Friday the 7th October 2022 and how the exploit affected the price of the BNB crypto.

What is the purpose of the Binance Smart Chain?

The Binance Smart Chain (BSC), is a blockchain created by Binance in 2019 that co-exists with the main Binance blockchain: the Binance Chain. What is the difference between the Binance Smart Chain and the Binance Chain? Unlike the Binance Chain, the BSC is compatible with Ethereum‘s virtual machine (EVM) and allows for the creation and use of smart contracts on its ecosystem ; hence the adjective smart within the name. Among the possibilities of an EVM-compatible blockchain is that of moving your tokens, fungible and non-fungible, to all blockchains of the same type almost instantaneously. A type of decentralised application (DApp) called a bridge is used for this purpose. Bridges have become very popular lately, mainly due to the tendency of Web3 projects to expand to other blockchains and thus become cross-chain. Friday’s attack took place on such a DApp, namely on the main bridge of the Binance Smart Chain: the Binance Bridge. Through this bridge, you can send your assets almost instantaneously to many other blockchains, including those of Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, Cronos, and many others.

What happened to the Binance Smart Chain?

But what exactly happened to the Binance Smart Chain bridge? Someone managed to tamper with the smart contract that is responsible for calculating the amount of tokens that users possess. In doing so, he set his quantity of BNB, the Binance crypto, to 2 million units. Subsequently, the hacker sent the huge sum of money to his wallet in two transactions of 1 million BNB each, about 560 million dollars in total.

Once the hacker received the BNBs, he then moved some funds to different compatible EVM blockchains so that Binance could not block them and ‘borrowed’ stablecoins on Venus, a lending protocol on the Binance Smart Chain. Fortunately, Binance was very quick to intervene and ‘paused’ the Binance Smart Chain, freezing the hacker’s wallets. Tether, the company that created the USDT stablecoin also acted quickly by freezing the funds the hacker had borrowed on Venus. Thanks to the speed of action of the two companies, the hacker only managed to steal USDT 100 million (approximately), roughly five times less than he had initially managed to steal.

Following the event, a debate broke out among the Web3 community, especially on the Twitter social network. The debate focused on the pros and cons of centralising Binance’s chains. The crypto company in fact limited the damage by blacklisting the hacker This is nothing more than an IT action aimed at blocking the possibility of transactions on a particular wallet. And this was possible thanks to the small number of validators that the Binance Smart Chain uses to approve transactions on its network. In a more decentralised network, it would not have been so easy to freeze a user’s wallet.

The price of crypto BNB following the hacker attack

BNB is the native crypto of the Binance Smart Chain. BNB is used to pay fees for carrying out transactions and interacting with Binance’s EVM blockchain. Following the hacker, BNB lost about 5.5% of its value in just over two hours. The attack occurred just as BNB was approaching the $297 resistance. The event caused a dump for the Binance crypto, as was to be expected. This drop did not last just one day, but continued for several days, bringing BNB down to the lower end of the range in which it has been moving since early September 2022, around the $272 price area.