Daily Crypto News | August 15th, 2022

Welcome to Barmy’s Daily Crypto News – August 15th, 2022

1. The Acala Network’s aUSD stablecoin depegged by over 99%.

On August 14, a hacker exploited a bug in the iBTC/aUSD liquidity pool, causing 1.2 billion aUSD to be issued without collateral. In response, the Acala team put the network in maintenance mode and froze the incorrectly created tokens, crashing the USD-pegged stablecoin to a cent.

Other functions like swaps, xcm (cross-chain communications on Polkadot), and the Oracle pallet price feeds were also disabled until “further notice.”
Decentralization supporters have expressed outrage despite the fact that the decision to put the network in maintenance mode and freeze the hacker’s wallet may have been made to safeguard users and the network from further harm.

The team acknowledged that the flaw had been repaired, however the network was still in maintenance mode at the time of writing in order to prevent any token transfers. The wallets that were mistakenly minted aUSD have been located, and since 99% of them were still on Acala, there is a chance that the community would vote to recover them.

The Acala exploit is the second significant one in a week, following an assault on Curve Finance’s (CRV) front end on August 9 that persuaded users to authorize a malicious contract. The issue with Acala is different from the one with Curve since its smart contracts’ pools were not corrupted when users dealt with them directly.

2. Russia’s Central Bank to Introduce Digital Ruble Currency in 2 Years.

According to a report outlining its monetary policy aims for the years 2023 to 2025, the Central Bank of Russia intends to start  the comprehensive implementation of the digital ruble two years from now. The monetary authority plans to gradually link different financial institutions to the platform as the development of the state-issued digital currency progresses.

The Bank of Russia will start gradually integrating all financial institutions onto the digital ruble platform in 2024 and expand the range of transactions and payment choices supported by smart contracts. The Russian crypto news outlet Bits.media said, citing the bank, that while the full-scale rollout of the digital ruble will start in two years, some of its characteristics, such the offline mode and the joining of non-banking financial organizations and exchanges, are expected in 2025.

According to the central bank, keeping money in bank accounts has some benefits over keeping it in digital wallets because the former generate income. The Bank of Russia does not expect to pay any interest on holdings of digital rubles on its CBDC platform because of this.

The CBR is also getting ready to start testing with actual users and transactions in April of next year, ahead of schedule. In May, Skorobogatova acknowledged that the bank’s decision to quicken the construction of the CBDC was influenced by the financial sanctions imposed by the West in response to Russia’s armed invasion of Ukraine.

3. NFT games have edge over ‘money in, no money out’ games: Polygon’s Urvit Goel.

As gaming producers start to make more of their products available for play on blockchain, NFT gaming business models may prove to be an appealing innovation.

According to Urvit Goel, vice president of global business development for gaming at Polygon, games that use nonfungible tokens (NFTs) have an inherent advantage over conventional games that don’t permit players to trade their in-game goods.
The traditional economic model that NFT games compete with may be intrinsically inferior, according to one of the primary points Goel stated. In traditional video games, players generally spend real money on in-game purchases, but they are unable to resell those purchases for a profit.
Goel claimed to have seen clear signs that traditional game publishers are getting ready to make major forays into GameFi, beginning with South Korea’s Nexon, the owner of the MapleStory franchise. According to mmorpg, a gaming news media outlet, it stated in June that it would release a version of its flagship game on-chain dubbed MapleStory N.

Goel’s optimism about the promising future of NFT gaming and GameFi is influenced in part by the excitement in the communities. Although he claimed he had concrete evidence to back up his assertion, he is of the belief that many members of sizable communities with “millions of followers” are enthusiastic about the new game products being introduced to their channels.

4. Scaramucci highlights key factors why crypto market will soon recover..

Anthony Scaramucci related his future optimism to the Merge, improving macro indicators like declining inflation, significant corporate alliances, and pumping cryptocurrency prices.

Anthony Scaramucci, the founder and managing partner of Skybridge Capital, is optimistic about the future of the cryptocurrency markets and encourages investors to “see through the current environment” and “stay patient and stay long term.” He emphasized the two-layer payment system built on top of Bitcoin (BTC), the Lightning Network’s continuous improvement, BlackRock’s relationship with Coinbase, and their subsequent creation of a BTC Private Trust Fund as promising developments for the future. Finally, CEO Larry Fink has noticed a desire from institutions for digital assets.

With better-than-expected inflation data in July and the recovery of investor interest, according to Scaramucci, the world economy can rebound to its robust 2019 Quarter 4 position between six to twelve months.
Overall, Scaramucci is optimistic about the future of the crypto market but warns investors against trading emotionally and reacted to unfavorable news.

5. Brazilian Crypto Investment Platform Bluebenx Suspends Withdrawals Following Alleged Hack.

Last Thursday, Bluebenx, a Brazilian cryptocurrency investment platform, stopped withdrawals on its website, affecting roughly 2,500 users. According to Assuramaya Kuthumi, Bluebenx’s attorney, the company claims it was the victim of a hack that caused them to lose more than $31 million.

Suspicions have been raised about the true causes of this withdrawal ban due to the hack revelation and how it corresponded with the company’s mass layoffs. Due to an alleged selling of unregistered securities as part of its investment portfolio, the business was under investigation earlier this year by the Brazilian Securities and Values Commission.
The Brazilian Congress is now discussing a law that would toughen penalties for offences involving cryptocurrency in an effort to prevent businesses and people from selling scam products and operating pyramid schemes.

To encourage people to invest, the company provided high-yield investment products. According to consumer claims, several of these instruments did not reveal the investing strategy behind them. These products offered up to 66% for having invested cash frozen for a year.

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