Exciting Developments in the Crypto Space this Week
January left the crypto community on edge with a whopping $100 million stolen from Ripple. However, February has been smoother, steering clear of major hacks so far. But buckle up because the past week in crypto has been quite a rollercoaster, unveiling some gripping developments.
The Mystery of the Missing $400 Million
In November 2022, FTX, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange, was hacked by an unknown group of hackers who used a sophisticated sim-swapping scheme to steal over $400 million from the exchange. In a successful catch, The U.S. federal government last week charged three people with a years-long phone hacking conspiracy that culminated in the infamous theft of $400 million from FTX as Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange was collapsing. The Department of Justice’s charges not only cracked the case of the phone hacking conspiracy but also answered a crucial question about the vanished crypto funds amid FTX’s turmoil and bankruptcy filing.
The Heist AND the Fallout
On November 11, 2022, the trio orchestrated their boldest move, siphoning $400 million from an unidentified company (presumed to be FTX). Exploiting an AT&T mobile services employee, they managed to transfer out massive sums in crypto, leaving the crypto community in shock.
Solana’s Bump in the Road
In a recent twist, Solana Mainnet-Beta faced a performance hiccup, causing a temporary halt in block progression. Swift action was taken as core engineers and validators conducted a detailed investigation to resolve the issue. Further, Solana Status tweeted, “Block production on Solana mainnet beta resumed at 14:57 UTC, following a successful upgrade to v1.17.20 and a restart of the cluster by validator operators. Engineers will continue to monitor performance as network operations are restored.” The team also said that the outage began at approximately 09:53 UTC and lasted for about 5 hours. Amidst the outage, SOL’s price felt some pressure and traded low compared to its prior price.
Stay Tuned for More Exciting Developments
As we wrap up this week’s crypto journey, stay tuned for our next roundup, where we promise to bring you more exciting developments from the crypto space.