Week in Review: CoinEx hacked for $55 million, US inflation accelerates

Bitcoin traded above $26,000, CoinEx was hacked for $55 million, inflation in the United States accelerated, the co-founder of OneCoin was sentenced to 20 years in prison, the Ethereum team launched the Holesky testnet and other events of the past week.

Bitcoin price holds above $26,000

On Monday, September 11, the quotations of the first cryptocurrency tested levels below $25,000.

On Tuesday, September 12, the price of digital gold rose above $26,000 and has since not fallen below the psychological level.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $26,500.

Most digital assets in the top-10 by market capitalization finished the week in the green. Toncoin rose the most, gaining 34.3%.

Total cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at $1.1 trillion. Bitcoin’s dominance index stood at 49.9%.

CoinEx hacked for $55 million. Exchange promises 100% compensation to affected users

On September 12, PeckShield identified a ‘suspicious outflow’ of funds from CoinEx wallets. Journalist Colin Wu reported transfers of more than $27 million in ETH, TRON and Polygon and suggested it was a hack.

Platform representatives confirmed the information and promised 100% compensation to affected users. SlowMist specialists suspected the Lazarus Group, a North Korea–backed faction, of the hack.

Inflation in the United States accelerates

Core consumer prices in the United States, excluding energy and food, in August slowed to 4.3% year over year, from 4.7%, which was above market expectations.

On a monthly basis, prices rose by 0.3%, compared with 0.2% in July and in line with economists’ expectations.

The overall inflation rate, including the aforementioned volatile components, rose 3.7% year over year and 0.6% month over month (the largest jump in more than a year). The previous readings were 3.2% and 0.2%, respectively.

What to talk about with friends?

• A Briton who lost 7,500 BTC will sue the authorities in Newport.
• The media identified the sender of a Bitcoin transaction with a fee of $510,000.
• The price of TON rose 15% on the back of the Telegram wallet integration.

OneCoin co-founder sentenced to 20 years in prison

OneCoin co-founder Karl Sebastian Greenwood has been sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined $300 million.

He is accused of defrauding 3.5 million people and squandering over $300 million on five-star resorts, villas, a private jet and a yacht. He previously pleaded guilty to fraud involving electronic means and money laundering.

The fraudulent scheme, founded by Bulgarian citizen Ruja Ignatova together with Greenwood, operated from 2014 to 2016. OneCoin was pitched as a high-yield cryptocurrency, where investors earned profits not only from the asset’s growth but also from recruiting new participants.

Greenwood was arrested in 2018 in Thailand. Ignatova’s whereabouts have been unknown since 2017. Losses from OneCoin’s activities are estimated at $4 billion.

Canaan unveils next-generation Bitcoin miner

The company Canaan unveiled a new immersion-cooled Bitcoin miner, the A1466I, delivering a hash rate of 170 TH/s with an energy efficiency of 19.5 J/TH.

The price of the A1466I is about $3,210 per unit, or $18.88 per TH. The unit becomes the first for the company with an efficiency better than 20 J/TH.

Also on ForkLog:

• In Ukraine a pre-trial investigation has been opened into crypto market participants.
• The CEO of Binance.US left the company amid layoffs.
• The Huobi exchange renamed itself to HTX.
• PayPal launched a service that converts cryptocurrencies into cash.

Ethereum team launches Holesky testnet

The Ethereum developers launched the public Holesky test network, which will replace the Goerli testnet in operation since 2019. However, at launch the team ran into problems.

According to researcher Diderik Loerakker, the issue was caused by a misconfiguration.

Holesky (Holešovice Testnet) takes its name from the Prague railway station.

The new testnet is intended to test staking solutions, assess infrastructure and protocols. For testing decentralized applications, smart contracts and other Ethereum Virtual Machine functionalities, Sepolia will continue to be used.

What else to read?

This week ForkLog published an excerpt from the book Cloudmoney. Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for our Wallets on the ideological origins of Ethereum and Web3 entrepreneur Vladimir Menaskop’s defense of NFT.

Also offering a review of a US Space Force major’s book on the strategic importance of Bitcoin and reflections by philosopher Alexandra Tanyushina on the state of virtual reality.

In the traditional digest, we summarize the week’s main events in cybersecurity.

The cryptocurrency industry is attracting an increasing number of institutional players. This is reflected in new investments in infrastructure and the growing attention companies are giving to Bitcoin as an asset class. The most important events of recent weeks are in ForkLog’s review.