The Weekly Wrap - 4th February 2022

Solana-Ethereum Bridge ‘Wormhole’ Hacked

$323M of ETH Stolen from Cross-Chain Protocol 

(Image: TechBriefly)

On Thursday, Wormhole - the popular cross-chain bridge between Solana and Ethereum - was hacked, resulting in 120,000 wETH ($323M) being stolen. The sum makes the hack the fourth most costly hack in the history of DeFi. The hacker used a deprecated Solana function to mint Wormhole Ethereum and then convert it to ETH using the platform’s bridge. The platform was taken down for maintenance, and the treasury has since been fully replenished by the VC firm Jump Crypto.

A bug-bounty deal has been offered to the anonymous hacker which entails that $10M may be kept, if the rest is returned and a detailed explanation of how they were able to exploit the protocol can be provided.

FTX Set To Acquire Japanese Exchange Liquid

Deal Expected to be Finalised In March

Centralised exhcange FTX is set to acquire Japanese exchange group Liquid in a bid to expand into the Asian market. Liquid represents a collection of Japanese crypto exchanges and was valued at over $1B in its 2019 investment round. FTX’s existing Japanese users will be migrated to Liquid’s exchange Quoine when the deal is finalised in March. The value of the acquisition has not been publically disclosed.

In August last year, Liquid suffered a hack which resulted in $100M being stolen from the platform. FTX assisted the group by providing $120 in debt financing. FTX is now believed to be valued at around $32B.

Frankfurt Exchange Set List Solana ETP

Europe Continues to Lead the Way for Crypto ETPs

Valour - a subsidiary of ‘DeFi Technologies’ is poised to list an ETP (exchange traded product) on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange which tracks the price of SOL. With the ID number A3GU9Y, the product directly tracks SOL price by taking the mean price across various exchanges.

Valour claims that the ETP will be fully backed at all times, and already offers existing ETPs tracking the Metaverse and gaming. Europe has been surpassing North America in crypto ETP listings, with BTC and ETH ETPs already established in Paris and Amsterdam. DeFi Technologies CEO Russel Starr said:

We look forward to continuing to provide investors access to industry-leading ETPs on regulated exchanges throughout Europe.

BYAC Creator Reportedly in Talks With A16z

Highest-Valued NFT Collection Now Valued at $5B

Yuga Labs, the creators of the BAYC (Bored Ape Yacht Club) NFT collection is reportedly in funding talks with VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (A16z). If the multi-million dollar funding deal is secured, it would be the first institutional investment in Yuga Labs. 

Yuga Labs only has only 11 full time employees, but its BAYC NFT collection has taken the world by storm as one of the most popular NFT collections of all time, seeing over $1B of trading volume on OpenSea. A16z’s NFT portfolio includes OpenSea, Cryptokitties and various other NFT projects. When asked about the future of BAYC, Yuga Labs stated that:

We see ourselves as temporary stewards of an IP that is in the process of becoming more and more decentralised.