December 13, 2021       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

  • The Prime Minister of India’s Twitter account was hacked to promote a Bitcoin giveaway scam.

  • Bill Gates believes that meeting will occur in the metaverse within three years.

  • $PEOPLE, the governance token for ConstitutionDAO, hit an all-time high this weekend — despite the DAO shutting down.

  • BadgerDAO published a post-mortem on how it was hacked.

  • Ron Desantis, the governor of Florida, proposed a law that would let Florida businesses pay state fees in crypto.

  • The International Monetary Fund wants to create coordinated crypto policy standards.

  • Crypto derivatives firm Paradigm raised $35 million at a $400 million valuation.

  • Pepsi is releasing a line of NFTs this week.

What Do You Meme?

What’s Poppin’?

Another Day, Another CEX Hack

AscendEX, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange, lost roughly $80 million this weekend. According to PeckShield, a security research firm, AscendEX lost tokens across three different blockchains: $60 million on Ethereum, $9.2 million on Binance Smart Chain, and $8.5 million on Polygon.

AscendEX says they became aware of the hack late on Saturday night when they “identified a number of unauthorized transfers from one of our hot wallets,” as the company explained on Twitter.

AscendEX affirmed that users who were affected would be reimbursed 100%. In addition to compensating victims, the crypto exchange plans to 1) work with blockchain forensics firms and law enforcement to track down the thief, 2) encourage impacted DeFi projects to freeze transfers from AscendEX and, 3) work to restore deposit and withdrawal status on AscendEX, which was shut down after the hack was identified.

Notably, the hack comes right on the heels of another centralized exchange, BitMart, getting hacked for $196 million in an exploit related to hot wallet security. According to data from Rekt, the AscendEX and BitMart hacks rank as the sixth and second biggest exploits of 2021. BadgerDAO, a DeFi protocol that was hacked for $120 million on December 2, ranks fifth, marking a tough end of the year for the crypto space in regards to hacks

Recommended Reads

  • Fei Protocol’s Joey Sandoro on DAO governance: link
  • Arthur Hayes on inflation:

  • Gemini’s Tyler Winklevoss on blockchain:

On The Pod…

3 Things SushiSwap Needs to Get in Order, According to Arca

Jeff Dorman, the chief investment officer at Arca, discusses the recent events surrounding SushiSwap, including CTO Joseph Delong’s departure this week, Arca’s proposal to create a hierarchical management structure for SushiSwap, and why Jeff is still excited about Arca’s investment in SushiSwap. Show topics:

  • what SushiSwap is and how it has performed since its inception

  • how Jeff views SushiSwap’s performance from an investor’s perspective

  • how the departure of 0xMaki affected SushiSwap

  • what Jeff thinks about the decentralization versus centralization

  • why Jeff thinks SushiSwap is in a fantastic position in which to receive investment

  • what happened with the controversy around Joseph Delong leading to his resignation this week

  • what Jeff thinks about how Joseph handled his departure

  • what three factors SushiSwap needs to figure out in order to function

  • why SushiSwap could benefit from creating a legal entity

  • why Jeff is in favor of hierarchical governance structures versus flat governance structures

  • how SushiSwap could become a trendsetter for DAOs in general

Book Update

My book, The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze, is now available for pre-order now.

The book, which is all about Ethereum and the 2017 ICO mania, comes out Feb. 22. Pre-order it today!

You can purchase it here: http://bit.ly/cryptopians