Contrary to popular belief, many initial coin offerings (ICOs) had the foresight to sell their Ethereum (ETH) and profit off their holdings before the price of the coin fell, according to a new report by BitMEX Research.
ETH’s downward trajectory has partly been attributed to ICO projects panic selling their “large treasure trove of Ethereum” in order to pay their bills. However, a recent BitMEX analysis showed that a lot of ICOs had already sold off their coins before the current steep drop in prices and made profits.
The BitMEX team analyzed 222 projects, which raised an estimated $5.5 billion worth of Ethereum—and were believed to have already sold almost exactly the same amount, at least in U.S. dollar terms.
“These ICOs currently hold 3.8 million Ethereum, around 25% of the Ethereum they originally raised,” according to BitMEX. “However, in US$ terms, these projects have essentially sold the same amount of Ethereum which they originally raised, leaving them a nice holding of US$830m of Ethereum.”
To show the profit and loss realized by Ethereum-based tokensales, BitMEX came up with two columns—one contained the ETH raised and sold by EOS, and another for other projects. EOS, during its year-long fundraiser, managed to raise about the same amount of ETH as the rest of the market put together, which was why it was placed in a separate column.
An analysis of the 222 ICOs showed that close to 15.2 million ETH were raised. Of this number, some 11.3 million coins have been transferred out or sold, leaving behind a collective balance of 3.85 million ETH.
Furthermore, the research showed that older ICO projects that raised their funds in early 2017 got a lot of profits after selling their ETH holdings. In comparison, projects that raised funds in late 2017 and early this year experienced some losses. According to BitMEX, “Despite the peak to trough 85% fall in the value of Ethereum, the projects are still sitting on unrealized profits of US$93m.”
5/ It is not a rosy picture for every ICO. The below chart shows the projects with the largest net losses from holding Ethereum. The overwhelming majority of the losses are unrealised. pic.twitter.com/2YyvWAfW3t
— BitMEX Research (@BitMEXResearch) October 1, 2018
In conclusion, BitMEX noted that ICO treasury accounts have a lower level of exposure to ETH price, saying many projects “essentially made out like bandits”—at least with their ETH holdings.
“Quite what this means for the Ethereum price going forwards is unclear, however we believe we have shown the ‘panic sell’ thesis is either false or will only occur to a lesser extent than some expect,” according to BitMEX.
Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.
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The developer of EOS has acknowledged claims of collusion in the generation of EOS blocks, but remains confident in the cryptocurrency’s future.
In a blog post, Block.one CEO Brendan Blumer said, “We are aware of some unverified claims regarding irregular block producer voting, and the subsequent denials of those claims.”
Allegations surfaced last week of cryptocurrency exchange Huobi voting block producer candidates and in turn being voted by these candidates, which supposedly involved “pay-offs that occur amongst the Chinese BP [block producer] community,” according to Twitter user Maple Leaf Capital, who linked a spreadsheet as evidence. Huobi has denied the accusation.
Recently, an internal excel document from Huobi (one of the BPs) is circulating in the Chinese community. This file documents the collusion, mutual voting, and pay-offs that occur amongst the Chinese BP community. I’ m working on getting the file.
— Maple Leaf Capital (@MapleLeafCap) September 26, 2018
Under EOS’ proof-of-stake system, 21 candidates are voted to produce blocks, where each EOS token allows one vote.
Blumer was unfazed by the claims of vote-buying, which goes against the EOS Constitution, explaining that Block.one, along with other EOS holders, would vote “to reinforce the integrity of this process… We remain very optimistic about the future of the EOS public blockchain and see its rapid adoption as evidence of success in delivering a free, high performance, decentralized infrastructure for next generation internet applications.”
Maple Leaf had also expressed concern that “at least 12 of the top 21 BPs are effectively controlled by China. This in my opinion could increasingly compromise the integrity of the network.” They added that “such matters need to be solved via increased community awareness, better infrastructure to allow for higher voter participant [sic], and potential punishing mechanism (which may be difficult). It’s growing pains, but it needs to be dealt with.”
The controversy was big enough for Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, to reply to Maple Leaf’s tweet, saying, “Interesting! I mean, it was completely predictable and I did predict it, but I did not expect it to happen so thoroughly and so soon!” adding that it was “[b]est to minimize incentives for collusion from the start.”
It was recently reported that EOS-based gambling platforms and an exchange, had been hacked, owing to defects in the network.
The price of an EOS coin has hovered at the $5-$6 level over the past two weeks.
Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.
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About $58,000 was stolen from token exchange Newdex, through the issuance of fake EOS tokens in the network.
Newdex, in an announcement, confirmed that the hackers had issued 1 billion units of a token simply called ‘EOS,’ which were then used to purchase other tokens available in the exchange. All in all, the hackers made use of 11,800 fake EOS as though they were the real cryptocurrency.
The hackers were also able to purchase 4,028 of the actual EOS cryptocurrency, which were then transferred into a Bitfinex account.
“In order to provide better service, the Newdex team took responsibility for the entire loss and has fixed the problem in the first place and resumed normal transaction. All Newdex users please don’t worry and use it at ease,” Newdex said in its announcement. The exchange also said that it will be tracing the hackers and prosecuting them.
“The Newdex team is well aware that there are still many shortcomings to be improved… Although we have encountered many difficulties on the way forward and will encounter more problems in the future, we will not forget the initial intention and will do as best as we can to provide a better trading experience for Newdex users,” the exchange said.
Online tech magazine The Next Web explained that the hack was made possible because an EOS token could be created by anybody who wanted to, and could even be named ‘EOS’ itself.
“Second, Newdex doesn’t use smart contracts. [T]here was nothing to confirm the authenticity of the cryptocurrency being pumped into it,” David Canellis from The Next Web wrote, adding that Newdex was taking advantage of the “hype” surrounding decentralized exchanges, by calling itself such.
“In reality, it’s just a single user account handling trades under the guise of being an asset exchange—pretty centralized, if you ask me,” Canellis said.
EOS and its developers have been under criticism by the blockchain community, particularly for not quite living up to the claim of being “the next Ethereum,” although in terms of susceptibility to hacks, the moniker may be fitting.
Yo Sub Kwon, founder and CEO of blockchain security provider Hosho, issued a statement saying, “EOS smart contracts are so new that they will suffer from the same issues that Ethereum smart contracts did early on of just not knowing which problems to keep watch for during development… It is incredibly important to have smart contracts audited, especially if they are going to have large amounts of money run through them.”
Just last week, two EOS gambling platforms were reported to have been hacked, with the thieves running off with over $250,000 in all.
Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.
The post EOS hack leads to $58,000 theft appeared first on Coingeek.
About $58,000 was stolen from token exchange Newdex, through the issuance of fake EOS tokens in the network.
Newdex, in an announcement, confirmed that the hackers had issued 1 billion units of a token simply called ‘EOS,’ which were then used to purchase other tokens available in the exchange. All in all, the hackers made use of 11,800 fake EOS as though they were the real cryptocurrency.
The hackers were also able to purchase 4,028 of the actual EOS cryptocurrency, which were then transferred into a Bitfinex account.
“In order to provide better service, the Newdex team took responsibility for the entire loss and has fixed the problem in the first place and resumed normal transaction. All Newdex users please don’t worry and use it at ease,” Newdex said in its announcement. The exchange also said that it will be tracing the hackers and prosecuting them.
“The Newdex team is well aware that there are still many shortcomings to be improved… Although we have encountered many difficulties on the way forward and will encounter more problems in the future, we will not forget the initial intention and will do as best as we can to provide a better trading experience for Newdex users,” the exchange said.
Online tech magazine The Next Web explained that the hack was made possible because an EOS token could be created by anybody who wanted to, and could even be named ‘EOS’ itself.
“Second, Newdex doesn’t use smart contracts. [T]here was nothing to confirm the authenticity of the cryptocurrency being pumped into it,” David Canellis from The Next Web wrote, adding that Newdex was taking advantage of the “hype” surrounding decentralized exchanges, by calling itself such.
“In reality, it’s just a single user account handling trades under the guise of being an asset exchange—pretty centralized, if you ask me,” Canellis said.
EOS and its developers have been under criticism by the blockchain community, particularly for not quite living up to the claim of being “the next Ethereum,” although in terms of susceptibility to hacks, the moniker may be fitting.
Yo Sub Kwon, founder and CEO of blockchain security provider Hosho, issued a statement saying, “EOS smart contracts are so new that they will suffer from the same issues that Ethereum smart contracts did early on of just not knowing which problems to keep watch for during development… It is incredibly important to have smart contracts audited, especially if they are going to have large amounts of money run through them.”
Just last week, two EOS gambling platforms were reported to have been hacked, with the thieves running off with over $250,000 in all.
Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.
The post EOS hack leads to $58,000 theft appeared first on Coingeek.
The cryptocurrency markets continued their impressive recovery on Monday with most coins showing positive increases after a positive weekend following many months of bearish activity. BTC held above the $7200 level after having even superseded the $7300 mark in a flurry of activity with turnover also increasing considerably.
Bitcoin Cash was the star of the show over the past 48 hours, rising by no less than 20% on Sunday to reach the $650 level before dropping back slightly to the $630 level on Monday morning at press time. Ripple remained stuck between the $0.33 and $0.35 range, but analysts have predicted a considerable move upwards in the coming weeks as interest and positive news surrounding the cryptocurrency continued to increase.
Ethereum was the only outlier in this positive move upwards with a price range that continued to hover between the $280 and the $300 mark, although there was very little movement either way. EOS performed an impressive climb of over 20% over the past few days –in fact it is around 35% up on a weekly basis to settle at the $6.50 mark with a further push upwards not unexpected.
Other coins with smaller market caps also saw a good increase with Ethereum Classic charging ahead and bullying the $14 level on Monday at press time—a level not seen since July. Litecoin registered a good increase to the $66 level before falling back slightly to the $65 mark but appeared well supported at that level. NEO was also up by over 15% over the weekend and was trading at the $22 level at press time, whilst XLM appeared slightly static with a trade range between the $0.22 and $0.23 levels. Cardano was slightly disappointing as it retraced slightly to the $0.103 level after having touched the $0.105 mark on Saturday or an 8% increase.
IOTA retained the $0.70 mark on Monday after having retraced slightly over the weekend, whilst ICX and ONT saw 5% declines to the $0.90 and $2.40 levels respectively. DASH also performed positively and held above the $200 mark although it decreased slightly over the past 24 hours by around 2%.
Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.
The post Crypto market daily report – September 3, 2018 appeared first on Coingeek.
