Apple turns its back on Bitcoin Whitepaper, Sneaky US Govt, New Bridge Protocol, and more.
Delivering the finding of what happened this week 🔍
Akansha Jain
April 28, 2023
Hello fam! The Fool’s Day month is coming to an end so here’s a phool for you from Anya💐
Well well, and one more WELL! In today’s newsletter, we bring to you a few interesting pieces of news from our beloved crypto ecosystem🫣
Here’s a sneak peek:
Apple and Bitcoin relationship status: It’s complicated
Circle is attacking the biggest product problem of 2022.
Another day, another exploit of $2M
Sneaky US Govt holds billions worth of BTC.
Polygon partners with Google Cloud.
Apple and Bitcoin relationship status: It’s complicated
Every macOS copy had a hidden Bitcoin whitepaper, found in an internal tool used by Apple engineers.
It turns out the whitepaper was added in 2018 with macOS Mojave, and the engineers probably never bothered to remove it from the public release.
But, alas, all good things must come to an end. With the latest beta update, Apple has removed the whitepaper from the system. It's like taking away your favorite toy just as you're getting attached to it 🥲
Circle is attacking the biggest product problem of 2022 - Bridges!
On 27th of AprilCircle, a company that manages the stablecoin USDC, launched a new protocol called Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) to make it easier for people to use USDC on different blockchain networks.
Users could transfer USDC from one chain to another using CCTP through an integrated portal.
Users initiate transfers on the source chain, which burns the specified amount of USDC. CCTP then facilitates a minting of USDC on the destination chain and sends it to the recipient's wallet address.
This means that users can transfer USDC without needing to have liquidity on either chain, making it more capital-efficient.
CCTP is permissionless and composable, meaning it can be used as a low-level primitive for developers to leverage and extend, and is accessible through partner SDKs powered by CCTP.
This could make Circle a dominant player in the USDC bridging market, as it will likely become the cheapest and lowest slippage token to be sent across chains.
CCTP enables cross-chain swaps, deposits, and purchases with USDC on different blockchains. Example:
Cross-chain swaps: Swap ETH on Ethereum for AVAX on Avalanche with the help of CCTP.
Cross-chain deposits: Use USDC on Ethereum to open a position on a DEX on Avalanche.
Cross-chain purchases: Buy an Ethereum-based NFT on Uniswap with USDC on Avalanche and list it for sale on OpenSea, all facilitated by CCTP.
But, CCTP definitely comes at the cost of decentralization and creates a monopoly for Circle.
Polygon-based protocol 0vix exploited for $2M
The multi-chain lending protocol 0VIX was hacked on Polygon POS, with a total loss of about $2 million, including 1.45 million USDC, 58.4k USDT, and 9.5k GHST. The hacker has bridged the funds to Ethereum.
Arkham Intelligence recently announced on Twitter about the incident.
It appears @0vixProtocol on @0xPolygon has been exploited by an attacker inflating the price of vGHST to borrow a large amount of USD.
The attacker has currently moved the USDC to ETH mainnet and swapped it for 757 ETH.
Profile below:
— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel)
Apr 28, 2023
Sneaky US Govt holds billions worth of BTC.
The US government is a big player in the Bitcoin game, holding over 205,000 BTC worth $6 billion.
They got their hands on the BTC through seizures from crooks like the Silk Road and Bitfinex hackers.
This makes them bigger holders than big spenders like MicroStrategy.
The biggest BTC holder is still our mysterious hero “IFYKYK”
The government has a history of selling off its BTC stash, and they plan to do it again soon. 💰
But some people think they're making a mistake by not holding onto it longer for bigger profits. ( But the US gov knows about DYOR )
Lesson learned: maybe the government should stick to selling stamps and leave the crypto trading to the experts🤒
Polygon partners with Google cloud
Polygon and Google Cloud have joined forces to provide automated access to Polygon's blockchain nodes through Google's fully managed node hosting service.
Google Cloud will also contribute its services to support Polygon's new scaling solution, zkEVM, making it "faster and cheaper" than its current approach.
Polygon Supernets, a dedicated app-chain, will also receive features related to the partnership by the end of the third quarter of 2023.
In addition, new startups supported by Polygon can receive up to $200,000 in Google Cloud credits.
Meanwhile, Filecoin has announced plans to provide decentralized cloud services as an alternative to AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure.