💰 325M$ hacked in Defi

This is Shashank’s Newsletter, a newsletter with bite sized content on web3 over the past week.

Shashank Reddy

Feb 06, 2022

In today’s email,

💵 USDC on Solana pay

📱 Phantom mobile app launches

🤝 Coinbase adds Shopify CEO Tobi to their board

🦍 NFTs outselling Hollywood

Weekly gainers

💰 325M$ hacked in Defi

A hacker stole $325M from Wormhole protocol, a cross chain bridge between Solana and other blockchains. Root cause was a smart contract bug (exploiting Solana VAA verification) letting the hacker mint 325M worth $weETH. The protocol offered the hacker $10M through an on-chain message to give back the stolen $325M which they REFUSED. Wormhole for its part is making good by pledging to fill the $325 million shortfall in a matter of *hours* with the help of investors. This marks the 2nd largest hack in Defi.

jonwu.eth @jonwu_

Whew. Hell of a week for systemic risk. Wormhole, a Solana cross-chain bridge, was exploited today for $325 million (120,000 $ETH). Here's what happened, why cross-chain bridges are hard, and why Vitalik's warning about cross-chain security probably doesn't apply here:

🤝 Coinbase adds Shopify CEO Tobi to their board

This could prove to be one of the largest partnerships for web3 by making crypto “currency” payments mainstream in e-commerce. There are some Shopify stores already accepting USDC payments on Solana taking us to our next big thing of the week.

Coinbase @coinbase

We are excited to announce @Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke is joining our Board of Directors. A builder at heart, @tobi brings innate understanding of the power of decentralization, business scaling experience, and a drive to empower global communities. Welcome Tobi - Let’s go!🚀

💵 USDC on Solana pay

Payments with USDC are now live on Solana at a fraction of the cost of VISA transaction fees. Couple of coffee shops in the bay area have now on-boarded to Solana pay. This is definitely one of those trends that could move faster than most people think. Stable coins (pegged to a constant value like 1$) are a very natural fit for such payments. UST is another stable coin like USDC which is already accepted by ~20+ e-commerce stores, including the 2nd biggest one in Korea (TMO)

Jeremy Allaire @jerallaire

Already here. USDC w SolanaPay enabling this SF coffee house to accept payments with instant settlement, and fraction of a cent tx cost. Industry has got this. https://t.co/tUO6mYIeJH

George Selgin @GeorgeSelgin

The Hamilton Project's proposal for a CBDC processing system offers, as an example of a CBDC's "primary use case," a user "pay[ing] for coffee...by sending digital currency to the cafe owner." I sure hope the system works: having to carry wampum around is getting to be a drag.

📱Phantom mobile app launches

UX is one lever that has constantly lagged in crypto and has been a dragging factor for sometime. Phantom is one of the outliers here with one of the most sleek user experiences of any crypto wallet out there. You can now try out the Phantom wallet on iOS here.