20th Edition

Hey civilkitten,

This week in The Flippening, TL;DR

Ethereum scaling efforts put Zero Knowledge rollups in the spotlight. Fat finger error causes a massive hole in the pocket for a NFT holder. User gets a bill of $45,000 for using services to mine $800 worth of Monero, turns out hackers pulled off a pitiful heist. Coin of the week, Mudrex Christmas campaign, market performance, most used crypto jargons, memes, and more.

Top Highlights of the Week (ending 17th Dec)

Zero Knowledge proofs gain limelight as attempts to scale Ethereum picks pace

Ethereum’s scalability issues have been a cause of concern for quite some time. Its humongous gas fees and network congestion issues have been the cause of hiccups of several projects for quite some time. There is now major speculation that Zero knowledge (ZK) rollups are the solution to these problems.

ZK rollups are a scaling solution tool that runs computations off-chain but validates on-chain, using zero knowledge proofs. A system wherein a party is able to verify that another party possesses some such information without revealing the details of said information.

Moreover, Zero Knowledge solution provider companies have been gaining major funding from prominent VC firms such as Andreessen Horowitz, also called a16z.

Bored Ape NFT accidentally sells for $3,000 instead of $300,000

A trader named Max, with the username ‘maxnaut’, listed his NFT -- part of a limited The Bored Ape Yacht Club collection of 10,000 pieces -- for 0.75 ether (approximately $3,000), instead of 75 ether. It was automatically snapped up before he could correct the mistake.

“I instantly saw the error as my finger clicked the mouse but a bot sent a transaction with over 8 ether of gas fees so it was instantly sniped before I could click cancel. Just like that, $250,000 was gone.”

“Much ado about nothing”

In one of the most pitiful hacking attempts, a customer's AWS account was hacked and used by bad actors to mine $800 worth Monero. The bill amount sent by AWS to the customer was a staggering $45,000. Investigation showed that the customer's account was used to spin up AWS servers around the globe while running a cryptocurrency mining software.

After the continuous follows by the bereaved customer, the charges have been exempted. While it may have been a slightly funny and non-agonising case for the customer, it serves as a strong reminder to anyone to be mindful of their online security.

Other Highlights:

• The first Wikipedia edit NFT goes for $750K: Read it here
• UK Watchdog Bans Coinbase, eToro Crypto Ads: Read it here
• Russia to decide between blanket crypto ban and legalizing exchanges in 2022: Read it here
• Solana Ventures Launches $150 Million Fund for Crypto Games: Read it here

Market Performance Overview

Note: Market updates till Dec 17, 1230 hrs UTC.

It was another grim week for most cryptocurrencies, as almost all major tokens ended in the red. While Bitcoin went down just around 3%, Ethereum (-7%), Binance Coin (-9%), Polkadot (-9%) and Terra (-9%) suffered significant losses. But the highlight of the week was Avalanche, which beat all market conditions and went up over 22%, which can be attributed to the news that it will be the newest network to support USDC, the second-largest stablecoin in the crypto market.

Note: Sector wise updates till Dec 17, 1230 hrs UTC.

Following last week’s mammoth losses, all major sectors moved a bit less this week, even though still in the red. While Currencies, Smart Contracts and Web3 suffered a loss of less than 1% each, Decentralized Exchanges went down by nearly 2.5%. DeFi, too, saw a drop of over 1.5%. Last week, Web3, DeFi and Decentralized Exchanges dropped more than 15% each, while currencies fell more than 10%, leaving Smart Contracts with a loss of nearly 7%.

While all sectors witness some correction, it might be a good time to buy the dip. Investing in a basket of tokens from a sector will be better than choosing a single crypto. Mudrex Coin Sets let you invest in your favourite sector in a few clicks!

Coin of the week

HELIUM: $HNT

Helium (HNT) is a decentralized blockchain-powered network for Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Helium’s goal is to prepare IoT communication for the future, identifying inadequacies in current infrastructure.

The token was in a consolidation for quite some time. However, the team has announced a few very strong partnerships lately. It has helped the token in going up in value driven by high buying volumes.

Crypto Simplified: Decoding some of the most used crypto jargons

DeFi or Decentralized Finance can be defined as peer-to-peer finance. The major pillars of finance are: owning assets, generating yields on these assets, borrowing, and lending. DeFi solves for all of these at a fraction of time in comparison to the traditional channels. The entire transactional activities happen on the blockchain, and nobody has the authority to alter the data once it is live on the blockchain.

ICO: An ICO, or Initial Coin Offering, is how blockchain projects raise money and launch their virtual currency networks. ICOs exploded in popularity in 2017 and 2018 amid the broader market frenzy.

Satoshi: Satoshi means one of two things. The first is in reference to Satoshi Nakomoto, the anonymous founder of Bitcoin who vanished shortly after his creation, leaving the project to be decentralized and collectively managed. Satoshi also means a unit of exchange, equal to .0001 Bitcoins. The term is often used casually in the context of Stacking Sats, i.e. buying more Bitcoin.

Stablecoin: A stablecoin is any cryptocurrency or blockchain-based token whose value is pegged to another source of value – typically a fiat currency. For instance, one dollar-pegged stablecoin is equivalent to $1. Stablecoins are commonly used to facilitate cryptocurrency trading and cross-border finance.

To the Moon: If someone says To the Moon or posts a rocket emoji, it means they think the price of a cryptocurrency is going to see a huge increase.

Featured - Top Coin Sets Of The Week!

Good news for Mudrex Wallet users. Now Mudrex Wallet users can invest in Coin Sets for as low as $10. Coin Sets are expert-curated crypto baskets based on different ideas. So, invest in ideas you believe in, with just $10.

Here are the top Coin Sets of this week:

Crypto Blue Chip: The Crypto Blue Chip Coin Set includes the best of the lot, and is a must have for all investors. Add the top coins in the market to your portfolio with this crypto basket.

VC 6: Venture Capitalists love these tokens, and apparently the market does too.This Coin Set consists of the top tokens where the VCs and hedge funds have invested.

Smart Contract Platforms: Smart contracts are rising, and so are the tokens of smart contract platforms. Invest in this basket of the top smart contract platforms.

Invest in Coin Sets

Here we are, at the end of our 20th edition. We hope you liked reading it. Please write back with your feedback, comments, and stuff that you’d like us to include in the newsletter. We end with a meme on every crypto investor’s dream.

‍