Hacker Steals and Returns $600m
AMC to accept bitcoin payments for cinema trips
Senate Outcome on infrastructure Bill (not good)
Ethereum EIP1559 upgrade is burning loads of Ether
$600 million in Ether stolen from the PolyNetwork has been returned by the hacker.
PolyNetwork (a company that builds cross blockchain connections) suffered a monster attack on Tuesday 10th August, losing $600 million to a hack. As of writing this money has mostly been returned by the hacker. The hacker posted a Q&A to explain their motivations.
This Q&A can be read here
The Wealth Gap View: The hacker clearly thinks they are a good person as they believe the attack was noble and well meaning. By returning the funds we tend to agree (even if taking them was an extreme step to take). PolyNetwork agrees too and has offered to pay the hacker a $500,000 white hat hack bounty (this payment is made to white hat hackers who find security flaws) as well as immunity from prosecution.
It’s not often we get a positive outcome from an attack this big so we must appreciate it for that.
AMC to Accept Bitcoin
AMC will apparently accept Bitcoin for cinema tickets and concessions in all its US theatres by the end of the year. This follows a tumultuous year with ticket sales plummeting because of covid and online streaming while the stock price soared as a result of hedge funds over shorting and retail investors squeezing them out of their positions.
This is a bolshy move by AMC which has certainly drawn eyes around the world. At The Wealth Gap we love the cinema experience and prefer it to streaming films at home while we stare at our phones. Hopefully this move will rejuvenate cinema habits and keep AMC going.
US Infrastructure Bill Currently Worded to Drive Crypto Innovators Overseas
To help pay for the $1trillion infrastructure payment it wants to build bridges, roads etc the Biden administration intends to tax crypto brokers. The problem from the crypto perspective is that the term ‘broker’ is too broad and will capture actors that have no way of fulfilling the IRS requirements. Currently, the bill defines a “broker” as “any person who (for consideration) is responsible for regularly providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person,”. As it is written this could include Miners, Developers, Stakers or anybody involved within the crypto space. With no choice but to break the law just by operating these vulnerable actors will have to move their operations outside of US jurisdictions.
A great part of the US’s success has been their support of innovation. By trying to implement these reporting requirements the advocates are trying to protect the old establishment as well as raising funds. We don’t think this will work.
The Bill won’t be implemented until 2023 so there is still time to sort it out. If it isn’t then the industry will go elsewhere.
Ethereum EIP1559 upgrade is burning loads of Eth
Which is what it was designed to do! You can watch Eth get burned at here.
EIP1559 burns a portion of the ETH users have to pay in order to move tokens between addresses in the ETH network. Prior to this upgrade miners (the computers that validated the transaction) kept all of the transaction fees and were incentivised by the system to validate transactions offering higher transaction fees. Since the EIP1559 upgrade miners get a base fee for all transactions with anything on top burned. This has been a popular upgrade for Ethereum with prices currently rising as a result.
Until Next Time
The Wealth Gap Team