stake

Ethereum and BNB Theft at Stake.com Crypto Casino Sends More Shockwaves Through the Industry

Stake.com, a popular crypto casino, was hit by a massive heist involving Ethereum (ETH) and Binance Coin (BNB), which amounted to tens of millions of dollars, in a shocking turn of events.

Stake’s Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain (BSC) hot wallets were compromised, but the business assures customers their money is safe. Bitcoin, Litecoin, XRP, EOS, and Tron wallets, among others, are safe for the time being.

An Analysis

On-chain transaction analysis reveals a startling $16 million in stolen Ethereum (ETH), USDC, USDT, and DAI from an Ethereum wallet. Apparently, to avoid any blocking by Tether or Circle, these stablecoin holdings were changed to ETH. In this fraud, almost 6,000 ETH were stolen.

In addition, tokens worth $17.8 million were illegally gained from the BSC chain, and another $7.8 million came from the Polygon wallet. Both of these amounts are referred to as the total amount stolen. Collectively, attackers got off with somewhere about $40 million.

Speculation that Stake.com’s platform has been systematically infiltrated has been fueled by comments from MetaMask’s Product Manager, Taylor Monahan, who noted that the transactions were precisely organized.

This lends credence to the hypothesis that the theft was carried out straight from the internal systems of the platform, most likely via the unauthorized acquisition of private keys. Important to remember is that they were “hot wallets,” meaning they lacked the extra protection of offline keys. Still, it has not been possible to determine who was responsible for this daring heist yet.

What This Means for Stake.com

Stake.com, established in Curacao, promotes itself as the premier crypto casino by offering an online gaming platform for cryptocurrency betting. Since its 2017 debut, Stake.com has enabled users to gamble on sports and online games using cryptocurrencies such as BTC, ETH, and DOGE. Bets in fiat currencies, like as the US dollar, are also accepted on the site. The company has had legal problems before, but nothing like what happened yesterday.

It is part of the growing industry of cryptocurrency casinos, which has seen success in part because of its customers’ need for privacy. Because they do not need users to reveal their identities via the Know Your Customer (KYC) process and accept cryptocurrencies for deposits and withdrawals, these sites have opened anonymous worldwide betting.

Despite the serious breach in security, Stake.com has continued to operate normally. The corporation has assured customers that their money is safe and is once again processing withdrawal requests. It seems likely at this point that the stolen goods belonged to the business, rather than specific consumers.

On the other hand, withdrawals have been enabled again, suggesting that Stake.com is confident in its capacity to make up the lost funds. Without these guarantees, customers are hesitant to make withdrawals for fear of going bankrupt. Thankfully, it does not seem that this is an issue with Stake.com.

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Binance On the Spotlight Over Ties to Betting App in India

Both crypto and betting have been enjoying massive popularity all around the world. The situation is, however, not as rosy in India. The country has been known for its rather strong stance against gambling and the burgeoning digital currency and blockchain ecosystem. Its government has been trying hard to regulate these sectors. The latest casualty of these efforts is Binance, one of the world’s most popular crypto exchanges and brands.

Recently, the Enforcement Directorate, India’s anti-money laundering agency, began a probe into Binance Holdings Limited. The investigation is meant to ascertain whether the crypto exchange had something to do with betting apps. Its executives are currently being investigated.

No official communication is available on the matter. The Enforcement Directory has not commented and representatives from Binance have denied receiving any summons.

“We have always been a proactive player in fighting crime. We comply with regulator requests all around the world and we don’t comment on any specific engagements.”

Binance’s Spokesperson.

However, sources close to the matter have shared differing information that points to some messy issues. It will certainly take a bit of time before any of these matters get settled. It is thus bound to reach the public domain soon.

What Caused the Problem?

Blockchain, digital currencies, and the businesses related to them are no stranger to controversy. Binance is no exception. The company was incorporated in the Cayman Islands and has no corporate headquarters. This raised some eyebrows and the exchange has been facing scrutiny. Many countries including India have concerns that digital currencies can potentially be used to facilitate money-laundering, drug trade, and even terrorism.

Binance’s woes in India may have emanated from its involvement with betting apps which are also still facing some troubles themselves. The operators of said betting apps used wallets with WazirX to buy, convert and transfer funds on Binance. There should be a straightforward way of dealing with this but that is, unfortunately, not the case.

As it turns out, Binance failed to take responsibility by collecting the necessary know-your-customer documents from clients in most of the transactions. In addition to that, the crypto exchange also reportedly failed to collect information as required by the Finance Action Task Force (FATF), the global anti-money laundering watchdog.

Now, this may blow over without too many implications. Still, it represents a clear need for further action concerning the regulatory framework. India in particular has a long way to go when it comes to warming up to crypto and betting.

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Binance Partners with Swipe for Crypto Card

The crypto community has welcomed great thanks to a new move by Binance that will make crypto payments much easier and more familiar than ever before. Thanks to the partnership between the huge crypto exchange and Swipe, users of digital currencies may soon be able to use a crypto credit card for their payments.

Rumors of a potential partnership between Binance and Swipe have been floating around for quite some time. It was initially anticipated that Binance was planning to buy a majority stake in the crypto startup. While the page that details the partnership has since been taken down, there is enough evidence suggesting that Binance is well on its ways in disrupting the payment card ecosystem.

The first time that Binance unveiled its crypto debit card was back in March. According to the company, the move was meant to give crypto users a fiat gateway through which they pay for goods and services. The hype seemed to have cooled off but that is perhaps because the company was working on getting a partner to push that particular project to even greater heights.

Thankfully, the goal of the crypto card is not just to cater to existing crypto users – it is also quite easy to see that it is geared towards appealing to non-crypto users as well. The card has been advertised as being very similar to other bank-issued cards which means that it will certainly be just as easier to use. Moreover, preregistration for the card cost as a little as $15 which may have been quite the incentive for more adoption of crypto.

The Rise of Crypto Cards

Crypto card usage is not even close to peaking, at least not yet. This is very understandable considering the massive interest that both individuals and companies have shown towards crypto. Even PayPal has reportedly been considering direct sales of crypto and Visa may also be pursuing similar ambitions. These alone are enough to prove that perhaps its time to take crypto to the next level. That said, crypto cards are going to be a huge part of the next phase of the payments revolution.

We can, however, not overlook the issues that have already cropped up in the space. For instance, crypto debit cards that were issued by Wirecard stopped working after the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) suspended Wirecard Card Solutions (WCS. This is a very big deal especially because of the picture it paints of the gaming industry. Still, it is a great opportunity for the industry to learn and find ways to ensure more reliability. Maybe that is why Binance is so cautious about its next move.