A young Pump.fun developer has apparently filmed himself performing oral sex on a stripper, shooting heroin, and taking fentanyl in an effort to raise the price of his newly launched coin, Stripper Trev Dev. 

Screenshots circulating on X (formerly Twitter) of the explicit stream also purport to show the dev — who goes by the name ‘Trevv online — shaving his own head and passing the stripper a suspicious jar that some users claimed was filled with urine.

Read more: Research finds less than 0.002% of Pump.fun memecoins succeed

However, there are already doubts about the legitimacy of the stream. Some X users suggested that Trevv’s Instagram account shows that the ‘stripper’ in the stream is in fact his girlfriend and it’s also believed that the supposed ‘heroin’ in the video was in fact hash, a form of cannabis. 

Following Trevv’s online exploits, the coin hit highs of $0.00123 but has since plummeted 98% to $0.00002. Its 24-hour volume stands at nearly $5.2 million and its market cap is currently just over $23,000.

Whether or not it will buck the trend revealed in recent research that less than 0.002% of Pump.fun tokens are ever able to reach a $1 million market capitalization remains to be seen.

Protos previously reported that when Pump.fun launched its livestream segment, it was flooded with porn, suicide threats, and nudity from its ‘devs.’

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With the likelihood of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approving a spot ether ETF suddenly rising, altcoin investors are speculating on a possible flurry of approvals for additional coins.

Indeed, just this morning, WisdomTree gained approval from the UK Financial Conduct Authority to list its 100% physically backed Ethereum ETP on the London Stock Exchange as early as May 28 — although the products will not be available for retail investment.

The bullish momentum for ether, which is up 29% this week alone, might spill over into other crypto assets.

On Monday, Bloomberg ETF analysts James Seyffart and Eric Balchunas declared that the likelihood of the SEC approving a spot ether ETF had jumped from 25% to 75% thanks to the agency’s reported commentary to at least one exchange and one ETF applicant regarding their 19b-4 exchange rule change request.

The Wall Street Journal confirmed the news while CoinDesk also cited three people familiar with the matter. Around the same time and without citing 19b-4 news, David Han at Coinbase Institutional wrote a note adjusting his outlook for a spot ether ETF upward.

Barrons claimed staff workers at the SEC told exchanges “that it is leaning toward approving them, according to people familiar with the matter.”

As early as tomorrow, the SEC could approve a so-called 19b-4 filing that, alongside a related S-1 filing the deadline of which is weeks away, might lead to an eventual listing of a spot ether ETF by investment manager VanEck.

Other ETF sponsors have also filed 19b-4 applications with the SEC for a spot ether ETF, including Fidelity, 21Shares, Invesco/Galaxy, and Franklin Templeton. VanEck requested the earliest response date: tomorrow.

Will a spot ether ETF lead to other altcoin ETFs?

Certainly, ether is just one of many altcoins trading on US stock exchanges via trusts. There are over a dozen trusts publicly trading in the US holding alternate crypto assets: Litecoin (LTC), Chainlink (LINK), Basic Attention Token (BAT), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Decentraland (MANA), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Filecoin (FIL), Polkadot (DOT), Horizon (ZEN), Stellar Lumens (XLM), Livepeer (LPT), Zcash (ZEC), and Solana (SOL).

So, if the SEC approves a spot ether ETF, could it also approve ETFs for additional altcoins?

The logic of altcoin proponents — arguing that non-ether spot altcoin ETFs might gain SEC approval shortly after a spot ether ETF — usually follows a simple argument: If the SEC permitted Grayscale to convert its bitcoin trust into an ETF, why would commissioners deny trust sponsors of other crypto assets to convert into an ETF?

For obvious reasons, that argument might fail if the SEC claims the crypto asset is an unregistered security. However, the SEC hasn’t classified all crypto assets held in US public trusts as securities.

Interestingly, many crypto trusts trading on OTC Markets, a US stock exchange, hold expressly SEC-designated unregistered securities, including SOL, MANA, and FIL. More crypto assets are rumored to be SEC-designated unregistered securities: ZEN, XLM, and ZEN. 

Nevertheless, there are certain trusts trading on US OTC Markets that don’t hold SEC-designated unregistered securities, such as DOT or ETC trusts. Perhaps, if the SEC were to approve a spot ether ETF, commissioners might approve spot ETFs based on such possibly non-security crypto assets.

It’s worth noting that just because the SEC hasn’t classified a crypto asset as an unregistered security doesn’t mean that it’s not. Congress didn’t task the SEC to proactively classify all assets. Instead, the SEC simply chooses to accept or reject applications that it receives, or file enforcement actions against illegal conduct on a case-by-case basis, as it has the time, money, staff, and resources.

Silence from commissioners doesn’t indicate non-designation.

Of course, there is a counterargument against this logic. Unlike altcoins like DOT or ETC, only bitcoin and ether have futures contracts listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). This CME market of significant size for ether alone might be a carrying reason for approving only a spot ether ETF and not any other altcoin.

Spot ether ETF: No longer an obvious SEC rejection?

According to reports from Bloomberg, Barron’s, and Wall Street Journal sources, the Trading and Markets Division at the SEC has requested amendments to an exchange and sponsor’s joint 19b-4 form — likely VanEck. This is a bullish sign for a possible spot ether ETF approval because, in the view of market observers, the SEC is typically silent or disinterested in 19b-4 filings if it intends to reject them.

Because the SEC is asking for a reapplication, the reasoning goes, its interest is likely a positive development.

Many viewed the SEC’s stance toward a spot ether ETF as decidedly negative. Joe Lubin’s ConsenSys even sued the SEC claiming that commissioners had secretly categorized ether as an unregistered security.

Therefore, if the SEC is actually considering a possible approval of a spot ETF for Ethereum, it would be a marked change of tone.

Read more: ConsenSys says the SEC designated ETH a security but won’t say where

Amid all of these media reports, the price of ether has rallied by 29% over the past seven days — outperforming bitcoin’s 12% rally by an additional 17%.

Form 19b-4 asks applicants for the information necessary for the public to understand why the SEC should change its Section 19(b)(1) rules pursuant to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. In this case, the exchange and an ETF sponsor must explain why the SEC should allow ether to be used as the sole asset of a spot ETF.

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The post If SEC approves ether ETF, will it approve altcoin ETFs? appeared first on Protos.

Hollywood actress Sydney Sweeney unwittingly became the face of a little-known shitcoin this weekend, after hackers took control of her X (formerly Twitter) account and told the world, “I have the best t**ts in crypto.”

Sweeney’s smile was turned into a meme after she appeared on YouTube series Hot Ones, in which celebrity guests are interviewed while eating spicy chicken wings. 

Unfortunately, the meme’s popularity brought with it some unwanted attention. On Sunday, hackers gained control of her X account and used it to promote $MILK, a Solana-based altcoin created just days earlier.  

Read more: Algorand X account hacker brags they’re still in control after ‘taking a nap’

The unknown hacker used the viral image alongside a price chart with a poorly drawn pair of breasts that supposedly mimic the crypto’s price movement. According to one screenshot, the hacked post received at least 4.5 million views, 20,000 likes, and 3,900 reposts.

Accounts promoting the crypto are utilizing Sweeney’s meme in a sexualized manner to pump it. Indeed, one X user called ‘sweeneyonsol’ used an array of fan edits and suggestive phrases centered around milk. At the time of writing, $MILK has a 24-hour trading volume of $2.92 million.

While promotion of the $MILK altcoin continues, the official Sweeney X account has since deleted the hacked post. 

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There’s a scourge of cringe enveloping the crypto industry, and it’s not from multibillion-dollar frauds or scammers building algorithmic stablecoin Ponzi schemes: it’s all down to two dudes named Ben.

One of those Bens — Ben Armstrong, aka BitBoy — has been covered repeatedly by Protos for his antics and faux educational material, but the other Ben — Ben dot Eth — is somebody that the media seems to be intentionally steering clear of. Let’s talk about both, why they’re making waves, and how they’re both terrible for the industry.

First off, Ben dot Eth, a relatively obscure cryptocurrency and NFT proprietor, surfaced in the fetid pond of web3 scammers when he created the ‘$BEN’ token and sold it to BitBoy, a YouTube personality and longtime shill of failed and fraudulent projects.

Read more: So you don’t have to: Watching BitBoy and Trump Jr. talk about crypto

While the $BEN coin seemingly does nothing of value, at the time of writing, it’s still nearing all-time highs (perhaps because BitBoy has suggested it will be sponsored by Stake dot com, a cryptocurrency gambling website, in the future).

Besides the fact that the handover of the token between the two scammers was fraught with issues and concerns — namely that BitBoy promised not to sell any of the tokens for “at least six months” and then sold his tokens within five days of the takeover — Ben dot Eth has moved on to greener, scammier pastures: a token he’s coined $PSYOP.

Simply naming the coin PSYOP worked

It’s an unfortunate testament to the world we live in that by calling the new token $PSYOP, Ben dot Eth caused enough confusion to keep negative news at bay. Anything broken or downright stupid about the tokenomics could be brushed off as a purposeful psychological operation from the creator and his friends, and while millions of dollars worth of crypto poured into the project, media outlets largely refused to cover it because even negative stories were seen as positives by the creator.

Even though the launch was marred by contract issues and many individuals complained of receiving a fraction of the tokens they were promised, the coin has mooned and is still trading near all-time highs.  CoinGecko fairly notes that nearly the entire supply of PSYOP is in a wallet controlled by Ben dot Eth.

Making a mockery of an already mocked industry

Ben and Ben have done their best to make a mockery of an industry already mostly known for fraud, scams, rug pulls, and massive failures of exchanges resulting in billions of customer dollars lost. With two obvious scam tokens, Ben dot Eth has still managed to attract millions of dollars from cryptocurrency investors, including those who’ve been involved with the space for years. BitBoy has continued to make a fool of himself at every opportunity — from claiming to have single-handedly brought down FTX and screaming that someone was a bitch at the Bitcoin 2023 Conference, to advertising scams to millions on YouTube.

It’s unfortunate that these two individuals have become the best metaphor for what crypto currently represents, but with no sign that either of them will stop until they’re forced to or can’t milk more cash from naive investors, it’s really up to the media and citizen journalists to call them, their projects, and their endorsements out.

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The post BitBoy and another less famous Ben are giving crypto a bad name appeared first on Protos.

Prior to the Ethereum ICO of 2014, most early Bitcoiners were open to the idea of novel blockchain technologies. Even Satoshi Nakamoto, way back in 2010, took it for granted that an altcoin, BitDNS, would not only exist but would merge mine with Bitcoin’s hash rate.

During its early years, Bitcoiners anticipated that almost all public blockchain functions could integrate into the Bitcoin network in some way.

The community was tech-savvy and its cypherpunks, cryptographers, and computer developers could easily spot flaws in altcoins like the first Proof-of-Stake (PoS) altcoin, NXT. Dubious projects were quickly dismissed as irrelevant frivolities.

By 2015, Ethereum had raised some $18 million, promising attractive returns to investors who contributed BTC. In the words of Vitalik Buterin on March 6, 2014: “What we’re hoping is something like what happened with Mastercoin so… the value of Ether goes up by five [times].”

Many Bitcoiners like now-deceased billionaire Mircea Popescu lamented the get-rich-quick framing of altcoin promoters like Buterin. Some began believing that only Bitcoin mattered and Popescu began ridiculing all altcoins with religious fervor, fostering a Bitcoin subculture of toxicity.

Nevertheless, Ethereum survived and its price eventually far exceeded any of its founders’ original forecasts. Almost no one lost money investing in ETH.

By 2016, with Ethereum rallying, the culture of Bitcoin maximalism remained subdued. Indeed, it wasn’t until 2017 and the ICO bonanza that a sizable population of Bitcoiners began associating with maximalism.

According to a recounting by Jameson Lopp, “The use of the word ‘maximalist’ really came back into play during the scaling wars and 2017 ICO hype cycle. It seems that the use of ‘toxic maximalism’ as a descriptor really picked up mid-2018.”

Read more: Explained: Why bitcoin’s dominance is down this bear market

Soon enough, maximalists replaced the vision of Bitcoin becoming the base blockchain for myriad, alternative blockchains with a newer, far narrower mission: digital gold. Indeed, Digital Gold is the title of a book by one of Bitcoin’s most definitive historians, Nathaniel Popper.

As the pace of Bitcoin software upgrades slowed over the years and decision-making politicized, ambitious developers began building on non-Bitcoin blockchains.

Drivechain: New blockchains funded with BTC and secured by Bitcoin hash power

Taking the above as context, we can now envision the world in which LayerTwo Labs founder Paul Sztorc originally proposed Drivechain to the Bitcoin community.

In 2014, almost no Bitcoiner would have considered themselves a maximalist. Paul Sztorc was one such Bitcoiner. He bought his first bitcoin in 2011 and has actively contributed since 2014.

Subsequently, he formally proposed Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) 300 and 301, bundling them together under the name Drivechain. He suggested Bitcoin reclaim its expansive power for platforming, mining, denominating, and securing alternative blockchains.

Sztorc saw that many Bitcoiners were interested in altcoins and rather than denounce and ridicule them, Drivechain would allow them to work on their code using Bitcoin’s network and the BTC asset.

Specifically, Sztorc envisioned a network of side-blockchains that merge mine with Bitcoin’s mining network and use BTC as their base asset. In essence, sidechains are alternative blockchains — complete with their own altcoins and market-determined values — that use BTC as their funding mechanism and Bitcoin mining for their security.

Non-custodial, peer-to-peer, two-way BTC peg

Right now, most Bitcoin sidechains like Liquid and Rootstock (RSK) are federated. Most have a couple of dozen parties who are de facto custodians of the sidechain’s BTC collateral.

Unlike federated sidechains, Drivechain retains most of Bitcoin’s decentralized, peer-to-peer, and permissionless features. Sztorc resisted the idea of introducing a federation because it relies on trusted third parties to hold assets.

The essence of Drivechain is more peer-to-peer. No federation controls the keys to the sidechain’s BTC. Instead, the entire Bitcoin mining network approves the creation of sidechains, secures sidechains’ proof-of-work (PoW) security, and allows sidechain participants to peg their sidechain value back into Bitcoin for BTC.

In order to protect the security of BTC from double-spending and other attacks, Sztorc proposes a six-month process for leaving a sidechain and settling into BTC with irreversible finality.

In Drivechain, BTC transfers from sidechains to Bitcoin’s base chain use conjecture and refutation instead of verifiable proof to confirm the transactions. In mathematics, conjecture describes a process by which problem-solvers can reach the correct answer through deductive reasoning. Refutation refers to a method by which deductive reasoning can be used to demonstrate whether an answer is correct or incorrect.

BIP 300: Hashrate escrows

BIP 300 describes Hashrate Escrows in which transactions from a sidechain to the main chain are ‘signed’ using hash power instead of a cryptographic key. Hashrate escrows enable a non-federated, peer-to-peer, two-way peg that allows users to transfer assets to the sidechain and then back to Bitcoin’s base chain. 

Many current sidechains use a one-way peg that allows asset transfers from the main chain to the sidechain, but not from the sidechain to the blockchain. A one-way peg effectively ‘burns’ the assets, rendering them unusable on the main chain.

It mentions the motivation to create sidechains in which developers can experiment with new features without creating another digital asset that competes with bitcoin. Hashrate escrows provide a method for compressing three to six months of transaction data into a 32-byte piece of data.

BIP 301: Blind merge mining

BIP 301 proposes blind merge mining, which enables mining data from sidechains without validating the sidechain’s operations.

• With regular merge mining, miners must run a full node on all blockchains in order to validate each block.
• In contrast, blind merge mining simply allows Bitcoin miners to accept a fee for including non-validated sidechain data within a Bitcoin block.
• The sidechain uses this Bitcoin data for various proofs and attestations. However, Bitcoin miners need not validate any sidechain activity.

Blind merge mining allows miners to reuse their hash rate for sidechains without running any sidechain node. Bitcoin miners don’t need to participate in any sidechain activity whatsoever; they simply accept fees from sidechains to include data within Bitcoin blocks. Moreover, blind merge mining doesn’t require that miners be paid in any altcoin; they may only accept BTC.

Current state of Drivechain

A testnet for Drivechain already exists — complete with a Bitcoin version of zCash as a Drivechain sidechain.

Nearly a decade since his original proposal, Sztorc remains a Drivechain evangelist. He’s continued to present Drivechain at conferences and has a new company called LayerTwo Labs, which seeks the adoption of Drivechain with a consensus approval of BIPs 300 and 301 into Bitcoin Core.

Sztorc says Drivechain could have avoided various conflicts throughout Bitcoin’s history. Instead of contentious hard forks like BCH, these forks could have existed as their own sidechain, accruing value to the whole community while allowing independent development.

Drivechain solves the feuds between Bitcoin maximalists and altcoin-curious Bitcoiners by creating a BTC-denominated platform to experiment with new altcoins without forcing the main Bitcoin network to do anything.

Disagreements can lead to the creation of a new sidechain to work on an experimental feature. Users can simply transfer their assets back to the Bitcoin network when they’re done interacting with the sidechain.

In an email to Protos, Sztorc concluded, “Throughout Bitcoin’s history, people have disagreed over what the software should do. Drivechain allows the end user to choose their own software — they can set their own ‘blocksize,’ or their own smart contract stack. Bitcoin can now mimic any altcoin — thus, altcoins are obsolete.”

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The post What are sidechains and could they really make altcoins obsolete? appeared first on Protos.

As of last year, when bitcoin — and crypto in general — were riding the wave of exorbitantly high prices, the dominance enjoyed by the world’s leading crypto took a dip as money flowed into altcoins and other crypto tokens.

Indeed, bitcoin’s dominance dropped significantly from 63% in January 2021 to just 42% by May. It then slipped even further to a bottom of 40% during December.

The altcoin bull run that followed bitcoin’s price hike last year was a much-expected and predictable reaction to the currency’s surging value. What wasn’t expected: for bitcoin’s dominance to remain low in a bear market. Bitcoin dominance currently rests at a surprising 38% and there are various factors that are keeping it low compared to the previous bear market of 2018.

Altcoins are stronger and bigger, most notably Ethereum

This will cause consternation among bitcoiners who cheer bear markets for their devastating impacts on anything but their chosen coin. But on relative terms, some altcoins, most notably ether, are doing much better than they did in the previous bear market. In addition, there are many more altcoins than previously.

Ether fell more than 90% from its all-time high of more than $1,300 in January 2018 to end the year at around $83. Currently, ether is down around 73% from November last year, sitting at around $1,230.

Ether’s dominance is also down from its June 2017 peak of 25% to around 18% today. So, although ether dominance isn’t at its bull market highs, it’s still higher than its previous bitcoin bear market lows that were less than 10%.

Stablecoins are huge

An obvious and visible factor keeping bitcoin dominance relatively low is that the stablecoin market has also grown significantly. Tether is the third biggest crypto-token after ether by market cap and currently comprises nearly 8% of the entire crypto market. Next up is Binance’s BNB coin but after that, there’s USDC, which makes up 5% of the market, and then Binance USD.

Bitcoin is losing the safe haven bid to gold

One of the main hallmarks that has always distinguished bitcoin from altcoins is that it’s promoted as a safe-haven asset like gold. This is in contrast to altcoins which are considered to be more speculative in nature.

However, during these times of global turmoil, bitcoin is losing its safe-haven status to gold. Bitcoin is down 62% from the start of the year while gold is only down 1% in the same timeframe.

Read more: Bitcoin trackers reveal Saylor and El Salvador both rekt

Is bitcoin no longer cool?

As bitcoin loses its safe-haven bid to gold, what can it be used for other than speculative purposes? Of course, it can be used for money transfers, but stablecoins can be better for such a purpose as they are less volatile.

And on the speculative front, gamblers may be much more enticed by potential altcoin gains than bitcoin’s gargantuan dream of reaching the $100,000 mark. Apparently, bitcoin is losing on many fronts, both to rival cryptos and to more traditional assets like gold.

Only time will tell if the world’s biggest crypto can mount a significant comeback and once again hit the dizzying heights of 2021, but so far that’s looking a long way off.

For more informed news, follow us on Twitter and Google News or listen to our investigative podcast Innovated: Blockchain City.



 

The post Explained: Why bitcoin’s dominance is down this bear market appeared first on Protos.

A mysterious automated crypto mining operation has been caught using more than 30 free GitHub accounts to produce a raft of obscure tokens in a suspected dry run before it turns its attention to more well-known currencies.

According to a report from The Register, the operation, dubbed Purpleurchin, has been using the GitHub accounts, alongside more than 2,000 Heroku and 900 Buddy devops accounts to power its mining efforts.

The tactic is called “freejacking,” and involves taking over the computing power allocated for free trial accounts on continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) service platforms.

Researchers say the team responsible has so far only mined a handful of little-known tokens, including Sugarchain, Tidecoin Onyx, Yenten, Sprint, and Bitweb, and as such will only have seen very low profit margins.

However, it’s suspected that they’re just warming up and using the relatively small-scale scheme as a smokescreen for something far more lucrative — possibly even an attack on the underlying blockchain that could, in theory, net millions in bitcoin or monero.

“We can say with a medium amount of confidence that the actor has been experimenting with different coins,” researchers told The Register (our emphasis).

“This large-scale operation could be a decoy for other nefarious activities.”

Read more: This Bitcoin Core update will protect full node operators from hacks

Purpleurchin’s plot could leave real users out of pocket

Despite providers like GitHub using a number of tactics — including increasingly complicated CAPTCHA forms and requiring credit card information — to combat attacks like these, this team is thought to be particularly sophisticated.

According to researchers, each of the free GitHub accounts is costing the platform’s owner, Microsoft, $15 per month, with the free accounts from Heroku and Buddy costing around $10.

“At these rates, it would cost a provider more than $100,000 for a threat actor to mine one monero (XMR),” experts told The Register.

Unfortunately, for legit cloud service users, these costs will likely be passed onto them by GitHub et al. to cover the shortfall at their end. Illegal mining operations could also take up resources that reduce the performance afforded to paying customers.

For more informed news, follow us on Twitter and Google News or listen to our investigative podcast Innovated: Blockchain City.

The post Stealthy crypto miners loot altcoins with GitHub trial accounts appeared first on Protos.