Luma AI Dream Machine, a new development that turns still memes into videos, has become a huge trend. Since its release, users from all over the world have flooded social platforms with their Luma-generated creations. The development has also found its way into the crypto community, and the social network X has been flooded with numerous videos of users with crypto memes. And while crypto users are trying out the new technology, the industry continues to be filled with other major events and integrations.
On 3 July, Aptos Blockchain launched a web-based keyless wallet application that uses ZK Proofs to verify users. The wallet itself is called Aptos Connect. According to the company, Aptos Connect simplifies registration with Web3 by allowing users to create and manage blockchain accounts using their Google login credentials. This approach eliminates the need for private keys, seed phrases, hardware security modules, or multi-party computing networks, which have long been the main elements of crypto wallets.
To log in to the wallet, users need to click the “Continue with Google” button and select an account, which will allow them to work seamlessly with decentralized applications.
In addition, the wallet combines the integration of the OpenID Connect (OIDC) standard with zero-knowledge-proof technology. In turn, this allows Aptos Connect to securely link social logins to blockchain accounts while maintaining user privacy. The use of ZK proof ensures that neither the identity of the user nor the login provider is revealed in the blockchain data, preventing a specific Google ID from being linked to any Aptos account.
A few days ago, several Coinbase users and one crypto investor reported that they had become victims of fraudsters posing as exchange employees. One of them claims that he was swindled out of $1.7 million after being manipulated into revealing part of his seed phrase.
The victim said that the scammer called, claiming to be from Coinbase security, and emailed him purporting to be from the company, confirming that he was “speaking to a Coinbase official”. He then claimed that the victim’s wallet was “connected directly to the blockchain”, which would lead to a withdrawal of funds from the wallet. Afterward, the fraudster sent another email purporting to be from Coinbase, showing the outgoing transaction.
He redirected the victim to a website where they had to enter a passphrase to stop the transactions. The user knew it was “unsafe” but entered “part” of the phrase anyway, although he did not submit it. A few hours later, $1.7 million was taken from their wallet.
Alex Miller, CEO of Hiro Systems, wrote that such websites “are capturing data as you enter it.” without even sending it, and if the victim partially revealed their initial phrase, it was enough for “the bad guys to brute force the rest.”
According to Miller, he was also recently contacted by a fraudster claiming to be from Coinbase who used a similar scheme. He believes that his data may have been leaked in 2022 from the email service provider CoinTracker’s database.
“Specifically, they were using the Coinbase API key connecting to CoinTracker to verify that they were me (in addition to other info). At the very least, cycle your API keys if you have been using CoinTracker,” Miller advised.
Bitget Wallet has announced the launch of a multi-party computing wallet (MPC) linked to Telegram and the TON blockchain. MPCs are non-custodial solutions that use public-key cryptography to jointly sign transactions. Typically, for each private wallet, there is a single owner who holds and protects the private keys needed to make transactions.
However, MPCs are designed to be shared by multiple users by “splitting” the private key into several parts: each of them has a share of this resource, sufficient to ensure cryptographic participation in the blockchain.
With this approach, there is no need to disclose the full key across devices, increasing security in a shared digital environment. When a transaction requires a signature, the wallet’s co-owners collaborate to create one without completely reconstructing the private key, ensuring that assets remain secure throughout the process.
The Bitget team has already presented MPC technology in October last year when it launched its non-custodial shared wallet. Bitget Wallet has expanded its MPC solution to include support for the TON and Solana networks. The update complements the existing support for Bitcoin and various blockchains on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
TON supports a wide range of decentralized applications (dApps) in areas such as DeFi, data storage, tokenization, etc. Toncoin is a native blockchain token that is currently quite popular, originally developed by Telegram but is now being developed by the global community. Investors and developers are actively involved in the project. Today, the token is available for trading on many cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Bybit, OKX, WhiteBIT, etc. In addition, the latter recently announced the possibility of depositing and withdrawing USDT on the TON network.
The crypto exchange Binance has been facing regulatory problems in Nigeria for a long time. On July 5, an official of the Central Bank of Nigeria reportedly testified in court that Binance does not have the necessary licenses and regulatory approvals. Specifically, Olubukola Akinwunmi, the head of the CBN’s Payment Policy and Regulation Department, testified to the judge, arguing that deposit and withdrawal operations on the exchange should be reserved for banks and authorized financial institutions.
The Nigerian government has accused the exchange and its executives, Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla, of conspiring to conceal the origin of $35.4 million in financial proceeds from illegal activities in the country.
Akinwunmi said that on the Binance, Nigerians were misled into using the platform to conduct transactions in naira using a payment link. The platform offers free deposits and withdrawals with fixed fees, activities that are regulated by the CBN and reserved for licensed banks and financial institutions. Akinwunmi also alleged that Binance facilitated currency conversion from naira to US dollars without prior CBN approval.
The key issue that is the subject of the conflict remains the process of peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions on Binance. Akinwunmi detailed how users can transfer naira to each other’s bank accounts and confirm the transaction on the platform, prompting Binance to issue a cryptocurrency or fiat. He argued that this service is a regulated activity for which Binance does not have a permit.
SingularityNET, the developer of the AI platform, and Filecoin, the company that manages the Filecoin network, have announced the start of cooperation. The partnership aims to integrate the fields of artificial intelligence and DePIN while preserving decentralization, AI ethics, and data provenance.
According to the official press release provided by Cointelegraph, the cooperation will include the creation of an AI ethics working group to ensure compliance with ethical standards in the development and implementation of artificial intelligence.
Ben Goertzel, CEO of SingularityNET and co-founder of the Artificial Intelligence Alliance, said: “AI ethics has many aspects, including minimizing unhealthy biases in AI models, directing the use of AI toward beneficial applications, minimizing odds of adverse outcomes from breakthroughs to superintelligence and others.”
The cooperation has several goals, depending on the timeframe:
In the short term, the use of the SingularityNET Lighthouse SDK Filecoin for storing metadata.
In the medium term, the integration of the Filecoin technology stack into SingularityNET to improve security and support the storage infrastructure for data generated by artificial intelligence.
In the long term, the use of Filecoin to manage Knowledge Graphs is an important element of SingularityNET’s initiative to create a “Knowledge Layer”.
Goertzel also confirmed that the new solutions will use the tokens of Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI) and Filecoin (FIL).
Deniz Tutku