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SCOOP: Days before the inauguration, the Trump family secretly signed away 49% of World Liberty Financial, their crypto company, in a deal with a U.A.E. royal, acc. to documents and people familiar.
The $500M investment came months before the U.A.E. won access to U.S. AI chips🧵
Sam Kessler retweeted
The Binance hacker might have just pulled off one of the smartest moves I’ve seen in crypto.
First, Tether froze $1.5 billion in USDT.
Then Circle froze another $800 million in USDC.
At that point, it looked like the hacker’s money was trapped.
But apparently, he had already planned for that.
Instead of holding the stolen USDT in a wallet, he allegedly deposited it into Aave and used it as collateral to borrow ETH.
Then he walked away.
That’s where the story gets crazy.
Tether can freeze the USDT sitting in the wallet.
But it can’t freeze the ETH he already borrowed.
So now Aave is left holding frozen collateral, while the hacker is sitting on liquid ETH.
And unless the protocol can recover it somehow, he may not even need to pay the loan back.
Two companies froze billions of dollars in seconds.
But someone who understood how to use DeFi may have found a way around both of them.
Pretty insane when you think about it.
NEW: North Korea appears to have been behind today's $6.3 billion Binance hack according to cybersecurity researchers.
h/t @trmlabs @tanuki42_
[Gift link] wsj.com/finance/currencies/b…
Binance has frozen withdrawals following today's multibillion-dollar heist.
nitter.cf/binance/status/2115935…
Seems we're dealing with the biggest cyber heist of all time.
More: wsj.com/finance/currencies/b…
Seems we're dealing with the biggest cyber heist of all time.
More: wsj.com/finance/currencies/b…
Sam Kessler retweeted
via @ceostroff @byneilmehta @skesslr @KevinTDugan
"A wallet belonging to a suspected attacker appeared to show more than $2.5 million in funds drawn from Polymarket user accounts...The money was transferred in more than 900 transactions."
wsj.com/business/polymarket-…
We've identified & fixed an issue impacting our international platform, Polymarket.com. One of our 3rd party providers was compromised, and we have referred this to relevant law enforcement.
Anyone who has been impacted will be made whole.
Out of an abundance of caution, we have temporarily halted trading & are working to bring the platform back online.
Sam Kessler retweeted
New: you think you know Proton, but you really don't.
I spoke to 8 current employees, got Slack chats, meeting audio, and an AI manifesto written by its CTO.
“That’s bullshit and loser thinking,” Yen wrote. “Stop thinking always of how to be slower, and focus more on how to be faster.”
CEO Andy Yen critiques AI in public. But inside, he is pushing everyone to use AI, even those with security concerns 404media.co/manifestos-fear-…
I recently sat down with @PJVogt to chat about North Korea’s undercover U.S. workforce.
I’ve been a fan of Search Engine and Reply All for years, so being a part of an episode was a real treat.
If you have some spare time, give it a listen!
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…
The episode is based on a documentary I made with @emmatscott and @bobmcmillan (which is somehow at 10M views??)
Here’s a link:
youtu.be/RUhdmIFpb-w?is=_LGj…
Update 👇
blumenthal.senate.gov/newsro…
SCOOP: While Bo Hines was leading the White House’s push to pass the Genius Act, Tether—the company with the most at stake in the bill—was steering millions of dollars to a company he co-owned.
Right after the bill passed, Tether hired him as its U.S. chief.
[Gift link] wsj.com/politics/policy/cryp…
Sam Kessler retweeted
The Vanity Fair excerpt of Cole's book isn’t written carefully or seriously. It doesn’t explicate sourcing or cite documents.
Kushner offered a detailed on-the-record denial, which appears only parenthetically, low in the piece.
It may be true but I'd exercise caution.
Sam Kessler retweeted
SCOOP: While Bo Hines was leading the White House’s push to pass the Genius Act, Tether—the company with the most at stake in the bill—was steering millions of dollars to a company he co-owned.
Right after the bill passed, Tether hired him as its U.S. chief.
[Gift link] wsj.com/politics/policy/cryp…
Someone impersonated a WSJ lawyer and had X take down this thread for violating copyright.
It’s now back online.
ICYMI: @BoHines’s company earned millions from @Tether as he led the White House’s crypto agenda.
wsj.com/politics/policy/cryp…
SCOOP: While Bo Hines was leading the White House’s push to pass the Genius Act, Tether—the company with the most at stake in the bill—was steering millions of dollars to a company he co-owned.
Right after the bill passed, Tether hired him as its U.S. chief.
[Gift link] wsj.com/politics/policy/cryp…
Sam Kessler retweeted
Last year the FBI opened what could have been an explosive corruption investigation.
Agents were looking at potential bribery of some of the most powerful people in DC, including Lindsey Graham & Jim Clyburn.
Then Trump purged the FBI & it was shut down propublica.org/article/navat…
