LVMH conquering the Web3

• Nomad, a bridge (a “bridge” in the language of Molière) allowing the transfer of cryptocurrencies between different blockchains, was targeted bya hack that drained nearly $200 million. The hackers’ 3.0 feat was made possible by exploiting a technical flaw in a smart contract. Simply put, hackers were able to withdraw funds from certain users by exploiting a piece of code that allowed transactions to be validated automatically and repeatedly. Nomad is therefore added to the long list of hacks in the cryptosphere this year, which currently totals 2 billion dollars hacked.
• Blockchain Solana was the target of a hack concerning more than 7,900 wallets. For the moment, the theft of funds is estimated at more than $5.2 million and the source of the technical problem has not yet been fully identified. In contrast, the founder of blockchain forensics firm Elliptic, Tom Robinson, who investigates this type of issue, said that “it appears to be due to a flaw in some wallet software, rather than the Solana blockchain itself.” . As a reminder, Solana has been the target of numerous hacks in recent months, which has contributed to drastically dropping the price of the cryptocurrency associated with the blockchain, the SOL, by more than 85% since its historic peak in November 2021.
• Michael Saylor, at the head of the company MicroStrategy which has the largest number of bitcoins, i.e. 199,699 BTC at the end of July, decided to step down from his chair as CEO. the maximalist bitcoin will remain on the board of directors all the same and will hand over the reins of the company on August 8 to Phong Le, the financial director. But Saylor does not intend to lift the foot of the accelerator on the acquisition of bitcoins. He indicated, when leaving the post of CEO, that he wanted to “focus more on our bitcoin acquisition strategy”. So we’re likely to see the company’s digital jackpot swell further in the coming months.
• Coinbasethe leading US cryptocurrency exchange, partners with BlackRock, the world’s largest fund manager, to provide clients of Aladdin, the asset manager’s software, access to crypto trading and custody through Coinbase Prime. It is specified that the partnership applies only for transactions in bitcoins for the moment. This good news comes after the company suffered numerous turmoil and layoffs in a still troubled market.
• After El Salvador announced the construction of a “Bitcoin City” and a “Bitcoin Beach”, it is the turn of the Honduras to announce the advent of Bitcoin Valley. This pro-bitcoin valley is in the Honduran tourist enclave of Santa Lucia and local businesses hope that “it will open up more opportunities and attract more people who want to use this currency.” With an inflation of more than 10%, the country intends, perhaps, to offer an alternative to the Honduran lempira with bitcoin, but above all to attract crypto-investors and tourists 3.0.
• The famous American jeweler of the LVMH group Tiffany & Co. will offer, exclusively to NFT CryptoPunk holders, a pendant that will feature 30 diamonds or gemstones suspended from an 18-karat gold chain that will be sold for 30 ETH, or $50,000. If you are the lucky owner of one of these digital monstrosities and you hold 30 ETH, then you will be able to buy one of these pendants. The company nevertheless specified that a maximum of three copies could be ordered by a single person so as not to concentrate the jewels in a too closed circle of people. Alexandre Arnault, the executive director of Tiffany & Co and son of Bernard Arnault, who holds the CryptoPunk #3167 will be able to get one of these pendants by spending 30 ETH.
• We stay with LVMH and its CEO Bernard Arnault which announced to launch, via the venture capital company Aglae Ventures, a fund of 100 million euros dedicated to Web3. As a reminder, Aglaé, of which Bernard Arnault is the majority shareholder, has supported tech giants such as Airbnb, Netflix, Slack or Spotify in recent years. The LVMH group seems, between the CryptoPunks and this new fund, to want to be part of this new era of the internet which is slowly looming on the horizon.
• Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has announced inaugurate a mixed reality classroom in the Metaverse “MetaHKUST”. Concretely, the institution wants to create an immersive learning environment that will link the two university campuses, one in Hong Kong and the other in Guangzhou. Pan Hui, a computer arts professor at the university, said that “the whole world has turned to conferencing services like Zoom during the pandemic, but I think learning in the metaverse is a better option for students because it promotes a better level of interaction”.
• We end this Crypto Recap with an unusual news that took place in France. Under the guise of crypto advice, the French youtuber by the name of Crypto Gouv scammed 300 people out of his 4,000 subscribers, some of whom had entrusted him with several tens of thousands of euros. To put it simply, the scammer offered his subscribers to pool their capital on an account (a pool) to invest in common in order to benefit from “significant guaranteed” returns. But the scammer announced on social networks to leave with all the funds raised. It’s as if you entrust your money to a wealth manager but they go directly with your money. After openly announcing to his subscribers that he was fleeing with the money collected, an investigation was opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office.

The evolution of the Top 20 cryptocurrencies in terms of capitalization over a week.
(Click on the heat map below to better visualize the variations)

Source: Quantify

Readings:

Virtual reality still stinks because it doesn’t smell (Wired)

No one cares about my framed artistic NFT (Wired)

The true meaning of cybersecurity (Project Syndicate, in English).