The hacker behind one of the most significant incidents in cryptocurrency history, that has gone unsolved for nearly six years, may have been found. Journalist Laura Shin has said she may have discovered the person who siphoned 3.6 million ether (ETH) worth over $9 billion at current prices, from The DAO.

Leading stablecoin issuer Tether has reduced its commercial paper holdings by $6.2 billion over the last quarter of 2021. The firm now has $24.2 billion in commercial paper, down from $30.5 billion in the period ending in September.

Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has added support for popular cryptocurrency hardware wallet Ledger, allowing for an integration with it through the Coinbase wallet browser extension.

Sponsored: The Invictus suite of funds offered commendable performance in a quarter marked by heightened volatility in the Bitcoin and broader cryptoasset market. All five of the Invictus funds registered positive returns for the quarter, with the vast majority outperforming their benchmarks. 

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Hacker Behind 2016 DAO Hack May Have Been Found
• Tether’s Commercial Paper Reserves Drop 21%
• Coinbase Wallet Adds Ledger Hardware Wallet Support
• What is Ethereum Classic?
• Sponsored: Invictus Capital continues to deliver an uninterrupted path of growth across all its funds

Hacker Behind 2016 DAO Hack May Have Been Found

The hacker behind one of the most significant incidents in cryptocurrency history, that has gone unsolved for nearly six years, may have been found. Journalist Laura Shin has said she may have discovered the person who siphoned 3.6 million ether (ETH) worth over $9 billion at current prices, from The DAO.

In 2016, The DAO hacker exploited a flaw to steal 31% of the total ETH committed to it, which was equivalent to around 5% of the cryptocurrency’s circulating supply at the time. The flaw allowed the attacker to slowly drain funds from The DAO to newly created DAOs, although vigilant community members could join those DAOs to stop them from withdrawing.

To stop the attacker from getting away with the hack, Ethereum’s developer ended up splitting the chain in two through a hard fork that resulted in the creation of Ethereum Classic (ETC), which the hacker was left holding.

Shin detailed that blockchain transactions showed the hacker moved ETC to ShapeShift, which at the time did not impose know-your-customer checks, to trade some funds for BTC, which was then mixed through a CoinJoin wallet to hide its trail in the blockchain.

In her report, Shin claims blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis was able to de-mix the transactions and trace the BTC to centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, which had accounts registered with the email of the alleged hacker. Chainalysis confirmed it “helped trace the funds despite the attacker’s attempts to cover his tracks w/ mixers.”

Detailing her findings, Shin pointed to the co-founder and chief financial officer of Europe-pegged stablecoin project Mimo Capital, Toby Hoenisch, who denied being involved in the hack.

Tether’s Commercial Paper Reserves Drop 21%

Leading stablecoin issuer Tether has reduced its commercial paper holdings by $6.2 billion over the last quarter of 2021. The firm now has $24.2 billion in commercial paper, down from $30.5 billion in the period ending in September.

According to Tether’s latest attestation report, it also significantly reduced its cash assets, from $7.2 billion to $4.2 billion. Commercial paper is a form of unsecured short-term debt.

Most of the company’s reserves have now been allocated to Treasury bills, as its assets in short-term government securities nearly doubled from $19.4 billion to $34.5 billion.

The report categorizes all $24.2 billion in commercial paper as “Cash & Cash Equivalents & Other Short-Term Deposits & Commercial Paper,” although only $13.4 billion of that amount matures within 90 days.

Cash equivalents, according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), are often defined as investments with maturities of up to three months. Tether’s recent attestation is the first one authorized by accounting firm MHA Cayman.

Coinbase Wallet Adds Ledger Hardware Wallet Support

Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has added support for popular cryptocurrency hardware wallet Ledger, allowing for an integration with it through the Coinbase wallet browser extension.

The move comes at a time in which the decentralized finance (DeFi) space has been growing exponentially and provides users with an additional layer of security when exploring Defi and Web 3.0 in general.

Hardware wallets are physical devices that store the private keys to a cryptocurrency wallet offline, ensuring that only a user who holds the physical devices can complete a transaction.

In the future, Coinbase is set to support “ more types of hardware wallets not only in the CoinbaseWallet extension, but with our mobile apps as well.”

What is Ethereum Classic?

Ethereum Classic is an attempt at keeping the Ethereum blockchain unaltered by the part of the community that opposed the hard fork and the return of The DAO funds. It started trading on Poloniex and has since become a major cryptocurrency.

Its community has said in a mission statement it believes in “decentralized, censorship-resistant, permissionless blockchain,” and uphold the original vision of Ethereum as a “world computer you can’t shut down, running irreversible contracts.” The mission statement added:

“We believe in a strong separation of concerns, where system forks are only possible in order to correct actual platform bugs, not to bail out failed contracts and special interests. We believe in censorship-resistant platform that can be actually trusted - by anyone."

In 2017, the Die Hard fork was implemented in ETC, removing the Ethereum difficulty bomb. Currently, there are no plans to move to Proof of Stake like Ethereum, although developers at the IOHK institute are developing a new PoS protocol for Ethereum Classic.

Read more about ETC on CryptoCompare.

Invictus Capital continues to deliver an uninterrupted path of growth across all its funds

The Invictus suite of funds offered commendable performance in a quarter marked by heightened volatility in the Bitcoin and broader cryptoasset market. All five of the Invictus funds registered positive returns for the quarter, with the vast majority outperforming their benchmarks. The simple average return across our suite of funds was 10.7% for the quarter, which is equivalent to an annualized return of 50%.

• The Crypto10 Hedged (C10) fund offered the greatest returns over the quarter at 23.91%, far outstripping its benchmark of 1.66% and Bitcoin at 12.36%. 

• Crypto20, the flagship fund, had a stellar year registering a return of 334.98%, it significantly outperformed its Top 20 equally weighted benchmark, which rose 261.92%.

• The Invictus Bitcoin Alpha (IBA) fund  managed to outperform Bitcoin throughout the fourth quarter, marking a total return of 14.56%, accompanied by significantly less volatility.

• The Hyperion venture capital fund continued on its impressive run, appreciating a further 5.05% off the back of a Quantfury dividend and Syntropy revaluation. The large dividend received by Quantfury will allow for a healthy level of buy-and-burn activity on the IHF token over the coming months.

• Invictus Margin Lending (IML) Fund registered a 2.48% net return for the quarter against its 1.48% benchmark hurdle.

Invictus Capital is now on the cusp of a historic migration into a fully-regulated fund structure that will place us at the forefront of innovation within the asset management space. It should also bring our investors the peace of mind that comes with additional, 3rd-party oversight of our operations.

Disclaimer:

Cryptocurrency trading involves high risk, and is not suitable for all investors. Before deciding to trade cryptocurrencies, tokens or any other digital asset you should carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite.

Its content does not constitute financial advice. Please remember that the value of investments, and any income from them, can fall as well as rise so you could get back less than you invest. If you are unsure of the suitability of your investment please seek advice.

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