August saw a significant increase in crypto phishing attacks, with $63 million lost in a single attack.
Hackers are now exploiting a Solana function to burn tokens from user wallets without permission.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov criticized the French authorities for the first time since his arrest.
The FTC reported a 1000% increase in Bitcoin ATM scams since 2020, with more than $110 million in losses.
Despite legal battles with the SEC, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen joined the Harris campaign.
Last week, we heard from Pavel Durov for the first time since his arrest in Paris, France—and he had a lot to say.
We also had other interesting events, like a report showing that hackers have figured out how to burn user tokens from within their wallets.
Another highlighted a disturbing trend: Bitcoin ATM scams had exploded by a staggering 1,000% in less than four years since 2020.
Notably, during the week, we had an endorsement of US presidential candidate Kamala Harris—from none other than a Ripple co-founder.
This is interesting, considering how Ripple itself has been subjected to severe legal battery at the hands of Gary Gensler and the SEC under the Democratic administration (which Harris happens to be a part of).
Here are some of the biggest occurrences from the past week, in case you missed them:
August was an especially brutal month, especially when it came to crypto phishing attacks.
According to a 3 September post, the month saw crypto holders lose a staggering $63 million worth of funds to phishing attacks.
For context, phishing attacks involve a hacker sending fraudulent links to random (or sometimes targeted) individuals, hoping that someone takes the bait and clicks on them.
After the link is clicked, the hacker can then do all kinds of things including stealing information, draining wallets and all manner of other scams.
Interestingly, out of the total $63 million taken from a total of 9,145 victims, $55 million came from a single individual.
Overall, the stolen funds for August stand at a 215% increase from that of July.
Last week, we also saw one of the wildest cases of possible hacks, with crypto strategist Slorg drawing attention to the new trend.
According to reports, scammers have started to use an in-built Solana token extension to burn tokens from within user wallets.
"Imagine you swap a token, and the wallet address confirms that you received it. You then look [in your wallet] and discover that nothing shows up," Slorg said in a 3 September post.
“Time passes and no tokens," Slorg continued. "After the Moderation Staff looked into it […] There was a burn transaction only 7 seconds after the user had received the tokens.”
According to the official Solana docs, burning a user's tokens without their permission is a result of an inbuilt Solana function called "Permanent Delegate," which gives a person "unrestricted delegate privileges over all Token Accounts for that mint, enabling them to burn or transfer tokens without limitation.”
In essence, the function is used for legitimate use cases like recovering mistakenly transferred or inaccessible tokens, but it can be a double-edged sword in the wrong (or right) hands.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov finally broke his silence after being arrested at the Le Bourget airport in Paris, France, in August.
In a broadcast message via his official Telegram page, the tech mogul expressed surprise at his arrest, considering how the French authorities claim that he is “personally responsible for other people’s illegal use of [the app]."
He also mentioned that Telegram has “an official representative in the EU that accepts and replies to EU requests" and that reaching out to Telegram would have been possible for anyone who so much as Googled "Telegram EU address for law enforcement."
Durov’s address on Telegram
Durov also harshly criticized the French, stating, "Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties […] is a misguided approach."
"We are prepared to leave markets that aren't compatible with our principles because we are not doing this for money," he fired before promising to keep everyone updated on later developments.
According to a 6 September update, Telegram has disabled certain features, including the "People Nearby" feature and media uploads to the platform's "Telegraph" blog, three days after the former.
In a disturbing turn of events, the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported a 10x increase in the number of scams involving Bitcoin ATMs since 2020.
According to the report, these losses were more than $110 million since 2023, with users aged 60 and above being 200% more likely to fall victim.
These scams often involve attackers finding ways to convince victims to transfer their funds via ATMs under false pretenses.
“No matter what the caller says, there’s no such thing as a government Bitcoin account or digital wallet," the FTC said. "There are no Bitcoin federal safety lockers.“
The agency also warned that no agency or company will ever demand payment in Bitcoin or other cryptos via a Bitcoin ATM and that demands like these are likely to be fraudulent.
After all that Ripple Labs has been through at the hands of the SEC and the US democratic administration, one would think that supporting the current Democratic Candidate, Kamala Harris, was out of the books for the company's executives.
However, according to last week's events, the reverse is the case.
Previously, Economics adviser and former Ripple board member Gene Sperling joined Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign.
Endorsing Harris
Again, last week, Chris Larsen (the company's executive chairman and co-founder) signed a letter endorsing Harris as president, according to a CNBC report from 6 September.
The report cited 88 current and former top executives, including Aaron Levie of Box, Jeremy Stoppelman of Yelp, and Michael Lynton, chairman of Snap, who supported Harris.
Newer supporters include James Murdoch, former CEO of 21st Century Fox and heir to the Murdoch family media empire, and Chris Larsen.
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