Qrafty on Labor Day has bits about the Stake.com hack, Vitalik got pissed at MakerDAO and the story of a pump and dump!

***Qrafty smiling the biggest smile*** WaHaHa, crypto curios! I am Qrafty - the crypto lovin’ honey badger 🦡 !

Welcome to Coinqraft – your cheat code to stay in the loop about the crypto world without diving into a sea of info. It's like crypto news with a side of convenience! 🐝💼💰

🦡   Qrafty is back with all the news 📰, the nasty👅 and the goodies 🌟 from the crypto jungle! Let’s dive in!

1. Was Stake.com Really Hacked?

2. Gala Games Founders Sue Each Other

3. The Story of a Pump and Dump

Bonus: Speed markets come to crypto: a new way to lose money

Main thought forms of the day 👇️ 

1. Stake.com was hacked… or was it?

Qrafty heard in the crypto jungle that Stake.com, the online casino and betting platform that operates with crypto currencies, just got hacked. They confirmed it themselves and mentioned that “unauthorized transactions“ were made from their hot ETH/BSC wallet. The total amount drained would be $41 million, according to ZachXBT

Watcher Guru (yes, that’s actually a news source) is saying that $41 million was stolen.

But there are some suspicions of more foul play at hand. Interesting to see how things conclude.

At the hour of writing, the casino said that everything is under control and service is back to normal.

2. Gala Games founders sue each other for $130 mil theft

Both founders of the company are accusing themselves of stealing from… the company!

One of them, Eric Schiermeyer, said that his co-founder, Wright Thurston, stole in the range of millions. Thurnston says that Schiermeyer dipped his fingers and his hand in the honey jar too and scooped enough to enrich himself.

Representing Gala, Schiermeyer, who also serves as the company's CEO, claimed that in early 2021, Thurston, along with his investment firm, True North United Investments, was involved in an alleged theft of approximately $130 million worth of a token associated with the Gala Games ecosystem.

Also on behalf of GALA - True North, led by Thurston, initiated a lawsuit against Schiermeyer, also acting in representation of Gala. In their suit, they alleged that Schiermeyer was responsible for Gala selling off valuable company assets and squandering millions of dollars. Furthermore, they claimed he borrowed millions of Gala's funds for his own personal expenditures.

Of course, it’s popcorn time for Qrafty and it will be fun to watch this story unfold. We already have some good juice and definitely there will be more!

3. The story of pumps and dumps… or Market Making

Here’s the story behind $CYBER’s recent extreme rise in price, even though in this dust-instead-of-liquidity environment it isn’t pretty hard to pump a coin.

Not sure if you’ve ever heard of a company called DWF Labs. They provide market making services in crypto and, on top of that, they’re an investment fund. Just keep that in mind, for now.

As a market maker, you are meant to provide liquidity in the market and cover the books, as they say. This means to make sure that for every sell, there’s a buy order and vice-versa. This is the official version.

Market makers use their funds, but most of the time receive funds from exchanges, project and whales who want a certain position for the price, or a certain type of action in the specific period of time.

The unofficial, real, version is that market makers control the market, especially for small coins that have no liquidity. They are requested to drive the price of the coin to certain levels, so that interested parties profit off of the participants in the market. They are literally rigging the market.

How do they do that, Qrafty?

They do that by creating liquidity imbalances in the market via algorithmic trading. Simply put, they control the order books, by placing orders in such a way that it creates a bias among traders towards a particular direction, so they jump in. Order books are public and traders can see them.

So the market maker is using software to simulate action on the exchange for that pair, which makes traders and buyers/sellers jump in the market. Then, the market maker does the opposite.

Qrafty… let me get this straight… you mean they’re faking trading?

Yes, exactly! They are manipulating prices to trigger people into buying or selling. That is called market making.

No, no… it’s not a pump and dump, alright!? It’s called market making! It’s just like lobbying and bribe! Two worlds apart, mkay?

Even now, after it crashed to $6 from a high of $14, there are some recommending buying at $3 ‘cause it might go to $150 brooo! Wow… There’s a saying: it’s easier to trick a person than to convince them they’ve been tricked. And it works every… damn… time…

Yes, this is how people are manipulated into losing their money, this post 👆️ is still featured on Binance, after the price crashed and the right people got their money out by dumping on those buying the top. Now you know!

4. Hey, look: a novel way to lose money!

Crypto is as if casinos and gaming got together for a one night stand and had a a baby. It’s neurotic, addictive, sometimes charming and full or degenerates. Obviously, the gamification of money via crypto is a fabulous generational fit. There are now at least two generations of people who grew up with tech and computers. Obviously, gaming was a big part of their childhood and teenage years, for most of them.

So crypto casinos and… the whole crypto rollercoaster should be enough for degens to bet and trade their dopamine out until there are no more receptors left, right? WRONG!

Qrafty, what’s up?

There’s a new way of betting on what the price will do, over a shorter period of time. It’s called Speed Markets and the people at Thales have created an Ethereum protocol that allows the creation of novel on-chain, permissionless, and non-custodial Parimutuel Markets.

Qrafty, I don’t get it…

Long story short, it’s a new way of betting.

As per their website: “Choose an asset and the time you think will be above or below the current price. If you are correct you will double your buy-in!” 👈️ excluding fees, of course 😉 

So you make a personalized bet with two variables: asset and time above a specific level.

And that’s pretty much it! No, don’t think it’s easy or accessible for you to suddenly win and get rich. This thing is full of slots/trading algorithms that will “put you down gently“.

5. The digital yuan is being thrown in the market

The Bank of China said that platforms must provide the option of paying with the digital yuan.

How will they be able to do that, Qrafty?

Easy! QR codes!

Really?

REALLY! China is big on paying digitally, digital identity, digital surveillance… basically surveillance and digital almost everything. They have huge apps like WeChat or AliPay.

These are called super apps where you can do shopping, social, watch a movie, pay for parking, get a date/hookup, and much much more! All from a single app!

So the main idea is that not only is China’s CBDC ready, but it also has the digital railing to support the implementation and distribution in the financial system.

6. Vitalik got pissed at Maker and sold $500,000

In the world of the big egoes of crypto, MakerDAO is a decentralized finance project which allows you to generate DAI stablecoins while guaranteeing with your crypto as collateral. It’s one of the oldest protocols and has been around since 2017.

Being DeFi, obviously it was built on Vitalik’s Ethereum blockchain, as one of the OG’s projects which have still survived the crypto winter.

Now, guess what: Maker’s CEO, Rune Christensen, mentioned that their next project should be launched on Solana, ‘cause Solana’s crib is a better fit for Maker’s ambitions.

You know what Vitalik did? He sold $500,000 worth of Maker tokens 😂😂😂

Hey hey 🙃 Qrafty hopes you are enjoying the experience here and would like to regularly get Qrafty’s letters!

If so, please click on the button below. Qrafty is really really grateful to have you here, so thank you!

"Tomorrow is like a mystery-flavored lollipop: you never quite know what you're gonna get, but you're still excited to unwrap it!" 🍭😄 

Qrafty’s thought of the day

Other stories on this beautiful day

Binance Head of Product steps down

Another exec is leaving Binance, this time it’s the former Head of Product named Mayur Kamat. Although he mentioned that it’s an “end of the road“ type of situation, Qrafty can’t ignore the layoffs at the company in July 2023 and the other executives leaving lately, like Chief Strategy Officer Patrick Hillmann and General Counsel Hon Ng.

India introduces integration for digital rupee

India is also upping the digital coin game. After successfully launching AND landing a moon expedition for only about $75 million bucks, they’re focusing on their digital Rupee.

The State Bank of India (SBI), India's largest public sector bank, has recently implemented interoperability between the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and the Digital Rupee, which is India's Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

This development is significant, considering that there are currently 300 million UPI users and 500 million merchants in India who rely on UPI for accepting payments for their businesses. The objective behind this move is to improve the ease and accessibility of digital transactions for SBI's customers.

London Stock Exchange Group has plans for crypto

The London Stock Exchange Group has formulated strategies for establishing a new digital markets division. They assert that this endeavor positions them as the pioneer among major exchanges in facilitating widespread trading of conventional financial assets through blockchain technology, which is primarily associated with fueling cryptocurrencies.

Murray Roos, who holds the position of head of capital markets at the LSE Group, informed the Financial Times that the company has been exploring the feasibility of creating a blockchain-driven trading platform for approximately a year. They have now reached a pivotal moment where they've resolved to advance with these plans. We’ll see what they come up with, Qrafty is curios!

Australia denies bill for crypto regulation

Australia's nay nay says its still has a cautious stance towards the formalization of cryptocurrency regulations, even as the digital asset gains increasing popularity.

They didn’t ban crypto, it’s just that they didn’t agree with Senator Andrew Bragg, who introduced the bill to speed up regulations and opening up the legal doors for blockchain/crypto companies. So things are still in limbo in the land down under.

CZ doing damage control?

Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance, recently stated that the company has changed and it’s not the same as it was 2 years ago. He mentioned this in the context of regulations and pointed out that Binance is "way ahead of the game in terms of regulatory compliance."

Considering that there are execs leaving the company, there are two questions that Qrafty is asking:

1. Are they leaving because they know something will happen in the future with Binance?

2. Or are they leaving because they know something from the past that has to do with Binance and if they speak, its’ that bad?

Market Whispers

Happy Labor day! What better way to celebrate labor day than by working? So, Qrafty kept an eye on the charts today too, but I have to admit that he did that on the break of a surf session 🏄

After all, there is not much to say about bitcoin's PA, it still keeps us wondering if 25k will hold. And after 3 red weekly closes we begin to lose our hope.

Qrafty thinks that only a "news miracle" can save btc from here. So, if you are in the "manifesting stuff" business please do manifest a pump for btc too 🙏🏻 (I've heard there are a lot, like billions of $ in short liquidations above, a scam pump might be around the corner).

Token listing / delisting for 05 September

• Bybit lists NEXT (@ConnextNetwork) at 1:00 PM (UTC)

• Bybit lists VEXT (@vextoken) with VEXT/USDT pair at 10:00 AM (UTC)

• MEXC lists BAD (@badideaai) at 12:00 (UTC).

• Coinbase delists BarnBridge (BOND), DerivaDAO (DDX), Jupiter (JUP), Multichain (MULTI), Ooki (OOKI), and Voyager VGX (VGX) around 9 AM (PT).

Today is LABOR DAY!

That’s all from Qrafty 🦡 for today! Qrafty thanks you and wishes you to live each moment as if you are listening to the music you love most!

If you enjoyed Qrafty’s letters, you can make Qrafty mucho happy happy and subscribe below 👇️ Wahaha!