Today, Qrafty heard that Vitalik's X account got hacked, Coinbase CEO likes flatcoins and... who paid half a million $ for a fee!!!

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

Welcome to Coinqraft – the daily crypto newsletter for busy but curious people who don’t have time for the crypto drama!🌟

🦡   Qrafty has fresh bits from the crypto jungle, so let’s dive in: 📰 🌟

1. Someone paid a $500,000 fee to send $1,865. Srsly

2. Vitalik’s Twitter/X account got hacked. $700,000 stolen

3. Former PayPal, Meta exec is building on Bitcoin

Bonus: Coinbase CEO shows interest in flatcoins

Former PayPal executive: We’re building Bitcoin into a global payment network!

“What we’re trying to do is turn Bitcoin into a global payment network” former PayPal President, current CEO at Lightspark David Marcus stated at CNBC. Yes… Qrafty knows… CNBC… please bear with me here a bit…

“We’re still in the fax era of global payments, and that’s what we’re attempting to solve.”

Lightspark is building open payment protocol for the Internet via the Lightning Network. He was previously at PayPal, then Facebook, working on the Facebook/Meta sheetcoin… crypto currency project.

So this guy knows digital payments from Paypal and he’s done his research, footwork and training into the soft spoken language of regulations, elusive world of political interests and digital currencies while at Meta. Then translated that into his own project, called Lightspark.

Like he left Meta and started his own sheetcoin?

Oh no no no, mon cherie… I mean, yes he left Meta.

But this guy understands payments a bit more deeper and built an open source payments protocol. At its core, it’s a tool that allows you to send and receive Bitcoin payments/transactions on the Lightning Network. He’s going deeper, where he doesn’t need to face regulations, securities or Gary Gensler.

If we were to follow the OSI Model and regard digital money as data, he is interacting with the network at layers 4 and 5 while building a UI for the rest to access, at layers 6 and 7, depending on the type of customer.

Qrafty took a look at the project and it’s pretty neat and interesting. They open sourced the code so anyone can build applications on top of their solution. Think of this like a freemium version for blockchain tech.

Qrafty believes they seem to be more B2B oriented, allowing businesses to receive payments in crypto on the Lightning network. Or coders to build simple payment solutions for businesses to accept Bitcoin payments.

They have a wallet, a payment solution, a payment routing solution, api, sdk, mpk, bpk…

Qrafty… you lost it at mpk… what’s the idea?

Just so that you have a bit more information: David Marcus is also an advisor for NuBank, the fourth largest financial institution in Brazil, with over 80 million customers in Brazil alone, and also present in Mexico and Colombia.

Marcus also added: “There is no universal protocol for money on the internet that actually enables value to be transported through the internet…”

Then, he starts talking about… wait for it… promise this is good:

“The physical necessity of traditional finance for international wire transfers. Expressing the hope of eliminating that requirement.”

Is he thinking a bit about Bitcoin as a the coin for the transactions? Or maybe a fixed value stablecoin or even a transfer coin (on the model of XRP)?

Because if Bitcoin is to be the coin for cross border payments, then we must be talking in Satoshis used for transactions. This would mean that every institution would need to hold Bitcoin for their cross border liquidity pools, removing the need for nostro/vostro accounts.

As Bitcoin gets more expensive, it will become extremely valuable if it becomes a payment standard of any type. This would create demand for a fixed supply. This make price rocket go bum bum. But that would become extremely expensive, extremely fast… and it would be too out of control. Therefore, a stablecoin or transfer coin pegged to the BTC value are suddenly attractive.

Oh, one more thing: Qrafty has news for Mr. Marcus: Qrafty wrote that JP Morgan has the bestest of the bestest tech in ze house and in productiooon for their corporate customers for 3 years now. Maybe they get approval for their stablecoin/transfer-coin for cross border payments… who knows? 😁 

🙃 Qrafty hopes that today’s main story brought brave badgery value to you! Now it’s time for a break, you deserve a bit of fun! 😇 👇️

1. Shaq, Naomi Osaka, David Ortiz and Others Got Paid, as FTX Giling Reveals

FTX's current management recently pulled back the curtain on some interesting info. In a court filing from August 31, they revealed the company's past marketing deals under their former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried.

It reveals payments in the millions to big-name athletes like Shaquille O’Neal, Naomi Osaka, David Ortiz, and Trevor Lawrence. Plus, there were partnerships with major leagues like MLB and NBA's Miami Heat and Golden State Warriors. They even had tie-ins with events like Coachella, businesses like Gamestop, and even some mysterious LLCs with hidden identities. Interesting to see if those payments were made from the FTX coffer or from user funds…

2. Someone Paid $500,000 Fee to Send $1,865

Yes, it acshually happened!

You see, on the Bitcoin blockchain, there was this wallet that decided to pay a fee of 19.82 BTC, which is about $500,000 (yes, half a milly) just to move 0.074 BTC, roughly $1,865. That's like spending 268 times more on the fee than the actual transaction! You know, with Bitcoin, fees are kind of like the toll you pay to get things done on the blockchain. Just like the toll on a highway (but that’s robbery and a whole different discussion…)

Anyway, some folks choose to pay a bit extra to speed things up and make sure their transaction is prioritized.

But here's the kicker – 19.82 BTC is way over the top for a regular speedy transaction. In fact, the next highest fee in that block was just 0.006 BTC, around $159.20. It’s a pretty long road from paying at most $160 for a transaction fee (which, in itself in stupendously high!) to paying half a millie dolllaaazzz… yowza!

Qrafty is looking forward to seeing how this happened. It’s way too much an amount for fat fingers!

3. Vitalik Buterin’s X/Twitter Account Was Hacked… Seriously?!

Last night, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s X account was taken over and used to steal around $700,000 in crypto and NFTs.

Now, how the hell did this happen? Qrafty doesn’t really regard Vitalik as the kind of guy to set his password to 123456.

Seriously, how could such a personal breach of security happen for the person in charge of so much value and critical infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem?

It was reported by *irony turned to level 1000* Web 3 is Going Great, that a scam tweet appeared on Vitalik’s account, promoting a so called NFT for an 👇️ 

Ethereum update. The hackers used the real Consensys [dot] io website to mask the real address they were routing visitors to.

They asked them to connect their wallets and poof! Their wallets got drained!

That tweet stayed up for 20 minutes before it got deleted but in total, about $700,000 was stolen in a few hours. Just like that…

You’re thinking about that aaaaaaand it’s gone meme… aren’t you? Qrafty’s got your back, here you go!

4. Gensler Upset on Crypto Noncompliance

Gary Gensler, the Chair of the SEC, made it abundantly clear in his pre-testimony statement that he's standing firm on his stance regarding crypto. He draws a parallel between the industry's disregard for securities laws and the rebellious spirit of the 1920s.

Gensler firmly asserts that a significant portion of crypto tokens probably fall under the category of investment contracts, and therefore, should be subject to the same regulatory scrutiny as securities. The man is coming out swinging with that Howie hammer! The truth hurts for most crypto die-hard fans, but he’s kinda right…

Most of the coins begin as securities and should evolve over time into decentralized networks in which that coin isn’t owned by a single entity or an oligopoly of multiple entities.

It should be like oil and the infrastructure built around it, not Smaug sitting solo on the gold and smirking (like now).

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what is NOT happening with most coins and projects. Qrafty must agree with the SEC here.

That is why Bitcoin is king, it’s the most decentralized network to date. Well… Grayscale kinda knocked one out of the decentralization park, didn’t they?

5. Solana’s Approval is Coming. Shenannigans?

According to a court filing Monday, the FTX crypto exchange holds approximately $1.16 billion worth of Solana (SOL) tokens. This is quite significant, as it makes up more than a third of the company's overall liquid crypto portfolio, which is valued at $3.4 billion.

In terms of their other crypto assets, Bitcoin (BTC) comes in next at $560 million as of August 31st. Ether (ETH) is in third place with a value of $196 million, while Aptos (APT), which is the 36th largest crypto asset by market capitalization, accounts for $136 million.

Solana also represents FTX's most substantial venture token investment, totaling $137 million. Following closely behind is the NEAR token, which stands at $80 million.

So, the question is now: how are they going to go about it? Are they going to hit the MARKET SELL button, or are they going the OTC deal route? Or a mix of both?

The market will show us!

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Qrafty’s thougt of the day

Other stories

Animoca Raises $20M for Metaverse Project

This fresh capital is earmarked for pushing forward the Mocaverse project, from ramping up product development to spreading the Web3 love. Plus, they're set to forge exciting partnerships to broaden the horizons of their gaming, culture, and entertainment world, which already boasts a whopping 450 investments in Web3 companies and projects!

Coinbase CEO shows interest in flatcoins

Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, has been showing interest in flatcoins, which are tied to the cost of living rather than another currency. While Coinbase isn't actively working on flatcoins at the moment, Armstrong mentioned that they're thinking about potentially investing in them, along with exploring other exciting technologies.

Lido and stETH tokens are safe

There is a rumor in the crypto jungle that Lido was exposed to a bug which allowed wallets to send higher amounts to exchanges than their balances allowed, practically tricking the exchange into allocating a lot more funds than it actually received.

Lido replied publicly that the situations is known and is expected, according to the ERC20 token standard.

Coin Unlocks this week

$APT - 4.54 million tokens ($23.17 M) - Sept. 12, 2023

$FT - 2.02 million tokens ($3.81 M) - Sept. 12, 2023

$SWEAT - 594.26 million tokens ($4.4 M) - Sept. 13, 2023

$BICO - 22.3 million tokens ($4.44 M) - Sept. 14, 2023

$SNX - 3.16 million tokens ($6.76 M) - Sept. 15, 2023

$HIGH - 3.64 million tokens ($4.62 M) - Sept. 15, 2023

$CYBER - 1.14 million tokens ($5.51 M) - Sept. 15, 2023

$UNI - 8.33 million tokens ($35.03 M) - Sept. 16, 2023

$GRT - 89.4 million tokens ($7.41 M) - Sept. 17, 2023

$LDO - 7.92 million tokens ($11.69 M) - Sept. 18, 2023

Market Whispers

Bitcoin touched today the "last line in sand", $24,900. Sadly it didn't recover much, just about 300$, so it's still in a quicksand terrain. If it doesn't reclaim fast the $25.3k lows zone, $22k might be closer than we expect. 

Qrafty ends channeling his inner trader.

Today is NATIONAL MAKE YOUR BED 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!

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