Gate.io Podcast | North Korea Hackers’ Group Behind Axie Infinity Ronin Exploit, Uniswap Got Sued Again, Dogecoin To Experiment With Radio Technology via Starlink

This episode is brought to you by Gate.io and Solice (Airdrop). Last week, an article published by Russian Press Kommersant claimed they had obtained the original draft of the Russian Crypto Bill which aimed to legalize cryptocurrency trading and mining in the country. Speaking of crypto legal matters, a new class-action lawsuit was filed against Uniswap for allowing “Pump-and-dump” on its platform. Meanwhile, an Ethereum address was found to be tied to North Korea’s infamous Lazarus group. Also happening in the crypto space, Dogecoin core developers are testing offline transactions using Starlink and radio technology, and Jack Dorsey’s first tweet NFT is now worthless, relative to its original bid at $2.9M. Followed by a deep dive into the potential impact of the metaverse on the way we work.

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In today’s Headlines:

Russia Prepares its Final Crypto Regulation Bill | 1 | 2 | 3 |

US Officials Tie North Korea’s ‘Lazarus’ Hackers to $625M Crypto Theft | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

Jack Dorsey’s $2.9 M. NFT Dropped 99 Percent in Value | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

Uniswap Faces Lawsuits for Unregistered Offer and Sale of Digital Tokens | 1 | 2 | 3 |

Dogecoin Aims for Offline Transactions via Starlink Technology | 1 | 2 | 3 |


Sponsor: Solice (Airdrop)

Deep Dive: How Will The Metaverse Impact The Way We Work? | 1 | 2 |

Listen the Whole episode: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1825729/10455795
https://www.gate.io/podcast/23

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Introduction:

Welcome back to the Altcoin News Podcasts, this is the show to get a neutral perspective on some of the latest headlines in DeFi, Metaverse, NFTs, and Big Tech. Brought to you by Gate.io, a centralized exchange with a neutral stance on current events and uphold privacy & security.


The information presented in this podcast is to help you stay up-to-date on the latest happening in the crypto space, and nothing presented hereby is financial advice. The news that I cover in this podcast will have the original source at your discretion. Stick by this podcast as I show you how to stay vigilant and learn to do your own research.


Now, without further ado.

Russia Prepares its Final Crypto Regulation Bill | 1 | 2 | 3 |

Russia’s Ministry of Finance has reportedly finalized its cryptocurrency regulation bill and sent it to the Russian government for approval to be passed as law.


The buzz around Russia legalizing crypto was sparked by a report from local Russian daily newspaper Kommersant, who reportedly got their hands on the authentic final version of the draft law. The authenticity of the document was confirmed by two Kommersant sources close to the industry. The Ministry of Finance did not immediately provide a comment.


The draft law, officially named “On digital currency,” established a number of aspects such as the terminology associated with digital currency, the legal framework for its circulation, issues, and so forth. Additionally, the document introduces a large number of stringent requirements for identification, accounting, and certification.


According to the local media, the bill recommended accepting digital currency "as a means of payment that is not the monetary unit of the Russian Federation."


Crypto exchanges operating within the bill’s jurisdiction can be trading platforms with a capital of at least 30 million rubles ($366,000), while crypto auctions can be organizations with holdings of not less than $1.2 million. Both entities will have to present annual reports on their activity, pass internal control and audit requirements, and create a separate structural unit.


While the Ministry of Finance finalized and shared the draft bill with the Russian government, an official announcement regarding its approval as the law is still awaited with no known timeline.


At the beginning of 2022, the nation’s central bank (known for its anti-crypto viewpoint) proposed implementing a blanket ban on all digital asset endeavors inside Russia’s borders.


The Ministry of Finance and President Vladimir Putin did not initially support the idea. The former suggested that imposing a regulatory framework on the industry is a better step, while Russia’s leader argued that crypto (especially mining) could provide certain benefits to his country.


Two weeks ago, it was reported that Russia’s most dreaded darknet market- Hydra, and a cryptocurrency exchange Garantex have come under US sanctions for their alleged role in ransomware activities. The US Treasury Dept teamed up with the FBI, and German Federal Criminal Police to shut down several Hydra servers in Germany, seizing $25 million worth of bitcoin.


Currently, there are concerns flying among the crypto community that Russia’s crypto bill might drive investors to the black market. As to precisely how, we’ll be evaluating the situation comprehensively in a deep dive very soon.

US Officials Tie North Korea’s ‘Lazarus’ Hackers to $625M Crypto Theft | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

On Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions against an ethereum wallet belonging to North Korean state-backed hacking group Lazarus. The Department alleged that the hacking group is tied to a more than $600 million theft of cryptocurrency from the Axie Infinity-linked Ronin bridge.


According to a blog post published by blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, the newly announced sanctions prohibit U.S. individuals and entities from making transactions with the identified ethereum wallet to make sure the hackers can’t “cash out” any funds they may hold with American crypto exchanges.


Ronin – a sidechain that is connected to the main Ethereum blockchain which allows the developers behind play-to-earn game Axie Infinity, Sky Mavis, to support faster and cheaper transactions – lost 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC, worth $625 million at the time due to one of the largest hacks in history.


A Treasury Department spokesperson said the department had worked with the FBI to investigate the Lazarus Group and Advance Persistent Threat 38 (another North Korean entity believed to use malicious programming to steal funds). The spokesperson said anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorists were "critical" chokepoints in preventing money laundering with stolen funds, and called on the crypto industry to implement these types of safeguards.


Last week, Virgil Griffith, a 39-year-old American crypto expert and former Ethereum core developer, was sentenced to five years in prison for helping North Korea use virtual currencies to evade sanctions.


North Korea has attempted to use crypto as a way to evade U.S. sanctions on numerous occasions, according to CNBC, raising concerns about the possible use of digital assets for Russian sanctions evasion amid the Ukraine war.

Jack Dorsey’s $2.9 M. NFT Dropped 99 Percent in Value | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

During the early days of the NFT boom, crypto entrepreneur Sina Estavi made headlines in March 2021 when he paid $2.9m for an NFT of Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first tweet after a competitive bidding battle in which Tron founder Justin Sun ultimately conceded.


Two weeks ago, Estavi announced on Twitter that he wished to sell the NFT, and pledged 50% of its proceeds (which he thought would exceed $25 million) to charity. The auction closed last Wednesday, with just seven total offers ranging from 0.09 ETH ($277 at current prices) to 0.0019 ETH (almost $6).


Sina Estavi, whose crypto ventures Bridge Oracle and CryptoLand collapsed following his arrest in Iran last year, is in the middle of relaunching his Bridge Oracle tokens (BRG), which were originally on the Tron blockchain, to the Binance Smart Chain.


BRG investors are waiting for Estavi to exchange their old tokens for the new ones. According to CoinDesk, Estavi, who announced the token swap on the same day he put up Dorsey’s tweet NFT for sale again stated that the swap is being run manually and the process may take up to two months to complete.

Uniswap Faces Lawsuits for Unregistered Offer and Sale of Digital Tokens | 1 | 2 | 3 |

Last week, a new class-action lawsuit was filed against Uniswap for claims alleging that it was selling unregistered securities, and failed to disclose those risks to its users.


On April 4, Nessa Risley launched the legal proceedings, alleging that Uniswap has failed to conduct identity checks and impose securities restrictions on “fraudsters” who use the platform to list scam-like digital tokens for conducting rampant fraud. The Uniswap user from North Carolina, invested about $10,400 on low-cap digital tokens such as EthereumMax, Matrix Samurai, and Rocket Bunny between May and July of last year.


The lawsuit filed by Kim & Serritella LLP and Barton LLP aims to invite victims like Risley, who have lost money since last April on Uniswap, to join a class action against the founders and developers of the platform. It claimed that Uniswap has failed to disclose “registration statements,” including information regarding the risk of the associated investments for the securities they were selling to the users.


In addition, the class action states that Uniswap Labs has allowed unlawful activities like “pump and dump” and “rug pulls” to occur on its platform. One of the main accusations targets the DEX’s fee structure, which, according to the statement, encourages fraud by paying liquidity providers a portion of the fee for each trade.


Meanwhile, Uniswap collects fees for developers, with the ability to keep a portion of those fees for itself. The conflicting interest involved potentially put Uniswap as a silent facilitator of scams.


Other parties joined in the lawsuit include its founder, Hayden Adams, and backers such as Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, Union Square Ventures, and AH Capital Management. The lawyers claim the backers were aiding and abetting Uniswap’s “failure to register as an exchange or broker-dealer.”


Last September, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had opened an investigation into Uniswap, exploring how the platform was being used and marketed.

Dogecoin Aims for Offline Transactions via Starlink Technology | 1 | 2 | 3 |

In an April 11 blog post from the Dogecoin Foundation, developers Timothy Stebbing and Michi Lumin outlined how “RadioDoge” could enable DOGE transactions for people without internet access.


According to the developers, RadioDoge focuses on using cheap and reliable Radio technology (HF/LoRaWAN) combined with the global Starlink satellite network to enable cheaply deployable, wide-scale access to Dogecoin for people outside the reach of the traditional internet infrastructure.


The two developers considered the first phase of Libdogecoin, a programming library or building blocks for creating Dogecoin projects, as the groundwork for forming and validating Doge’s addresses and transactions. They revealed that Dogecoin addresses created with the library have successfully received DOGE on the main network.


The other crucial element is the GigaWallet project, a drop-in solution (a new type of Doge wallet) for internet-based transactions through standardized, non-custodial wallet integration with the Dogecoin network.


Quoting Stebbing and Lumin, “While there is still a long way to go, these are exciting early steps toward realizing the goal of making Dogecoin an unstoppable financial vehicle, one which will empower financial freedom from power structures and provide a means of exchange for future generations.”


The main challenge in the progress of enabling GigaWallet to communicate with RadioDoge, as specified by the team, centers on if Libdogecoin can do the heavy-lifting work. The first RadioDoge established last week will function as a testing ground for the new technology.


The team also said that this week they should see the first transactions formed with Libdogecoin being sent to RadioDoge, which will submit it to the Dogecoin testnet via a Starlink satellite.


The two believe the new technology could revolutionarily stimulate Dogecoin’s grass-root adoption derived from emerging economies, making the Musk-backed cryptocurrency “the defacto means for exchanging goods and services globally.” However, they admitted that the first phase of Libdogecoin only accounted for a 0.1 milestone of the project.

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Sponsor | Solice

Before I continue with today’s deep dives, I must tell you about today’s sponsor, Solice, a VR Metaverse built on the Solana blockchain, which strive to deliver a high-quality immersive experience by providing users an environment where users can play, build, own, socialize and monetize their virtual experiences across multiple platforms.


While the Solice community has been in chaos for weeks brought by its first and highly anticipated land sale, the team announced at the beginning of this month that the soft launch would initiate shortly after the land sale ended.


Solice first introduced soft launch in December, 2021, when they successfully closed $4.36 million in a seed and private sale led by Three Arrows Capital, Animoca Brands and Defiance Capital. The Solice Metaverse will have its soft launch (limited spots) for early adopters to play and enjoy the metaverse. The first version of the soft launch will include VR compatibility giving users the immersive metaverse experience.


Solice provides an infrastructure to support the metaverse. The Solice metaverse supports multiple platforms that remove the barrier of different hardware, software, and operating systems. This allows more users to invite and connect with their friends and family to increase the possibilities for exponential growth of the user base.


Solice is such a comprehensive and ambitious metaverse project with a huge pool of target users, from gamers (P2E aspect), to DeFi users (staking), to businesses (buy or build and then rent out ad spaces) which forms great adoption for Solice metaverse as a whole.


Will you be the next user of Solice? Get started with the Gate.io podcast airdrop. 75 winners have the chance to share 1,500 SLC tokens from Apr 14 to Apr 21. Join now!

DD | How Will The Metaverse Impact The Way We Work? | 1 | 2 |

How Did Remote Work Reshape Our Jobs?
In the last couple of years, due to the pandemic caused by the covid19 virus, the work environment has experienced a unique reshape. Many companies had been obliged to switch to a hybrid form of job, others decided to work remotely.

A change that has caused a lot of issues both from a social and financial point of view. People have started to feel trapped in their homes with difficulties in separating work life from daily life, making them feel stressed and anxious while also compromising their job performance.

Moreover, unemployment has started to rapidly increase: not all jobs can be made through internet connection, many require manual labor and the only solution available to fight pandemic restriction has been to adopt mechanization and automation, in order to reduce human reliance.


Remote and hybrid work help companies to survive and prevent drops in revenue, but compromises employees' social lives. Offline interaction and team cooperation are core elements that contribute to the growth of corporations and may improve organization’s overall performance, while also allowing people to know each other better and to reach greater results.

The Metaverse As A Solution To Improve Remote Issues
One of the solutions that many companies have decided to adopt is to relocate the work environment to the Metaverse, a web3 solution that may improve team cooperation and work life, while also benefit corporations financially.


The Metaverse is a digital world where people can live a virtual life similar to the one that we’re experiencing in reality: people can get a job, spend time together, visit new places and live unique experiences. However, all these benefits are linked to the individual perspective but also companies can have their own advantages; the Metaverse shouldn’t be considered as a simple digital experience but rather a new world focused on economic and social interests.

Switching the work environment from a web2 technology to a web3 solution may help companies to better improve cooperation between employees, they will no longer be required to watch and analyze static documents nor to discuss in a video call conference. People may have the possibility to truly cooperate within a virtual office, work at digital desks, PCs and rely on AI training. If the office environment would be considered as an anxious place, there is still the chance to relocate to a beach, camping or even working on the Moon, making the job acquire a dynamic approach.


Which Are The New Metaverse Job Opportunities?
Job opportunities in the Metaverse aren't limited to the office work environment but, instead, cover every labor sector that rely on Internet connection, creating new employment possibilities and improving the ones that already exist in real life.

Take Decentraland for example, digital landlord is one of the most popular jobs in the Metaverse; owners of virtual land may rent out their space for users that want to build business and earn digital money, called “Mana”, that they may convert into real currencies. Renting isn’t the only solution available for landlords, they also have the possibility to sell their parcels at advantageous prices: currently the floor price for a Decentraland plot is 2.69ETH, approximately $8.2K. A digital career that is reshaping the entire real estate business.

Architects are able to create unique structures. One of the most popular teams of architects is the Voxel Group which already has an extensive portfolio of houses, mansions, and companies headquarters within the Metaverse. The team is made of more than 20 employees: conceptual artists and programmers able to create unique edifices both in the Decentraland and in the SandBox world. Every brand that joins the Metaverse wants to offer its consumers unique experiences and distinctive buildings, which is why they tend to hire professional figures that may contribute to the creation of their headquarters and virtual stores.

There are even people that dedicate their time on gathering items for other users and that activity ensures them a monthly income depending on the value of the asset sold. The Video Game industry is one of the domains that is more influenced by blockchain technology; it’s currently experiencing an increase of play-to-earn games and NFTs commerce, making it one of the most profitable sectors out there.


Fashion stylists and interior designers are becoming even more popular within the virtual world because people’s main desire is to have avatars and assets that match their personality which is pretty much similar to the influencers attitude on social media platforms. Many fashion brands such as Adidas and Nike have already created virtual clothes that can be worn by people, triggering a new fashion wave all over the world.


Virtual stores aren’t completely managed by AI but rather supervised by real employees that answer to customer’s questions and sell them digital assets, pretty much similar to a real-world activity. Brands are hiring people through different websites, searching for people with marketing, managerial and IT skills. Interviews are similar to the ones that we’re experiencing outside the digital world, with the exception that may occur directly in the Metaverse.


Metaverse Job Requirements May Be An Employment Obstacle.
Still, there are many concerns about the type of skills searched by companies. If, on the one hand, the Metaverse may allow people to find new career opportunities, it may also create new challenges for those who don't have computational knowledge. There is no certainty that the experience someone has obtained through his life may be enough to be hired in the virtual world nor that real degrees may have the same weight during an interview process in the Metaverse. As many jobs are new, there is still the possibility that even requirements may change and diversify.

As the Internet keeps revolutionizing work environments creating the need to have professional figures such as marketing managers, IT engineers and project managers, it’s very likely that even the Metaverse will bring us new kinds of jobs and opportunities that we haven’t yet thought about.