U.Today provides you with an overview of its recent top three news stories.
Ripple hack drama takes surprising turn
Following the recent hack of personal accounts belonging to Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, renowned cybersecurity firm Hacken conducted an investigation, which discovered that two of the compromised wallets were linked to what is described as “XRP’s authorized wallet.” This finding indicated that the breach may have broader implications than initially thought. The investigation unearthed a complex network involving transactions across various exchange addresses. Among the exchanges, Kraken was particularly highlighted as a channel to distribute the funds. Further analysis revealed a wallet with long-standing connections to XRP that has previously interacted with the same Kraken wallet in 2020. This wallet was also connected to another account that transferred funds to a different crypto exchange as part of this incident. Two wallets, both linked to XRP’s authorized wallet, were found to be crucial in this scheme, the investigation pointed out.
Satoshi Nakamoto “appears” in Times Square in New York City
On Feb.8, the citizens of New York City spotted a cryptic message mentioning Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto on digital billboards in Times Square. The message read: “Satoshi Nakamoto: The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” This excerpt from the headline of The Times newspaper, encoded into the genesis block, mentions the conditions that gave rise to Bitcoin. As shared by Chinese reporter Colin Wu in his X post, the ad was a gift by an anonymous reader and Wu used it as an opportunity to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Bitcoin genesis block. Being placed in one of the most iconic places in the world, the ad highlights the far-reaching journey that Bitcoin has taken since its inception, gaining worldwide recognition and sparking a financial revolution.
Shiba Inu’s Shibarium skyrockets 621% amid SHIB price breakout
Shibarium, Shiba Inu’s Layer-2 solution, has recently demonstrated an astonishing 621% increase in new account activity. According to data provided by Shibariumscan, the number of new accounts surged from 33 on Feb. 6 to 205 on Feb. 7, pushing the overall number of Shiba Inu’s L2 accounts to 63,341. The current total number of accounts on Shibarium stands at 63,631. These spikes in network utilization often foreshadow future changes in the prices of associated cryptocurrencies. In fact, the spike in Shibarium’s new accounts preceded a significant increase in the SHIB price. After more than two weeks of subdued trading with minimal volatility, the SHIB token saw notable growth, recording a 3.6% pump. Despite the surge’s modest size, it represents a substantial shift from a prolonged period of stagnation. At the moment of writing, SHIB is trading at $0.000009341, per CoinMarketCap.