A coordinated cyberattack resulting in “stolen funds” from users has prompted IOTA, the $891 million, “third-wave” cryptocurrencycryptocurrency project, to briefly shut down its entire network.
Currently, #IOTA is working with law enforcement and cybersecurity experts to investigate a coordinated attack, resulting in stolen funds. To protect users, we have paused the Coordinator and advise users not to open Trinity until further notice. Updates: https://t.co/ME3Cvki3k9
The IOTA Foundation, which develops the token, announced on Twitter Thursday that it had “paused” the Coordinator, the IOTA-run node that validates all transactions on the IOTA network, effectively sealing off trading indefinitely.
IOTA said the shutdown was necessary to protect consumers as it worked to investigate the hack alongside law enforcement.
Last year, the project announced plans to commit “Coordicide,” removing the Coordinator and bringing about a more “permissionless” system—that is, one IOTA cannot unilaterally control.
“Unsurprisingly, it never happened,” Nic Carter, a partner at Castle Island Ventures, told Decrypt. Carter added on Twitter that IOTA’s abrupt shutdown was hardly atypical.
“A solid chunk of long tail [altcoins] can be quite simply 'turned off' at the sole discretion of the administrators,” he said. “It's always fun when they let the veil slip.”
when law enforcement gets involved and you literally turn the shitcoin off https://t.co/kMFGGcg2nK
“Despite claims to the contrary, IOTA has never been meaningfully decentralized,” Carter added in an interview. “As long as there exists a foundation stewarding the network and a coordinator ensuring transactional convergence, it will effectively be centrally controlled.”
IOTA first reported the attack yesterday on its website, announcing plans to switch off the Coordinator hours later, so as to “make sure no further theft can occur until we find out the root cause of these thefts.”
IOTA co-founder Sergey Ivancheglo, a.k.a. Come-from-Beyond, has sold his tokens and announced he is quitting crypto.
“Today is my last day of working on cryptocurrencies. I don't own personal cryptocoins anymore. My projects use #IOTA which is the best distributed registry technology to date,” he tweeted last Thursday.
In a recent AMA on Discord, Ivancheglo said he had sold the remainder of his coins “to avoid a conflict of interest when working on current projects.”
”Though the fourth decade o...
It then advised investors to disable their IOTA-specialized “Trinity” wallets, and named at least 10 victims of the hack - all of whom had recently used the digital wallet.
IOTA, which uses a validation algorithm called “Directed Acyclic Graph,” or DAG, says it has faster and more secure transactions.
Nevertheless the community’s much-hyped claims have yielded little on the ground, and company executives have been criticized for harassing journalists, and decrying criticism as “FUD.”
Said Carter: “Virtually every crypto project has proclaimed their objective to eventually decentralize, but truly scarce are the networks that have actually made progress in that domain.”
IOTA did not immediately respond for comment.
Daily Debrief Newsletter
Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
WalletConnect Token (WCT) is launching on Solana, with 5 million WCT set to be airdropped to the blockchain's active users.
The launch of WCT as a multichain token aims to open WalletConnect to new users and liquidity, and applications throughout the Solana ecosystem.
$WCT is coming to Solana!
Powered by @wormhole NTT.
To kick off this next chapter, WalletConnect is partnering with @phantom, @jup_dao, @Backpack and @solflare 👀
This is just the beginning. More details coming soon. pic.twitter.c...
The majority of TRUMP meme coin holders that earned VIP status for President Trump’s exclusive gala dinner held none of the tokens in those wallets by the time they arrived for dinner at Trump National Golf Course on Thursday night.
On-chain data gathered from Solana block explorer Solscan shows that just eight of the top 25 VIPs maintain a balance of the president’s official Solana meme coin the day after the dinner, with the bulk of registered addresses having transferred tokens to centralize...
More than a hundred protestors gathered Thursday outside Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, as President Donald Trump hosted a controversial private dinner for top holders of his meme cryptocurrency, $TRUMP.
Demonstrators waved placards reading "Stop Crypto Corruption" and chanted "Shame!" as the president arrived.
One group hoisted a giant golden coin bearing Trump’s scowling face, drawing attention to what they labeled a "Grift Gala".
The protest was coordinated by advocacy groups...