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If you’re feeling the holiday spirit this month, you probably align yourself with millions of people out there who are spreading joy, love, warmth, maybe even some generosity.
But if you feel like the Grinch, chances are you align yourself with a smaller portion of people—one that (in this analogy) could include cryptohackers.
And while ’tis the season to be merry, that’s not stopping hackers from taking action. But hey, playing devil’s advocate, maybe the attackers are happy every time someone falls for their scam. The two sides of the coin.
Earlier Thursday, hackers compromised the code behind an encryption protocol used by many web3 applications and services, crypto wallet and hardware maker Ledger said Thursday.
It was not immediately clear how many people were victims of the hack. ZachXBT, a well-known independent crypto researcher, wrote to X that a victim had more than $600,000 in crypto drained from his account.
Details below.
What’s happening on web3
- Supply chain attack targeting Ledger crypto wallet leaves users hacked
- Bitcoin ATM Coin Cloud Company Hacked. Even its new owners don’t know how.
- Worldcoin adds integrations with Minecraft, Reddit, Telegram, Shopify and Mercado Libre
- Deadmau5-founded startup Korus harnesses artificial intelligence to create music
The last pod
For this week episode, Jacqueline interviewed Johann Kerbrat, the general manager of crypto at Robinhood.
Johann leads the app's effort to expand its cryptocurrency exchange business and make digital assets more accessible to retail investors.
Prior to joining Robinhood, Johann was an engineer at Airbnb and was head of engineering at Uber and VP of engineering at Iron Fish, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency startup.
We discussed Robinhood's expansion outside of the US, how the platform restricted ownership and trading of certain crypto assets in June, and where it stands today.
We also talked about:
- Appealing to mainstream audiences
- Crypto development on its platform
- Regulatory concerns
- Robinhood's goals for 2024
Sign up to Chain reaction on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to catch up on the latest episodes and leave us a review if you like what you hear!
Follow the money
- Line Next secures $140 million in funding for its web3 platform
- Lolli Raises $8M Series B to Expand Bitcoin and Cashback Rewards to Enterprises
- Andalusia Labs Raises $48M Series A to Improve Digital Asset Risk Infrastructure
- Dynamic raises $13.5 million from a16z crypto and Founders Fund for simple access to web3 and crypto wallets
- Avalanche-based Nodekit Raises $1.2M in Pre-Seed Round to Build Meeting-Centric Network
This list was compiled with information from Messari as well as reports from TechCrunch itself.
What else are we writing?
Want to escape the web3 world? Here are some TechCrunch articles that caught our attention this week.
- Temu's latest lawsuit against Shein is fierce (TC+)
- OpenAI believes superhuman artificial intelligence is coming — and wants to build tools to control it
- AI is not and will not soon become evil or even intelligent, but it is also irrevocably pervasive
- This is where founders screw up their pitch decks most often (TC+)
- Tunability looms over genetic AI (TC+)
Follow me on twitter @Jacqmelinek for crypto news, memes and more.
