Why Bitcoin Exchange Audits Don't Go Far Enough
Bitcoin exchanges have further to go to prove their good standing to customers, say the experts that inspected them - but solutions are just around the corner. Last week, CoinDesk explored bitcoin exchange Kraken, and showed you how the company did its best to prove it possessed the bitcoins it claimed. Bitcoin luminary Stefan Thomas used cryptographic proofs to confirm that the US exchange wouldn't be caught short if there was a run on its bitcoins, and that it wouldn't suddenly be embarrassed, Mt. Gox-style, to find that a hacker had secretly been stealing its coins. Kraken passed the....
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Chinese exchange OKCoin today released details of an audit to prove it holds 104.86% of the bitcoin reserves required to cover customer balances. Going forward, the company will also seek to implement a cryptographic 'merkle tree' verification system, allowing users to verify for themselves that their account balance was included in the audit data. Other China-based exchanges are busy working on audits of their own, following recent demand from the local community for the companies to be more transparent in their accounting. BTC China announced on 19th August that it would allow an....
Huobi announced (via reddit, yesterday) that it will be implementing an industry standard Proof of Reserves program by the end of August, with a Trading/Asset Separation scheme to follow in September. Huobi is following in the footsteps of its foreign and domestic exchange counterparts by submitting its database and hot and cold storage wallets to a third-party audit. Their action follows on from wider concerns raised by the Chinese Bitcoin community that Chinese exchanges are operating by fractional reserve and user demands that exchanges prove 100% reserves. The Spectre of Mt. Gox means....
Can new code review models solve DeFi's audit problem? As the attacks launched against popular decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols grow ever-more complex, the efficacy of audits from major security companies have in turn come under scrutiny — and some members of the DeFi community have already begun building homegrown alternatives.“I think that now, after all the hacks we’ve had, we basically understand that if you have two audits, three audits, it doesn’t mean you’re safe,” said the co-founder of DeFi Italy Emiliano Bonassi in an interview with Cointelegraph. “This does not mean that....
What are smart contract audits, how do they work, and how do they benefit the crypto projects who get their code scrutinized? Let's find out. Do smart contract audits improve crypto's image?Blockchain technology is becoming a bigger part of all our lives — and auditors like Hacken are ensuring that crypto projects put their best foot forward.Improving the quality of smart contracts helps reduce those unpleasant headlines about major hacks in the press, and boosts the reputation of crypto projects in the public's eyes.Once an investigation has taken place, Hacken offers labels to ensure....
Bitcoin exchange BTC-e has confirmed it is processing bitcoin withdrawals. Bitstamp has revealed it plans to start processing its customers' bitcoin withdrawals again later today. The exchange halted bitcoin withdrawals earlier this week after it was discovered a bot had launched a massive DDoS attack on a number of bitcoin exchanges. A tweet from the BitStamp this morning read: Bitstamp & Bitcoin core developers have implemented a solution that passes our preliminary tests and audits. News: http://t.co/azGqiX4hqL. - Bitstamp (@Bitstamp) February 14, 2014. Bitstamp issued the following....