Nearly $200 million drained from crypto bridge Nomad in latest crypto hack

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Yahoo! Finance

Yahoo Finance

Nearly $200 million drained from crypto bridge Nomad in latest crypto hack

David Hollerith · Senior Reporter
Tue, August 2, 2022 at 8:56 AM

Hackers drained nearly $200 million from crypto bridge project Nomad in the latest crypto-related theft.

In a matter of two hours on Monday evening, the total value of crypto assets held on Nomad dropped from $190.3 million to $11,815 as of early Tuesday morning New York time.

As a bridge protocol, Nomad allows users to send crypto tokens between different blockchains, a feature not normally available as most tokens aren’t compatible with multiple blockchains.

Nomad's hack marks at least the third prominent bridge protocol to be hacked so far this year.

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Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nomad-hack-stolen-funds-125623615.html

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I don't understand any of this. All I know is that they didn't get anything from me.

[IronLionZion]

1. Don't put money in things you don't understand

Warren Buffett always advised this. Seems like a good strategy.

[Wounded Bear]

10. Indeed! nt

[infullview]

2. I have no sympathy.

Crypto is unregulated and like the wild west. It's way too volatile, and now, we see it can be hacked as well.

[AllaN01Bear]

3. i agree with mr. buffets stratigem and yet still cant wrap my head around crypto.

esp if it dosent exist in reality.

[LonePirate]

4. Think of a blockchain as a currency market such as between dollars and bitcoins.

Typically, users can only trade bitcoins on specific blockchain markets, like a market between dollars and bitcoins, or between pesos and bitcoins, or between Euros and bitcoins, etc. However, Nomad allowed users with Euros to trade bitcoins on the dollars and bitcoins blockchain. Someone broke the security system at Nomad which allowed them to access and open all of the blockchain markets and drain them dry. This is a very basic explanation of what happened without bogging down into the technical differences between blockchains that prevent direct trading between blockchains.

Some of the appeal of bitcoins is supposedly the secure and private nature of the transactions. Of course, that's not really true as we have seen from multiple hacks and from the CIA/FBI being able to track down some of these traders and hackers.

[viva la]

7. So they stole Bitcoins?

Is there no way for ... someone, not sure who-- to identify those specific coins and take them back?

You know, like serial numbers on dollar bills-- "These were stolen in that robbery of Bank One!"

I know, I know. I keep trying to make sense of this, and it just hurts my brain.

[LonePirate]

9. Correct. There is pretty much no way to track the specific coins.

The transactions are encrypted whereas the coins usually are not. The coins typically do not have a way of being identified like serial numbers on paper currency. The bitcoin mining that you may have heard of is people running the encryption algorithms to protect the bitcoins.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

5. I'm amazed. The whole crypto thing seemed so secure.

[viva la]

6. Why are these crypto firms so easy to hack?

Insider fraud?

I don't get it.
Except maybe defying all government regulation has its risks.


And, of course, just inventing "money" out of thin air.
I'll never understand that aspect-- how someone comes up with a 'ha-ha' name-- "Garlicoin", sets up some blockchain, declares this a crypto-coin, and starts selling them. It really is like selling air. There's nothing backing it, no value underlying it... and yet they call national currencies "fiat currency" like the country just, you know, declared, "Here's money! Buy it!"

And that's just what they do. "Here's Muskcoin! Buy it!"

And people do.

[mitch96]

8. Why do I smell NKorea or russian rats doing this.Especially NKorea. Kim needs money..nt

[oldsoftie]

11. All I know is if my bank gets robbed, I still have MY money.

[FakeNoose]

16. US Banks are insured by FDIC

That means if a bank fails, or if someone steals the assets, the U.S government will cover the losses to depositors.

There's no such insurance for the crypto-currencies because they aren't banks. They're pyramid schemes (ponzi schemes) which means someone (or all of them) will eventually be defrauded. When ponzi schemes happen in the US, the FBI will eventually stop the criminals and throw them in prison. But most of these crypto-currencies are operating outside of our borders.

Don't buy bitcoins, don't invest in crypto-currency. It's all an artful scam and some people are going to lose everything they have.

[brush]

12. Guess there's no casino nearby. They're easier to understand...

quicker at losing your money.

[hatrack]

17. At least at the casino you get free drinks . . .

On a related note, if you're on Twitter, there's a great account, called "Web3 Is Going Just Great" - https://twitter.com/web3isgreat

It's an endless compendium of crypto scams and bankruptcies, created by a programmer who tracks this stuff.

It's from the author that I learned my favorite bit of crypto slang - "rug pull" - that is, when you yank out all the money needed to pay the early ponzi "investors" and run for the hills.

[TheFarseer]

13. Can we just ban this nonsense already?

It’s used mostly for illegal activity and blackmail and it wastes an enormous amount of energy!

[Baked Potato]

14. $190 mil to $11.8 k.... Pretty big loss there. Eeek.

[Aussie105]

15. Crypto currency was never real money.

Do some people actually swap real money for not-real crypto money?

Seems a silly move, yes?

About as silly as gambling, really.