🤖 ETH bot earns $1M but gets hacked an hour later

🤖 ETH bot earns $1M but gets hacked an hour later 💰 UAE Minister: The future of cryptocurrencies lies in the mainstream financial system 👀 The future of crypto games: beyond just speculation?

GM, vEmpions! "A worldwide network of computer networks that connects millions of businesses, government agencies, educational institutions, and individuals." - this is how people used to describe the internet, until they realized that it's much more than that.

Today, the internet is a vital part of our lives, and we use it for everything from entertainment to communication to work. Crypto is but a contiuation of this trend – it's not just a wallet or a set of silly coins for you to gamble with, it's a digital world where we can interact with each other without having to rely on centralized intermediaries. Crypto is the future, and you're missing out if you don't get on board.

But I digress. Check out what we're talking about today:

🤖 ETH bot earns $1M but gets hacked an hour later 💰 UAE Minister: The future of cryptocurrencies lies in the mainstream financial system 👀 The future of crypto games: beyond just speculation?

ETH bot earns $1M but gets hacked an hour later

It was a case of 'be careful what you wish for' for an Ethereum arbitrage trading bot that hit the jackpot - and then lost it all in one day.

Arbitrage bots are designed to exploit price differences in different markets. They buy an asset in one market and then sell it immediately in another market where the price is higher, pocketing the difference. The bot, with the prefix 0xbadc0de, earned 800 Ether (ETH) (around $1 million) through arbitrage trades. However, in an ironic turn of events the bot then lost it all.

Robert Miller, who works at the research firm Flashbots, shared the story on Twitter. According to him, the bot took advantage of a huge arbitrage opportunity that came when a trader attempted to sell $1.8 million in cUSDC through the decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap v2 and only got $500 worth of assets in return.

The bot detected this chance and immediately sprung to action, quickly gaining massive profits.

However, only an hour later a hacker exploited a vulnerability in 0xbadc0de's 'bad code' and tricked it into authorizing a transaction that drained its balance of 1,101 ETH, which was around $1.41 million.

Ouch.

Indeed, it seems that in this case the old adage 'to err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer' has never been more true.

UAE Minister: The future of cryptocurrencies lies in the mainstream financial system

So there you have it, folks. The future of cryptocurrencies lies squarely within the mainstream financial system. That's according to Omar Bin Sultan Al Olama, a man who would know. After all, he's the Minister of State in the United Arab Emirates.

"Many involved in the initial development of cryptocurrencies and associated technologies wanted to use them to circumvent mainstream financial institutions and monetary systems," writes Al Olama in a recent piece for The Banker, "rather, the future of digital currencies lies firmly within the mainstream financial system, where they can make an enormous difference to several problems in areas such as payments, banking and investing"

He goes on to list a number of advantages that cryptocurrencies have over traditional fiat currencies, including their 24/7 availability, global reach, and near-instantaneous settlements. He also notes that crypto has "enormous potential" to revolutionize the way we think about money and asset ownership.

UAE has been at the forefront of experimenting with and adopting new technologies, and it's no surprise that they are one of the first countries to embrace cryptocurrencies. In fact, Al Olama himself is a part of a working group that is exploring how blockchain technology can be used to make government services more efficient.

Recently launched Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority is yet another indication of the country's commitment to being a leader in the digital economy. The Authority will regulate ICOs, exchanges, and other crypto-related businesses in the UAE, which should help to foster even more innovation and adoption.

As for the future of cryptocurrencies, it's looking bright – at least according to Al Olama. Let's hope he's right.

The future of crypto games: beyond just speculation?

Could it be that crypto games are finally starting to grow up?

Last year, the Axie Infinity craze gave rise to a new genre of "play-to-earn" crypto games. However, in-game NFT purchases have been on the decline lately: Sky Mavis Co-Founder and Growth Lead Jeff Zirlin explained why he thinks the Axie community has gotten stronger during an interview on The Scoop podcast.

Zirlin said that the key to developing Axie’s in-game economy “away from play-to-earn to something that's more play-and-own,” is to give people reasons to invest in the game for purposes other than pure speculation and even though Axie’s NFT trading volume is down from last year’s highs, Zirlin points out that the current levels are still significantly higher than they were before the bull market mania of last year.

He believes that giving players a sense of ownership and agency in the game will keep them engaged for the long term: "we need to have emotional spending within these digital economies - people need to be spending for emotions that can be linked to the seven sins like wrath and greed, sloth… it can't it can't be everyone just coming in and expecting to get a free lunch.”

The goal is to keep players engaged and coming back to the game, rather than simply using it as a way to speculate on the value of digital assets.

So far, it seems to be working: even though NFT sales are down, the number of active daily users has remained steady, and Zirlin attributes this to the fact that people are finding more reasons to keep playing the game.

That's actually what the critics of crypto games always said would happen: that the games would only be popular as long as people thought they could make money from them.

Speculation is definitely a big part of the crypto game ecosystem, but it seems that there are more than enough people willing to play for fun or small profit to keep the games going. And if Axie is any indication, it seems that crypto games have already started evolving beyond that. They're becoming more than just digital casinos where people come to gamble on the value of virtual assets.

Well, time will tell if there is anything to Zirlin’s theory. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll see a crypto game that’s actually worth playing for its own sake. Stranger things have happened.