We’ve come to the end of another action-packed for the InsurAce community and blockchain world at large. Here is a summary of all the notable activities, product updates and events that occurred within the InsurAce Ecosystem during the month of August 2022.
Overview
Crypto Markets
DeFi Hacks, Smart contracts Exploits and the Ethereum merge dominated the headlines in August. Most started slowly, but by mid-month, the crypto market surged 15% with bitcoin reaching above $25,000 for the first time since June. Positive news about the impending Ethereum merge was one of the major driving forces behind the brief bullish trend.
However, the announcement of further Interest rate hike by the US-Fed saw prices fall again as the month drew to a close.
Hacks & Exploits.
Since January there has been at least one major hack. And in August, the vicious cycle continued with over $200 million lost to several high-profile smart contract exploits. Nomad Bridge, Solana and Reaper Farm are among the platforms that suffered the highest casualties. The various security incidents ranged from Hot wallet hacks, Flash loans and Smart Contract Exploits.
- ZB EXCHANGE
Root cause: Stolen Hot Wallet
Loss: $4.3M
Reference: Online News
- Reaper Farm
Root cause: Smart Contract Vulnerability
Loss: approx. $1.6M
Reference: Twitter Announcement from PeckShieldAlert
Claimable event: Yes (Smart Contract Cover)
- Nomad Bridge
Root cause: Smart Contract Vulnerability
Loss: $190M
Reference: Online News
Claimable event: No (Exclusion under smart contract cover)
- Solana
Root cause: Private Key Leak
Loss: approx. $4.5M
Reference: Twitter Announcement
Claimable event: No
However, on InsurAce, no claimable event was triggered during the month.
Stablecoins De-pegs:
Since the start of the bear market around May 2022, the demand for stablecoins has grown significantly, as investors seek refuge from the volatile market situation. In August, stablecoin dominance grew to 17% of the entire crypto industry.
However, we recorded 3 Stablecoin De-pegs — to varying Degrees.
- aUSD
August 12th – Polkadot-Based aUSD Lost 98% of its value after a misconfiguration of the iBTC/aUSD liquidity pool on the ACALA Network was exploited shortly after it was launched.
Root cause: Smart contract vulnerability
De-Peg: approx: 98%
Reference: Twitter Announcement
- hUSD,
On August 18th, hUSD, the stablecoin native to popular Centralized Exchange Huobi, temporarily lost its USD depeg. hUSD had traded at $0.82 for a few hours, before recovering its dollar value. Huobi later announced that the depeg was caused by a short-term liquidity problem. It has since been resolved and the stablecoin regained it peg.
Root cause: Liquidity issues.
De-Peg: approx: ~20%
Reference: Twitter Announcement
- DAI
In other De-peg news, on August 10th, MakerDAO Founder Calls on DAI to divest from its USDC-collateral holding, citing Centralization & Censorship concerns. Rune Christensen, announced via Discord that the organization will be entertaining discussions about whether to depeg its native, to keep the DAI fully decentralized. He made reference to the recent Tornado Cash restrictions.
Stablecoins covered on InsurAce – BUSD, MIM and USDT all maintained a steady peg all through the month, hence no Stablecoin de-peg event was triggered.
Product Updates
- V2 Updates — Following a brief disruption caused by the UST De-Peg event, we launched the latest batch of our v2 Updates. The updated features included the following:
- New products listed
- Increased product capacity
- New Data page New DAO page
- Updated Cover Policy document
- Alpha Homora covered on OPTIMISM — Having listed Alpha Homora a few months back, we have now extended the Cover product to include assets hosted on the Optimism Chain.
Announcements:
MVB-V — Last month, out of over 650 applicants, InsurAce was among the 27 innovative DeFi projects selected by Binance Labs to participate in the 5th edition of the Most Valuable Builder (MVB) Program.
We proceed to participate in the competition in August. And we took the opportunity to network with some great partner projects in our Cohorts including Nakji Network, Zash Finance, Velvet Capital among others. All of them featured in our Spotlight content series during the month.
Road Map Update — As the month drew to a close, we announced the latest update of our official road map. Having achieved most of our targets, it became imperative for us to set new targets for the rest of the year.
EVENTS:
- AMA with GAINS Associates: — On August 19th, we held an eventful AMA Session with
@GainsAssociates, popularly tagged “The World’s First Decentralized VC”.
GAINS’s CEO joined the space as our Guest Speak. And 5 Lucky members of the InsurAce community won cash prizes worth $100.
Looking Ahead – September 2022.
We’ve got so many exciting plans lined up ahead for September.
- Token 2049 in Singapore — Between 28-29 September, the InsurAce team led by CEO Oliver Xi and CMO, Dan Thompso, will be attending TOKEN 2049 Event.
Some of the prominent Guests billed to speak at the event include Vitalik Buterin, Dan Morehead. (Founder and CEO, Pantera Capital), Kathleen Breitman (Co-Founder, Tezos) and many others.
If you wish to attend, you can get the tickets here. We’ll be looking forward to catching up with you.
- Mainnet in New York — Between September 21-23, 2022 the who’s who of the Blockchain industry will converge on New York for the Mainnet Event hosted annually by Messari. And the InsurAce team will be there to participate actively, in what promises to be an impactful event.
Get tickets here and let’s link up at the event. But if you can’t stay tuned to our Social Media channels as we bring you blow-by-blow details.
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