News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily News: According to crypto reporter Eleanor Terrett, eight banking trade groups have stated that the deposit outflow "circuit breaker" mechanism added to the new version of the CLARITY Act is not an effective safeguard, because the mechanism would only be triggered after large-scale deposit outflows have already occurred.In a letter to Senate leaders, these groups called for further tightening of provisions related to stablecoin rewards, in order to close loopholes that could allow stablecoin balances to earn interest-like payments.
Odaily News: Researchers from institutions including the Ethereum Foundation, Theta Labs, and StarkWare have jointly published a paper, using AI coding agents to deeply optimize the core operations of Shor's algorithm. The computing resources required for a potential quantum attack on Bitcoin and Ethereum (secp256k1 cryptographic system) have been reduced by more than 50% compared to Google's benchmark in March of this year. The number of logical qubits required for the circuit has been compressed to 1,151, and later versions have even been reduced to 813. Although current quantum hardware still cannot directly break public chains, the research shows that pure algorithmic optimization is significantly narrowing the time window for the quantum threat. The researchers emphasize that quantum-resistant upgrades take a long time and cannot be applied retroactively, and the industry needs to prepare defenses in advance. (Coindesk)
Odaily News: Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has published his latest article "Obfuscation (Part 3): Local Mixing," providing an in-depth introduction to an emerging cryptographic obfuscation approach — "Local Mixing" — and describing it as a potential new fundamental cryptographic tool following elliptic curves, RSA, and lattice-based cryptography.Vitalik noted that current mainstream obfuscation techniques primarily rely on complex mathematical assumptions but often incur extremely high computational costs. Local mixing, by contrast, takes a completely different approach. Rather than depending on elliptic curves, large integer factorization, or lattice cryptography, it draws on design principles from symmetric cryptography and hash functions, continuously shuffling, restructuring, and hiding circuit architecture to eliminate information leakage while preserving functionality.He explained that the local mixing technique mainly involves steps such as reversibility, hardening, mixing, splitting, crossing walk, and "gadgetization." By introducing random structures into circuits, rearranging logic gates, and employing nonlinear hiding mechanisms, it makes it difficult for attackers to recover the original computational logic.Vitalik pointed out that the technique remains in its early stages, with security not yet subject to long-term validation, and it still faces challenges such as random attacks and linear analysis. Nevertheless, he believes local mixing represents an entirely new path of cryptographic exploration aimed at building more efficient indistinguishability obfuscation (iO) schemes.He stated that if local mixing achieves a breakthrough, it could lead to new quantum-resistant public-key encryption schemes and advance the development of general-purpose obfuscation techniques. While the field still requires years of cryptanalysis and optimization validation, AI-assisted research could significantly accelerate this maturation process.Vitalik described obfuscation as the "final frontier" of cryptography, as theoretically all other cryptographic primitives can be constructed from obfuscation and one-way functions. Local mixing not only has the potential to reduce the cost of traditional obfuscation schemes but could also become an important direction for future cryptographic infrastructure.
According to Ostium's official report, the core of this attack lies in the compromise of the off-chain price reporting system permissions, unrelated to smart contract vulnerabilities. After obtaining off-chain authorization, the attacker utilized the protocol's registered legitimate forwarding paths to submit forged prices ($5,000 and $60,000) to the BTC-USD market, atomically completing an open-close position arbitrage cycle within the same transaction. Starting with 100 USDC and rolling to amplify the scale across 8 transactions, they extracted 23.75 million USDC from the OLP vault within 5 minutes until the vault circuit breaker mechanism was triggered. The root cause lies in the off-chain infrastructure lacking a multi-party approval mechanism equivalent to on-chain multi-signature, creating a single-point permission vulnerability. The stolen funds have been converted to ETH and mixed via Tornado Cash; tracking efforts are still ongoing.
The Zcash Foundation released Zebra versions 4.5.3 and 5.0.0 to address a critical soundness vulnerability in the Orchard zero-knowledge proof circuit. Version 4.5.3 temporarily disables Orchard operations via an emergency soft fork, while version 5.0.0 activates NU 6.2, re-enables Orchard using the patched circuit, and permanently closes the vulnerability.
Odaily, Web3 security firm CertiK has released the "Skynet North Korean Crypto Threat Report." Data shows that since 2016, North Korean hacking groups have accumulated approximately $6.75 billion in stolen digital assets. In 2025 alone, their thefts amounted to $2.06 billion in losses, accounting for nearly 60% of the total annual losses in the global crypto industry (including the $1.5 billion Bybit hack). As of early 2026, this threat trend continues, with losses attributable to them making up about 55%.The report emphasizes that the North Korean hackers' attack patterns have fundamentally shifted, evolving from mere code vulnerability exploitation into a state-level attack system combining social engineering, deep supply chain attacks, and 'physical infiltration.' In the recent Drift protocol incident, attackers even spent six months infiltrating offline industry conferences, building trust through real financial transactions and personal interactions before launching the attack.CertiK security experts warn that in the face of such systemic attacks, purely technical defenses are proving inadequate. Crypto institutions urgently need to fully implement a 'zero-trust' hiring model, reinforce third-party supply chains, establish fund circuit breaker mechanisms, and collaborate with professional security firms to build a full lifecycle defense system covering code auditing, round-the-clock risk monitoring, and on-chain anti-money laundering/KYT (Know Your Transaction) fund tracking.
Andre Cronje stated most current decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols no longer qualify as "DeFi in the strict sense" and are closer to commercial systems operated by teams. This has sparked industry division over whether "circuit breakers" should be introduced to mitigate attack risks.In an interview, Andre Cronje pointed out that early DeFi centered on immutable smart contracts, but today many protocols rely on upgradeable contracts, multi-signature permissions, off-chain infrastructure, and manual operational processes. In essence, they have transitioned from "immutable public goods" to "operable, for-profit businesses." He noted that against the backdrop of recent security incidents, including DeFi attacks involving approximately $280 million and $293 million, industry risks have expanded from simple smart contract vulnerabilities to "Web2-style risks" such as infrastructure issues, permission controls, and social engineering attacks.Regarding risk management, Cronje's firm Flying Tulip recently introduced circuit breakers that delay or queue withdrawals during abnormal fund outflows, providing an emergency response window of about six hours to prevent systemic bank runs and further losses.However, this mechanism has also sparked controversy. Michael Egorov believes that circuit breakers may introduce new centralized attack surfaces. If controlled by signers or administrators, they could instead become new security vulnerabilities or sources of freezing risk. He emphasized that DeFi design should minimize human intervention rather than increase manual control points. Industry analysts pointed out that this debate essentially reflects how DeFi is shifting from the ideal model of "code is law" toward a practical architecture of "hybrid governance plus operational control," while the security boundaries are being redefined. (Cointelegraph)