Crypto Covid is here?

GM, GM. It’s almost Easter ! Bean Boy will still be live and on the scene despite the public holiday. Today’s edition is another exciting one - with viruses, a come back story, and some beef between our favourite Asian crypto stars. Let’s see what’s in the pod for today!

How we looking today?

With the Ethereum pump recently, does this mean alt season is upon us soon? If so, should Bean Boy also cover alt coin charts??? Let us know through our Twitter or Email!

A VIRUS THAT DRAINS YOUR CRYPTO ?!!

According to a blog, a new virus is on the hunt to steal users’ cryptocurrencies from their exchange wallets.  The malware goes by the name ‘Rilide,’ which targets Chromium-based browsers such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, and Opera. Luckily, I only use Bing…

Now, how Rilide operates in order to steal people’s funds is actually pretty intense. First, it disguises itself as a legitimate Google Drive extension and enables threat actors to carry out a broad spectrum of malicious activities, including monitoring browsing history, taking screenshots, and injecting malicious scripts to withdraw funds from various cryptocurrency exchanges.

Where Rilide differs from other draining malware is that it has the effective and rarely used ability to utilize forged dialogs to deceive users into revealing their two-factor authentication (2FA), and then withdraw cryptocurrencies in the background. Reminder from your friend Bean Boy - ever give your 2FA to any entity !!! To add to this, apparently the source code behind Rilide was actually leaked on an underground forum because of a payment dispute… That one dispute is gonna cause a lot of headaches for people.

To ensure you’re not a victim of Rilide, make sure you’re familiar with your browser extensions and if you can’t, only log into exchanges through incognito! Oh and also, don’t send your 2FA to anyone.

TORNADO CASH FIGHTS BACK

To those of you that aren’t familiar, Tornado Cash is an open source decentralized cryptocurrency tumbler on Ethereum which users could utilise to move and send ETH anonymously. Imagine a hundred people throwing in a penny each into a bucket and then taking back a penny. You wouldn’t be able to tell which penny belonged to who, right ? Anyways, the US Treasury sanctioned Tornado Cash August last year, as a lot of bad actors (hackers, scammers, etc) used their services to do a lot of harm. This also meant a lot of people got their internet privacy rights taken off of them. Bean Boy is all for digital privacy.

Yesterday, a motion for a partial summary judgment was filed on April 5 in a Texas District Court by six individuals backed by Coinbase. Coinbase out here trying to bring back Tornado Cash! The filings claimed that OFAC exceeded its statutory powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and violated the free speech clause of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

As many of you wouldn’t want to read the whole claims and arguments made by the plaintiffs, the Coinbase chads, here’s a run down.

1. OFAC breached a section of the IEEPA that allows the Treasury to take action against the property in which a foreign country or foreign national has an interest. They're arguing that Tornado Cash is open -source, thus, doesn’t belong to a specific entity. “No one has the right to alter them. No one has the right to delete them.”

2. FAC is violating the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by banning the open-source code utilised by Tornado Cash. “To ban all uses of Tornado Cash is akin to banning the printing press because a tiny fraction of users might publish instructions on how to build a nuclear weapon.” Pretty much, not everyone using Tornado Cash is a bad actor, it ain’t fair for the rest of us.

CZ TURNS DOWN JUSTIN SUN

Recently, CZ, founder of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, turned down an offer to acquire Tron blockchain founder Justin Sun’s ownership stake in rival exchange Huobi. Looks like their friendship isn’t that strong.

CZ declined the offer due to the rumours Huobi has in relation to China. We all know CZ/Binance is trying to get in the US good books with all the legal actions imposed by the CTFC. If you aren’t caught up with this drama yet feel free to read our previous edition which covers everything about it!

Anyways, it’s not publicly known how big Sun’s stake in Huobi is but many assume that it’s a very big chunk. What’s funny is that Justin Sun tweeted stating that he actually didn’t offer his Huobi shares to CZ. Trying to save face are you Mr Sun?

PEAS IN THE POD

• Binance Australia Derivatives license canceled by securities regulator. First the U.S regulators…now Australia…

• Arbitrum to introduce new governance proposals after community backfire. Second time’s the charm… hopefully?

• Celebrity marketer Raichu accused of over 50 NFT scams. Prison time… wen?

HOW YOU BEAN - A READERS CONFESSION

Went out to get dinner with my girlfriend last night. My crypto card got declined and I tried to add more funds on the spot. Realised my account was completely empty and had to get my girlfriend to pay. Think this is the end of our relationship sooner or later… FML

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.