SEC delays two ETF applications; Layer 2 networks reach $13 billion TVL; Solana refutes CertiK’s ‘erroneous’ report on Saga phone vulnerabilities!
SEC delays two ETF applications
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has signed another postponement decision as rumors of the approval of spot crypto ETFs are increasing.
According to Bloomberg’s report, the regulator postponed its decision on Grayscale’s Ether ETF and Hashdex’s applications for spot Bitcoin ETF.
The SEC had until 17 November to respond to both companies’ applications. With the decision taken, the SEC postponed this date to 1 January 2024.
Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart stated in a statement the other day that he expected the decision on these applications to be postponed. However, he emphasized that this postponement does not change the fact that there is a 90 percent chance of a potential Bitcoin ETF approval by January 10, 2024.
Grayscale won its lawsuit against the SEC after its application to convert the GBTC product into a spot Bitcoin ETF was rejected. This development raised the hopes of the crypto community for a potential approval.
Seyffart explained his views on the subject after the postponement as follows:
“The SEC’s expansion of its review should not be read from a positive or negative perspective. This is just part of the current process.”
Layer 2 networks reach $13 billion TVL
Total locked assets (TVL) on Ethereum layer-2 networks reached a new milestone on 10 November, surpassing $13 billion, according to data from blockchain analytics platform L2Beat. According to industry experts, demand for layer-2 networks will continue, despite some reservations about user experience and security.
According to L2Beat, 32 different networks, including Arbitrum One, Optimism, Base, Polygon zkEVM, Metis and others, qualify as Ethereum layer-2. Before 15 June, less than $10 billion of cryptocurrency was locked in the contracts of all these networks. This meant a decline from the April high of $11.8 billion.
From 15 June, later-2 TVL growth turned positive. The networks managed to reach a record TVL of $12 billion as of 31 October.
TVL surpassed $13 billion on 10 November, reaching approximately $13.5 billion at the time of publication.
This increase in TVL looks more dramatic when compared to the rates in the 2021 bull market, when overall crypto investments were larger. On 12 November 2021, when the market cap of all cryptocurrencies reached $2.82 trillion ATH, layer 2 contracts held less than $6 billion. Today, according to CoinMarketCap, the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies is around $1.4 trillion, but the TVL of layer-2s is higher than ever.
However, users may also experience various difficulties with the layer 2 networks experience. Optimistic rollup networks make users wait seven days for their withdrawals to be processed. On the other hand, zero-knowledge networks, although they process withdrawals instantly, tend to crash more often as they are still in the early stage of development.
Along with TVL, the number of layer 2 networks continues to increase. Crypto exchange OKX announced on 14 November that it built a layer 2 network. Rumours that Kraken has created a similar project have been in the press in recent days.
Solana refutes CertiK’s ‘erroneous’ report on Saga phone vulnerabilities
CertiK claims Solana’s Saga smartphone has a critical “bootloader vulnerability” – Solana Labs says the claims are completely false.
Solana Labs says that in a recent video, blockchain security firm CertiK made a series of “false” claims about a potential vulnerability in Solana’s crypto-enabled Saga phone.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on 15 November, CertiK claimed that the Saga phone contained a “critical vulnerability” known as a “bootloader unlock” attack, which would allegedly allow a malicious actor to install a hidden backdoor into the phone.
CertiK claimed that unlocking the bootloader “would allow an attacker with physical access to the phone to install custom firmware containing a root backdoor”.
“We show that this could compromise the most sensitive data stored on the phone, including cryptocurrency private keys,” CertiK’s report said.
However, a spokesman for Solana Labs said CertiK’s claims were not true and that the video did not show a legitimate threat to the Saga device.
“The CertiK video does not reveal any known vulnerabilities or security threats to Saga owners.”
Internal documentation from the Android Open Source Project shows that unlocking a bootloader can be done on a wide range of Android devices.
Solana Labs said that in order to unlock the bootloader and install custom firmware, an attacker must go through several steps that can only be performed after unlocking the device with the user’s password or fingerprint.
In addition, anyone attempting to unlock the bootloader on an Android device will receive a series of warnings about the consequences of the process.
If they ignore these warnings, the device will be wiped, along with its private keys.
The Solana Saga phone was released in April 2022 with a price tag of $1,099. The phone offers a Web3 native DApp store with the aim of integrating crypto applications into the technical hardware.
However, four months after its launch, Solana lowered the price to $599 following a sharp drop in sales.
CertiK did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Solana Labs’ denial.
