Coindash Hack
ICOs have become rather notorious in recent months thanks to irregular ICO token distribution, vaporware peddling, or unnecessary cashgrabs. However, the Coindash project has been largely viewed positively by the crypto community and many investors were excited for the crowdsale. Everything was running smoothly until the sale started. Almost immediately, numerous rumors of foul play were posted online, and potential investors were warned not to send their ETH to the contract address posted on the Coindash website. Apparently, a hacker compromised the Coindash ICO website and swapped the ICO address to his/her own personal address. The hacker's address can be viewed on Etherscan: https://etherscan.io/address/0x6a164122d5cf7c840D26e829b46dCc4ED6C0ae48 and is currently worth approximately 8.25 million USD.
To their credit, Coindash is planning to distribute the Coindash ICO tokens to everyone who contributed ETH to the hacker's address, meaning that the only real loser here is Coindash. How this will affect development yet is unknown. Obviously, this incident will have broad repercussions on the future of ICOs, and will hopefully spur companies eyeing future crowdsales to up their security and transparency.
Markets Rebound
The cryptomarkets are green across the board today. Bitcoin is up 15.61% at $2230 from a low of $1840 about a day ago. ETH also has rebounded by nearly 30%, moving from ~$135 to $190. It is too early to tell if this is merely a break in the bear pattern or the beginning of a true recover, but for those who have been holding crypto for the past month it is a welcome sight.
Viewly demos on Steemit
Viewly is a decentralized, video platform built on IPFS and Steemit that is attempting to become the blockchain based equivalent of YouTube. You can check out their prototype app by utilizing the following link: https://upload.view.ly/ This platform will allow users to upload and store videos directly on the Steem blockchain, removing the need for centralized video platforms which is a critical step in the quest for a fully decentralized social network site.
SatoshiPay moves to IOTA
The final bit of news today is about SatoshiPay. SatoshiPay is a micropayments platform that allows end users to monetize specific items of content effectively. For instance, their WordPress plugin allows users to "lock up" content on their personal websites that then only becomes available by paying a small amount of Bitcoin. Today, SatoshiPay announced that they would be dropping Bitcoin in favor of IOTA as the blockchain of choice for their platform. They cited high transaction fee costs and slow confirm times as the main reasons for the switch. This decision seems to mirror that of platforms like Storj who have also switched away from Bitcoin over the past few months. These examples highlight the need for Bitcoin to fix its scaling issues and transaction fee issues.
That sums up today's news! If you like, please consider resteeming the post and following me! All the best!