In 2014, I bought 25,000 dogecoin as a joke. By 2021, it was briefly worth over $17,000. Problem was, I couldn’t remember the password. Determined to get my coins back, I embarked on a journey that exposed me to online hackers, the mathematics behind passwords, and a lot of frustration.
Although most people don’t have thousands in forgotten cryptocurrency, everyone relies on passwords to manage their digital lives. And as more and more people buy crypto, how can they protect their assets? We talked to a host of experts to figure out how to create the best passwords for your digital accounts, and, if you have crypto, what your basic storage tradeoffs are. Let’s dive in.
How to Hack Your Own Crypto Wallet
There are a few common ways to lose crypto. You might have a wallet on a hard drive you throw away. Your exchange could get hacked. You might lose your password, or you might get personally hacked and have your coins stolen. For those who lose their password, as I did, hackers actually present a silver lining. If you still control your wallet, you can try to hack your own wallet—or find someone who will.
So I contacted Dave Bitcoin, an anonymous hacker famous for cracking crypto wallets. He agreed to help break into the wallet, for his standard 20 percent fee—paid only if he is successful. Dave and other hackers are mostly using brute force techniques. Basically, they’re just guessing passwords—a lot of them.
You can also try to hack your own wallet with apps like Pywallet or Jack the Ripper. But I didn’t want to do it myself, so I sent Dave a list of password possibilities and he got started.
After a little waiting, I received an email from Dave. “I tried over 100 billion passwords on your wallet,” Dave told me over email. I assumed such a mind-boggling amount of tries meant my coins were surely recovered, but alas, we had only scratched the surface. The password was not hacked, and my coins remained lost. But how?
The Math Behind Strong Passwords
Each new digit in a password makes it exponentially harder to crack. Consider a one-digit password that could be a letter or a number. If the password is case-sensitive, there are 52 letters plus 10 numerals. Not very secure. You could simply guess the password by trying 62 times. (A, a, B, b, C, c … and so on).
Now make it a two-digit password. It doesn’t get twice as hard to guess—it gets 62 times harder to guess. There are now 3884 possible passwords to guess (AA, Aa, AB, etc.) A six-digit password with the same rules has around 56 billion possible permutations, assuming we don’t use special characters. A 20-character password with those rules has 62-to-the-20th-power permutations: that is, 704,423,425,546,998,022,968,330,264,616,370,176 possible passwords. That makes 100 billion look pretty small in comparison.
This math was bad news for me, since I’m pretty sure I had some sort of long password, like a few lines of a song lyric. Talk about facing the music.
Password Best Practices
Whether it’s for your email or crypto wallet, how can you balance creating a strong password that’s also memorable? “Choosing passwords is tricky,” says Dave, “If you go out of your way to create an unusual password for your wallet that you wouldn’t typically use, then it makes it quite difficult for you to remember and for me to help.
It’s easier to guess your password if you use consistent patterns. Of course, this is bad for security, and someone who is trying to hack your accounts will have an easier time.” Balancing security with memorability is ultimately a tough task that will depend on the individual’s needs and preferences.
“All I can really suggest is to either record all your passwords on paper (and take the risk that it will be found), or use a password manager,” Dave says. Ironically, the digital age is now making pen and paper a preferred security method. Russia’s state security agency supposedly reverted to typewriters after the Snowden leaks.
Are Coins on Crypto Exchanges Safe?
Losing my password made me a pretty big fan of storing crypto on exchanges. After all, if you forget your Coinbase password, the process is simple. You reset your password, and likely submit identification to verify that you own the account. On the surface, storing on big exchanges seems pretty secure.
Coinbase says they keep “over 98 percent of deposits offline in secure cold storage facilities” in addition to having an “extensive insurance policy.” Thus, it should be difficult or impossible for cybercriminals to access most of the crypto Coinbase controls.
Gemini, another popular US-based exchange, prides itself on its seemingly extensive security measures. At the same time, if your exchange suffers a major hack or goes bankrupt, it could take years to recover your crypto, if you get it back at all. That’s why many analysts recommend users maintain control over their coins…..Continue reading
Bitcoin dropped below $20,000 Saturday—trading at its lowest levels in over a month—after stocks sold off sharply Friday as investors pulled back from risky assets amid renewed concerns the Federal Reserve’s efforts to fight inflation could tip the economy into recession.
Bitcoin fell to a low of $19,886 Saturday before recovering slightly, trading at $20,055 as of the late afternoon, down 2.93% over the past 24 hours and off 70.1% from a record high of $67,037 in November.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted more than 1,000 points to 32,283 on Friday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned that soaring inflation will “take some time” to ease and will require the Fed to act “forcefully.”Other cryptocurrencies fell Saturday, with Dogecoin dropping 3.53% to 6 cents, while Ether sank 4.99%, to $1,481.
Shares of leading crypto broker Coinbase, meanwhile, fell 6.49% Friday to close at $66.74, down sharply from $368.90 in November, amid lower crypto trading volumes in a slumping market.
Low interest rates and government stimulus during the Covid-19 pandemic fueled skyrocketing cryptocurrency prices, but they’ve fallen substantially in recent months. Economists are divided on the possibility of recession. On Friday, economists at Goldman Sachs said the odds of entering a recession over the next year are roughly one in three, while economists at Nomura said they believe one will start this year and Bank of America warned a “mild recession” is possible by the end of the year.
So far, the Federal Reserve has made two interest rate hikes in its effort to curb inflation, raising its key lending rate 75 basis points in May and again in July, after inflation hit a 40-year high.
More than 50% of daily bitcoin trading is likely fake or non-economic, Forbes determined in an analysis published Friday, underlining concerns about the transparency and solidity of crypto markets. In the analysis of 157 crypto exchanges worldwide, Forbes found daily bitcoin volume on June 14 was $128 billion, 51% lower than the $262 billion from the total self-reported volume from multiple sources.
I am a Boston-based reporter, foodie and cyclist. Before joining Forbes, I covered the environment, local government and the arts for a small-town newspaper on
Price-charts show Bitcoin saw rejection at last week’s $21,800 level. It experienced some support at $20,500 over the weekend and dropped to the $19,700 mark in early Asian hours today. A brief bump up to almost $20,000 was followed a return to the lower level in the European morning.
The declines came as Singapore state-owned Temasek Holdings, which manages more than $287 billion of assets, cautioned of more downturns across financial markets, citing the likelihood of a “recession in developed markets.”
Temasek said it forecast a “mild recession” in the U.S. next year, adding that China faces “challenges” and the global economy “is in a fragile state.” “Rising inflation, surging commodity prices, and severe supply chain bottlenecks have uncovered further fault lines in the global marketplace,” it said in a statement.
The euro dropped to a 20-year low of $1.0002 against the dollar, approaching parity. The weakness arose amid concerns of an energy crisis stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that would tip the region into a recession, while the dollar was buoyed by expectations of the Federal Reserve committing to faster rate hikes.
Equity markets also suffered. In Asia, the Hang Seng index fell 1.26% while Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 1.75%. The Stoxx Europe 600 index fell 0.60%, while Germany’s DAX lost 1%. U.S. futures on the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 fell 0.68%.
Some Bitcoin investors see more reasons for a decline than a rebound.
“An additional reason has strengthened our view that the upside will be capped in the near-term: This is the news about Mt. Gox releasing approximately 140,000 BTC in August,” QCP Capital traders said in a Telegram broadcast on Tuesday.
“Our main takeaway is that there is a high chance of BTC supply flooding the market soon,” they wrote. “The possible impact would be additional selling pressure on BTC and perhaps the outperformance of ETH and Alts against BTC.”
fter throwing lifelines to troubled digital currency platforms BlockFi and Voyager Digital, Sam Bankman-Fried, the 30-year-old billionaire founder of FTX, warns that some crypto exchanges will soon fail. The question on everybody’s mind in the crypto world is whether we’ve reached the market bottom. Nearly $2 trillion in crypto market value has evaporated since November.
Two bellwether digital assets Luna, a $40 billion crypto asset associated with TerraUSD, a $16 billion stablecoin designed to maintain parity with the U.S. dollar, have collapsed. Earlier this month bitcoin traded for below $20,000, its lowest level since December 2020. But the fallout is far from complete. Earlier this month, Singapore-based Three Arrows Capital (3AC), a highly levered crypto trading firm with $200 million of exposure to Luna revealed that it was nearly insolvent.
Three Arrows’ had borrowed large sums from numerous crypto firms including New Jersey’s Voyager Digital and New York-based BlockFi. In order to survive Three Arrows default, the two digital asset exchanges turned to billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX and the richest person in crypto, worth some $20.5 billion. Between FTX and his quantitative trading firm Alameda, he provided the companies with $750 million in credit lines.
There is no guarantee that Bankman-Fried will recoup his investment. “You know, we’re willing to do a somewhat bad deal here, if that’s what it takes to sort of stabilize things and protect customers,” he says. We’re willing to do a somewhat bad deal here, if that’s what it takes to sort of stabilize things.”
Bankman-Fried’s cash infusions are far from altruistic. He has emerged as a smart vulture capitalist in the beleaguered crypto market, knowing full well that his own fortune depends on its healthy rebound and growth. Bankman-Fried has also bought into crypto brokerage Robinhood, where FTX has already accumulated a 7.6% stake, and is rumored to be considering an acquisition.
Bankman-Fried denies any active merger talks with Robinhood but tells Forbes that more crypto exchange failures are coming. “There are some third-tier exchanges that are already secretly insolvent,” says Bankman-Fried. Fried’s FTX, along with Coinbase, Kraken and Binance, are giants among digital asset exchanges. They have millions of customer accounts and functionally they operate similarly to online stock brokerages. But outside of these whales, there are more than 600 crypto exchanges around the world operating in a largely unregulated frontier.
Never heard of AAX, Billance and Hotbit? You aren’t alone, but like Coinbase they trade bitcoin, ether and dogecoin and offer generous margin loans–as much 20 times their initial capital— to their clients. Lacking any meaningful regulatory oversight many crypto exchanges have been vulnerable to scammers and hacks.
Japanese exchange Coincheck was hacked for $530 million in crypto in 2018, Singaporean exchange KuCoin lost $275 million in 2020, and then in December 2021 Cayman Island-based Bitmart was breached for $200 million. Back in 2016, Bitifinex was hacked to the tune of nearly 120,000 bitcoin worth $2.5 billion now.
But, despite the generous bailouts, not even Bankman-Fried is able, or willing, to throw good money after bad in perpetuity. “There are companies that are basically too far gone and it’s not practical to backstop them for reasons like a substantial hole in the balance sheet, regulatory issues, or that there is not much of a business left to be saved,” says Bankman-Fried, who declined to name any specific crypto exchanges.
As Forbes reported in its analysis of the world’s best 60 crypto exchanges, the digital asset exchange business generally lacks standards to certify a new entity before or after they start soliciting client funds. The SEC doesn’t regulate the exchanges and the Commodities Futures and Trading Commission has oversight of only a handful of crypto derivatives markets. In the United States there is no member organization like FINRA to self- regulate crypto exchanges.
Bankman-Fried is worried about continued failures because during the euphoria of rising crypto prices, exchanges kept upping the ante to attract customers with generous yields for deposits. BlockFi or Voyager were promising yield payments to customers, upwards of 12% per year that had to be paid for either by charging at least that much more interest to borrowers or more likely, by putting that money to work in decentralized finance DeFi applications.
That worked fine when crypto was going nowhere but up. It looks disastrous now. “There are companies that are basically too far gone and it’s not practical to backstop them.”
Like J.P. Morgan during the stock market panic and crash of 1907, Bankman-Fried is taking advantage of the crypto chaos to expand his empire. He recently closed the acquisition of Liquid, a troubled Japanese exchange. BlockFi and Voyager Digital are in his grip and despite his denials, Robinhood may be next. According to sources familiar with his loans to Voyager, Alameda is likely to lose at least $70 million of the credit it has already extended. In 2021, publicly-traded Voyager’s Digital had a market value of more than $3 billion.
Today it shares trade for pennies and its market cap of $62 million points to an imminent bankruptcy filing. Despite the carnage, Bankman-Fried tells Forbes that FTX remains profitable and has been for the past 10 quarters. FTX’s biggest rival Coinbase lost $432 million in the first quarter of 2022 and its stock is down almost 90% from its all-time high.
Bankman-Fried also has his eye on crypto miners, many of whom leveraged their balance sheet at breakneck pace to quickly scale and take advantage of this 21st century digital gold rush. The stocks of publicly-trading crypto miners including Marathon Digital Holdings and Riot Blockchain are down more than 60% year to date.
One bellwether crypto asset Bankman-Fried is not worried about is Tether, world’s largest dollar-pegged stablecoin with a market cap exceeding $70 billion. Many industry watchers have deemed it a ticking time bomb with questionable collateral whose failure would almost certainly be an existential threat to the entire cryptocurrency market. Tested during the Luna collapse Tether briefly lost its $1 peg and fell to a price 95 cents. However, it successfully processed over $10 billion worth of withdrawals and has since recovered.
Says Bankman-Fried, “I think that the really bearish views on Tether are wrong…I don’t think there is any evidence to support them.”
Now, reports have emerged Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs is looking to raise $2 billion to snap up the assets of embattled crypto lender Celsius which has been hard hit by the latest bitcoin and crypto crash. Goldman Sachs is soliciting crypto funds and traditional financial institutions as part of the deal that could see it buy Celsius’ crypto assets at a discount, it was first reported by Coindesk, with Blockworks adding the deal could happen even if the lender does not declare bankruptcy, citing anonymous sources.
“Goldman didn’t want to buy into the top of the market,” one source told Blockworks. “This is more their style.” Celsius, which had $12 billion in assets under management as of May of this year, has been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy after suspending user withdrawals from the platform earlier this month, citing “extreme market conditions” and exacerbating a crypto price crash that sent bitcoin spiraling under $20,000.
Celsius has hired restructuring advisors Alvarez & Marsal, it was earlier reported by the Wall Street Journal, adding to previous reports Citigroup C+3.3% has been tapped to advise on possible solutions. Goldman Sachs’ reported bid for Celsius’ crypto assets is likely to return some degree of confidence to the market after traders were left rattled by the pace of the bitcoin, ethereum and cryptocurrency sell-off.
“Even so, it may not be the best time to buy, as it may take considerable time before the crypto market digests the recent turmoil and enters a new phase of sustained demand from broad segments of investors, not just stressed asset hunters,” Alex Kuptsikevich, FxPro senior market analyst, said via email. The Celsius meltdown, coming hot on the heels of the collapse of the terraUSD stablecoin its support coin luna, has sparked fresh calls for better crypto market and crypto company regulation.
“I suspect after the recent events with Celsius that the U.S. will provide more clarity soon, on regulation towards custodial providers and lenders, to bring more stability to the crypto space,” Marcus Sotiriou, an analyst at the U.K.-based digital asset broker GlobalBlock, wrote in an emailed note.
Nearly three weeks after Celsius Network suspended fund withdrawals and other operations from its platform, questions about its future are mounting. The maneuvers behind the scenes are also increasing. The crypto firm has hired Alavarez & Marsal, a restructuring advisory firm. Celsius has tapped restructuring attorneys from law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.
According to Fortune, which cites anonymous sources familiar with the matter, Goldman Sachs has solicited crypto firms and web 3 firms, the new iteration of the internet, as well as traditional financial institutions and companies specializing in restructuring. Goldman Sachs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On June 12, Celsius announced that it would suspend indefinitely various transactions, including withdrawals of funds “due to extreme market conditions.” Today we are announcing that Celsius is pausing all withdrawals, Swap, and transfers between accounts,” the company said at the time. “We are taking this action today to put Celsius in a better position to honor, over time, its withdrawal obligations.”
Celsius is a cryptocurrency lending platform. The company allows anyone to borrow cryptocurrency and earn interest for lenders. “Earn high. Borrow low. Change the world,” the firm says on its website. One of its catch phrases is “Borrow like a Billionaire.” Celsius, through its CEL token, promises “financial rewards” as much as 30% extra returns weekly. But some options are not available to U.S. based users.
When it raised $400 million last October from investors led by WestCap and Canadian Caisse de dépôt du Québec (CDPQ), Celsius Network saw its valuation soar to $3 billion. The company wants to be an intermediary between traditional finance and the sphere of cryptocurrencies.
Developed by MetaQuotes, MT4’s functionalities on Bybit are available to all users. The platform enables 24/7 trades of USDT perpetual contracts — all with Bybit’s low spreads and deep liquidity. Bybit users can also activate Expert Advisors for an automated trading experience that allows them to integrate their trading scripts from other providers offering MT4. Equipped with MT4’s widely popular and trusted functionalities, Bybit’s innovative, streamlined platform makes trading even more intuitive than ever before.
Faster, Simpler, Smarter
With the MT4 integration, Bybit users have top trading and analytical technologies at their fingertips and can implement trading strategies with ease. Users on Bybit MT4 will be trading off Bybit’s order book and liquidity prices, facilitating direct peer-to-peer buy/sell transactions with minimal slippage granted by the platform’s deep liquidity.
For an enhanced trading experience, MT4 also comes with informative technical indicators and algorithmic trading tools. Key features include the ability to automatically copy deals of other traders, as well as various support functions for users at all stages of their trading journey.
In addition, MT4 has a range of customizable layouts, complete with an intuitive interface and interactive charts that make planning and managing trades a breeze. Whether for longtime crypto believers or the newly crypto curious, Bybit’s MT4 integration delivers advanced trading features along with a hassle-free user experience.
A World-Class Platform
Since it was founded in 2018, Bybit has rapidly made a name for itself as a provider of innovative online spot and derivatives trading services, mining and staking products, an NFT marketplace as well as API support to both retail and institutional clients around the globe. Bybit has emerged as a next-level exchange for digital assets thanks to a smart and robust system that underlines speed, security, transparency, and market depth.
Liquidity is arguably the be-all and end-all of asset exchanges, and this is a leading quality of Bybit’s derivatives trading platform. With abundant liquidity and the tightest spread, Bybit guarantees that traders have the best quote and execution on the market even during periods of extreme volatility.
What’s more, with a 99.99% up rate, Bybit has proven to be the most reliable, stable, and usable crypto exchange of the bull run. The platform had no overload or downtime throughout the year — a unique attribute among major exchanges.
With a whole host of retail-focused products and customer-centric services (including multilingual support), Bybit’s platform is designed to help lower the entry threshold to digital assets trading, inviting people around the world to enjoy easy and immediate delivery of crypto transactions. With MT4, Bybit is furthering its mission to become a fully integrated trading powerhouse with a stellar, user-friendly interface.
“As one of the most advanced and convenient trading solutions, MT4 is an excellent tool for our users to elevate their trading experience,” said Ben Zhou, co-founder and CEO of Bybit. “We are excited to bring our products and services to the next level with this integration with MT4, and we look forward to our users benefiting from its functionalities and navigating the rise of digital assets with us.”
Illustration: Yazmin Monet Butcher
