The ORANGE Mystery Explained

GM Readers!📪 It's BitDegree Insider, and it's Friday. Let's make it count. While Silicon Valley Bank officially files for Chapter 11 (aka bankruptcy), Bitcoin surpasses $27,000 for the first time since June 2022 (at least for a moment).

⭐️Today's selection:

• 🧡The ORANGE Flash Mob
• 💾Fascinating Mess of Crypto Hacks
• 🧩️Answer To Yesterday's Puzzle
• 👌Selected Meme of The Day
• 📰Bite-Sized News

THE ORANGE FLASH MOB

If you're on Twitter, you must have noticed something. There's a surge of orange logos popping out of nowhere, and landing straight into users' news feeds.

Could you guess what's the reason behind it? What does the orange color stand for?

Of course Bitcoin! Bitcoin's been gaining hella traction lately!

It's no coincidence - this color scheme represents the latest trend in the world of Bitcoin NFTs.

So... What's the connection between all of them?

The first one to begin the trend was Magic Eden, the biggest NFT marketplace on Solana. (it's a marketplace with over $33 million in trading volume per month.)

Historically, they were not the first marketplace on Solana, but when they entered, they killed it! (in a good way)

They became #1 on Solana, and, even though, it didn't work the same way with Ethereum, they're still a major player in the game.

And Magic Eden changing their logo sends a clear signal.

There is no other speculation other than that Magic Eden will be listing BTC NFTs (Ordinal Inscriptions) very very soon, p.s. March 21st.

Degods, the Solana #1 NFT collection which is about to begin bridging to Ethereum, decided to go MULTICHAIN.

Here's what happened. When the collection with 10,000 Degods had just launched, they introduced a unique concept called the "paper hand tax."

This meant that if you list your NFT 33% cheaper than the floor price, it would be automatically bought by the smart contract and burned, making it inaccessible forever.

Now, these "burned" Dead gods-Degods are back from the dead and live forever on Bitcoin, with 535 of them in existence.

And the first-ever burned Degod was brought to life via auction for 44256 DUST (Degods protocol token) or for approximately ~$76000.

The 500 of them will be sold just for 0.44 BTC or as minimum as nearly $12000. Not everyone will afford the joys of participating in these coming-back-to-life rituals!

Therefore, such a high price tag has sparked some debate on Twitter about the accessibility of BTC investments, but as we know after the Yuga Labs auction, established brands make it really possible.

At once, some may have thought that high prices would discourage interest in BTC NFTs, but it has actually created even more buzz and debate around these Ordinal Inscriptions, attracting even more people to the trend.

Orange is taking over the NFT space! Many projects are currently rocking this vibrant color in their logos, adding a splash of excitement to the world of crypto art. And the trend is only getting bigger!

TL;DR:  Bitcoin Orange Flash Mob is making rounds on social media. The message behind it is that big and prominent crypto projects are starting to interact with Bitcoin Ordinal Inscriptions (NFTs).

FASCINATING MESS OF CRYPTO HACKS

Yesterday we wrote about the hacker, rather a sensitive hacker who went through a change of heart.

But today... There's an update to the story. Turns out... He's not that much of an innocent little fellow. Probably.

He might be a padawan (Apprentice) of... Lazarus, the North Korean hacker unit.

So... how do we explain their kindness in returning money to one of the victims?

One more interesting thing happened today.

BlockSec auditors prevented the theft of 2,900 ETH ($5 million) from the NFT Paraspace credit protocol.

They discovered a serious exploit in time and intercepted the transaction. To put it simply, they hacked the protocol faster than the hacker!

A vulnerability in Paraspace's loan contracts allowed malicious traders to borrow with less collateral in NFTs than needed.

Which meant that the hacker could deplete the pools of the protocol. But the criminal's first attempt was unsuccessful because of insufficient gas fees.

BlockSec spotted the suspicious activity in time and conducted a white hat attack. They intercepted a malicious smart contract for 2,900 ETH and made changes to save the protocol from being robbed.

Paraspace was reassured that customers' NFTs sent to the protocol pool were safe.

The platform has suspended the lending service pending a final investigation into the problems.

This means no transactions (withdrawals, deposits, and liquidations) are available to customers yet.

And the most interesting thing is that after the incident, the failed hacker sent a transaction with a message. They asked for a refund of 0.7 ETH he spent trying to hack Paraspace.

Well, that's... A level of confidence that I wish all of us had while pursuing our passions.

TL;DR: The kind-hearted hacker that returned 100 ETH to one of their victims got caught in connection with Lazarus, the North Korean hacker group. Meantime, BlockSec auditors have just successfully prevented a theft of $5 million worth of crypto by hacking the protocol faster than hackers.

ANSWER TO YESTERDAY'S PUZZLE

Thank you for your participation yesterday! Most of you found the Ethereum enthusiast. And in case you didn't... He was in the bottom-left part of the image!

Now you see it, now you smell it!

SELECTED MEME OF THE DAY

BITE-SIZED NEWS

• Ethereum Developers Decide to Launch Shanghai Hard Fork on April 12th. It's happening.
• Playboy Reportedly Lost $4.9M from Its NFT Sales Due to Falling Ethereum Prices. Don't hate the playboy, hate the game.
• Doodles Co-Founder Says the Venture has Evolved Beyond an "NFT Project". They're shifting their focus from launching non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to creating a "leading media franchise."