I, Degen - E14: All Eyes On Ethereum - 9/11/2022

Listen at: idegen.fm

Contact us: @idegenfm

Full show notes with images on HackMD - https://hackmd.io/@idegen/E14-All-Eyes-On-Ethereum

Intro

Welcome to I, Degen - A podcast about crypto technology, security, and culture. With a healthy balance of enthusiasm and skepticism, we dig into a weekly look at crypto, cutting through the misinformation and hype in search of signal in the noise.

Episode Summary

All eyes are on Ethereum - we are now less than four days out from the merge. We’ll talk about some possible scenarios the merge might bring and what you can do to stay safe during the merge. We’ll also look into recent updates on the Tornado Cash sanctions, a new report on fraudulent crypto trading volume, and other crypto security-related news.

I,Degen - Weekly

Cryptosphere

1. From August 23rd, SudoRare, a LooksRare clone rugs 820K after just 6 hours of operation Rugged funds likely moved to a KYC’d address on Kraken.
2. SudoRare, an NFTplatform that forked from SudoSwap and LooksRare, is just the latest crypto project to run off with users’ funds. The project also deleted all of its social media accounts Tuesday morning. - 
3. Coinbase launches Liquid Staked derivative (LSD) cbETH ahead of the merge - [1][2][3]
4. Earn 1 MIL if you can find a good bug in Ethereum before the merge
5. August 26th, 2022 - Tailiban Outlaws Crypto in Afganistan and begins arresting sellers that refused to comply Bloomberg article
6. Password managment first LastPass had it’s developer systems hacked to steal source code
7. According to Forbes, more than 1/2 of all Bitcoin trades are ‘fake’

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission defines wash trading as “entering into, or purporting to enter into, transactions to give the appearance that purchases and sales have been made, without incurring market risk or changing the trader’s market position.” The reason why some traders engage in wash trading is to inflate the trading volume of an asset to give the appearance of rising popularity. In some cases trading bots execute these wash trades in tokens, increasing volume, while at the same time insiders reinforce the activity with bullish remarks, driving up the price in what is effectively a pump and dump scheme. Wash trading also benefits exchanges because it allows them to appear to have more volume than they actually do, potentially encouraging more legitimate trading.

“Fraudulent or non-economic”

The biggest problem areas regarding fake volume are firms that tout big volume but operate with little or no regulatory oversight that would make their figures more credible, notably Binance, MEXC Global and Bybit. Altogether, the lesser regulated exchanges in our s