A software engineer who hacked smart contracts on two decentralized exchanges was sentenced to three years in prison in New York. Chinese fraud victims are turning to the United Kingdom government for help with recovering over $4 billion worth of Bitcoin seized by authorities. Meanwhile, an upcoming Ethereum upgrade will introduce a “social recovery” feature for wallets, potentially making lost private keys a thing of the past.
Crypto exchange hacker receives prison sentence
Computer engineer Shakeeb Ahmed was sentenced to three years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release for his role in flash loan attacks on two decentralized exchanges.
The sentence was handed down in the Southern New York District Court, with U.S. Attorney Damian Williams claiming it was the first conviction for a smart contract hack. Ahmed was also ordered to forfeit $12.3 million and a large portion of his crypto holdings, with part of the proceeds going toward a $5 million restitution payment for the affected exchanges.
Ahmed was the hacker behind the flash loan attacks targeting Crypto Exchange and the Nirvana exchange in 2022. At the time, Nirvana’s NIRV stablecoin depegged from the U.S. dollar, with its native token, ANA, plunging by 85%.
The court also claimed that Ahmed laundered the hacked funds using Monero, overseas crypto exchanges, and crypto mixers.
Fraud victims want China to recover $4.3 billion worth of Bitcoin seized by U.K. police
The victims of an investment fraud scheme facilitated by an electronics company in China are looking to recover $4.3 billion in Bitcoin (BTC) bought with their money with the help of the U.K. government.
A group representing the scam victims reportedly submitted a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China requesting it to negotiate with the U.K. government to recover the seized Bitcoin.
The funds were taken through a $6.2 billion investment scheme conducted by Tianjin Lantian Gerui Electronic Technology from 2014 to 2017.
U.K. authorities seized the cryptocurrency after former hospitality worker Jian Wen attempted to launder funds by buying a $30 million mansion with BTC. The purchase failed when Wen could not explain the source of the funds.
This led to an investigation by the authorities, culminating in a raid on a house in 2021. At the time, police found 61,000 BTC in the property rented by Wen and her boss, Zhimin Qian, the suspected mastermind of the investment fraud scheme.
Upcoming Ethereum hard fork to implement “social recovery” feature
Ethereum’s upcoming Pectra hard fork could end seed phrases by introducing a new “social recovery” feature, which forms a key part of the next planned Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 3074 upgrade.
The upgrade is set to “supercharge” ordinary Ethereum wallets — which are currently externally owned accounts, with several new smart contract-based capabilities, including the ability to recover assets with social logins as well as gas-less transactions.
Users who wish to access the new social recovery tool must first transfer ownership of their assets to an invoker contract via a digital signature, which will perform future transactions and function calls on the user’s behalf.
An additional feature of the planned EIP-3074 upgrade will ensure that users won’t need additional Ether (ETH) in their wallets to make transactions — with the entity behind the invoker contract being able to pay for transactions upfront.
Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko confirmed that EIP-3074 would be included in the Pectra upgrade in an April 11 post to X.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
Additional reporting by Geraint Price, Sam Bourgi and Felix Ng.
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