Just In: Coinbase Acquires Stake in Circle
- Coinbase and Circle will end their Center Consortium partnership that produced the USDC stablecoin.
- Coinbase recently launched Base, an Ethereum layer-2 chain.
- Solidus Labs has reported that multiple scam tokens have been deployed on Base.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has reportedly acquired a minority stake in Circle Internet Financial, the company behind the USDC stablecoin. As part of the deal, both organizations will end their Center Consortium partnership that produced the USDC stablecoin. In addition, Circle will fully internalize the issuance and control of USDC as part of the transition.
Furthermore, reports state that six more blockchains will gain native support for the USDC, bringing the total number of blockchains to 15. There’s no official confirmation of the new chains. However, Circle previously identified Polkadot, Optimism, Near, and Cosmos as possible expansions for 2023.
Coinbase has made a couple of innovative moves in recent days. The crypto exchange recently announced the launch of its Ethereum layer-2 chain, Base. However, a recent report claims that black-hat developers have added hundreds of malicious tokens to the new platform.
Solidus Labs claims that developers have deployed over 500 scam tokens on base since the platform launched for developers in July and became available to the public earlier this month. Solidus Labs noted that the scam tokens achieved a trading volume on Base’s decentralized exchanges (DEXs) of around $3.7 million. In addition, the fraudulent actors amassed $2.7 million in purchases, $700,000 in sales, and $300,000 in wash sales of the scam assets.
According to Solidus Labs:
Roughly 300 of these scam tokens’ smart contracts contained hidden functions enabling their creators to mint an unlimited number of new coins; another 70 contracts contained obfuscated transaction fee modifiers; and more than 60 contained honeypots, blocking buyers from reselling their tokens altogether.
Base is open to every user. While this feature is admirable, it leaves the platform vulnerable to some security flaws, which scammers take advantage of. Analysts at Solidus Labs have advised users against decentralized exchanges on Base as well as meme coins. The analysts believe that funds lost to rug pulls will most likely not be recovered if an exploit occurs.
I have covered some exciting stories in my career as a journalist and find blockchain-related stories very intriguing. I believe Web3 will change the world and want everyone to be a part of it.
