Welcome to another edition of the Datawallet newsletter, your place for all crypto-related news. Today’s drop will cover the following topics: 

• Conic Finance users flee after a $4 million hack
• BTC ownership fell in 2022
• Tokenized security in Europe thanks to Securitize
• $100 million valuation for EthStorage
• Number of smart contracts continues to rise

Conic Finance users flee after a $4 million hack

Conic Finance, a platform that offers diversified exposure to liquidity pools on the popular DEX Curve, has experienced a significant decline in deposits following two exploits last week. The team disclosed in a post-mortem on July 23 that they lost $4.1M due to two separate attacks on their pools just days before. These incidents severely impacted investor confidence, leading to a 72% decrease in total value locked from $157M on July 21 to $43M. Moreover, the native token of Conic Finance, CNC, also suffered a decline of 57% during this period.

Currently, deposits are not available on Conic Finance as the team intends to meticulously address all security issues before accepting new capital inflows. However, users can still make withdrawals and existing liquidity providers will continue earning yield as usual. If you have enabled permissions to contracts on Conic, we recommend revoking them. You can use our revoke MetaMask permissions guide to do this safely.

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BTC ownership fell in 2022 

According to a recent survey conducted by the Bank of Canada in 2022, the breakdown of cryptocurrency ownership in Canada was revealed. The findings indicate that Canadians chose to divest from their bitcoin holdings during this period; however, there was no observable trend of transitioning from bitcoin to other alternative cryptocurrencies (known as altcoins), as ownership of altcoins decreased.

One possible contributing factor to this statistic is the discovery made by the Bank of Canada that less than one-third of bitcoin owners possess a high level of understanding regarding how the Bitcoin system functions, while a slightly larger proportion have very limited knowledge about it.

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Tokenized security in Europe thanks to Securitize

Securitize, a blockchain company focused on tokenizing tangible assets, has initiated the issuance of tokenized securities in Europe. These securities symbolize ownership in the Spanish real estate investment trust known as Mancipi Partners. Leveraging the Avalanche blockchain, Securitize plans to tokenize the shares and enable secondary trading by September.

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$100 million valuation for EthStorage

EthStorage, a cryptocurrency startup with the objective of expanding Ethereum storage through a Layer 2 network, has achieved a valuation of $100 million in its initial funding round. The fundraising efforts, which amounted to $7 million, were spearheaded by dao5, a crypto investment fund. EthStorage announced this development via Twitter on Thursday. Notable participants in the funding round also included SevenX Ventures, Foresight Ventures, Sky9 Capital, Gate Ventures and Galxe.

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Number of smart contracts continues to rise 

While some may view the second quarter of 2023 as a period of decline, others recognize the resilience of the smart contracts industry. Despite a decrease in investments from venture capital firms within the crypto space, developers have continued to implement smart contracts, indicating a growing demand for blockchain-based solutions.

In their Q2 report for 2023, BNB Chain, a blockchain platform, observed an uptick in verified smart contracts. The report highlights that platforms such as BNB Chain, Ethereum, Polygon, Fantom, Avalanche, Arbitrum and Optimism all experienced an increase in verified smart contracts during Q2.

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Other breaking news

• Technology for the 21st Century Act is considered positive for crypto
• Lido is pushing for a dual governance model
• Arbitrum-based options protocol Rysk has enabled ETH options trading
• Meta 'Fully Committed' to Metaverse Division
• Animoca Brands to invest $30 million in a crypto app

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Wrapping up

That’s it for Issue #70! Today’s update includes the number of smart contract rising, however, the number of owners of BTC and ETH fell in 2022, according to a recent report from the Bank of Canada. EthStorage reaches $100 million valuation, meanwhile Conic Finance users flee after a $4 million hack. Stay tuned for more updates in our rapidly evolving space.