Welcome to this week’s crypto and blockchain news. It’s been a relatively scary week for a lot with many exploits taking place with the Nomad Bridge hack, but maybe the scariest of them all, the GitHub malware attack.

But the world keeps spinning, and we also got news of Binance releasing their Soulbound token, the BAB. And let’s not forget Cardano announcing that its Vasil hard fork will be delayed.

While on the greater scale of things, Israel has officially banned payments of over $4,400, while at the same time, we saw Japan lose interest in CBDCs.

Let’s dive in.

Cardano

Kevin Hammond, technology manager at IOHK, came out on Friday to announce that Cardano’s Vasil Hard fork will be delayed again due to the project’s necessity to conduct further testing to make sure the launch goes to plan.

The launch was initially meant to take place by the end of July, but now it seems we have a few more weeks of delay.

Nomad bridge hack

This week saw another blockchain bridge exploit take place, the Nomad token bridge hack. The bridge was exploited for a whopping $190.7m of Total-Value-Locked (TVL). The exploit marks one of the biggest DeFi hacks in crypto history.

Looking back on 2022 alone we can see that many hacks have taken place:

• Axie Infinity Ronin Bridge, March 28, $625 million
• Wormhole, February 2, $325 million
• Beanstalk, April 17, $182 million
• Harmony Bridge, June 23, $100 million
• Qubit QBridge Hack, January 27, $80 million
• Fei Protocol, April 30, $80 million
• Cashio, March 22, $52 million
• IRA Financial Trust, February 8, $37 million
• Cryptocom, January 17, $35 million

Binance’s Soulbound token

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange today, has announced that it will be issuing its Binance Account Bound token (BAB), the first-ever Soulbound Token (SBTs) built on the Binance Smart Chain.

The initial purpose of the token will be to identify customers that have successfully passed KYC. Since the token will be on-chain it will be an easy way for third parties to identify wallets that are held by real people and not bots or even duplicates.

Aave’s GHO stablecoin

AAVE  recently conducted a community vote to see whether they will be going ahead with the release of their own stablecoin. No parameters have been said yet as the vote was purely to see if the plans would go ahead or not. Genesis parameters for the token will be voted on next week on the AAVE governance forum.

The community has given the greenlight 🟢 for GHO 👻 The next step is voting on the genesis parameters of GHO, look out for a proposal next week on the governance forum https://t.co/ba4oK50Wb8

— Aave (@AaveAave) July 31, 2022

GitHub Malware attack

On Wednesday, GitHub developer Stephen Lacy reported that they had uncovered a malware attack on GitHub.

The attack reportedly had been spread 35,000 times in various GitHub repositories – including crypto projects. The malware attack was targeted at docker images, install docs, and NPM scripts.

The way the attacker went about it was creating malicious clones of project repositories that looked identical to the official ones, in turn fooling many.

Japan scraps CBDC plans

Japan’s central bank has announced that it is scraping CBDC plans after noticing a lack of interest from the general public.

The Bank of Japan started talking about a Yen-backed CBDC back in 2021. But after looking into it further, the Bank of Japan found that the majority of Japanese citizens are not interested in CBDCs, preferring the traditional systems which are already in place.

Israel

Israel has now officially banned cash payments for personal transactions of a value of over $4,400. The limit for business transactions is $1,760.

Israel will be issuing fines to the tune of 15% – 30% of the transaction’s value to anyone who violates the limits.

Tinder

Tinder has announced that it is scrapping its plans to introduce both its in-app Tinder Coins and its metaverse-based dating.

CryptoNews! 🚨

Dating giant Tinder announces of disappointing second-quarter earnings. Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg will be departing the company.
The company is also taking "a step back" on plans to introduce its in-app Tinder Coins and #metaverse-based dating. #NFTs #crypto pic.twitter.com/BGcOwx1LnQ

— Cartel's Crypto Lounge (@CartelsLounge) August 4, 2022

Muse

At the same time, major Pop Rock band, Muse, is set to release their next album as an NFT. You read that correctly. The British band will be utilising the Polygon-powered platform Serenade to release the album as a limited-edition NFT.

Tiffany and Co

While over in the world of fashion, “Tiffany & Co.” have taken their plunge into the world of Web3, by announcing NFT-backed, limited edition CryptoPunk pendants.

Anyone holding a crypto punk will have the right to claim a custom pendant styled on their Crypto Punk NFT. The pendant will reportedly be made with gemstones and diamonds and set customers back 30 ETH.

Magic Eden

The biggest NFT marketplace on Solana, Magic Eden is venturing into the world of the Ethereum blockchain and will include both chain’s NFTs. This news comes a few weeks after Ethereum-based NFT marketplace OpenSea incorporated Solana-based NFTs into its platform.

Magic Ethen. pic.twitter.com/2X5a2fOcQ3

— Magic Eden 🪄 (@MagicEden) August 2, 2022

Shiba Inu

The team behind the popular meme coin, Shiba Inu, revealed they will be launching their own NFT-based mobile game “Shiba Eternity”. The game will be launched in partnership with PlaySide Studios. The game will be available in both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

We are proud to reveal the name of the Shib CCG game, Shiba Eternity™!

We are working alongside @PlaysideStudios on a testing schedule and exciting release!

The game will be available in both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Game on #ShibArmy with #ShibaEternity! pic.twitter.com/iJnyMUVZWb

— Shib (@Shibtoken) August 2, 2022

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