Bessie Liu

Blockchain gaming provider Polemos has announced a new chain-agnostic blockchain game platform it calls &#8220;The Armory.&#8221; This platform intends to offer gamers the ability to rent digital assets without collateral or deposit requirements.



Traditionally in <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/gaming" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">gaming</a>, digital asset rentals require a deposit, or the borrowers are only given copies of the original item. The Armory, on the other hand, will not ask for any collateral or deposits beyond a borrowing cost and give users the chance to use the digital assets as they like.



Players retain any rewards earned through their borrowed items, giving them an opportunity to experiment with different digital assets without the need to invest a large amount of time and money.



Lenders will be able to earn money from digital assets sitting idly in their wallets, though there is a small fee required to list each digital asset.



Halborn, a blockchain security firm, has audited the platform&#8217;s smart contract, potentially providing lenders with enhanced security. Smart contract audits are crucial for blockchain security, and multiple audit firms may review the code for some companies. This helps to ensure untampered item returns and reinforces overall platform security.



The Armory will be chain agnostic and integrated into Polemos’ <a href="https://forge.polemos.io/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Forge</a>, meaning it will be able to operate on a variety of different blockchains. 



Initially, The Armory will support all <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/polygon" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Polygon</a> proof-of-stake games, including Galaxy Fight Club, and in development games such as Apeiron, Deadrop and others. It plans to later integrate with other blockchains including Immutable, Solana, Avalanche and Ton.



“By providing a convenient solution for borrowers and lenders alike, we’ve opened up lending of game assets to the whole industry — with no work required by games to enable these great benefits,” Sascha Zehe, cofounder and co-CEO of Polemos, said in a statement.



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Polemos launches platform for collateral-free digital asset rental

Michael Bodley

Crypto security specialist Halborn and Chainalysis are teaming up in a new initiative designed to arm clients with the technological means and know-how to both preempt and recover from instances of industry fraud.&nbsp;



The seven-phase planned partnership is designed to “help equip Web3 companies at any stage to prevent and respond to security threats that have <a href="https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2022-biggest-year-ever-for-crypto-hacking/">plagued the industry</a>,” both companies first told Blockworks in a statement on Tuesday.&nbsp;



Awareness of scams, frauds, and purported or documented crimes have kept crypto industry participants on edge in 2023. Industry participants say that has been especially true in recent weeks as the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/sec">SEC</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/cftc">CFTC</a> have continued their offensives against a number of major crypto players with US ties.&nbsp;



Scott Gralnick, who holds the title of director of channel partnerships at Halborn, told Blockworks in an interview on Tuesday that the ultimate goal of the crypto intercompany collaboration is to combine a couple of “preventive” and “proactive” firms to craft “preventative solutions.” 



“With where [we are], I thought it was paramount that we keep this ecosystem safe and secure,” Gralnick said, referring to macro events and speaking on behalf of Halborn. “This [digital assets] ecosystem at large is lacking what this [industry[ needs to be safe in terms of security.”



His company now is up to a team of about 100 employees, which Gralnick referred to as “white hat hackers” in an industry with bad actors still abounding.&nbsp;



“Right now, what the ecosystem looks like reminds me of 2019…post ICO [boom],” he said. “All the scammers are sort of being flushed out of the system, and you&#8217;re getting back to the real builders in the space building products, keeping [their] heads down and getting ready for the [next] boom. We’re in the same type of environment.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



It’s designed to break things down into seven sequential phases, according to both companies. Halborn is responsible for executing phases one to five, as outlined in the image below, while Chainalysis is taking on the remaining two phases: “fraud prevention” and “ongoing monitoring.”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/B_jCmfWIQjvbx3fHeaAdu6dMf903rz5Y500w0fG5PvxND_4hIiFHOltWHvPoTJpt8RKDQ7Y97tWso_GRimfpBUxAcLWbdm_2jFkBeM9kR2NBbubMBMtBfDLn3NRrEqe7PW5zopt8p8mXDp3HC272M9U" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Halborn and Chainalysis</figcaption></figure>



The penultimate phase, according to the joint statement, is designed to prioritize “the detection of high-risk activities” with a focus on “preventing fraudulent transactions.”



“The key takeaway is that we’re trying to keep the ecosystem safe, and you can&#8217;t do anything on your own,” Gralnick said in the interview. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”



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Chainalysis, Halborn Join Forces To Tackle Crypto Fraud

<div id="highlights-block_62deccb157938" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Ex-meta employees and founders of Aptos Labs secure $150 million in funding</li>
 <li>Halborn raises its first venture capital round, securing $90 million to power through the bear market</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Over $300 million of funding was poured into crypto companies this past week.



Ex-Meta Platforms staff raised $150 million in funding for Aptos Labs, a blockchain startup that wants to make transactions faster and cheaper. The Palo Alto based company was founded by Mo Shaikh and Avery Chin, former Meta employees who worked on cryptocurrency project Diem, which fell apart earlier this year due to regulatory difficulties.&nbsp;



The startup had already reached <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/unicorn.asp" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">unicorn status</a> in March, and this new funding is speculated to almost double its valuation.&nbsp;



Blockchain security company Halborn also raised significant capital for its Series A led by Summit Partners.&nbsp;



“We are fully bootstrapped and raised $0 until this Series A,” Rob Behnke, co-founder of Halborn told Blockworks.&nbsp;



The $90 million that the company has received will be used to “launching multiple blockchain security automation products for the world of Web3 builders,” Behnke said. Adding that despite bear market conditions, “we&#8217;re also planning on hiring another 100 people over the next 12 months.”



“There have been a number of challenging crypto headlines in the market of late. In our view, this will result in a necessary separation of the “good ideas” from the “bad”,” Matt Hamilton, a managing director at Summit Partners, told Blockworks.&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“We believe companies that add value for their customers will get rewarded and survive; those that are adding no value or engaging in pure speculation probably will not,” Hamilton said.</blockquote>



Halborn was not the only company to have raised a successful Series A. Decentralized crypto exchange Hashflow also <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/hashflow-raises-25-million-from-jump-crypto-wintermute-and-gsr/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a> that it had successfully secured $25 million from multiple venture capitalists including Jump Crypto, Wintermute and GSR, bringing its valuation to $400 million.



This new capital will allow Hashflow to “aggressively onboard new market makers to maximize the liquidity on our platform for our users,” Varun Kumar, the CEO said.



Other notable raises this week include:



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Developer of an AI engine for NFT content recognition, Optic — raised an $11 million seed round last week. Co-founder Andrey Doronichev told Blockworks that “we want to become a public infrastructure for all the companies out there&#8230;we’re building a layer of infrastructure that watches every token come into every chain.”</li><li>Meow, a crypto yield offering startup, closed a $22 million Series A led by Tiger Global.</li><li>Game-to-earn company Fitchin raised a $3.5M seed round and onboards Joe McCann, founder of crypto fund, Asymmetric as an official advisor.</li></ul>



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Funding Roundup: Some $300 Million Poured into Crypto Projects Last Week

<div id="highlights-block_62aa2d415a283" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The discovered vulnerability exposes browser wallet users’ secret recovery phrases</li>
 <li>Affected wallet providers were contacted, and the vulnerability was kept confidential until the security issues were remediated</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



A number of popular browser-based crypto wallets are vulnerable to hacking under certain conditions, according to new research. 



Blockchain security firm Halborn found several instances where wallets including Brave, MetaMask and Phantom can be compromised under specific computer conditions — adding yet another wrinkle to traders still reeling from recent high-profile decentralized finance (DeFi) hacks.&nbsp;



The conditions can expose a crypto wallet user’s secret recovery phrase (a series of words generated that gives the owner access to their crypto), which can then be used to change their private key. All told, billions of dollars of digital assets are stored in software wallets.&nbsp;



Affected wallet providers were contacted and the vulnerability was kept under wraps until the security issues were remediated.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Who is affected? </h3>



Users who meet the following conditions may be at risk:



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Users who have unencrypted hard drives</li><li>Users who have previously imported their secret recovery phrase into a web extension on a device that is in the possession of someone else or have had their computer compromised</li><li>Users who have used the “show secret recovery phrase” checkbox to view their secret recovery phrase on-screen during the import process</li></ul>



Cryptocurrency wallets like the ones impacted by this vulnerability, such as Metamask, are a self-custody wallet — meaning users alone are responsible for safeguarding their private keys. 



“Exchanges like Coinbase or Binance usually hold custody of those keys on the behalf of their customers,” Steven Walbroehl, Halborn’s chief security officer and co-founder, told Blockworks.



“This impact is only for those that self-custody those assets, and it is the users&#8217; responsibility to take it seriously, upgrade the wallets to the patched version listed on the wallet developer&#8217;s websites, and to rotate their mnemonic phrase if they think it may be at risk,” Walbroehl said.&nbsp;



MetaMask has <a href="https://medium.com/metamask/security-notice-extension-disk-encryption-issue-d437d4250863" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">asked</a> users to update their extension versions to 10.11.3 and later and to “take the time to enable full disk encryption on computers.”



Echoing Walbroehl, Dan Finlay, founder and group manager at MetaMask <a href="https://medium.com/metamask/security-notice-extension-disk-encryption-issue-d437d4250863" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wrote in a blog post</a> that users should “remember that it’s your responsibility to keep your computer secure. No wallet or software can keep itself safe if the system it runs on is compromised. Take time to learn how to avoid installing a virus on your computer.” 



Phantom, meanwhile, wrote in a <a href="https://phantom.app/blog/demonic-vulnerability" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">blog post</a> that to protect themselves on Web3, on top of general internet safety measures, users should diversify their wallets to minimize risk and use hardware wallets to store large amounts of assets and currencies.



“Other mitigations include storing the mnemonic phrase/key on a hardware-based wallet like Trezor or Ledger. These wallets still work with software wallets like Metamask when physically connected via a USB cable&#8230;but it protects the keys from attackers that may access your disk,” Walbroehl said.



Halborn has been rewarded $50,000. The wallet providers did not immediately return requests for comment.



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