Justin

[HYPEBEARS @hypebearsclub]

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[dfinzer.eth | opensea @dfinzer]

I know you’re all worried. We’re running an all hands on deck investigation, but I want to take a minute to share the facts as I see them:

[dfinzer.eth | opensea @dfinzer]

As far as we can tell, this is a phishing attack. We don’t believe it’s connected to the OpenSea website. It appears 32 users thus far have signed a malicious payload from an attacker, and some of their NFTs were stolen.

[dfinzer.eth | opensea @dfinzer]

The attack doesn’t appear to be active at this point — we haven’t seen any malicious activity from the attacker’s account in 2 hours. Some of the NFTs have been returned.

[dfinzer.eth | opensea @dfinzer]

We are not aware of any recent phishing emails that have been sent to users, but at this time we do not know which website was tricking users into maliciously signing messages.

[dfinzer.eth | opensea @dfinzer]

Always double check that you are interacting with https://t.co/GKLwAgML2x in your browser when you sign messages.

[dfinzer.eth | opensea @dfinzer]

If you are an affected user, please DM @opensea_support so that we can thoroughly investigate — we’d love your help.

[dfinzer.eth | opensea @dfinzer]

For more technical context, this thread (https://t.co/oHGgA3wLHP) is consistent with our current internal understanding.

[dfinzer.eth | opensea @dfinzer]

If you are concerned and want to protect yourself, you can un-approve access to your NFT collection https://t.co/ifHod9EZZT

[dfinzer.eth | opensea @dfinzer]

Importantly, rumors that this was a $200 million hack are false. The attacker has $1.7 million of ETH in his wallet from selling some of the stolen NFTs.

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

1. Thinking about this tweet lately. Here we have someone with a "tech people vs word people" dichotomy, but unlike @balajis and all the others who do this, crypto ends up on the side of... the word people.

This is not my image of what crypto is! So what's going on?

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

2. Here's the explainer on "wordcels vs shape rotators". If you're confused, read this first.

https://t.co/2HYyR8Gqwb

Now, back to the topic...

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

3. One important issue is that "crypto" means different things to different people.

To me, the core of "crypto" is the tech and mechanisms. ZK-SNARKs, BLS, auction models, x*y=k, quadratic funding... shape rotating all the way

Pairings literally use 12-dimensional curve twists!

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

4. But to many others, crypto means this:

https://t.co/ILasWIHs2u

I do think high fees are a major culprit; they make interesting and cool apps too expensive so hyperfinancialized apps win out. I'm hopeful that successful scaling over the next 2y will fix this.

But anyway...

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

5. There's also something deeper going on. Zeroing in now on the phrase "theorycel aesthetic sensibilities".

A lot of early crypto ideology was inspired by libertarianism, eg. Bastiat, Mises, Rothbard... which cares *a lot* about theorycel aesthetic vision of equality.

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

6. The core instinct is: we need a formal system of rights and limits that treats everyone equally and doesn't make unprincipled exceptions. You can't enslave or steal, so the government should not be able to enslave (conscription) or steal (taxation) either.

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

7. Crypto thinking about decentralization is similar. It's all about avoiding ugly unprincipled exceptions (in a centralized system, who gets to be the center?)

Focus is on proving hard unconditional security models (eg. secure unless >= 1/3 of stake is malicious)

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

8. Meanwhile, AI is the exact opposite. It really does produce wonders, but we can't explain how it works, and there's far more unprincipled tinkering than theory.

And to be fair, the unprincipled approach does cause problems that crypto doesn't have!

https://t.co/J3ZgI7JXmo

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

9. One interesting parallel is @MacaesBruno's "black box" as a metaphor for how philosophy works in China, and why AI is attractive there. Very low on theorycel aesthetics, high on "just keep shape rotating until it seems to work"

https://t.co/TZk0LcGuRP

https://t.co/Fal1ML4f7P