Entries related to Ren

April 12, 2023

Ren Protocol transfers all assets to FTX bankruptcy team

In February 2021, the Ren project announced that it had been acquired by Alameda Research so that Alameda could "[help] accelerate the decentralisation" of the project.

Now, the Ren team has announced that they have transferred all assets on the Ren Protocol "to the FTX Debtors' cold storage wallets for safeguarding".

The announcement mentioned "possible shutdowns of infrastructure and systems," possibly referring to Ren's plans — announced shortly after the FTX collapse — to "move on from Alameda" by launching "Ren 2.0" and sunsetting the 1.0 version. However, there has been little public evidence that Ren 2.0 has been progressing.

"FTX Will Receive All of Ren Protocol's Pegged Assets, Including Bitcoin and Dogecoin", CoinDesk
"Ren + Alameda" blog post
"Moving on from Alameda" blog post
Tweet by Ren Protocol

August 20, 2022

Someone buys a Bored Ape, gets scammed out of it two hours later

An illustration of an ape with black fur, sticking out its tongue, wearing a tuxedo t-shirt and a gold stud earring

Bored Ape #887 (attribution)

In what might be a new record, someone bought a Bored Ape NFT for 70.69 ETH (~$116,000) and had it stolen from them less than two hours later. The scammer quickly flipped the NFT for 61.6969 ETH (~$101,000), then bridged the funds through RenBridge to cover their tracks.

August 10, 2022

Analytics firm Elliptic says RenBridge has been used to launder more than $540 million in proceeds from crimes over the last two years

(attribution)

Two days after OFAC sanctioned crypto tumbler Tornado Cash, the blockchain analytics firm Elliptic pointed to cryptocurrency bridges as a likely future target for sanctions if the Treasury Department continues its attempts to crack down on crypto money laundering. In addition to their purpose of allowing different currencies to be used cross-chain, cryptocurrency bridges are a useful tool for obscuring the path of cryptocurrencies, as it can be difficult for outside observers to link cryptocurrencies flowing into a bridge with the destination wallet(s) on the other end.

Elliptic singled out the RenBridge chain in particular, saying that at least $540 million in funds linked to crimes have been moved through the bridge in the last two years. $153 million of this, they say, originated from ransomware plots, and $53 million is allegedly linked to the Russia-based group behind the Conti ransomware.