Today in crypto, a newly revealed wallet exploit raised fresh security concerns, Binance saw $1.23 billion leave the exchange in a week as Ethereum withdrawals hit a three-year high and Vitalik Buterin mapped out Ethereum's next major evolution with a focus on quantum resistance.
Thousands of crypto wallets at risk from ‘Ill Bloom’ vulnerability: Coinspect
Thousands of crypto wallets are at risk of being drained due to the use of weaker-than-intended recovery phrases, an exploit that Blockchain security research firm Coinspect has dubbed “Ill Bloom.”
The wallets at risk span Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, Rootstock, Tron and Solana, Coinspect said in a disclosure on Sunday, with the issue related to weak randomness — an insecure pseudorandom number generator — used during recovery phrase generation on certain software wallets.
“If funds recently moved without your permission, this vulnerability may be why,” Coinspect said.
The vulnerability has impacted wallets generated as early as 2018 and more often occurs in lesser-known mobile software wallets. At least $5 million has been drained from exposed wallets since May 27, though there could have been exploits on additional networks and addresses, meaning the number of wallets at risk may be much higher.
Binance outflows triple to $1.2B as ETH withdrawals hit 3-year high
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, recorded a sharp surge in weekly outflows as Ethereum withdrawal activity climbed to a multi-year high.
According to DefiLlama data viewed by Cointelegraph on Sunday, Binance saw $1.23 billion in net outflows during the week beginning June 29, a 207% increase from roughly $400 million the week prior, while monthly net outflows totaled about $3.2 billion.
Source: DefiLlama
Separately, CryptoQuant community analyst Darkfost reported Friday that Binance’s Ethereum withdrawal transactions hit their highest level in more than three years, with over 166,000 withdrawal transactions in a single day.
While some of the movement may reflect accumulation behavior, Darkfost pointed to regulatory uncertainty stemming from the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) and short-term market positioning as possible drivers.
Vitalik Buterin shares top priorities for new 'Lean Ethereum' strawmap
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has named quantum resistance, scalability and privacy as three of Ethereum's top priorities under a new "Lean Ethereum" strawmap, which lays out the network's technical direction for the remainder of the decade.
In a post to X on Saturday, Buterin said the collection of upgrades will roll out over the next three to four years, touching nearly every layer of Ethereum in a transformation he compared in scale to the September 2022 Merge, which shifted the network away from energy-intensive mining. “Quantum safety has shifted up a LOT in priority,” he said, adding that finalizing a quantum-safe solution for blobs has “become urgent.” Enhancing privacy is another priority, Buterin said, stating that it has become a “first class goal.”
The “Lean Ethereum” strawmap timeline from 2026 through to 2029. Source: Strawmap.org
The change in roadmap comes amid a series of changes at the Ethereum Foundation, which laid off roughly 20% of its staff last month in a bid to become leaner and reduce its budget by 40%.
The leaner structure comes on top of several executive departures in recent months, including Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak, while protocol contributors Tim Beiko and Barnabé Monnot also left in May.
Buterin is also pushing for the development of a new virtual machine like leanISA or RISC-V to support programmable privacy and better scalability.
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