The week between the Liberation Day announcement and the 90-day pause gave a good indication of where folks are at when it comes to huge news events that have potential impacts on crypto. Everyone approaches sudden downturns differently. Some use it as a buy-the-dip moment, some hunker down and prepare for the worst, and others adopt a wait-and-see mindset that allows them to think an action through before an immediate reaction. SKALE’s Jack O’Holleran would probably say he’s in the third camp, especially as an executive in the industry. “If you’re working in the crypto space, you’re making decisions that are short term, that impact days and weeks, but you also have to make decisions that impact months and quarters, and so you have to be planning ahead,” he told me. “And it frankly, makes things incredibly challenging, knowing that there are all these other variables outside of your control that you can’t accurately predict. You have to build volatility and variability into your plan.” I asked O’Holleran what he…
Cyber Smugglers
The threat actor known as Paper Werewolf has been observed exclusively targeting Russian entities with a new implant called PowerModul. The activity, which took place between July and December 2024, singled out organizations in the mass media, telecommunications, construction, government entities, and energy sectors, Kaspersky said in a new report published Thursday. Paper Werewolf, also known as GOFFEE, is assessed to have conducted at least seven campaigns since 2022, according to BI.ZONE, with the attacks mainly aimed at government, energy, financial, media, and other organizations. Attack chains mounted by the threat actor have also been observed incorporating a disruptive component, wherein the intrusions go beyond distributing malware for espionage purposes to also change passwords belonging to employee accounts. The attacks themselves are initiated via phishing emails that contain a macro-laced lure document, which, upon opening and enabling macros, paves the way for the deployment of a PowerShell-based remote access trojan known as PowerRAT. Apr 11, 2025 Ravie LakshmananMalware / Vulnerability The threat actor known as Paper Werewolf has been observed…
Neoshaman (by Russian language): a New Age ceremony leader, typically Western and urban-dwelling, who appropriates the ancient shamanistic practices and psychedelic substances of indigenous communities, popularizing their use for financial gain via cultic rituals and a guru-like persona. In 2012, Chris Young was 38 years old and down on his luck, living out of a hostel in Miami, Florida. Born and raised in nearby Louisiana, Young had recently given up his nightclub career as the party-starting ‘DJ NV,’ and the side hustles that saw him organize strippers for big events and earn a conviction for pimping somewhere along the way. Young would later say in court that he’d grown tired of a lifestyle that, he appeared to admit, was filled with drugs and promiscuity. Around that time, Young—a tempestuous man with a brown goatee and an egg-shaped head—met his future wife Verena, a wealthy German naturopath with blonde hair and a penetrating gaze. Things moved quickly between Young and Verena. Within a few months, he’d got a passport for the…
At least six people in the UK and Germany ended up in the hospital after consuming water from the Bermel Georgis holy well in Northern Ethiopia. A sacred pilgrimage ended up in the toilet for several travelers earlier this year. Health officials in Europe have reported an outbreak of superbug cholera traced back to tainted holy water sourced from Ethiopia. Health officials in Germany and the UK detailed the strange outbreak in a report published Thursday in the journal Eurosurveillance. At least seven people across both countries were sickened with a multidrug-resistant cholera strain that originated from the Bermel Georgis holy well in Ethiopia. Though several people were hospitalized and some even required intensive care, all of the victims thankfully survived. Cholera is caused by the bacteria Vibrio cholerae. Though many people infected by cholera bacteria don’t become sick, the infection can sometimes cause severe, even life-threatening diarrhea and vomiting. Improved sanitation has greatly reduced the threat of cholera over time, but it still sickens millions of people a year, and…
The Solana Policy Institute aims to reform DeFi’s shadowy reputation and ensure the space remains forefront in the minds of policymakers. When Solana debuted in 2020, it set out to dominate decentralized finance. Now, five years and more than eight billion transactions later, supporters of the so-called Ethereum killer have assumed a far more ambitious undertaking: conquering the halls of Congress. However, advocating for Solana on Capitol Hill—where DeFi still suffers from its association with money launderers and hackers, despite a growing embrace of crypto—won’t be easy. Founded in March, the policy arm of the second-largest layer-1 network by total-value locked aims to represent the many pseudonymous coders and founders building on Solana and other blockchains within the sprawling DeFi sector. DeFi is a catchall term that represents a wide array of crypto-driven, autonomous financial services that do not require centralized intermediaries like banks. The nonprofit will be helmed by President Kristin Smith—the outgoing Blockchain Association CEO—and CEO Miller Whitehouse-Levine, the one-time DeFi Education Fund Director. They’re two star lobbyists…