After a decade’s development, the crypto market has shown how technology can fuel financial innovation, but also revealed the vulnerability of technology when it’s related to tremendous cash flow. All crypto exchanges, big or small, centralized or decentralized face security challenges. However, it is one of the prerequisites for crypto exchanges to guarantee the security of the platform if the exchange wants sustainable growth. One year after its development, MoonXBT, the innovative social trading platform and the number three crypto exchange in Vietnam has recently established partnership with Fireblocks and Certik to level up its security in the aspects of asset management and code safety respectively.
Fireblocks is one of the top digital assets custody, transfer and settlement platforms which provides enterprise-grade capital safety to its partners. Certik, on the other hand, is the leading code audit and protocol monitor platform which ensures the operational safety of online crypto applications. MoonXBT is working with both parties concurrently to improve the exchange’s security from different dimensions to upgrade the platform’s security more efficiently and comprehensively.
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“This security upgrade cooperating with top companies like Fireblocks and Certik comes right after MoonXBT finished user compensation to those who suffered loss of their normal orders from the emergency shutdown caused by LUNA and APE price manipulation amid the algorithm stable coin UST and LUNA decoupling crisis,” says George Lee, COO of MoonXBT. “MoonXBT is always putting its users first. We would never hesitate to spend what we have to in order to protect the benefits of the users, no matter if it’s compensating for emergencies, or improving the platform security in the longer term.”
Unlike the UST-LUNA crisis which is more of a “black swan” crisis, the security issue is a chronic challenge for a crypto exchange if not handled well. There are various security risk issues, but cybercriminals mostly aim at the asset storage and code loopholes for hacking. For instance, in May 2019, an unknown hacker group breached a hot wallet from Binance stealing API keys, two-factor codes, and over 7,000 bitcoin. And the most recent theft from Ronin wallets conducted by the hackers attacking the bridges combining two smart contracts is an example demonstrating how catastrophic it can be when there are code loopholes especially in regard to smart contracts.
Given the above, MoonXBT has chosen to work with both Fireblocks and Certik to tackle the security risk at the same time with a strong commitment to the overall platform security. Just how Fireblocks and Certik work?
For MoonXBT, Fireblocks acts essentially as its vault or asset custodian. Exchanges without a custodian usually store assets in its hot wallet and protect users’ assets with two factor authentication. However, it has been proved this combination is not enough to prevent the hackers. Fireblocks provides an MPC wallet as the solution. It combines MPC wallets whose private keys are controlled between multiple devices with isolated hardware to create multi-layer security for the assets of their partners. In addition, Fireblocks also facilitates crypto exchanges to carry out safer asset transfers and settlements with its network which supports more than 30 exchanges, more than 35 blockchain protocols and more than one thousand tokens. With the facilitation of Fireblocks, MoonXBT will be waived whitelisting or test transfer when making settlements on different blockchains or with other exchanges which decreases the hacking risk as well.
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On the other hand, as the leading code audit service provider in the industry, Certik will partner with MoonXBT to carry out a series of audit activities including auto code scanning and manual code review, application vulnerability scanning and penetration test, etc. The assessment will help MoonXBT to identify various loopholes in codes and therefore reduce risks for attacks.
“Crypto exchange is like a market where people buy and sell crypto assets, Fireblocks makes sure this market has a solid place to store the assets while Certik makes sure the market itself is well-built so that malicious attackers cannot come in,” says George Lee.
According to George, now it’s good timing for MoonXBT to enhance the security by working with industry renowned security companies. Since MoonXBT just celebrated its one year anniversary with a full-fledged products line including spot trading, futures and options as well as an already well established brand in social trading, both the number of users and trading volume are expected for growth of new scale. As George Lee mentions, the upgraded security provided by Fireblocks and Certik will help new users to eliminate the concern that the platform will scam their deposit, meanwhile, it will reassure the existing users that their assets are in good hands.
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