AI and Machine Learning Network Fetch.ai Claims its FET Token Hasn’t Been As Badly Impacted as Others After $280 Million KuCoin Hack

AI and machine learning network Fetch.ai has noted that following the events of the recent KuCoin exchange hack this past weekend (which led to around $280 million in crypto tokens being stolen, a lot higher than the previous $150 million estimate), they’re now watching developments quite carefully along with other digital asset industry participants.

Fetch.ai says that they’re looking into different potential options with regards to updates they need to start making to their smart contract. The Fetch.ai team stated their statement concerns a suspension of the planned release of their staking 2.0 upgrade scheduled for this week. They also discussed how potential changes to the smart contract may affect their ongoing development roadmap or other future plans.

The Fetch.ai team claims:

“The FET token has not been as badly impacted as some other token networks by the events of the weekend. In total 15.9 million tokens were stolen from the KuCoin exchange wallets, which represents around 1.3% of the fully diluted supply of FET tokens. To date, none of the stolen FET tokens have been liquidated.”

The Fetch.ai developers added that since the hack took place, they believe that an “admirable” effort has been made by the crypto and blockchain industry to blacklist the hacker’s main wallet addresses. This should limit or restrict their ability to conduct trades via centralized digital currency exchanges.

The Fetch.ai development team further noted that, as the Fetch.ai Foundation is one of the principal suppliers of FET liquidity to decentralized on non-custodial crypto exchanges, they have been “able as a community to prevent the hacker accessing their ill-gotten gains of FET tokens so far.”

The Fetch.ai team confirmed:

“Currently our core FET smart contract is as it was implemented when the FET token launched in February 2019. Originally planned for launch before mainnet v2, the upgrade of our core smart contract will enable seamless interoperability between Ethereum and our v2 mainnet, decentralized control of network functions, as well as updating the core code to recent smart contract developments.”

They also mentioned that they’ve decided to suspend staking on the Fetch.ai network for now, as “any potential required smart contract and token transfer changes will be much simpler if we undertake this important step before beginning the pathway to mainnet v2, rather than during this critical development phase.”

The Fetch.ai team claims that there’s no central “governor” in their contract, and that the Foundation cannot “unilaterally pause the contract.” The developers also claim that they’re “committed to progressive decentralization” of the Fetch.ai protocol.

The incentivized Fetch.ai testnet is scheduled to go live during Q4 2020. It will “embed the proposed governance changes outlined in our to-be published governance paper,” the Fetch.ai team stated.

The Fetch.ai developers clarified:

“KuCoin has repeatedly stated that their Insurance Fund will cover any losses for affected customers. However, it is not clear how long this will take, or what the process involved will be. We reiterate that KuCoin bears all liability and responsibility in this hack to reimburse their users, as stated in their public announcements and warranties. The Fetch.ai Foundation strongly encourages KuCoin to be transparent on exactly how and when they are going to make their users, listed projects, and other stakeholders whole for the damages caused by this security breach.”

(Note: for more details and updates about Fetch.ai, check here.)



Sponsored Links by DQ Promote