I am a Cardano DRep. See https://xitter.cf/t.co/bgszqVGDUW for more information (including my DRep Id).
Sydney, Australia
Joined November 2024
- Tweets977
- Following386
- Followers198
- Likes21K
Erik de Castro Lopo | Cardano DRep 🇦🇺 retweeted
So Keystone just admitted the attacker stole the exact WebAuth key that powers their official “is this device genuine?” check.
This is the key they burned into every device at the factory so you could scan a QR code on their site and confirm it wasn’t a supply-chain fake. Now an attacker has it - meaning they can manufacture counterfeits that PASS THE OFFICIAL VERIFICATION.
They’re destroying ~19k units in inventory and switching to a new key.
Devices that already shipped before Oct 20 are supposedly fine. Anything after that date? Even if it authenticates, they say contact support because it might still be fake.
Your device CAN BE COMPROMISED BEFORE YOU EVEN OPEN THE BOX.
They’ve spent months warning people about supply-chain attacks and telling them to verify their device before use. The verification mechanism itself just got compromised.
This is so bad??!!
Erik de Castro Lopo | Cardano DRep 🇦🇺 retweeted
Monero (monero:native ) is now live on @THORChain Stagenet!
The first test swap(real fund) was successful.
Mainnet is not far(2 weeks 😉).
Soon, you'll be able to swap XMR directly on NativeSwap.
Erik de Castro Lopo | Cardano DRep 🇦🇺 retweeted
Firefox in 2006: Firefox will never sell your personal data!
Firefox in 2025: Never mind. Let’s pretend like we never said that. Also, let’s bundle spyware into Firefox.
Firefox in 2026: “How is the Internet less private than in 2006”?!?!
You want to know why the Internet is less private than it used to be? It’s, at least in part, because of you, Firefox.
Erik de Castro Lopo | Cardano DRep 🇦🇺 retweeted
Ofcom Concedes Defeat in the 4chan Case
prestonbyrne.com/2026/10/20/…
Erik de Castro Lopo | Cardano DRep 🇦🇺 retweeted
As always, there's a lot of misinformation around privacy circulating around.
Let me break down why "pass-through privacy" fails, and how even cryptos without a transparent pool end up having one in practice (with all its privacy pitfalls).
Enjoy the FUD-buster.
Erik de Castro Lopo | Cardano DRep 🇦🇺 retweeted
The EU is banning monero:native Personally, that’s the biggest green flag a privacy coin could get.
Under the new rules every regulated exchange has to drop privacy coins by 2027. Loads already have. About 73 dumped Monero last year. You’d think that kills it. No exchanges, price collapses. Exact opposite. It went up 120%.
A ban only hits the middlemen. Exchanges, custodians, companies that have to follow the rules. Your wallet, person to person, the decentralised swaps, the chain itself, none of that cares what the EU says. No off switch. No headquarters to raid.
They’re not banning it because it’s useless. They’re banning it because it works. That’s the green flag
Erik de Castro Lopo | Cardano DRep 🇦🇺 retweeted
This is why Cardano uses the eUTXO model just like Bitcoin, for managing the ledger, with the (e)xtended improvements to increase the capabilities of Cardano.
Erik de Castro Lopo | Cardano DRep 🇦🇺 retweeted
Privacy is the only feature in money that can’t be patched in later. $XMR
Erik de Castro Lopo | Cardano DRep 🇦🇺 retweeted
It appears that USDT has chosen to blacklist THORChain vaults of USDT on the TRON blockchain. This is unprecedented in our industry and raises questions for all DeFi protocols about the safety of this asset.
Tether is permissioned.
TETHER CAN DELETE YOUR BALANCE. IT'S WRITTEN INTO THE CODE.
Not freeze it. Delete it.
The USDT contract has a function called destroyBlackFunds. It has been there since the 2017 Ethereum deployment.
Here is what it does, in order. It checks that your address is already blacklisted. It reads your balance into a variable the developers named "dirtyFunds". It sets your balance to zero. It subtracts that amount from total supply. Then it logs the event.
No function can reverse it. Once it runs, that balance is gone forever.
The blacklist function names the address it targets "_evilUser". That is how the code sees you before anyone has proven anything.
Only Tether's owner multisig can call it, on Ethereum and on Tron. A court can't. A regulator can't. When a government wants your money, Tether is the one that executes.
Then comes step two. Tether mints the same amount fresh to whoever it chooses: a victim, a court address, a government address. Net supply change is zero. Your money just changed owners.
The DOJ described this exact process in a forfeiture case filed in Massachusetts in March 2025, over roughly $9,016,612 in USDT. Burn, then reissue.
USDC can block a wallet but can't burn the balance. Tether built the eraser in from the start.
They keep promising you there will be no CBDC.
It already exists. It runs on Tron and Ethereum, and it has an owner.
Bitcoin doesn't. Exit with Bitcoin.
Erik de Castro Lopo | Cardano DRep 🇦🇺 retweeted
very intelligent answer
also, go back to the three rules of DAObotics from Stan Larimer
a global stoppage is 'to protect the protocol' as Avishay says here--not 3rd parties
that is exactly what one would expect from the three laws of DAObotics...
you can do a halt to protect the protocol (law #3), but you can't just arbitrarily rewrite the rules already embedded in the software (laws #1, #2); those laws trump law #3 . . .
so every particular act of censorship within a DAO would require robust governance, extremely impractical
moreover, having this as a policy would actually be the opposite of protecting the DAO's existence, since it opens massive DoS attack vectors and weakens economic security...
I think @CBarraford addressed your questions well. I know this is more of a policy and governance question, but as a security partner to @THORChain, we at Soda Labs can confirm two things: there is no centralized way to halt the system, and as of today there is no mechanism to ban addresses from swapping.
Nodes can pause the network: any single node can trigger a short global pause, and a few node votes can halt trading on a chain.
First, this is a very short time halt (1h) and can be overrun by other nodes. Second, network-wide emergency tools were built to protect the protocol, not to filter individual swaps or addresses. Otherwise it would be very easy to mount a DoS, which would impact many legitimate users.
And even if there were a way for nodes to ban specific addresses, it would rarely stop hacked funds from moving across these rails. Nodes would follow orders from their own jurisdictions, and those orders never come in real time.
Erik de Castro Lopo | Cardano DRep 🇦🇺 retweeted
@laurashin your shows got sponsored by @1inch . So literally you are benefiting from 1Inch incomes which part of it from the @bitget stolen fund too.
So, while pressuring @THORChain for not censoring stolen funds transactions, will you also come clean by returning the sponsorship fund from 1Inch?
Care to lead by example, and not applying double standard here?
@tayvano_ what's your opinion on this?
Thanks to @SirRawcha to unpack this! 🫡🫡
Erik de Castro Lopo | Cardano DRep 🇦🇺 retweeted
The hypocrisy is incredible. @laurashin and @tayvano_ attack THORChain over hacked funds, while Unchained is sponsored by 1inch—which also processed stolen Bitget funds and collected fees. Apparently, laundering concerns only matter when the protocol isn’t paying your bills.
Blocking one hacker address on @THORChain sounds simple. @cbarraford says the attacker would just switch addresses, and a full halt needs a 2/3 node vote that takes 1 to 2 weeks. ⏳
@tayvano_ argues even a brief halt would have pushed DPRK somewhere else.
Erik de Castro Lopo | Cardano DRep 🇦🇺 retweeted
Hey Laura, this is your sponsor @1inch getting paid for MoNeY LaUnDeRiNg
Would you mind asking @tayvano_ if she believes you/UneasyMoney/Unchained podcast should send your advertisement revenue (proceeds from crime) to the Bitget exploit victims?
Thanks
xitter.cf/SirRawcha/status/21076…
Erik de Castro Lopo | Cardano DRep 🇦🇺 retweeted
FinCEN just withdrew the rule that would have treated crypto mixers as a primary money laundering threat.
Buried in the notice: “lawful users of digital assets may leverage mixers to enable financial privacy when transacting through public blockchains.”
Federal Register still files it under “Proposed Rule” ...that is the section used for withdrawals of proposed rules.
The practical result is that the 2023 mixer proposal is dead.
Link in thread 👇
Erik de Castro Lopo | Cardano DRep 🇦🇺 retweeted
GCHQ calls Tor users naughty.
Europol's chief says anonymity is not a fundamental right.
The NSA built a whole deck on grinding anonymity down
until people quit.
These people are creeps who spy on everything.
youtu.be/VZ-7t1fN7eI
A week ago these two could slander @THORChain as much as they like without anyone speaking up for THORChain's side. This week they had a THORChain co-founder and things looked VERY different.
THORChain Says It Can't Block DPRK. Taylor Monahan Disagrees xitter.cf/i/broadcasts/1qKDzWEWe…
Erik de Castro Lopo | Cardano DRep 🇦🇺 retweeted
May I have a minute of your time? I would love to share this short segment of @ErikVoorhees with you.
This is why @THORChain and @Maya_Protocol matter
Permissionless economic access for all
LESS than 2 weeks after this podcast @FTX_Official would go on to suddenly implode
Erik de Castro Lopo | Cardano DRep 🇦🇺 retweeted
⚡ We're live!
@KentonC137 and @patriotsounds on the THORChain Podcast | Protocol Update with Co-Founder @Cbarraford.
Jump on stage and ask your questions live:
riverside.com/studio/thorcha…
Also streaming on YouTube: youtube.com/@THORChainCommun…
