Defi has been the most vulnerable sector accounting for all of the incidents so far this year.

The most targeted blockchain in 2024 is the Ethereum chain with 33 incidents. The top 5 others are listed below:

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Experts at Smart Betting Guide have provided a guide on the best ways to keep your crypto safe in 2024.

1. Do not store your password and seed phrase on the Cloud 

For many people, the best and most convenient way to access crypto is through an exchange or a crypto wallet.

Cryptocurrency wallets store users’ public and private keys while providing an easy-to-use interface to manage crypto balances.

These exchanges require you to create an account with a password, and wallets give you extra security through the use of a seed phrase.

Seed phrases are a sequence of random words that store the data required to access or recover cryptocurrency on blockchains or crypto wallets. Hackers will often attempt to steal these to gain access to your crypto and steal it.

It is vital that these passwords and phrases are not stored in the cloud or on a device that could potentially be hacked. Instead, write these down, or get them engraved on a metal card (to protect against water damage or fire) and store them somewhere secure within your property.

Finally, no crypto protocols or their customer support staff will ever ask for this information from you, so if someone asks for it they are trying to steal your crypto.

2. Use a hardware wallet instead of an exchange

If you want to ensure your crypto is completely protected, a hard wallet is the best choice. This is a device such as a USB thumb drive that securely guards a crypto user’s private cryptographic keys in offline or “cold” storage, ready to be used online to complete a crypto transaction whenever you are ready.

These are much safer than keeping crypto on an exchange; like with the FTX collapse, users lost billions of dollars of crypto stored in their wallets. Hardware wallets ensure that your crypto is safe from hackers and exchange collapses alike.

Pros: Cannot be accessed by anyone online and is completely secure from online attacks, also prevents loss of crypto from exchanges collapsing

Cons: Could be lost or damaged physically, rendering the crypto useless (although some come with backup features now)

3. DYOR – Do your own research

A rug pull is a scam where a cryptocurrency or NFT developer hypes a project to attract investor money, only to suddenly shut down or disappear, taking investor assets with them.

These scams can often be well disguised, which makes them very difficult to spot. Many may be advertised across social media and entice investors through the promise of making lots of money.

This is why it’s important to do your own research before investing your money in any cryptocurrency or NFT.

Here are the things to look out for when thinking of investing in a new or unknown crypto:

• Developers 

Investors should consider how credible the team behind the project is. Are they known in the crypto community, and do they have a good or bad track record?

Be sure to check the legitimacy of social media accounts. Have they just been created, or is there a clear history that the person is who they say they are?

Anonymous developers are a red flag, and any projects are approached with caution. Anonymous developers are a red flag, and any projects are approached with caution.

• Whitepaper 

It is important to check the quality of the white paper; this is a document that explains the purpose of a project and how it works.

For a cryptocurrency, the whitepaper is a guide to its technology, features, and goals. If the whitepaper seems vague or doesn’t offer a valued use case or tokenomics, then it could be a potentially risky investment.

• No liquidity locked

One of the easiest ways to distinguish a scam coin from a legitimate cryptocurrency is to check if the currency is liquidity-locked.

With no liquidity lock on the token supply in place, nothing stops the project creators from running off with the entirety of the liquidity.

Investors should also check the percentage of the liquidity pool that has been locked. A lock is only helpful in proportion to the amount of the liquidity pool it secures. Known as total value locked (TVL), this figure should be between 80% and 100%.

• No external audit 

It is now standard practice for new cryptocurrencies to undergo a formal code audit process conducted by a reputable third party. One notorious example is Tether, a centralized stable coin whose team had failed to disclose that it held non-fiat-backed assets.

An audit is especially applicable for decentralized currencies, where default auditing for DeFi projects is a must. However, potential investors shouldn’t simply take a development team’s word that an audit has taken place. The audit should be verifiable by a third party and show that nothing malicious was found in the code.

4. Verify fake apps and fake crypto exchanges 

These are a very popular type of scam and target many investors, however, new investors are more likely to be impacted by these as they may be unsure of what to download.

These fake apps can be used to steal money, cryptocurrencies, or seed phrases and passwords.

The best way to avoid these scams are:

• Never search for crypto apps directly from an app store. Always find the direct download link or redirect link to the app store from the company’s official website or whitepaper.
• Check for the number of app downloads and number of reviews – if these are low, this is a red flag
• Check the developer of the app, this should be verifiable and come from the official company. Check for spelling mistakes and also other apps made by the developer.

5. Take extra security measures

Finally, there are some basics that should be adhered to, which can protect your day-to-day date and accounts as well as your crypto.

• Never click links on emails you are unsure of where they originate from.
• Set up Two Factor Authentication (2FA), this means hackers would need your phone to hack you even if they have all your other account details.
• Don’t click popups or links that come up on the internet or social media
• Be cautious of any messages you receive from people who say they can ‘make you money fast’. These have become popular across social media and utilize fake accounts to try and get your money.

A spokesperson from Smart Betting Guide commented:

“Hacks, scams and rug pulls not only pose a threat to individual investors but cast a shadow on the broader narrative of cryptocurrency as a revolutionary force in finance. They erode trust, stifle innovation, and impede the progress towards a more inclusive and decentralized financial future. Therefore, the task at hand goes beyond personal security; it is a shared responsibility to fortify the foundations upon which the future of finance stands.” 

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Earlier than expected, 9jacom gets its first hosting provider and SLD (Second Level Domain) retailer, Encirca.

The progenitor, John Mc Keown, disclosed the cheering news thus: “I’m really happy they offered the first year registration at the same low price I did, $2. This means they are not getting any revenue at all for the first year on registration. Their renewal at $9 is still affordable.

Mr. Keown is the Country Manager of 8M, Elite, Guidepoint, LLC, providing a broad spectrum of Business Services being delivered through key agents servicing the Nigerian Market. The key sectors are Edible FMCG – food, dairy, beverages; plastics and packaging; ingredients and raw materials; telecommunications, data transport and storage infrastructure solutions; and off grid power solutions – renewable energy.

John Keown is a transformational business leader with exceptional business repositioning and sales growth skills – experience drawn from five continents. He has been present in West Africa / Nigeria since 1997.

The concept of web3 has taken the minds of digital entrepreneurs and venture capitalists by storm. The idea behind this technology is to build a new version of the web that incorporates concepts such as decentralization, smart contracts, and blockchain technologies.

Web3 and blockchain technologies have also enabled the new blockchain domain naming services and a new type of domain name – a blockchain domain name.

Although, Vasily Agateev and Kseniya Karchenko would write: “Blockchain domains have spurred a legal tightrope as these domain names are outside of ICANN’s jurisdiction and are not directly subject to any DNS-related laws and regulations that are in place to protect brand owners”, John Keown has an idea on how to get the job done.

“As sales come in, each $2 that reaches me, goes towards staking another .9ja domain and giving Nigeria extra choices as the first country to have Web 3 cc TLDs (country domains) available.

Mr. Keown explained that the holding entity, 9ja Cosmos, will not be raising the prices at their end.

“Our cut is the same $2 to start and $4.50 per year renewal whether you are a struggling local in Ebute Meta or Aliko Dangote”, he promised, stressing “All funds from ‘9ja’ themed domains become reinvested to make service and choice better. All are Kings and Queens at this table”.

Hope you took note of the low prices?

He added that through the intermediary, this will pass down to some domain management and hosting providers. “They will be available to offer SLDs (Second Level Domains) to the public.

“I expect there to be a few integration challenges. Once the model is perfected, more formal promotion will begin and other Nigeria centric products will follow. A new journey is beginning. Let’s enter Web 3 together”, John said, cheerfully.

WAIT! I still have something to tell you:

This development is coming at the time Ethereum is going through ‘transformation’. Many are still at lost at what Ethereum Merger means for the industry.

ALSO READ: ETHEREUM MERGE: What You Need to Know and Opportunities Around It

Mr. Keown shared his view about the whole thing, this way: “The lower the number of entities with control of the staking side of Eth, and how easy they can be found, the easier it is for some central authority, nation, or the other, to force down some directive or the other, because they have decided it is in some nations interest, and they don’t give a hoot about the eth community.

“We’ve now got a case where just 4 entities own 60% of staking capacity and 78% are known and can easily be found. Call that decentralisation?

“We’ve all seen the SEC decision in US ‘deciding’ the Ethereum Chain falls under Federal US jurisdiction. There would be no point in just ‘declaring’ such if acting upon it wasn’t feasible.

“Moreover, Ethereum has now become a potential political tool.

“The Chinese ‘Binance’ has a dependency on the eth-chain. So, welcome to Huawei part 2.

“If I was Unstoppable Domains, with that $68m from Panthera, I’d be business as usual on Polygon (L2 off Eth) for now, but I’d be seriously looking around for migration options or planning to do something on my own.

“Though in any case, everything that surrounds Polygon reeks of ConsenSys which is heavily invested in by Microsoft.

“Decentralization is very quickly becoming a mirage!”

Well, time is a revealer of all intents and the Ethereum Merger will not be any different.

For now, welcome .9jacom!