In February 2022, the Ukrainian government ran a crypto donation campaign to support victims of the Russian invasion. When the nation tried to reward those who had contributed to the fundraiser by sending crypto wallet holders complimentary NFTs, a slew of scammers took advantage of the government’s generosity, causing the operation to cease. Rug pull scams like this, where cyber criminals drain money from unsuspecting investors, aren’t uncommon in the crypto space, unfortunately. Shortly following the Ukraine rug pull, in March this year, hackers discovered a weakness in the Ronin blockchain used by popular play-to-earn platform Axie Infinity. In the security breach, the scammers ended up stealing $165 million from Axie’s parent company, Sky Mavis. In addition to rug pull scams, cryptocurrency exchanges can be compromised through poor security or fraud. This is what happened in 2014 when the Mt. Gox exchange collapsed in a years-long attack by hackers. By the time the breach was detected, a loss of between $300 million and $480 million of users’ funds had occurred. Since the attack, it has been estimated that $1.5 billion in cryptocurrencies have been stolen from exchanges. Blockchain’s utility isn’t limited to just cryptocurrency, though. The shared and immutable ledger’s ability to provide transparency and security allows it to be applied to numerous other sectors, including real estate, supply chains and gambling. Although...
