Ethereum’s New Party Trick: When Smart Contracts Go Rogue! 🎭🔒

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Ethereum‘s Latest Magic Trick: Or How Not to Lose Your Wallet with a Smile

Once upon a blockchain, in the land of digital gold, a firm called Wintermute took a long, hard look at Ethereum’s newest upgrade—lovingly dubbed Pectra. It’s like giving a toddler a laser pointer; sure, fun until someone gets blinded. The upgrade introduced a feature called EIP-7702, which, in theory, was a shiny new tool allowing wallets to do things smart contracts do—like, say, batching transactions, paying gas fees for friends, or adding spending controls. Neat stuff, right? Think again.

Turns out, more than 80% of these EIP-7702 delegations are now linked to a sinister breed of code-snobbery—automatic “sweeper” contracts with the charm of a cat burglar in a nightie. Meet “CrimeEnjoyor”—no, that’s not a typo, it’s the villain with a penchant for copy-paste crime. This sneaky bot copies code like it’s shopping at a discount store and, soon enough, makes off with wallets through compromised private keys. These bots—think of them as digital vacuum cleaners—drain wallets faster than a bad poker hand, transferring ETH directly to the bandits. 💸🚨

And just when you thought it was safe to click “approve,” Wintermute reports that 97% of all these shady delegations contain nearly identical malicious bytecode. Sounds worse than a secondhand car salesman, but with even less honesty. The convenience offered by EIP-7702 makes unsuspecting users vulnerable—like giving a burglar the keys while you nap in the lounge.

Security experts—including SlowMist and Taylor Monahan—say the real problem isn’t the upgrade itself, but the security of your private keys, which, apparently, are less secure than a screen door in a submarine. They urge wallet providers to start spying on delegation targets, because nothing says “trust” quite like visible oversight in the cyber wild west.

Since the Pectra upgrade launched last month, over 12,000 transactions related to EIP-7702 have flooded the network. Among them, a user lost nearly $150,000 in a delightful little package called Inferno Drainer. That’s like finding out your free toaster burns bread—except this one burns your wallet. 🔥💰

Will Ethereum’s Spiffy Upgrade Make Investors Flock in or Flee in Fear?

Meanwhile, in the grand theatre of investment, Ethereum’s latest show is still pulling in the crowds. According to the ever-skeptical CoinShares, Ethereum led the digital asset parade with a massive $286 million flowing in last week, pushing its total for seven weeks to an eye-watering $10.9 billion. Quite the inflow for a network that’s currently feeling about as stable as a one-legged stool on an earthquake.

In total, Ethereum attracted $321 million last week—continuing its streak of what can only be described as mildly obsessive interest—and has raked in a total of $1.19 billion since December 2024. Yes, the sentiment is popping like popcorn at a film festival, even as the price drops below $2,500, perhaps a side effect of all the excitement about attacks and upgrades.

Not to be outdone, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin announced plans to boost the network’s scalability by tenfold—like giving Ethereum a rocket booster—without losing its beloved decentralization. Because if there’s anything the blockchain community loves, it’s a good upgrade that doesn’t turn the network into a skyscraper full of bug-ridden elevators.

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2025-06-02 21:16