19 Jul Symbol blockchain news update โ 19/07/22
Good morning XYM City! The sun is shining but it is too hot here ๐ฅต It’s over 30C in my office at 10:00am and it’s expected to get to 40 Celcius outside later so wish me luck with no aircon! ๐ฌ Anyway, before it gets too unbearable I will bring you up to date with the latest Symbol and NEM news!
XYM Comic on Cluster
The Japanese community have really embraced Cluster and it has become the go-to hangout for all things Symbol and NEM. XYM Comic have now created their own metaverse gallery where you can view all editions of their excellent, and beautifully illustrated manga comics. If you have some spare time today then go check it out!
Supernode rewards coming (very) soonTM
I have been following progress on the new NEM Supernode rewards on Discord over the last few months now and it seems that we are now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I am guessing that this will be rolled out in the coming days. We even have a “please stand by” message from the official NEM account.
It has been confirmed that you will need 10,000 XEM (and obviously run a NEM node) to be eligible for Supernode payouts. I am ready to go as I have both, if you have the 10K XEM then maybe it’s time to consider setting up a node of your own Orisdorch wrote a really easy-to-follow guide here. It is based on running both a Symbol and NEM node on the same machine but if you want to set up a separate NEM node then you can just follow those instructions in the guide.
Be wary of scammers
We have seen the aggregate bonded transaction scam rear its ugly head many times over the past year and it looks like it is still being used to rob unsuspecting users from their hard-earned XYM. The trick is very simple. They send you a transaction and if you sign it then it will drain your account of funds. This is not due to any vulnerability or bug, it is a powerful feature of Symbol allowing complex transactions that send data between accounts in a single aggregate transaction. The problem arises when a transaction is signed by the recipient, if you don’t understand what the transaction is then there is a real danger that you will lose your money.
This scam has generally been used when activating delegated harvesting and I think that the attacker has automated this process so that when a new user activates delegated harvesting the aggregate transaction is sent with a message e.g. “Delegated” tricking the user into thinking that they need to sign in order to set the harvesting process up.
Here is an example of such a transaction where the thief is sending a message “Delegated” with 0 XYM to the recipient. As you see in the second highlighted line if you sign the transaction you would have sent 597,144 XYM to the attacker. There is now a warning box in the desktop wallet (shown in yellow – in this case in Japanese) asking you to confirm that you understand the transaction and wish to proceed but it can still be confusing for new users. The take-home message here is – don’t sign transactions that you don’t understand!
I think that there is also a Japanese fork of the wallet which allows you to activate delegated harvesting in a single click which I believe would thwart the attacker’s current method of stealing funds. Maybe this will be included in the official wallet in the future.
Get XYMfit!
I spotted this post this morning. It looks like @choconaak has released a new app which rewards users for staying active. It is currently only running on testnet and is only available for Android phones (and only in Japanese!) so I can’t test it at the moment. It’s great to see people creating though so hopefully we will see this grow so that I can run it on my iPhone and get some incentive for leaving my desk now and again to get out and get some fresh air and exercise – I could really do with it ๐
Coinage
It looks like Hatchet has received her sakamotometal coins! I am a bit jealous. I placed my order at the end of May but my coin hasn’t arrived yet ๐ข The Ukraine war has meant that the fast delivery option to the UK was not available (no flights in Russian airspace) so I guess it is on a boat somewhere still? I should probably check and see if there is any tracking information – I want my coin ๐
The Twitter king is back!
Tresto is back on Twitter and is topping the Symbol Node List ranking for node owner Twitter activity already! ๐ Good to see you back! I have a lot of Google translating of tweets to do now ๐
Finger lickin’ good
This made me smile. Mostly because somewhere in Japan there is a statue of Colonel Sanders – I am guessing it is in a KFC rather than a commemorative memorial! ๐ Great to see that he is accessorising with a Symbol/NFT-Drive fan, got to keep cool! I could do with both a fan and a KFC right now ๐คค
Thanks
Before I go, another reminder that if you haven’t done so already you should make sure that you vote for your favourite artworks submitted to the mosaic1-gp.com gallery. There are instructions on how to vote and you can send XYM donations – I visited yesterday and finally got to donate some money to this worthy cause helping those affected by the Ukraine war.
Thanks for reading – I will be back again soon with another update!
I’m a Symbol and NEM enthusiast and run this blog to try to grow awareness of the platform in the English-speaking world. If you have any Symbol news you would like me to report on or you have an article that you would like to publish then please let me know!
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