Binance's CZ 'Detects' Harmony One Hacker Fund Movement, Yet Token Begins To Recover

Hacks are bad news for any project and particularly for layer 1 blockchains.

In the case of Harmony Protocol ONE/USD, they seem to be pivoting and coming out on top following an unfortunate public hack.

In the early hours of Jan. 16, Changpeng Zhao (CZ) CEO of Binance BNB/USD tweeted: “We detected Harmony One hacker fund movement. They previously tried to launder through Binance and we froze his accounts. This time he used Huobi HT/USD. We assisted Huobi team to freeze his accounts. Together, 124 BTC have been recovered. CeFi helping to keep DeFi #SAFU!”

The publicity around a hack can be mixed news for a layer 1 blockchain, but Harmony’s ONE token has begun to recover from the price lows that preceded the new year, where it dipped below one cent. At the time of writing, the ONE token is around 1.7 cents.

Harmony’s New Tune

Though there have been some signs of new strength in the crypto market, the source of Harmony’s good buzz may include a new “vital feature” it announced this week – account abstraction, which allows users to create multiple accounts, each with a separate purpose.

Account abstraction is due to be launched by Q2 of 2023. Currently, Harmony only supports “base accounts” which can be used for sending and receiving transactions, but not for smart contracts. Soon, Harmony will offer accounts that can handle the creation of decentralized applications (DApps) and the issuance of tokens.

The two new types of accounts include:

1. Token Contract Account — These accounts can execute predefined smart contract functions such as minting new tokens and transferring tokens to other accounts.
2. Smart Contract Account — This type of account is used for the creation and execution of smart contracts. Smart contract accounts can create decentralized applications (DApps) and interact with other smart contract accounts.

Harmony Protocol also gave an update on the hunt for the Harmony hacker, tweeting in their weekly update:

“Zachxbt and others traced the stolen assets on privacy exchange Railgun, which were later sent to Okex & Huobi exchange. Harmony is currently working with authorities to freeze assets.”

Cover image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.