Crypto News, Feb. 21: OpenSea Chaos, Coinbase Criticism

Bitcoin has recovered slightly after a bruising weekend that saw the world's biggest cryptocurrency plunge to lows of $38,112. Global markets have faced increasing uncertainty in recent weeks amid growing tensions between Russia and the West — with the U.S. claiming it has intelligence that Moscow is planning an imminent invasion of Ukraine. Investor sentiment may have received a boost on Monday after Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin agreed in principle to a summit on the crisis.

An engineer has been given a bug bounty of $250,000 after spotting a "potentially market-nuking flaw" in Coinbase's advanced trading feature. Tree of Alpha said the exploit meant someone could have sold vast amounts of Bitcoin without owning it. The engineer praised the exchange for acting speedily to patch the vulnerability. But on Crypto Twitter, Coinbase is facing calls to up the reward — given the impact it could have had if a malicious actor had discovered the bug first.

There's confusion and chaos after OpenSea was hit by a suspected phishing attack — with non-fungible tokens stolen from dozens of users. The world's biggest NFT marketplace is in the process of upgrading its smart contract, but this may have prompted opportunistic fraudsters to deceive victims by sending out bogus emails that pretend to be from the platform. Over the weekend, co-founder Devin Finzer said an investigation has begun, and estimates suggest 32 people were affected.

PayPal and Venmo have announced that they plan to increase the fees charged on small crypto transactions. The changes, which come into effect on March 21, will effectively double how much it costs to buy $10 worth of BTC, LTC, BCH or ETH. However, the new fee structure will benefit those who buy or sell between $125 and $200 of crypto. Fees associated with bigger transactions of more than $200 remain unaffected.

One of Dogecoin's best-known developers has announced that he is taking a step back from the project. Ross Nicoll described the stress involved with steering the memecoin forward was "overwhelming" — and that he needed to take time to focus on himself. He added: "There is a further complication that my employer for my day job is moving into the blockchain space, leading to a risk of conflict of interest if I remain as a director." Nicoll will remain as an advisor for now to aid a smooth transition.