• Binance Smart Chain has become somewhat of a hot topic amid DeFi gem seekers in the past few weeks.
• The network saw an influx of new projects, reminiscing of the early days of the DeFi craziness last summer.
• In any case, hours ago, the community was shocked earlier today when news broke out that one of the newer protocols, Meerkat Finance, was drained.
• Meerkat Finance is a yield farming protocol that runs on Binance Smart Chain, and a few hours ago, the team revealed that it was “hacked” and drained by 73,000 BNB and 13 million BUSD. The total number amounts to roughly over $30 million at the time of this writing.

BSC project Meerkat Finance is suspected of being rug, taking away 13.96 million BUSD, and the other 73,635 BNB. MKAT claimed to be hacked and stole all resources. Currently the project website cannot be opened. This may be the largest fraud project on the binance smart chain. pic.twitter.com/KbdclfDBKA

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) March 4, 2021

• It appears that the alleged hacker stole the money by changing the protocol’s smart contract using the original deployer’s account. In other words – the private key of the deployer contract must have been compromised.
• The Twitter account of the project, as well as the website, have also been taken down, causing some to believe that the team rug pulled the entire thing.
• Meanwhile, the official account of Binance prompted the community to provide any additional information they may have on the case.

If you have more information about https://t.co/aGERcVUoMg, please share with us.https://t.co/G29ksXShcl

— Binance Chain Community (@BinanceChain) March 4, 2021

The popular DLT protocol Parity Technologies has partnered with Berkeley’s Blockchain Xcelerator program to provide educational panels for students in the university’s blockchain curriculum.

As part of the collaboration, Polkadot’s co-founder Gavin Woods will be a guest lecturer in the A. Richard Newton Distinguished Innovator Lecture Series.

Parity to Educate Berkeley Students About Blockchain

Parity Technologies, a core DLT infrastructure company, announced its latest partnership in a press release shared with CryptoPotato.

According to the document, Parity will employ its substrate blockchain-building framework to educate and work together with the university to raise “the overall awareness of next-generation blockchain technologies in order to promote adoption among students and the community at UC Berkeley.”

For the ongoing 2020-2021 academic year, Parity’s developer education team will collaborate with the faculty, students, and the community studying blockchain technologies in their respective coursework. This includes involvement in curriculum preparation, project ideas, and resources to “enrich the educational experience.”

Furthermore, Parity and the university’s DLT-oriented program called the Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator will advise students and entrepreneurs on how to develop and eventually launch blockchain startups on Polkadot and Web 3.0 ecosystem.

Jocelyn Weber, an executive at the Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator, said that the “work with parity and other Polkadot ecosystem startups had demonstrated the potential of this technology in educating our community.”

“We strive to expose our students to the tools and skills they will need to enter this space and immediately start making significant contributions – which is why improving their knowledge with tools such as Substrate and networks like Polkadot will be an important part of our curriculum development.” – Weber added.

Gavin Woods to Give a Lecture

The statement also outlined that Dr. Gavin Woods, the co-founder of Ethereum, Polkadot, and Parity, will give a lecture in the A. Richard Newton Distinguished Innovator Lecture series this month.

Wood commented that blockchain innovation is expanding at a rapid pace and has advanced “beyond legacy networks into next-generation, production-grade blockchains like Polkadot.” This makes it “critical” for the newer coders, engineers, and entrepreneurs to be able to take on the growing competition and develop ground-breaking projects.

With bitcoin currently enjoying a near 70% YTD increase, bullish predictions see the asset topping into a six or even seven-digit territory in the following decade. These projections came recently from Kraken’s CEO, Jesse Powell, and the Managing Director of Magnetic, William Quigley.

Bitcoin to $150K in the Next Year

Founded in 2010, Magnetic is an investment firm with a pro-cryptocurrency approach, having allocated funds in the industry as well. In a CNN appearance, the company’s Managing Director and Co-Founder, William Quigley, spoke about bitcoin’s future, price performance, and the impact of the COVID-19-induced financial crisis on the asset.

By referring to historical price developments after each halving, the executive forecasted a somewhat bullish projection that can take the cryptocurrency up to $150,000 in the following months.

“We are about half-way through the post-halving bull run, so, by my judgment, we have a lot more to go with bitcoin. Certainly – $100,000 and quite possible $150,000 by the end of this year or maybe Q1 next year.”

Quigley also touched upon the growing number of companies putting BTC on their balance sheet, which he classified as “huge.” He believes that the general narrative for corporations to allocate some of their trillions of dollars currently held in cash in government bonds is fading. Instead, they will continue to look for an asset with a finite supply, namely bitcoin.

He noted that the most critical issues for corporations are inflation and the diminishing of the dollar. In contrast, being a limited-supply type of asset, BTC could serve as a hedge with its decreasing inflation.

BTC to $1M, Says Kraken CEO

In another widely-bullish prediction, Jesse Powell, the CEO of the US veteran crypto exchange Kraken, said that the asset price is going to “infinity.”

When asked to specify in dollar terms what that amount would represent, Powell said that even reaching $1 million per bitcoin sounds “reasonable.”

“People that are believers in bitcoin see it’s going to replace all of the world fiat currencies, so that means basically whatever the market cap of the dollar is, the euro, all of that combined is what bitcoin could be worth.

In the near time, people see it surpassing gold as a store of value. So, a million dollars as a price target within the next ten years is very reasonable.”

He justified his quite optimistic prediction with the excessive amounts of fiat currencies printed by the US and other global superpowers following the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, Powell believes that the younger generations are keen to adopt the primary cryptocurrency, which could skyrocket its price.