I haven't verified any portion of that information, but from what I've seen from a few sources, that appears to be the case.

I will amend/redact that should this turn out to be untrue.

#Oyster $PRL

Official statement from the Oyster team:

https://twitter.com/OysterProtocol/status/1056992312608342017

Brief Announcement: I just want to urge everyone in this space to be as safe as possible.

There is a deranged individual going around the cryptospace right now attempting to "dox" any and everyone that 'speaks out' against Bitfinex.

I'm not sure what their agenda is, but their behavior seems a bit psychotic and obsessed. I have reached out to Bitfinexed and a few others personally to urge them to take proper precautions to ensure their safety.

If you're in the United States, it's probably no secret that there's been an escalating level of mass violence over the past few months. I'm not sure what's going on, but I want everyone in this space to be safe.

We aren't going to stop doing what we're doing, but I wanted to let everyone know now publicly that I am receiving multiple, continued death threats on my life as well as the lives of my family members.

I have been in direct contact with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) [in person] and I'm optimistic that they'll be able to get to whoever this is before this starts getting dangerous. I'm truly worried for some people in this space and I sincerely hope that this does not rise to a level where people end up getting killed in this space.

I don't want to spread rumors, but I have it on very good intel that this 'ThinkExclamation!' person's 'dox' victims are supposed to be part of some 'public hit list'.

Again, I don't know this for sure - but when you combine the ferocious, obsessive and psychopathic behavior of this individual with the other death threats, stalking & hack attempts that myself and others have received, it really makes you wonder.

As I said above ^ you really can't take anything for granted. We saw what happened during the Las Vegas shootings, the Orlando nightclub, down in Texas etc.

There are a few people in this cryptospace that are obviously not mentally well and there's no telling how far that they will carry this obsession.

So, before any of you all decide to take your own stands and put out any factual information you have or blow the whistle, be safe. There's a really nasty, violent element in this cryptospace that's brewing right now and I'm afraid one of these lunatics are going to hurt someone before it's over with.

Hopefully the federal authorities can get to these people before they actually get to someone.

New article of course.

Last time we address this manic, crazed and deranged behavior:

https://blog.zerononcense.com/2018/10/29/theres-a-deranged-lunatic-stalking-popular-cryptocurrency-personalities

https://medium.com/oysterprotocol/oyster-update-b813390ce10e

Concerning the $PRL (inside job?) that occurred earlier today

Not sure if you all have heard of Andre Cronje, but this guy is a legend in the crypto space when it comes to dissecting and analyzing the technical underpinnings of projects (proud to have the honor to collab with him on some cool stuff coming up).

He knew that there was this latent possibility for exploit in Oyster months ago

Here's the original message he sent about that:

Oyster Pearl is exploitable, but only by the owner ;)

So, I've been looking heavily into Stellar Lumens and the Lightning Network implementation and I was stumped for a little while because I couldn't understand why they would add it to their protocol.

We all know that Stellar is really efficient already when it comes to payments.

Then I had to read a little deeper to realize that Stellar isn't doing this for payment reasons.

I firmly believe that they are trying so hard to implement the Lightning Network (with some modifications in its application) in order to launch smart contracts.

Let me go ahead and post some information that may help individuals out here.

Brief Background of Lightning Network

For those that do not know, the Lightning Network is supposed to be a separate protocol (that word protocol is contingent upon who you ask), that was originally manifested circa 2015 as a potential remedy to the perceived ‘scalability dilemma’ for Bitcoin.

The Lightning Network is supposed to facilitate off-chain transactions in order to take some of the ‘load’ off of the ‘main chain’.

Thus, many in the crypto community have seen the implementation of the Lightning Network on Stellar’s protocol to be a largely positive thing.

The technical roadmap for the Stellar Lightning Network was published on Stellar’s website back in March:

https://www.stellar.org/blog/lightning-on-stellar-roadmap/#future_work

Here's my Shot at Helping With Understanding the Lightning Network

The LN is a state channel.

In a nutshell, state channels refer to what the Lightning Network seeks to implement on various chains.

It is explained (in its most primitive form), as the creation of an ‘off-chain’ transaction where two parties can interact with one another limitlessly without incurring any protocol-specific trading fees or having to wait until the transaction is confirmed.

When the two parties are done transacting with one another, they simply ‘publish’ the ‘state’ of the channel (i.e., the final balance) and then that final transaction balance is what is finalized on the blockchain.

Literal Translation of What is Happening in a State Channel:


The underpinning of most ‘state channels’ (particularly Lightning Network) are multi-signature wallets.

What is a multi-signature wallet?

So, you know how every transaction that you make on the Bitcoin protocol requires you to provide your private key as a ‘signature’ that proves that you’re the rightful owner of your bitcoins, correct? We no longer really see this in modern wallet interfaces, because it’s been dumbed down to let ‘non-tech’ people transact with one another — but this is literally how the protocol works.

Generally speaking, there is only one signature per public address on the protocol (we say public address and not wallet because wallets are not public keys but that’s a whole ‘nother story we’ll get to later one day).

So, a multi-signature wallet, on the other hand, is one where more than one private key is necessary to complete a transaction on the protocol.

This Medium article provides another thorough explanation of what these wallets are and how they work in relation to the Lightning Network protocol:

https://medium.com/cryptoverze/what-is-bitcoin-lightning-network-and-how-does-it-work-cd80ba9c0bda

How the 'State Channels' of the Lightning Network Work

It’s important to remember that you are technically not ‘off-chain’ in a literal sense — that would be impossible because blockchains are simply designed to account for the native asset in a tracked manner. Thus, there’s never a point in time when this is not happening.

So, when you enter into a ‘state channel’, the protocol perceives that as you moving your funds into another [multi-signature] wallet. It’s important to remember that the blockchain does not think about funds in terms of human-recognizable ownership. The only thing that matters in terms of ownership is who possesses the requisite private key(s) necessary to provide a signature for a transaction to be accepted and considered valid.

It is important to remember that moving one’s transactions ‘off-chain’ counts as a transaction on the protocol.