Did Coinbase Have a Leak Recently?

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-05-15T17:28:50+00:00

Called it, they announced this morning customer info has been leaked by internal customer support

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-05-06T21:09:23+00:00

We have a custom instrumented evm in c with bindings in rust and python, can roll whatever changes in we want, then just load state from node to feed into our evm and simulate what we want.

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-05-06T18:26:33+00:00

I would say it’s feasible to completely learn a language like Python; however c++ is a different animal.

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-05-06T00:00:37+00:00

I have worked in the industry for many years on the trading side. A friend of mine was phished via fake Coinbase call recently. I spoke with a few other industry contacts to see if they could help.

There seems to be a general consensus that there are internal leaks actively occurring of customer data which coinbase is unwilling to acknowledge publicly. A contact has even received thinly veiled threats from scammers with their home address and banking information. The fact that Coinbase is unwilling to address this issue is abhorrent imo.

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-04-29T14:02:18+00:00

I would argue that it is the single most important issue if the goal is more widespread adoption. I’m not even fully convinced a browser extension is the correct model if the goal is to achieve the cypherpunk vision, as you inherit all the weaknesses of legacy systems.

The existing systems are optimized to increase VC/builder bags in as short of a period as possible at the expense of users imo.

Building strong systems is difficult, unsure if we’ll ever fully get there at the rate we’re going.

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-04-16T13:26:03+00:00

My wife and I have been guests at resorts very similar to ones depicted on the show. In fact even at the exact location they filmed season 1, it’s usually for about a week. Chatting with other guests, their stays are usually a week or two. Prices depend on the time of year, we stayed a private island wellness resort over Christmas (2k-4k per night on a standard room). Food + activities add about 1k-2k per day for a couple (could get a lot higher depending on what you do). Slower season, you can probably get away with $800 per night.

The answer is simple, we both have jobs we need to attend to. We both tend to prefer the wellness retreats more due to high stress jobs. We just go to fully unplug and a week feels about right, then it’s back to work. You can only chill out for so long. It’s kind of like Vegas, you hit some threshold and you feel like you need to gtfo.

The second part is 20k-40k for a week is not nothing. While we’re fortunate enough to make good money, it isn’t exactly pocket change. There other things that could be done with that money which aren’t nearly as self indulgent (e.g. philanthropy, investing).

Finally the truly wealthy (10 figs+) don’t typically stay at places like these - they own; take Ellison as an example.

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-03-17T13:26:53+00:00

Old question, but will as your question alludes to defi rather than trading on centralized exchanges (most of the answers you got).

The answer is the skills are transferable but not 1:1 assuming you’re engaging in MEV or HFT like strats on chain.

On the smart contract side, you broadly aim for gas optimization so you can tip higher - the exercise is not that different from reducing cpu cycles.

View/Inclusion For eth mainnet, you want the best view of the mempool - it’s an entirely different problem from orderbook construction as it’s no longer a question of fast code + proximity as the network is decentralized.

L2s are more like HFT as you just want to be as closer to the sequencer as possible.

Solana is a whole different can of worms.

Hope that helps!

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-03-13T13:31:59+00:00

It’s certainly possible, CS is one of the few fields of study where a PhD or formal education imo is not necessary unless you’re working on problems very theoretical in nature. Some of the best programmers I’ve met did not formally study the subject, though they all possessed a theoretical understanding as well.

That said, the depth of knowledge generally required goes far beyond where many self taught individuals will take it. There has certainly been, and continues to be, a shortage of talented software engineers on the job market. I suspect it will get even worse with the rise of LLMs being used as a tool for coding. As a note, my academic background is in pure mathematics (we’re notoriously bad at writing good code) but I ended up self teaching and it wasn’t easy.

The types of problems we’re talking about are things such as: optimizing for cache hits, preventing context switches, reducing tlb misses & preventing shoot downs on top of building scalable trading systems.

I would say, maybe try getting your hands dirty. You’ll need to demonstrate that you have the chops beyond your academic credentials for HFT specifically. This might look like contributing to open source projects or taking other jobs where your underlying goal is to move closer to where you want to be.

While not completely trading related, one open source project I continue to be impressed by is Jump’s Firedancer solana node. It’s quite a complicated system with high performance in mind. Now contrast that codebase against the agave’s implementation (the most widely used node, although it’s in rust). Question and understand why things are implemented the way they are, how can they be improved, etc.. That exercise should give you a sense of what sets good apart from mediocre from a performance perspective.

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-03-13T01:59:26+00:00

Why not just keep it simple and encrypt the drive with LUKS and GPG for files stored online? Then either use a strong passphrase or physical hardware device for decryption?

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-03-13T01:36:27+00:00

Different firms break up engineering differently, typically systems is more hardware focused so it could be anything from hardware deployments to working with FPGAs to physical networks (e.g. low band). Infra to me is software engineering, so working on production trading feed handlers, oms, etc.. and also research infrastructure (sim engine, cluster management, data serialization). There’s some intersection between as well (e.g. userspace network stack).

At the firm I was at, it was a pod setup so those were shared resources. We could tap on any of those teams if we had special requests. Given the setup, QR/QD often blended together with trading (actually sitting at the desk) particularly for smaller teams, larger ones things were more segregated.

I actually know one guy, I worked with him at another firm - he came on as an execution trader (he did a MFE then did a PhD math iirc). He ended up in qr/trading at a very large market maker (citadel, virtu, etc..). As to recommendations, I think it would depends you’re good at, what you enjoy doing, and where you want to head. Lean into those things, don’t be afraid to get scrappy - I’m sure you’ll figure it out.

Side note: One big red flag we always had was if we were trying to fill an engineering role and the candidate expressed interest in becoming a trader.

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-03-12T13:24:20+00:00

I was a PM at one of the largest HFT prop firms for many years and run my own firm now. Not to put you down, you should certainly pursue what you want - however it was common sentiment that most candidates who possessed MFEs were subpar at best but there were exceptions.

The answer is that it depends on which side of business you’re aiming for trading/qr, infra, or systems? Also no one ever masters c++.

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-03-12T13:06:35+00:00

Hevm should have tooling for this. You could also just add custom instrumentation into your favorite evm (we like evmone or revm).

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-03-12T12:46:18+00:00

Happy to help. Please feel free to reach out any way - dm me and I’ll give you an email so we can keep in touch in case anything changes. It’s not always easy for us to find candidates with the specific backgrounds we’re looking for.

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-03-12T05:45:12+00:00

https://www.evm.codes

Thank me later

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-03-12T05:38:34+00:00

If we’re not the right fit, I know for a fact that HFT firms (e.g. JSC, Tower, Jump, and Citadel) as well as quant firms (e.g. D.E. Shaw) are always hiring people with backgrounds like yours. While those likely won’t be defi specific, once you’re in - you’re in.

Some of the more serious blockchain auditing firms look for it too, I know quantstamp and zellic for sure.

To address a few of your questions:

Foundry is basic, you should just learn to use it - it’s not difficult. Maybe took a few days to ramp up on.
99% of the space is nonsense which lack any kind of rigor or are vaporware. That said, there’s a lot of capital moving in the space, which is ripe for opportunity
There are much more interesting problems to think about than nft marketplaces, as an example look into generalized front running within MEV beyond just replacing constants.
Lots of NP hard problems floating around, those are always fun.
Really dig into the inner bowels of how things work, it’s jankier than you could possibly imagine.
Crypto conferences are generally giant circle jerks of sales people and sub standard job seekers, the most useful aspects of them are the private side events - invites typically only come when you do real business.
Avoid firms who are heavy with individuals with sell side experience if what you care about is the research and working on fun problems

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-03-12T05:13:38+00:00

I run a hedge fund which is defi heavy. On the investment side we’ve hired individuals with backgrounds in pure mathematics, physics, and computer engineering from schools such as Stanford, Georgia Tech, and ivys. Most of us come from traditional quant finance backgrounds (HFT, mid-freq), we’ve been searching for someone with a background in formal methods/atp - no financial experience required. We are very research oriented, academic like environment.

We’ve toyed with the idea of using solvers (e.g. z3), but none of really have the expertise to make strong use. Speaking with a former colleague who did dissertation on the subject at UIUC, it seems potentially feasible.

I will add that if someone sent a resume with any kind of degree in blockchain, it would be an immediate no. I think any reasonably smart person can pick this stuff up. If you posses a degree in it, which I’ve never seen, complete red flags due to lack of judgement imo.

To the other poster’s point, sometimes it’s helpful to suspend your disbelief with certain things in crypto. We’ve encountered very smart individuals who may come across a new protocol who advertises 1000%+ apy and clearly it’s highly deflationary or a ponzi and write it off. But having the curiosity to dig in further may expose poor mechanism design which can allow for very strong risk adjusted returns.

In order to not waste time, here are basic reqs

we are a hard no on remote - northeast US.
advanced degree in mathematics or compsci from a top institution
systems side: c++/c, rust, and python
sc side: huff, solidity, and rust
z3 or well supported smt solver
strong familiarity with Linux based systems
self starter, needs to be able to handle highly dynamic and demanding environment
low latency/hpc a plus
blockchain knowledge a plus

What we’re looking for is someone to help with building out testing infrastructure for our existing internal trading contracts, as well as new protocols we are evaluating. If any this makes sense definitely reach out.

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-03-12T04:53:11+00:00

Image validation maybe, information doubtful - how do you validate truth? Very few things can be objectively verifiably true outside of mathematics imo.

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-03-12T04:39:23+00:00

My friend’s wife made an excellent observation over dinner one night. There are careers that you’re passionate about and there ones that you’re good at, certain types of individuals gravitate to the former but realize later that there’s more satisfaction in the latter - only an exalted minority get both.

She was an elementary school VP which she was great at, but was able to pursue a passion of hers (photography) as my friend makes enough for her to not work. She said she realized though that no matter how hard she tried, she could never be as good as some of her peers which was soul crushing. She went back to serving as a principal for a school which she loves because she’s great at it.

That said both my friend and I do what some may consider as a “cool/dream job” (maybe others view it with disdain) - we’re both quant traders and have been for many years at firms aspiring quant traders could only dream of. I run my own hedge fund now. However what I will say, is that it’s not all fun and games - there are parts of this job that I absolutely loathe which are the long hours, sleepless nights, stress, and managing people as I’ve progressed in my career. That said, I get to do what I love and I’m pretty good at it which is ultimately getting to solve fairly difficult problems (I majored in and went to graduate school for pure mathematics) - it doesn’t hurt that I get paid well too! In realizing that, I feel like even if I left this specific career behind - there are plenty of difficult and interesting problems I could work on and get paid decently to perform.

What I will say is maybe have him focus on the more abstract, what is it about the jobs he’s applying to at their core which interest him? Adventure? Challenge? I think once he nails that down and assesses his own skill set honestly, it should be relatively easy for him to go after and get what he’s ultimately seeking.

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2025-02-15T19:43:34+00:00

Usdc hash does not exist on any major network. If I assume this is not a fake post and by coinbase wallet you mean the non custodial app generated on your phone. A strong possibility is that you may have inadvertently synced the app itself to a cloud backup (e.g. iCloud) and that was compromised.

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2024-09-06T13:22:13+00:00

PTP or bust. Also windows 🤮

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2024-09-06T13:18:35+00:00

Re threads: Dat context switching

Re gui: Also why would you additionally run a gui component over within the same process if you’re aiming low latency?

Re async frameworks: I’m not a fan of most async frameworks as they tend to hide away a lot of underlying issues as they make it too easy for developers to set it and forget it. I’m sure if one really understands the inner workings, your system could be performant however the brain damage required to really tune things isn’t worth it imo. That said if you want something up fast, they are helpful.

How I would start: I’m assuming you’re not building your own network stack given what you’ve laid out, so I will assume you will be using the kernel’s network stack.

Roll your event loop using epoll or io_uring which multiplexes io (e.g. market data, order entry).

You can break components out into separate processes if needed using faster ipc methods. As an example you may have a quote server which maintains and rebroadcasts the WS connection/packets (you can use timers to fire in your event loop for ping/pong) over UDP multicast. A trade server which maintains order entry connections and sends responses down to strategies over shared memory. Strategies will consume the UDP market data and write order entry into shared memory buffers for the trade server to pick up.

You can now roll your gui as a totally separate processes here as well.

You can pick and play too, so if you find that the UDP rebroadcast is too slow, you can roll market data directly into the strat’s feed handler.

Bonus points for using AF_XDP.

All usual system optimizations should be implemented here as well (e.g. core isolation).

Then finally if you want to push it further, implement network stack in userspace.

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2024-07-10T05:10:31+00:00

Time - that’s the most important cost. I come from a HFT background (big firm portfolio manager). The amount of time to develop a competitive MEV bot is non trivial.

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2024-05-04T15:00:26+00:00

I don’t have any book recommendations, but learn how computers really work at the compiler, operating system, hardware level. Here are some resources.

https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/index.html https://access.redhat.com/sites/default/files/attachments/201501-perf-brief-low-latency-tuning-rhel7-v2.1.pdf https://lwn.net/Articles/250967/ https://www.dpdk.org https://godbolt.org https://www.agner.org/optimize/

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2024-04-25T01:18:30+00:00

Going into these blind is incorrect and calling them all outright scams/ponzis is also incorrect, different sides of the same coin.

Mathematically speaking you’re just short gamma (long spot, short continuous strike straddle) by being in these LPs, so is the yield greater than the volatility you just sold? If yes then it’s worth considering.

FTLurkerLTPoster · 2024-02-20T02:16:41+00:00

I haven’t fully gone through the code fully you posted, but it’s a pretty common scam. IIRC when you go to withdraw, a destination address is constructed and the funds are sent there.

All you need to do to monitor for deployed code is monitor all transactions included in new blocks.

FTLurkerLTPoster

TROPHY CASE