Astria has introduced the Astria EVM, a symbolic virtual machine rollup powered by a shared sequencer network, aimed at serving as Celestia's activity center. Overcoming existing EVM limitations, it incorporates fast and reliable block production. Currently live on the Dusknet-2 devnet, the EVM has been integrated into Dora's multichain search engine. Astria is inviting developers to test the protocol out while on devnet.
This post discusses proposer-builder separation auctions, specifically comparing early auctions to just-in-time ones like MEV-Boost. Early auctions sell the right to produce a block prior to its creation. The post paints potential bidders as dominant CEX-DEX arbitrageurs due to high capital requirements, risk management, and less information during early auctions. The impact on users could be beneficial, with features like pre-confirmations, or potentially negative, with challenges like monopoly pricing. Ultimately though, the benefits of early auctions over JIT ones remain unclear.
This article lays out how current application builders in the crypto space are focusing on solutions that prioritize privacy as data breach concerns continue to grow. New app challengers are rising with privacy-first options, like encrypted messaging apps. The article also presents a detailed comparison among popular privacy technologies including Trusted Execution Environments, Zero Knowledge, Multi-party Computation, and Fully Homomorphic Encryption, each with its own pros and cons.
This article analyzes the impact of cryptographic technologies like ZK, FHE, MPC, and TEEs on the digital identity landscape. It delves into how the self-custody of personal data and attestation could change with these technologies. The piece also acknowledges challenges in standardizing these fast-developing technologies but envisions a future with decentralized control of digital identities. It concludes by highlighting research areas concerning digital identity, primarily privacy and inclusivity.
This post from Multicoin lays out the firm’s thesis on Pyth Network, an oracle protocol on Solana. While it focuses on Pyth, the analysis can be broadly applied to the oracle landscape in general. Its uniqueness lies within its first-party data, which is directly provided by market makers and trading desks instead of third-party aggregators. This results in less latent, high-quality data brought on-chain. Launched in 2021, Pyth currently delivers data to over 45 different chains and is responsible for securing over $1.7B in value across many prominent protocols in the crypto industry.
In the wake of yesterday’s Ledger exploit, many were left evaluating switching to alternative cold wallets. This post describes one novel solution, called Grid+.
This interview with Jimmy McNelis, aka j1mmy.eth, tells the story of a prolific NFT collector who played a big role in the on-chain PFP project and IP rights for holders movements. It also touches on his impressive NFT collecting history.
"Drainer'' phishing gangs like Angel Drainer emerged in 2022, executing sophisticated DNS hijacking attacks on platforms like Balancer and Galxe, stealing millions in assets. This group is suspected to have been connected to the Ledger exploit.
Coinbase is launching spot crypto trading on its international platform, enabling institutional international investors to trade Bitcoin and Ether against the USDC stablecoin. The rollout, aimed at reducing concerns over US regulatory uncertainties, will soon be extended to retail users with added assets and features. This follows Coinbase's expansion of its perpetual futures service to non-US retail traders in October.
The US Financial Accounting Standards Board has updated its guidelines to allow corporations to recognize changes in the "fair value" of their cryptocurrency holdings. The rule change, taking effect after December 15, 2024, will benefit companies that hold crypto on their balance sheets. Under the new guidelines, companies will report the fair value, cost-basis, and types of assets they possess, versus solely reporting a loss if assets are worth less than the purchase price, as is the current practice.
Eclipse, an Ethereum L2 solution leveraging the Solana Virtual Machine, launched on Ethereum's Sepolia and Celestia's Mocha testnets. This is a crucial step towards deploying the Eclipse Mainnet, which combines Ethereum for settlement, Celestia for data availability, and the SVM for execution. Developers can now bridge Sepolia ETH and launch contracts on this final stage of testnet rollouts. Notably, the first 1,000 developers to deploy to the Eclipse Testnet will receive a special NFT on the upcoming Eclipse Mainnet.
Pirex ETH, a two-token Ethereum liquid staking solution, is now live on the Ethereum mainnet. The system consists of pxETH for liquidity and apxETH for increased staking yields. It aims to provide a straightforward and flexible solution to solo staking and liquid staking tokens. While security is being prioritized, the next steps in the process include introducing enhancements and expanding user integrations. This launch marks the initial phase of the Dinero protocol, which involves the creation of an overcollateralized stablecoin.
This report lays out Bitwise's predictions for 2024, which include Bitcoin trading over $80,000, the approval of spot bitcoin ETFs, and Coinbase doubling its revenue. It also predicts stablecoins will settle more value than Visa and that J.P. Morgan will tokenize a fund and launch it on-chain. One of the more aggressive predictions the firm has is that Taylor Swift will use NFTs to interact with fans. Each prediction they outline is supported by a short summary and some data points.
This article delves into the complexities of the application layer in crypto, which is comprised of state (assets) and logic (applications). It emphasizes Ethereum's expansion of both layers, but points out the lack of significant use cases as a challenge, discussing speculation-driven market activities. The authors outline a model, broken down into quadrants, to understand other potential applications, arguing for less reflexive, more real-world use cases. Expanding the application layer to incorporate non-crypto assets and off-chain applications can drive tangible value and reduce crypto market volatility.
The Chairman of the CFTC, Rostin Behnam, recently stated on CNBC that most crypto assets could be categorized as commodities under current laws. He also noted a regulatory "turf war" between the CFTC and the SEC over jurisdiction of the crypto industry. This debate has blocked progress in creating clear guidelines for digital assets and the broader crypto industry.
Deutsche Bank is reportedly planning to launch a euro-based stablecoin in Frankfurt, aiming for mainstream adoption of tokenized assets and regulatory approval.
This article goes over L1 and L2 blockchain technologies, focusing on their design differences, tradeoffs, and impacts on blockchain applications and user experiences.
Binance is arguing its $4.3 billion settlement with U.S. regulators should not affect the outcome of its ongoing SEC lawsuit, challenging the SEC's interpretation of securities laws.
Hut 8, a crypto mining company, is set to acquire four natural gas power plants and a Bitcoin mining site in Ontario from Validus Power Corp. The acquisition, approved by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and expected to close in January, reinforces Hut 8's growth strategy after its recent merger with US Bitcoin Corp. The facilities will be used to bolster energy pricing certainty, mine Bitcoin, sell energy to the market, and/or support high-performance computing, such as AI applications.
Crypto exchange KuCoin has agreed to a $22 million settlement with New York's Attorney General Letitia James over a lawsuit accusing it of breaking state laws by listing unregistered securities. As part of this agreement, KuCoin will withdraw from the New York market, paying $5.3 million to the state and refunding $16.7 million to investors.
Coinbase is launching "Project Diamond" to blend traditional finance and crypto. This platform, incorporating Coinbase Prime’s custody service, will allow institutional investors to issue and trade digitally native debt instruments using Base, Coinbase's Ethereum scaling network. The platform, already approved in principle by Abu Dhabi's FSRA, is anticipated to increase efficiency and transparency for financial transactions.
Blockchain scaling solution Celestia is partnering with the Polygon Chain Development Kit to facilitate the launch of high-throughput L2 chains on Ethereum. The move will reduce Ethereum L2 transaction costs by more than 100 times, using Celestia's data availability solution. It will be available as a feature in Polygon CDK's customization options starting early next year.
This article provides a deep dive into the advancements and implications of account abstraction and wallet infrastructure in web3. It sheds light on how this new innovation allows the decoupling of account management from key management, improving the user experience and facilitating seamless onboarding for dapps. Additionally, it discusses the potential of smart accounts, modular account infrastructure, key management techniques, and the role of various elements like account factories, relayers, and signers.
This thread provides a deep dive into Celestia, which has been gaining attention with its novel data availability network. Unlike traditional blockchains that merge all functions into one layer, Celestia separates the consensus and application execution components, allowing applications to access state more easily without also changing blockchain state. This type of functionality enables a variety of different scaling methods that would not be available otherwise.
This presentation from Maven11 provides some thoughts around intent-based architecture in blockchain development and applications. It gives a high-level explanation of what intents are and why you would use them. It also explains how intents are being used in blockchain applications and specific components of these types of applications such as auctions, solvers, off-chain mechanisms, and more.
This post discusses the ways in which storage proofs can be generated and verified across various blockchain networks, like Ethereum. It highlights the limitations in state root availability and verification costs, and presents several solutions, methods, and protocols including zkSNARKs, MPT, KZG, Recproofs, Verkle Proofs, etc, for more efficient and secure storage proof generation and verification. The author suggests potential ecosystem optimizations like direct data reading, shared sequencing, rollups, and Verkle tree structures.
Hackers allegedly breached Coin Cloud, a defunct Bitcoin ATM firm, claiming theft of customer photos and data from 300,000 individuals. The details and culprit are still unknown.
Proposed changes to spot bitcoin ETFs may allow banks to create fund shares with cash instead of crypto, potentially expanding Wall Street's involvement.
Oftentimes, crypto is ridiculed as being purely a technology to speculate on. This article explains how speculators actually tend to be pioneers of new technologies.
App-specific rollups offer a new space for limitless exploration and for pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in Web3. Cartesi [6] provides your dApp with a dedicated rollup with its own CPU and Linux environment — meaning you can scale computation while preserving decentralization [6], security, and censorship resistance. Basically:
US Senator Elizabeth Warren has proposed a bill to tackle alleged misuse of cryptocurrencies in various illegal activities like money laundering, drug trafficking, and sanctions evasion. The bill calls for increased regulation within the sector, specifically by extending Bank Secrecy Act responsibilities, and is supported by a coalition from the Banking Committee. This news gave the crypto market a scare but is not being viewed as too threatening given Warren’s poor record of getting bills over the finish line.
Internet giant Google is reportedly tweaking its crypto ad policy to allow promotional activity for "cryptocurrency coin trusts," potentially paving the way for more crypto-based financial products. This move comes amid speculation about the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs from several large institutional asset managers. These changes are set to take effect on January 29.
Digital asset brokerage Nonco has raised a $10 million seed round to serve a rising number of institutional clients in the US. The round included participation from ex-US Comptroller of Currency Brian Brooks and others. Launched in April, Nonco has already done over $6 billion in volume. The firm is aiming to become the top digital asset brokerage by prioritizing technology and services led by some veterans in the space.
Uniswap recently expanded to Bitcoin sidechain Rootstock, aiming to provide more infrastructure for Bitcoin's DeFi ecosystem. This enables the combination of Uniswap's smart contract capabilities with Bitcoin's security, potentially resulting in deeper liquidity and more use cases for the largest asset base in the crypto industry. This integration coincides with a myriad of recent efforts aimed at enhancing Bitcoin's capabilities through features commonly associated with Ethereum.
Between the JTO and PYTH airdrops, the Solana ecosystem has had some eye-popping opportunities lately. While these initial airdrops were mostly overlooked in the farming stage, many more Solana airdrops are anticipated to be on the horizon. To prepare you for these opportunities, this thread provides the ultimate guide for increasing your odds of an airdrop in the ecosystem. It walks through each protocol and provides a step-by-step guide of what to do to qualify for each opportunity.
Earlier this year, Ordinals, essentially NFTs on Bitcoin, took the space by storm and has since maintained strong momentum. Ordinals, contrary to traditional NFTs which usually point to an IPFS link, are actually directly inscribed on satoshis, the smallest Bitcoin units. Each Satoshi is made unique through ordinals and given content through inscriptions. With this sudden popularity, the change has also sparked debates about what Bitcoin's function should be, with concerns around chain congestion emerging. However, miners haven’t been concerned with this, generating around $38.7M revenue in ordinal-related transactions in November.
This post outlines a few of the green shoots the NFT space is seeing after a 90%+ decline in volume throughout the bear market. Growth in the creation and collection of NFTs is increasing across Ethereum and L2 solutions such as Zora, Base, and Optimism. There has been an increase in the number of unique addresses minting paid NFTs as of late. Infrastructure improvements have helped lower minting costs, making it easier and more affordable to create NFTs and opening up new use cases.
Ethereum's L2 solutions, although seen as crucial to scaling the network, may only offer temporary relief rather than addressing core issues. While L2 solutions can increase speed, decrease costs, and widen demographic accessibility, their drawbacks could affect Ethereum's long-term growth. Among the potential issues are liquidity fragmentation, limited dapp composability, and security risks from centralization. Ethereum should strengthen its core infrastructure rather than relying heavily on intermediary scaling solutions.
FTX debtors argue that the IRS's $24 billion tax claim, reduced from $43 billion, is impeding the customer fund recovery process and is unfounded, risking further bankruptcy delays.
This thread outlines some of the early AI and crypto integration we are seeing in the space, highlighting several different projects that are attacking different problems.
Crypto 1's C1 Fund is reportedly aiming to acquire secondary shares in large crypto firms like Animoca Brands and Chainalysis, targeting investments at significant markdowns.
In this podcast, Hasu and Jon Charbonneau discuss advancements in Ethereum Virtual Machine and Solana Virtual Machine, new projects Charbonneau is looking at, and improvements that can be made to established EVM projects.