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This article discusses challenges and solutions regarding the integration of hidden information in games using a fully on-chain game backend. Emphasizing that zero-knowledge tech isn't the only answer, it advocates for the utilization of diverse cryptographic techniques for more engaging and balanced gameplay. The article also explains that the merging of privacy techniques from DeFi into on-chain gaming could unlock a new category of dApps.
The new privacy paper that came out earlier this week by co-authors Vitalik Buterin and Jacob Illum explores the use of Privacy Pools, a feature allowing users to separate themselves from illicit funds. This is comparable to Tornado Cash, with the added ability to prove that your original deposit came from a whitelisted address. The authors suggest that third-party whitelist providers could supply non-sanctioned or low-risk addresses. However, there are concerns about whether this would meet the Department of Justice's standards for compliance.
Former FTX Bahamas subsidiary leader, Ryan Salame, pleaded guilty to unlawful political contributions and running an unlicensed money-transmitting business. Agreeing to surrender over $1.5 billion in assets, his plea intensifies pressure on Sam Bankman-Fried, who is due for a fraud trial. Salame also faces separate investigations for questionable contributions to his girlfriend's political campaign.
This blogger kind of succeeded in paying for most expenses over a week in Italy with cryptocurrencies. Despite initial challenges, the author managed to cover costs for a co-working space, food, beverages, and travel with Bitcoin, Monero, Zcash, and other forms of cryptocurrencies through various applications and gift card services. The author acknowledged the need for in-depth research and contingency plans when relying solely on digital currency.
Earlier this week, Stake, a popular crypto casino and sportsbook, was exploited for $41 million. According to the FBI, the infamous Lazarus Group was responsible for this.
Riot Platforms earned $31.7 million in energy credits from Texas' ERCOT by reducing power during a heatwave, offsetting losses from declining Bitcoin revenues.
The LastPass breach in 2022 has been linked to crypto thefts totaling $35 million, and it is presumed that victims stored crypto "seed phrases" in LastPass, giving the hackers access to their wallets once LastPass was breached.
Crypto Facilities, owned by Kraken, has been discussing launching futures contracts denominated in fiat currency with the U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority.
Ark Invest and 21shares have submitted an application to the SEC for the authorization of a spot ether ETF called the ARK 21Shares Ethereum ETF. If approved, the fund would give investors direct exposure to ether on the Cboe. The SEC, which is yet to approve a spot crypto fund, recently postponed decisions on the spot Bitcoin ETF applications that were filed by several funds earlier in the summer.
The U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board has ruled that companies holding cryptocurrencies will need to start marking their crypto assets to market in 2025. This approach provides a more accurate reflection of the current values of their holdings compared to the existing method of recording historical purchase prices. These standards will not apply to NFTs, stablecoins, or wrapped tokens. Despite potential increased earnings volatility, the decision was hailed as a step forward in mainstream crypto adoption.
Story Protocol is creating an Internet-native IP infrastructure to address the antiquated IP models that have been in use for decades. Its open IP repository will enable creative Intellectual Property, like prose, images, and audio, to record their evolution, from inception, to remixes, and reuse, offering provenance and authenticity. The novel licensing module allows creators to set transparent conditions for others to use their work.
Blockchains by their very nature are not great for privacy as they provide a public ledger of all transactions. Protocols like Tornado Cash that allow people to ‘hide’ their transactions were invented to address this. Until now, these protocols have been scrutinized for enabling criminal activity like money laundering. This paper, put together by an all-star cast including Vitalik Buterin, proposes a solution to this problem. The paper’s solution would allow people to create private transactions that are provably disassociated from criminal activity.
This post provides a good overview of the history of WebAssembly. WebAssembly (Wasm), a portable binary format and compilation target for high-level programming languages, is increasingly being used in both web2 and web3 applications. It's been adopted as the execution environment for top blockchain projects and has been utilized by various sectors including e-commerce, entertainment, and software development.
This thread goes over the psychology of trading in cryptocurrency and how it is influenced by understanding individual and collective human behavior, personal bias, and maintaining a vigilant mindset. The thread warns against cognitive biases that can negatively impact decision-making. It also suggests that maintaining healthy paranoia about potential risks, both technical and human, can help traders safeguard investments.
Synthetix has launched Synthetix v3, which aims to unify its protocol across multiple chains and question past assumptions about its SNX token and its role in the ecosystem. This blog discussed the challenges of ensuring smooth and efficient cross-chain communication, which is increased particularly as the number of supported networks expands. It proposes potential solutions to these challenges, including the option of leveraging Ethereum as collateral and the creation of a separate AppChain via the Optimism superchain.
Google will update its policy to allow advertising of blockchain-based NFT games starting on September 15 as long as they don’t promote gambling. NFT casino games and related gambling activities using real-world prizes will continue to be banned. This is another step forward. Google banned all cryptocurrency-related ads in 2018, later relaxing the rule in 2021 for certain US-targeted cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets.
Unibot has partnered with OKX to give users optimal routing for swaps and deeper liquidity to help users get the best prices.
This blog explores the idea of intents in Ethereum using a mathematical framework, merging algebraic topology and mechanics, focused on defining and solving intents with models.
This article gives a summary of the comprehensive Crypto Wealth Report that was just released. It breaks down how many individuals in each wealth bracket own crypto and how many people overall do.
Former Celsius chief Alex Mashinsky's assets have been frozen amid criminal charges including securities fraud.
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The London Stock Exchange Group has announced plans to launch a new digital markets business that will enable faster, cheaper, and more secure transactions by leveraging blockchain technology. This new platform will not be enabling the trading of cryptocurrencies - rather it will likely be tokenizing assets like stocks and bonds to allow ownership to be transferred on blockchain rails. This is yet another example of a bigger picture trend of real world asset tokenization that has been playing out over the course of the year.
Australian crypto casino and sportsbook, Stake, was hit with a $40m exploit involving insecure private keys. Cyvers reported that over $15m in ETH had been withdrawn from the wallet and another $25m was moved out across Polygon and Binance Smart Chain bridges. The exploit appears to be limited to just this wallet, and while a sizable sum was lost, it’s relatively small for Stake, which generated $2.2B in revenue in 2022.
This whitepaper introduces a novel protocol called Wildcat, aimed at addressing the issues with current undercollateralized lending protocols that include the choice of underlying assets, the interest rate methodology, and their usage of middlemen. With a wide range of unique features, it essentially aims to provide a more flexible lending protocol for market makers and the broader DeFi ecosystem.
The Safe{Core} Protocol has introduced a new framework for smart accounts, aiming to reduce fragmentation, vendor lock-in, and security risks. The open-source protocol includes components such as modules, registries and accounts to facilitate interoperability, security, and portability. Development plans include introducing fee mechanisms, supporting more module types, and enabling cross-chain access.
This article examines the recent volatility in crypto, using activity in liquidity pools to get a better understanding of what’s happening in the space. Liquidity has been drying up as the market has remained risk-off. This has been exacerbated before each major negative event the space has seen as large amounts of capital flowed out of liquidity pools before those events. The article goes on to interpret sentiment of the space based on these movements in liquidity.
This thread is the second part in a story from the founder of a small crypto exchange that was acquired by FTX in 2021. It tells the story of the acquisition and explains how this acquisition ultimately played a big role in FTX’s demise. While there were many other issues that led to FTX’s undoing, this particular acquisition was what led to CZ of Binance holding a $2B stack of FTT tokens, which eventually became the last domino to fall in the implosion of FTX.
A new malware called Infamous Chisel has been connected to Sandworm, a well-known Russian hacker group. This malware particularly targets mobile crypto wallets such as Binance, Coinbase, and Trust wallets as well as in-browser wallets like the Brave wallet and Opera Wallet. While it’s not clear whether this malware has led to any stolen funds, U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre has confirmed that it is capable of extracting data from these applications.
This post provides a summary of a space held by Martin Shkreli and Jason Lorenzo, two men with firsthand jail experience, explaining what SBF might be experiencing in jail so far.
As Lido continues to inch toward 33% staked ETH market share, debate has been heating up over whether or not this is a problem for the protocol and Ethereum as a whole.
This post gives an overview of the OP stack landscape, lists the protocols that have built on top of it, and explains how this could benefit OP as the so-called ‘Superchain’
Another high-profile exec, Global Product Lead Mayur Kamat, has left Binance. Binance has been losing executives left and right as CZ’s fight with regulators has been heating up.
Despite China's nationwide ban on cryptocurrency, the People’s Court has published a report indicating that individual-held digital assets should be considered legal and protected by law according to the existing policy framework. This marks a paradigm shift in Chinese legal thought, as it argues digital currency possesses economic attributes, therefore qualifying it as property. The report also offered suggestions on handling cases involving digital asset-related crimes.
MakerDAO's co-founder, Rune Christensen, recently proposed using the Solana codebase for a dedicated appchain aiming to improve the DeFi lending protocol. This new appchain, part of MakerDAO's five-phases Endgame strategy, aims to improve governance and sustainability. Maker will not be directly building on Solana, but rather will be using the Solana stack. This proposal could potentially lead to a mutually beneficial relationship between MakerDAO and Solana.
Kana Labs has introduced its omni-chain smart contract wallet, "Mirai SDK." This solution aims to simplify crypto transactions by offering social login and straightforward transaction management functionality. It supports both EVM and non-EVM chains and seamless cross-chain token swaps. It currently supports Aptos and it will soon integrate other non-EVM chains like Solana and Sui.
The Colorado DMV has started accepting cryptocurrency payments for online services such as driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations via PayPal. This makes the DMV the first governmental body in the state to do so. The move is part of the state's wider initiative to find practical uses for crypto.
This post explains how Liquid Staking Derivatives, including Lido, present potential threats to the Ethereum protocol due to possible cartelization and centralization. While this was written over a year ago, it’s still relevant as LDO has gained nearly 33% share of staked Ether. The author suggests self-limiting to avoid any potential issues and advises capital allocators to be conscious of these risks and limit allocation to LSD protocols that exceed 25% of total staked Ether.
This thread from Punk6529 emphasizes the importance of security regarding NFTs. He walks through his thoughts on a security survey he ran, going over the answers to each question and pointing out the issues and the solutions to them. The thread ends on a hopeful note, claiming that better security is possible as builders continue to innovate on the underlying infrastructure and user experiences around digital asset storage.