Latest news with #SamKessler
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Protocol: Lido Avoids Major Hack
Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. This is Margaux Nijkerk and Sam Kessler, CoinDesk's Tech team. In this issue: Hacking Attempt on Lido Results in 1.4 Ether Lost From Oracle Provider Bitcoin DeFi Security Improves as Rootstock Boosts Hashrate Share Ethereum's Next Upgrade 'Fusaka' Could Cut Layer-2 and Validator Costs Telegram Cracks Down on $8 billion Crypto Crime Marketplace Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option LIDO AVOIDS MAJOR SECURITY BREACH: Lido, Ethereum's largest liquid staking protocol, avoided a major security incident after one of its nine oracle keys was compromised in what appears to be a low-impact but serious breach involving validator operator Chorus One. Lido secures over 25% of all ether (ETH) staked on Ethereum, making it one of the most systemically important protocols in the Ethereum ecosystem. The compromised key was tied to a hot wallet used for oracle reporting, leading to the theft of just 1.46 ETH ($4,200) in gas fees. No user funds were affected, and no broader compromise was detected, per X posts from both Lido and Chorus One. — Tim Craig Read more. BITCOIN DEFI BLOSSOMING: Decentralized finance (DeFi) on the Bitcoin blockchain may still be in its infancy relative to Ethereum, but Bitcoin DeFi (BTCFi) is becoming safer and cheaper, crypto analytics firm Messari said in a new report. A central participant is Rootstock, one of the oldest Bitcoin layer-2 projects, crypto analytics firm Messari said in its "State of Rootstock" report. Rootstock is now secured by 81% of Bitcoin's total hashrate, meaning miners that account for amount the hashrate are also approving transactions on the layer 2. The figure was just 56% before the the onboarding of Foundry and Spiderpool, the world's largest and sixth-largest mining pools, respectively, in February. — Jamie Crawley Read more. FUSAKA PLANNING BEGINS: After the successful deployment last week of Pectra, Ethereum's biggest upgrade in more than a year, the network's core developers are already shifting focus to the next major chain upgrade: Fusaka. Pectra, the biggest code change to Ethereum since the Merge in 2022, introduced key changes aimed at making staking easier for institutions, improving wallet accessibility, and boosting transaction efficiency. Developers have already begun planning for Fusaka, the network's next upgrade, and have thus far agreed to include an Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) called "PeerDAS" that could help the network support larger "blobs" of transaction data. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more. TELEGRAM CRACKS DOWN ON CRYPTO CRIME MARKETPLACE: Messaging app Telegram has closed thousands of channels belonging to suspected Chinese crypto-crime marketplaces after new research shed light on the situation, according to Elliptic. The closure follows a report published by the blockchain analytics firm on Tuesday into the fast-growing Telegram-based marketplace called Xinbi Guarantee. The Colorado-incorporated marketplace has processed over $8.4 billion worth of transactions using Tether's USDT stablecoin since 2022. It facilitates services relating to money laundering, operating crypto scam compounds and other illicit services, such as intimidation and sex trafficking, according to Elliptic. — Tim Craig Read more. Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option Robinhood Markets (HOOD), the California-based financial services company, said it agreed to buy Canadian crypto firm WonderFi (WNDR) for $178.98 million. The all-cash acquisition values WonderFi at 36 Canadian cents per share, a 41% premium over its closing price prior to the announcement. — Omkar Godbole Read more. Stock and crypto trading platform eToro (ETOR) debuted at $52 a share on the Nasdaq exchange. The company raised about $312 million from investors by selling 6 million shares at a price of $52 a piece. The listing values the company at $4.2 billion. EToro became the first U.S. crypto company to go public following the market uncertainty wrought by President Donald Trump's tariff actions. — Helene Braun Read more. Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option The Gibraltar government said it plans to establish the world's first rules for the clearing and settlement of crypto derivatives, creating a regulatory framework to improve market integrity and reduce key risks. Working with the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC) and crypto exchange Bullish (whose owner, Bullish Group, is also the parent of CoinDesk), the government has built a framework over the past six months that tailors traditional financial clearing regulations to the virtual asset market. — Jamie Crawley Read more. Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option May 14-16: Consensus, Toronto May 19-23: Solana Accelerate, New York City May 20-22: Avalanche Summit, London May 27-29: Bitcoin 2025, Las Vegas May 27-29: ETHPrague, Prague June 8-22: Berlin Blockchain Week, Berlin June 30-July 3: EthCC, Cannes July 16-18: Web3 Summit, Berlin Sept. 22-28: Korea Blockchain Week, Seoul Oct. 1-2: Token2049, Singapore Dec. 11-13: Solana Breakpoint, Abu Dhabi
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Protocol: Nvidia To Manufacture AI Supercomputers in U.S., New Opportunities for Crypto Miners
Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. We're Margaux Nijkerk and Sam Kessler, reporters on CoinDesk's Tech team. In this issue: Can Ethereum Be Truly Private? Developers Push for Encrypted Mempool, Default Privacy Nvidia Moves AI Supercomputer Production to U.S., Opening New Avenues for Crypto Miners MIT-Incubated Optimum Raises $11M Seed Round to Build Web3's Missing Memory Layer Noble's New 'AppLayer' Lets Developers Build Stablecoin Tools on Celestia This article is featured in the latest issue of The Protocol, our weekly newsletter exploring the tech behind crypto, one block at a time. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Wednesday. PRIVACY HEATS UP AMONG ETHEREUM DEVS: When the U.S. government sanctioned the Ethereum-based crypto mixing service Tornado Cash in 2022, it ignited a debate within the crypto community that continues three years later. Advocates argued that complying with the sanctions amounted to censorship — undermining a fundamental cypherpunk principle. President Donald Trump supported the cypherpunks and lifted the sanctions on Tornado Cash in March of this year, but for some Ethereum developers, the situation highlighted a flaw within the network that still exists today: Why should users depend on third-party apps to transact privately on the network? Perhaps emboldened by the recent Tornado Cash developments, Ethereum developers and researchers have once again begun discussing ideas for making the Ethereum network private at its core. "Privacy must not be an optional feature that users must consciously enable — it must be the default state of the network," said PCaversaccio, whose post outlined his vision for a privacy-oriented Ethereum roadmap. "Ethereum's architecture must be designed to ensure that users are private by default, not by exception." In response to PCaversaccio's post, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin left a comment on the network's main developer forum with his own much shorter privacy-oriented Ethereum roadmap. Buterin suggested focusing on privacy for on-chain payments, anonymizing on-chain activity within applications, making communication on the network anonymous, and privatizing on-chain reads. To achieve all of this, Buterin listed various steps like integrating certain third-party privacy features into the core network. — Margaux Nijkerk and Sam Kessler Read more. NVIDIA AI SUPERCOMPUTER PRODUCTION PLANS COULD BENEFIT CRYPTO MINERS: Nvidia plans to manufacture its next generation of AI chips and supercomputers entirely in the U.S. for the first time, the company said in a statement. The move reflects rising demand for AI infrastructure and a broader push to localize advanced tech manufacturing — one that could also benefit crypto miners repurposing their facilities for AI and high-performance computing (HPC). Many of these operators already have access to the large-scale power and cooling systems needed for data center operations, making them potential players in the growing AI economy. Crypto miners, once singularly focused on hashing power, are increasingly looking for ways to fit into the AI and HPC supply chain. Their existing access to power-dense infrastructure and logistical experience in running industrial-scale operations gives them a foothold as demand for AI computation surges. Recent tariffs by U.S. President Donald Trump, however, is causing anxiety among miners as the policy changes are expected to raise costs on ASIC miners, electrical components, networking hardware and more.— Helene Braun Read more. MEMORY LAYER OPTIMUM RAISES $11M IN SEED: Optimum, a decentralized, performance-enhancing memory layer for any blockchain, raised an $11 million seed round, inviting its creators from institutions like Harvard and MIT to jump from the world of academia into the commercial crypto arena. The seed round was led by 1kx with participation from Robot Ventures, Finality Capital, Spartan, CMT Digital, SNZ, Triton Capital, Big Brain, CMS, Longhash, NGC, Animoca, GSR, Caladan, Reforge and others. Optimum is building what it calls the missing memory layer of blockchains, making the way data is stored, accessed and propagated, faster, cheaper and truly decentralized, according to a press release. At the core of Optimum's innovation is a method of decentralized coding for distributed systems, known as Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC), developed by Muriel Médard, an MIT professor. — Ian Allison Read more. NOBLE'S NEW 'APPLAYER' LETS DEVELOPERS BUILD STABLECOIN APPS ON TOP OF CELESTIA: Noble, a blockchain for issuing real-world assets (RWA) and stablecoins, announced Wednesday that it will expand its platform by introducing 'AppLayer,' an Ethereum-compatible rollup that allows developers to create their own RWA applications and infrastructure. Noble's AppLayer aims to let developers build new financial tools optimized for real-world assets like stablecoins — digital assets whose value is pegged to another asset, like the U.S. dollar. AppLayer will leverage Celestia, a data availability blockchain that aims to bring down storage costs for data-intensive blockchain networks. Celestia, like Noble, is plugged into the Cosmos blockchain ecosystem and is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), meaning it can read smart contracts from other Ethereum-based chains. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more. Mantra's OM token fell from over $6 to under $0.45 in a matter of hours on Tuesday with no apparent catalyst. CEO John Mullin said in an X post on Wednesday that he would burn his team's tokens to win back the trust of the Mantra community. Mullin said the price drop resulted from exchanges closing OM positions, but members of the crypto community cast blame on the Mantra team. OKX founder Start Xu referred to the incident as "a big scandal." — Jamie Crawley Read more. Aiming to perhaps replicate Strategy's bitcoin (BTC) playbook, except with solana (SOL), fintech commercial real estate platform Janover (JNVR) has built a SOL stack worth roughly $21 million and seen its share price rise nearly 20-fold in less than a month. The company purchased earlier this week another 80,567 SOL tokens valued at approximately $10.5 million, bringing its total holdings to 163,651. — Krisztian Sandor Read more. DWF Labs is investing $25 million in World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the decentralized finance protocol backed by U.S. President Donald Trump and his family. The crypto market maker is also entering the U.S. market with a new office in New York City as part of its broader expansion plans, according to a press release. — Francisco Rodrigues Read more. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is not yet ready to make a decision on two critical features that issuers of the spot crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are hoping to add to their products. The regulator delayed a decision on whether it will allow in-kind redemptions for WisdomTree's Bitcoin Fund (BTCW) and VanEck's Bitcoin Fund (BITB) and Ethereum Fund (ETHW). It also moved its deadline for a decision in regards to a proposal by Grayscale to allow staking its Ethereum Trust (ETHE) and Mini Ethereum Trust (ETH), which the asset manager's exchange, NYSE Arca had requested in February. — Helene Braun Read more. Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange OKX is expanding to the U.S. and establishing a new regional headquarters in San Jose, California. The exchange will rolling out access to its platform and its native OKX Wallet to U.S.-based crypto traders.— Cheyenne Ligon Read more. Search giant Google will only allow cryptocurrency exchanges and software wallets to advertise in the European Union if they hold a license under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, starting April 23, the company announced. Google said advertisers must now obtain a certification from the company and demonstrate they are registered as a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) under MiCA. The company also requires advertisers to comply with any additional country-specific legal obligations.—Francisco Rodrigues Read more. April 30-May 1: Token 2049, Dubai May 14-16: Consensus, Toronto May 19-23: Solana Accelerate, New York City May 20-22: Avalanche Summit, London May 27-29: Bitcoin 2025, Las Vegas June 30-July 3: EthCC, Cannes Oct. 1-2: Token2049, Singapore
