crypto blog
ESPN’s baseball reporter’s Twitter account hacked by NFT scammers
In what ESPN Major League Baseball reporter Jeff Passan called the “biggest news day” of his life, scammers hijacked his Twitter account to promote an NFT giveaway. With the MLB and the Players Association (MLBPA) engaged in a long-winded deadlock over a labor deal that resulted in canceled games, Passan had just broken news regarding an important agreement between the two parties concerning the international draft. hey remember that time i got hacked on the biggest news day of my life — Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) March 10, 2022 However, with eyeballs waiting on the next development from Passan, his account suddenly started promoting giveaways for the Skulltoons NFT project. His username was also changed to “Jeff.eth” while his profile picture depicted artwork from the NFTs and his bio read...
US Labor Dept warns of crypto risks in retirement plans
The US Department of Labor (DOL) has told 401(k) investors to “exercise extreme care” when dealing with cryptocurrencies and other digital assets citing fraud, theft, and financial loss as “significant risks”. In a compliance report, released on Thursday, the DOL offered a stark warning to employers that seek to increase their 401(k) exposure to cryptocurrencies, stating that any significant crypto investments within company-sponsored retirement accounts may attract legal attention. A 401(k) is a retirement savings plan offered by most American employers that extend tax advantages and long-term financial security to those that opt-in. Regarding the legislation surrounding 401(k) investments, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) does not specifically...
Polygon network suffers from extended service outage after upgrade
Layer-2 Ethereum scaling solution Polygon has not produced a new block for over 11 hours, with developers attributing the issue to a technical upgrade on the network. On March 10 at 4:20 pm UTC, Polygon (MATIC) network developers notified users on the project’s forum that there would likely be downtime starting at about 5:50 pm UTC due to maintenance required on one of the network’s three layers. A recent upgrade is thought to have caused an error in the network’s ability to achieve consensus. “We suspect there may have been a bug in the upgrade which affected consensus and caused different Heimdall validators to be on different versions of the chain, thereby not reaching 2/3 consensus.” As expected, the outage began at about 5:54 pm UTC. The Polygon team issued an update at about 1:30 am ...
Dovu leads HBAR Foundation’s $100M charge into climate conservation efforts
The HBAR Foundation was created last year by distributed ledger firm Hedera Hashgraph Dovu will be the first entity to receive capital from the Fund The HBAR Foundation, a charitable and independent affiliate of distributed ledger network Hedera Hashgraph has received a $100 million boost aimed at climate-focused initiatives as the firm aims to achieve sustainability. The Foundation explained that the Fund launched as there is a massive “need for greater transparency, auditability, and efficiency of industry impact on the global environment.” A climate-focused fund The Sustainable Impact Fund (SIF) will promote environmental consciousness by developing initiatives to work around carbon removal and offsets, carbon emissions, and other environment conservative activities. “We are excited to ...
FBI director: Russia overestimates its ability to bypass US sanctions using crypto
Christopher Wray, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said that fiat was a more likely avenue for Russia to explore in circumventing sanctions, given the United States’ ability to block efforts using crypto. In a Thursday hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich asked the FBI director if Russia might respond to the economic impact of the United States banning imports of the country’s oil and gas by using reserves of gold, China’s currency or cryptocurrency. Director Wray said the FBI and its partners had “built up significant expertise” on digital assets, citing the department’s recent work in seizing large amounts of tokens as evidence there were vulnerabilities in using crypto to get around sanctions. “The Rus...
Report: Axie Infinity accounted for nearly two-thirds of blockchain-game NFT transactions in 2021
According to a recent report curated by NonFungible, players of the monster-battle nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, game Axie Infinity transacted nearly $3.5 billion worth of NFTs in 2021. This accounts for almost two-thirds of all NFTs transacted in the entire blockchain gaming industry in 2021. In second and third place were sports highlights marketplace NBA Top Shot with $827 million and community gaming platform Loot with $242 million, respectively. Created by Vietnamese video game developer Sky Mavis in 2018, the game contains creatures called “Axies” that players collect and use to complete daily quests, duel other players, etc. Every Axie is an NFT minted on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. Completing tasks with Axies rewards players with Smooth Love Potions (SLPs), which can ...
Ethereum’s ‘consensus layer’ contract hits 10M ETH staked
Quantitative analysis conducted on popular blockchain site Etherscan indicates that 184,441 transactions have been responsible for 10.2 million Ether (ETH) staked into the Eth2 (consensus layer) deposit contract since inception on Nov. 4 last year. This figure is equivalent to over $26 billion, based upon current Ethereum prices. Mathematical calculations suggest that the milestone was surpassed during block 14348729 in the evening of March 8, identified by mainstream cryptocurrency publications and community advocates in the last few hours. In late January of this year, the Ethereum Foundation published an alteration to the network’s terminology, with the initial proof-of-work blockchain, or Eth1, now being referred to as the execution layer, and the upcoming proof-of...
Polygon’s focus on building L2 infrastructure outweighs MATIC’s 50% drop from ATH
After a devastating 50% correction between Dec. 25 and Jan. 25, Polygon (MATIC) has been struggling to sustain the $1.40 support. While some argue this top-15 coin has merely adjusted after a 16,200% gain in 2021, others point to competing scaling solutions growth. MATIC token/USD at FTX. Source: TradingView Either way, MATIC remains 50.8% below its all-time high at an $11 billion market capitalization. Currently, the market cap of Terra (LUNA) stands at $37 billion, Solana (SOL) is above $26 billion and Avalanche (AVAX) is at a $19 billion market value. A positive note is that Polygon raised $450 million on Feb. 7, and the funding round was backed by some of blockchain’s most considerable venture funds, including Sequoia Capital. Polygon offers scaling and infrastructure support to Ethere...
Real Vision’s Raoul Pal insists Bitcoin is correlated with risk in the short term
The macro guru told the community to focus on Bitcoin’s long-term He labelled the current liquidity and behaviour’ noise. Co-founder and CEO of Real Vision Raoul Pal has defined an interesting position on Bitcoin’s market behavior. The crypto investor earlier today posted on his Twitter account telling the community that Bitcoin, just as other assets, remains a risk-on product in the short term. However, unlike a good number of these ‘other’ risk assets, Bitcoin promises an exponential pattern of growth over the long term. Bitcoin’s long-term trend is different from the majority of risk assets The former Goldman Sachs executive asked holders to ignore the current volatility “noise” and instead focus on the overall potential of the digital ass...
What happened Solana, and what is next?
Perhaps no coin symbolises the rollercoaster ride of crypto better than Solana (SOL). It’s been a journey filled with meteoric highs and crushing lows – so let’s dive in to exactly what has happened over the last year, and what the future holds for Solana. Ethereum’s Problems The phrase “Ethereum-killer” gets thrown around a lot in crypto. For the most part, I roll my eyes. Sure, ETH has its fair share of problems. Even amid the recent parabolic rise in oil prices, gas in the real world still looks like a bargain compared to Ethereum. Given the extent of these fees, it has very much become the blockchain of the elites, with transactions completely unfeasible unless in very large amounts. Still cheaper than Ethereum though… Having said that, the network effects and first mover advantage wit...
Stablecoins will remain relevant even with the dawn of the CBDCs era, says Tether CTO
CBDCs will leverage private blockchains for tech infrastructure They, however, won’t be issued on private chains like stablecoins are at present Chief Technology Officer at Tether, Paolo Ardoino, has dismissed concerns that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) will affect the currently offered private stablecoins. Ardoino was speaking in regards to the debate that has been happening in recent months, as more countries are declaring ambitions in CBDCs. CBDCs will power bank activities Explaining his view, Ardoino engaged his Twitter followers with the perspective that CBDCs are not built to digitise fiat currencies since most transactions in the modern day are already digital. Rather, he argued that these government-controlled digital currencies would essentially replace legacy pay...
FTX joins other crypto goliaths to promote autonomy over sensitive information
Centre, an open-source technology project developed by Coinbase and Circle, has onboarded crypto exchange FTX and Alkemi Network as its latest partners to collaborate on Verite. Verite is a set of shared decentralized identity protocols — developed by Centre — to empower crypto-centric individuals and businesses by granting total control of personal information. Supporting Verite’s commitment to collaborate on shared decentralized identity standards, FTX and Alkemi have added to the list of 14 crypto companies, which include Coinbase, Circle, Hedera Hashgraph, Ledger, the Solana Foundation and more. Verite launch partners include @circlepay , @blocks, @Algorand, @coinbase, @compoundfinance, @ConsenSys, Espresso Systems, @hedera, @Ledger, @MMInstitutional, @phantom, @SolanaFndn, @Spru...
