Cryptocurency

Cointelegraph is launching Zero Barriers, a special six-part podcast series in collaboration with StarkWare. The series, which features as part of the Decentralize with Cointelegraph podcast, will explore the evolving world of zero-knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups) and the next steps for the adoption of blockchain technology. Throughout the series, three different hosts from the Cointelegraph team

The United States equity markets have witnessed a solid year so far. The Nasdaq Composite has soared 31.7%, its best first-half performance since 1983. Similarly, the S&P 500 Index’s (SPX) 15.9% gain is its best first half since 2019. This suggests that risky assets remain in demand. In the cryptocurrency markets, Bitcoin (BTC) has led

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that he does not stake all of his Ethereum (ETH) due to multisignature (multisig) wallets being “complicated in a bunch of ways.” On the 29 June episode of the Bankless Podcast, titled Restaking Alignment, Buterin revealed the “biggest reason” why he is only staking a small fraction of his Ethereum,

Polygon Labs, creator of the Polygon (MATIC) network, has proposed an architecture for its forthcoming “Polygon 2.0” project. The team suggested in a June 29 blog post that the new project should be made up of four different ‘layers,’ which will combine to create a web of networks ultimately connected to each other through Ethereum.

Zero-knowledge (ZK) projects continue to spread worldwide, and a new go-to ZK event is coming to Paris, hosted by Manta Network, a ZK layer-1 blockchain; investment firm Polychain Capital and Cointelegraph. The ZK community conference — zkDay Paris — kicks off during EthCC Paris on July 19, from 11:00 am to 8:00 pm Central European Time,

The volume of Ether staked keeps reaching new heights since the Shapella upgrade in April, crossing 23 million Ether locked in June.  According to data from analytics firm Nansen, a total of 23.3 million Ether (ETH) was staked as of June 27, amounting to $43.1 billion at the time of writing and representing nearly 20% of the

Web3 lending platform Maple Finance has announced the launch of a direct lending program, according to a June 28 fact sheet from the platform’s development team. The program is intended to replace services previously provided by Celsius, BlockFi and other now-bankrupt lenders. The first lending pool will be available sometime in July, the company stated.

Ether (ETH) price faced strong resistance at $1,920 after the 17.5% rally between June 15 and June 22. A number of factors contributed to the limited upside, including worsening macroeconomic conditions, the regulatory cryptocurrency environment, and weaker demand for decentralized applications (DApps) on the Ethereum network. ETH price faces macroeconomic headwinds On June 26, a

A Web3 app launched on June 27 lets users prove their social credibility using blockchain technology, according to an announcement from the app’s development team. Called “Quivr,” it lets users connect apps they regularly use, such as Spotify, Steam, Apple Music and others. Based on their behavior in these apps, Quivr generates blockchain badges that

Transactions on the Optimism network surged 67% following its June 7 “Bedrock” upgrade, according to a June 26 Twitter thread from blockchain analytics firm Nansen. The network had been seeing less than 300,000 transactions per day before the upgrade, but this figure increased to over 550,000 by the middle of June. Since Optimism’s Bedrock upgrade

Ethereum zero-knowledge proof scaling system zkSync Era has unveiled its answer to Optimism’s Superchain concept in the form of ZK Stack. It’s a modular framework for a series of ZK-powered custom blockchains called yperchains, which will operate as a new layer on top of the existing layer-2 protocol. The chains will be composable and interoperable,

Bitcoin (BTC) made a new 52-week high on June 23, indicating that bulls are on fire. Buyers have managed to hold onto a large part of the gains made during the week, signaling that they are in no hurry to book profits. Bitcoin climbed 16% this week, outperforming the S&P 500 Index, which fell 1.39%.

Since its inception in 2016, Casa promoted multi-signature self-custody of BTC in the industry with its flagship Bitcoin vault allowing users to store the cryptocurrency using up to five keys for more distributed security. Casa’s service originally catered to Bitcoin ‘whales’ that were willing to spend $10,000 a year on custody, before opening its service

Following the issuer’s decision to temporarily halt mints and redemptions through its banking partner, Prime Trust, a trader has taken advantage of the situation by initiating an on-chain short position on the stablecoin TrueUSD (TUSD). According to on-chain data, an Ethereum user utilized Aave’s V2 lending platform by depositing 7.5 million USDC, a stablecoin, as

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week. The past week in DeFi was filled with artificial intelligence (AI)-centered developments on Etherscan, Polygon’s latest security update and on-chain sleuth ZachXBT’s ongoing lawsuit supported by multiple

Immutable Games’ Web3 trading card game Gods Unchained is now listed on the Epic Games Store and is available to its 230 million customers, according to a June 21 announcement. Gods Unchained is a collectible trading card game similar to Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering Arena but with cards players can own and trade. Each

Starknet, a zero knowledge layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum is one step closer to becoming fully Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible pending an August testnet launch of Kakarot, a new zkEVM. On June 3, the Kakarot team announced it had received new backing from Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin, Ledger co-founder Nicholas Bacca and Starkware. We

Ethereum has been the dominant smart contract and decentralized application (Dapp) network since its inception. An analysis based on Ether’s price (ETH), and its market capitalization, shows indisputable evidence that the blockchain has been gaining market share over time.  Ether market capitalization dominance (%). Source: TradingView As shown above, Ether’s dominance in market capitalization terms

Polygon co-founder Mihailo Bjelic has proposed upgrading the Polygon proof-of-stake (PoS) network to a “zkEVM validium” version, according to a June 20 forum post. If the upgrade is implemented, the new version will rely on zero-knowledge proofs to increase security. HUGE UPDATE ON #Polygon Polygon may go through some huge changes in near future. @MihailoBjelic

Ever since the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) was launched in 2017, Web3 users have been able to replace the long strings of characters that make up a crypto address with a more easily memorized blockchain username or Web3 domain name. For example, Ethereum (ETH) users can now send crypto to the network’s founder, Vitalik Buterin,