DEV Community: Deniz Tutku

Understanding Native Tokens: Benefits and Features of BNB, WBT, and MX

Deniz Tutku — Fri, 16 Aug 2024 08:52:11 +0000

Today, crypto exchanges are one of the key elements of the blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystem. In addition to the function of trading digital assets, they are increasingly introducing their native tokens that provide certain privileges and opportunities for users. This step is an important element of the development strategy of most platforms. In today's article, we will look at what native tokens are and what privileges they provide to their owners.

What are native tokens?

A cryptocurrency exchange's native token is a digital asset created and issued by the platform itself. It can be used in the exchange's ecosystem for various purposes: reducing fees, accessing exclusive features, participating in platform management, investing, etc.

The most popular tokens of centralized exchanges by market capitalization include the following:

Binance Coin (BNB)

BNB is a token of the Binance crypto exchange created based on the Ethereum blockchain technology according to the ERC-20 standard but later moved to its own Binance Chain network. Initially, BNB was designed to be used on the platform to pay transaction fees, but over time, its functionality has expanded. At first, it was used only on Binance, but later it was listed on other exchanges.

The main features of the token include:

Payment of fees on Binance: One of the first and most important features of BNB is the discounts on trading fees on the exchange. BNB holders can save up to 25% on spot and margin trading fees, as well as 10% on futures trading. In addition, VIP users can enjoy an additional 25% discount on top of their VIP discount.
Binance Smart Chain Platform: Binance Coin plays a key role in the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), which is a parallel blockchain to the Binance Chain that supports smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps). BNB is used to pay transaction fees on this platform.
Investing and launching new tokens: Through the Binance Launchpad, users can use BNB to participate in initial token offerings (IEOs). This allows projects to raise capital through Binance and investors to gain access to new cryptocurrencies.
Trading and financial products: The BNB is also used to participate in various financial products and services on Binance, such as staking, lending, etc.
Bonuses and gifts: Users of the exchange can receive bonuses and rewards in the form of BNB, which adds additional value to owning the token.

WhiteBIT Coin (WBT)

WBT is the native token of the WhiteBIT crypto exchange, launched on 14 August 2022. The exchange's offer aroused great interest among cryptocurrency users, and 1 million WBT tokens issued in the first sale were sold out just 15 minutes after the start of trading. Subsequently, a full-fledged listing on WhiteBIT took place, which also proved to be successful. During the first hour of the listing, more than 100,000 users from 80 countries traded WBT tokens, and the number of requests sometimes exceeded 800,000 per minute. However, this event not only caused a stir among users but also demonstrated a steady increase in the value of the asset. Trading started at $1.9, and within a few hours, the price of WBT soared to $5.5.

The main advantages for WBT users:

Advantages of Owning. WBT holders on the main balance receive discounts on trading fees, namely: from 10% to 100% on the maker's commission; and from 5% to 80% on the taker's commission. The percentage of the discount depends on the number of tokens on the balance.
Advantages of Holding. Holding is a function that blocks a selected amount of WBT while providing access to several additional features, such as:

The exchange has a referral program, where each user who uses your referral link and trades on the exchange, receives up to 40% of his or her trading commission. However, this percentage is increased to 50% for WBT owners.
Discount on maker's commission up to 100%
WBT holders in Holding have the opportunity to withdraw ERC20 and ETH tokens for free every day, as well as undergo AML checks
Users with WB Soul are automatically included in the distribution of commissions earned by the exchange, depending on the level of their WB Soul.
Interest bonus of Crypto Lending plans with Tether (USDT). The accrual of the bonus begins from the second level of the Holding, and its percentage increases by the level and duration of the plan.
WBT in the Holding allows the generation of 5 deposit addresses in each network and changes them if necessary.
Those who have at least 200 WBT Holdings get access to the WhiteBIT Launchpad, where users can vote for which projects will join the exchange, as well as the opportunity to be the first to access their assets.

Over these two years, WhiteBIT Coin has made significant progress, which has helped to strengthen the project's position in the market and attract an active community. Starting in autumn 2022, the asset appeared on some other leading crypto exchanges, such as Huobi, MEXC, Gate.io, and Bitfinex. This step was important for the popularisation of WBT and made it accessible to a wider range of users. Later, WhiteBIT held an activity dedicated to the second WBT token split.

It was associated with the magic of the number 13.12 and aimed at users of the WhiteSwap decentralized exchange. To take part in the promotion, users had to buy WBT from the USDT/WBT pool on WhiteSwap and keep the tokens in an external wallet until the end of the promotion. As a result, this initiative not only attracted more users to the platform but also helped to increase demand for the token.

In August 2023, WB Network was launched, which was an important event for WhiteBIT. At the same time, a large-scale retrodrop was held, in which 100,000 WBTs were distributed among 17,500 participants who completed the task. The SoulDrop activity was also launched, where rewards were calculated using a smart contract based on the number of WBT in the holding on WhiteBIT. In February 2024, the WB Network was renamed Whitechain, reflecting WhiteBIT's new approach to ecosystem development and community communication. The company continues to hold various activities with WBT, including a new event to celebrate the token's birthday. This is a game with tasks that users have to complete to earn points.

MX Token (MX)

MX is a native token of the MEXC exchange, launched in 2019. The token operates on the Ethereum blockchain using the ERC-20 standard. It serves as a tool that supports various functions in the MEXC ecosystem, helping to increase liquidity and attract users.

The main benefits for MX users include:

Discounts and privileges: Token holders can take advantage of 0% fees for spot trading as well as for the futures maker.
Access to the Kickstarter Launchpad: Those who hold more than 1000 MX for 30 consecutive days in a spot account, have the opportunity to receive more than 120 free airdrops each month, as well as participate in voting on the platforms.
Referral program: MX holders can earn up to 70% commission on every trade made by their referrals.
Transactions made with MX are anonymous, which protects the identity of users while ensuring the integrity of transactions.
Provides users with the opportunity to participate in DeFi applications and earn passive income through staking and crypto deposits.

Conclusion

Native tokens have become an important element of crypto exchanges, providing users with several privileges, from commission discounts to access to exclusive features. Binance Coin, WhiteBIT Coin, and MX Token not only simplify interaction with exchanges but also promote the active participation of users in the development of the platforms. This approach significantly increases community loyalty and strengthens the position of crypto exchanges in the competitive environment.

Weekly Crypto Updates: New Ledger Wallet, DeepMind AI Hits Silver-medal Standard, MEW Joins WhiteBIT Lending Program

Deniz Tutku — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 15:04:05 +0000

The social network X is under scrutiny by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) after numerous reports emerged that a change to its default settings allowed X users’ data to be used to train the artificial intelligence of Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok. Although the encrypted email service ProtonMail provided X subscribers with instructions on how to disable the default settings, some were still unhappy with the changes. However, this is not what we are going to talk about, but rather the hottest news that has recently taken over the crypto industry.

Ledger Introduces a New Touchscreen Wallet

Following the release of its first touchscreen model, the Ledger Stax, Ledger has introduced a new touchscreen wallet. On 26 July, the company announced the launch of the new device, the Ledger Flex.

“After a decade of setting the standard for security and self-custody in crypto and digital assets, I’m proud to say we’re raising the bar again,” says Pascal Gauthier, Chairman & CEO of Ledger. “By launching both Ledger Flex and Ledger Stax this year, we’re redefining the experience of self-custody. Ledger devices already secure more than 20% of the world’s digital assets, and our new secure touchscreen category will make self-custody more accessible than ever before for more consumers and enterprises.”

The executive claims that the products retain ‘the same uncompromising security’ but have a more intuitive interface. Along with Flex, the company also launched Ledger Security Key. According to Gauthier, their touchscreen devices can log in using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology with a security key. This feature is available in Stax and Flex products and can be used for two-factor authentication (2FA).

“This allows secure, passwordless login to many services using the open FIDO2 standard for passkeys. It can also be used for 2FA.” Gauthier notes.

The company explained that the open Fast IDentity Online (FIDO) 2 specification enables decentralized access across multiple platforms. As a result, users can log in to supported services by tapping their Flex or Stax on their phone or connecting via USB to their PC.

MEW’s Popularity Grows After WhiteBIT Projects Launch

Cat in a Dog’s World (MEW) is expanding its potential beyond the usual meme tokens. The token will become part of a new lending project through a WhiteBIT exchange program. MEW holders can now deposit their meme tokens and receive passive income. The announcement was posted by WhiteBIT in their X. So far, MEW will yield only 1.5% per annum with relatively low risk. All coin holders can invest from 7,000 to 409,000 MEW in a special program with a limited duration.

MEW has also launched a new bounty program on WhiteBIT. It is active until 12 August and requires the creation of a new account and a full KYC procedure. After that, users will be asked to complete several tasks. The final list of winners will be announced after 26 August.

In particular, MEW has recently become the most traded asset on Bithumb, in a pairing with the South Korean won. The coin has surpassed even Bitcoin in terms of daily volumes, based on the trend of cat-themed memes. MEW is one of the few meme coins offered to South Korean traders and is becoming increasingly popular.

Starknet Cooperates with Informal Systems

StarkWare, a leading participant and developer of the Ethereum Starknet second layer network, is integrating the Interblock Communication (IBC) protocol, a key component of the Cosmos ecosystem designed to enable interoperability between independent blockchains. For this integration, it is working with Cosmos member Informal Systems. The latter announced this in a post on the social network X.

Currently, Cosmos and Starknet operate on different code bases. Starknet is a decentralized ZK-Rollup that functions as a second-level network on Ethereum. It uses the STARK proof of work to provide high throughput and low transaction costs while maintaining the security of the underlying network. At the same time, Cosmos is an ecosystem consisting of several networks developed using the Cosmos SDK. They use the Tendermint consensus engine and interact with each other using the IBC protocol.

The integration will allow Starknet to connect to any IBC-compliant network, including all existing ones in the Cosmos ecosystem and beyond that have implemented this feature. StarkWare explained that this partnership with Informal Systems is aimed at achieving greater decentralization and expanding Starknet’s interoperability.

“This partnership aims to achieve two primary goals for Starknet: enhancing decentralization and interoperability, through exploration of the Tendermint consensus algorithm and the IBC protocol,” it said.

JPMorgan Chase Launches AI Tool for Research Analytics Tasks

According to the Financial Times, investment banking giant JPMorgan Chase is launching its version of a ChatGPT-like generative AI product capable of performing the work of a research analyst.

Employees of JPMorgan’s Asset and Wealth Management department have access to the recently launched LLM Suite generative AI tool. It is designed to help with writing texts, generating ideas, solving problems using spreadsheets, summarising documents by accessing third-party models, and other functions.

The Financial Times report also states that LLM Suite is a ‘ChatGPT-like product’ that can work with other internal systems that handle sensitive financial information to improve ‘overall productivity’. Specifically, the banking giant released LLM Suite in early 2024. However, at that time, only 15% (50,000) of its employees had access to the tool.

DeepMind AI Hits Silver-medal Standard in International Mathematical Olympiad

On 25 July, Google DeepMind announced that it had made significant steps in improving the mathematical reasoning capabilities of its artificial intelligence systems. This year, Google DeepMind introduced two AI systems: AlphaProof, which focuses on formal mathematical reasoning, and AlphaGeometry 2, which specializes in solving geometric problems. Both systems solved four out of six problems at this year’s International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), “achieving the same level as a silver medalist in the competition for the first time,” the company said.

Google explained that the Olympiad is widely recognized as “a grand challenge in machine learning and an aspirational benchmark for measuring an AI system’s advanced mathematical reasoning capabilities.”

Mathematics is considered to be the most important criterion for AI development. For example, geometry requires an intuitive and creative approach to problem-solving, as well as sophisticated reasoning skills.

Google has previously experimented with mathematical models of artificial intelligence, creating the AlphaGo system that learned to play the board game Go and defeated the legendary Go player Lee Sedol in 2016.

Now, the researchers have combined AlphaGo’s successor, known as AlphaZero, with pre-trained language models to create AlphaProof. It learns by solving millions of problems translated into a formal programming language called Lean.

The company stated that its AI teams are “continuing to explore multiple AI approaches for advancing mathematical reasoning and plan to release more technical details on AlphaProof soon.”

Crypto News Updates: Skild AI to Build ‘Robot Brains’, Uniswap Browser Extension, Former Tesla Exec New Startup, More

Deniz Tutku — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 07:30:25 +0000

OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, is creating a new artificial intelligence model called Strawberry. It will help AI tools reach the level of human intelligence through extended thinking. Strawberry will efficiently crawl the internet offline and reliably perform what OpenAI calls 'deep research', which will allow it to solve more complex real-world problems at scale. While we are waiting for the new development from OpenAI, other companies have already presented their latest innovations to the market.

Skild AI to Build 'Robot Brains'

Earlier this week, Skild AI, an artificial intelligence company, announced the successful closing of a $300 million Series A funding round with the participation of Jeff Bezos and Softbank. Skild AI is a Carnegie Mellon University startup focused on creating an artificial intelligence system that can be embedded in various machines and robotic devices, the so-called 'general-purpose brain'.

According to the company, the $1.5 billion investment was raised by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Coatue, SoftBank Group, and Jeff Bezos. Felicis Ventures, Sequoia, Amazon, SV Angel, Carnegie Mellon University, and more also participated in the project.

Skild AI is a newcomer to the AI field to develop 'artificial general intelligence' (AGI), joining OpenAI, Anthropic AI, xAI, and countless other organizations working to create human-level AI. According to the blog post, Skild AI's long-term goal is to develop a modular artificial brain that can be upgraded to be used in any enclosure that meets its power and connectivity requirements. So far, there are few details on how this product/service will be developed.

"The large-scale model we are building demonstrates unparalleled generalization and emergent capabilities across robots and tasks, providing significant potential for automation within real-world environments. We believe Skild AI represents a step change in how robotics will be scaled and has the potential to change the entire physical economy." Deepak Pathak, CEO and co-founder of Skild AI, said in a statement.

Tether Hires Chainalysis' Chief Economist

Tether is planning to increase the transparency of the use of stablecoins, and for this purpose, they have hired a new specialist. According to a July 15 publication, Philip Gradwell, former chief economist at Chainalysis, has been appointed head of the company's economics department. He will be responsible for quantifying and informing regulators and stakeholders about the use of Tether USDT.

"Many people still view digital assets as a mystery, partly due to the industry's focus on technology rather than practical use cases," Gradwell said in a statement, adding that his goal at Tether is "to shift this conversation toward understanding how digital assets are used in the real economy, and how USDT is supporting dollar hegemony."

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino commented on Gradwell's appointment, noting that his experience "will enable Tether to bring even further understanding to our indispensable role in supporting the dollar."

European Blockchain Convention to be Held in Barcelona in September

The tenth European Blockchain Convention will take place in Barcelona in September. According to the press release, the event will bring together visionaries, industry leaders, policymakers, developers, and startup executives to discuss ways to shape the future of the industry.

EBC10 aims to cover a wide range of topics, from digital assets to the progressive Web3 ecosystem. In particular, attendees will have the opportunity to learn more about tokenization, decentralized finance (DeFi), industry regulation, data privacy and security, and artificial intelligence.

According to the organizers, the event will be attended by representatives of well-known crypto projects, including experts from Polygon, Kraken, Blockchain.com, The Sandbox, 1inch Network, Animoca Brands, and other companies. In addition, representatives from Hilbert Capital, Algoquant, Bitwise Asset Management, Fabric Ventures, Societe Generale-FORGE, B2C2, and other organizations will present their insights.

"We are thrilled to see such a diverse mix of voices represented at this year's convention. From Web3 innovators to representatives of traditional banks, our mission has always been to create a platform that bridges gaps and fosters meaningful dialogue. The industry moves forward when we engage in hard conversations and challenge our own beliefs" says Victoria Gago, co-founder of EBC.

Such events play a significant role in the popularisation of cryptocurrencies in general. This year has already been full of such large-scale and high-profile events. For example, Paris Blockchain Week, where participants were able to learn more about macro trends and investments in open finance, artificial intelligence, NFT games the meta space, and much more. They also listened to speeches from leading industry experts such as Algorand founder Silvio Micali, Stellar Development Foundation CEO and Executive Director Denell Dixon, and Polygon co-founder Mihailo Bjelic.

So did the global crypto conference TOKEN2049 in Dubai, which brought together founders and CEOs of leading Web3 companies and projects to discuss global developments, opportunities, and ideas for the Web3 space. In addition to a variety of workshops, hackathons, and networking events, TOKEN2049 featured over 200 industry leaders, including Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram, Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, and Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX.

Moreover, WhiteBIT CUP 2024 was recently held in Barcelona, bringing together WhiteBIT partners, influential industry representatives, VIP clients, and crypto enthusiasts. The participants of the event had the opportunity to talk to the famous FC Barcelona footballer Juliano Belletti, as well as to ride the club bus and try on a special personalized uniform.

Uniswap Labs Presents Browser Extension with Support for 11 Blockchains

After over half a year of waiting, Uniswap Labs has opened public access to its wallet browser extension on Google Chrome. The tool was first announced in February, and more than 793,000 users joined the waiting list.

From now on, users can add the extension to their browser via the Google Chrome Web Store and then create a new Uniswap wallet or import an existing one. The solution works with the Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, Blast, ZKsync, Zora Network, BNB Chain, Avalanche, and Celo blockchain networks.

"The Uniswap Extension lives in your browser's sidebar, staying with you no matter where you are on the web. No more pop-ups or easy-to-lose transaction windows. Swap, sign transactions, and send or receive crypto right from the sidebar," Uniswap Labs wrote in a release.

Former Tesla, OpenAI Exec Founds Educational Startup Eureka Labs

According to a post on social media platform X, Andrej Karpathy, head of AI at Tesla and co-founder of OpenAI, is launching Eureka Labs, a startup aimed at creating a new type of school using artificial intelligence.

Eureka will create virtual assistants powered by generative AI to provide access to the best courses for more students without sacrificing the personalized interaction of face-to-face learning. The startup's ultimate goal is to provide access to elite teachers and courses for students around the world, regardless of geographical and language barriers.

"Unfortunately, subject matter experts who are deeply passionate, great at teaching, infinitely patient, and fluent in all of the world's languages are also very scarce and cannot personally tutor all 8 billion of us on demand. However, with recent progress in generative AI, this learning experience feels tractable.", Karpathy said.

Eureka's first project will be an undergraduate course in artificial intelligence called LLM101n. Students will learn with the help of artificial intelligence, similar to a teaching assistant. The materials will be available online, but will also include digital and physical cohorts, allowing participants to take the course in small groups.

"The teacher still designs the course materials, but they are supported, leveraged, and scaled with an AI Teaching Assistant who is optimized to help guide the students through them," Karpathy explained.

The Role of Blockchain in Liquidity Matching: Insights from Zama CAO

Deniz Tutku — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 16:40:01 +0000

Over the past years, blockchain technology has attracted considerable attention as a promising mechanism for security and optimization. Technology is expanding its potential not only in finance but also in education, medicine, logistics, etc. Its main advantages — decentralization, security, and reliability — make blockchain a valuable tool for changing the way things are done and improving the efficiency of data management and exchange. Central banks around the world have recently been actively considering the possibility of implementing blockchain technology in their work. The recent example of the European Central Bank (ECB) only confirms this.

ECB explores blockchain technology

A few years ago, the ECB engaged a research team from the University of Leuven to independently study the possibility of liquidity smoothing. And it recently completed a blockchain experiment for its central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital euro. Speaking at the FHE Summit 2024 on 10 July, Zama CAO Nigel Smart told the audience that the academic team at KU Leuven has been working with the ECB on a test project. *The experiment was conducted independently with no further input or contacts by the ECB, and no direct involvement from Zama.

“We did one with the European Central Bank on liquidity matching. […] And several applications on CBDCs have been actually to remove the central bank out of the equation and replace it with a blockchain,” he notes.

Liquidity matching refers to the process of matching financial inflows and outflows of assets to avoid the risk of not having enough funds to meet financial obligations. However, according to Smart, liquidity matching remains a challenge for many parties transacting on the same blockchain network.

He explained: “Then the issue is if you have multiple entities on the blockchain, and it’s all encrypted stuff, how do you do liquidity matching? That’s a really big issue.”

For this reason, Nigel Smart is building solutions with fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) for blockchain and artificial intelligence. FHE-based encryption allows you to perform calculations on encoded data without disclosing it. In early March, Zama raised $73 million in a Series A funding round to further develop its FHE stack and provide developers with more tools to create data protection solutions.

How is Blockchain Transforming Various Industries?

Blockchain technologies have found their application in various industries. One of its key advantages is its decentralized structure. In traditional centralized systems, data is stored on a single server or in a limited number of locations, which makes it vulnerable to attacks and manipulation. Blockchain, on the other hand, distributes data among numerous network nodes. This means that each network participant has a copy of the entire blockchain, which makes it impossible to change the data without authorization.

Another significant advantage of blockchain is security. Each block in the chain contains a unique cryptographic signature that links it to the previous block. Therefore, it is virtually impossible to change information in one block without changing all the previous blocks, which requires huge computing resources.

Finance is a particularly common area of technology use. In addition to central banks using the technology in their work, it also facilitates fast and secure transactions. While traditional banking transactions can take several days and require high fees, blockchain allows them to be completed almost instantly and at minimal cost. Today, crypto payments are becoming increasingly popular around the world. Perhaps a few years ago, making a payment in cryptocurrency was something extremely complicated, but now there are a huge number of platforms that greatly simplify this process. These include GEO Pay, Whitepay, CryptoPay, and many others.

The technology has also found its application in the education sector. Blockchain has great potential to make education more accessible, transparent, and efficient. It allows students to store and control access to their data. Traditional systems are often subject to cyberattacks and data leaks, while blockchain offers decentralized storage that is much harder to hack.

Today, a large number of universities around the world are integrating this technology into their educational processes, such as the University of Nicosia, the University of Cambridge, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and others.

They offer blockchain education programs and teach how to program smart contracts and create new products and services based on the technology. In particular, the Ukrainian University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy has recently completed a blockchain certificate program for master’s students of the Faculty of Informatics, developed in cooperation with WhiteBIT.

The graduates received their degrees in the form of tokenized certificates on the Whitechain blockchain. These certificates confirm the authenticity of traditional documents and make it impossible to transfer or falsify educational documents. One of the main problems in modern education is the verification of diplomas and certificates. Traditional methods can be falsified or lost, which creates difficulties for students and employers. Blockchain can ensure the integrity and transparency of these documents.

The healthcare industry is also on the verge of a significant transformation, prompting the adoption of blockchain to secure, share, and manage medical records. Medicalchain is an example of a blockchain application in healthcare. Its use allows for the creation of a unified, secure record of medical information that can be accurately and efficiently managed by various medical institutions. By ensuring the secure exchange of medical data, Medicalchain ensures that healthcare professionals have timely access to vital patient data.

Conclusion

Blockchain has the potential to transform various industries by providing greater transparency, security, and efficiency. From financial services to healthcare and energy, this technology opens up new opportunities for innovation and process improvement.

Crypto News: Aptos Keyless Wallet, SingularityNET and Filecoin Partnership, Unauthorised Transactions on Binance

Deniz Tutku — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 08:32:06 +0000

Luma AI Dream Machine, a new development that turns still memes into videos, has become a huge trend. Since its release, users from all over the world have flooded social platforms with their Luma-generated creations. The development has also found its way into the crypto community, and the social network X has been flooded with numerous videos of users with crypto memes. And while crypto users are trying out the new technology, the industry continues to be filled with other major events and integrations.

Aptos Introduces a Keyless Wallet

On 3 July, Aptos Blockchain launched a web-based keyless wallet application that uses ZK Proofs to verify users. The wallet itself is called Aptos Connect. According to the company, Aptos Connect simplifies registration with Web3 by allowing users to create and manage blockchain accounts using their Google login credentials. This approach eliminates the need for private keys, seed phrases, hardware security modules, or multi-party computing networks, which have long been the main elements of crypto wallets.
To log in to the wallet, users need to click the “Continue with Google” button and select an account, which will allow them to work seamlessly with decentralized applications.

In addition, the wallet combines the integration of the OpenID Connect (OIDC) standard with zero-knowledge-proof technology. In turn, this allows Aptos Connect to securely link social logins to blockchain accounts while maintaining user privacy. The use of ZK proof ensures that neither the identity of the user nor the login provider is revealed in the blockchain data, preventing a specific Google ID from being linked to any Aptos account.

Scammers Impersonating Coinbase Stole Millions of Dollars

A few days ago, several Coinbase users and one crypto investor reported that they had become victims of fraudsters posing as exchange employees. One of them claims that he was swindled out of $1.7 million after being manipulated into revealing part of his seed phrase.

The victim said that the scammer called, claiming to be from Coinbase security, and emailed him purporting to be from the company, confirming that he was “speaking to a Coinbase official”. He then claimed that the victim’s wallet was “connected directly to the blockchain”, which would lead to a withdrawal of funds from the wallet. Afterward, the fraudster sent another email purporting to be from Coinbase, showing the outgoing transaction.

He redirected the victim to a website where they had to enter a passphrase to stop the transactions. The user knew it was “unsafe” but entered “part” of the phrase anyway, although he did not submit it. A few hours later, $1.7 million was taken from their wallet.

Alex Miller, CEO of Hiro Systems, wrote that such websites “are capturing data as you enter it.” without even sending it, and if the victim partially revealed their initial phrase, it was enough for “the bad guys to brute force the rest.”

According to Miller, he was also recently contacted by a fraudster claiming to be from Coinbase who used a similar scheme. He believes that his data may have been leaked in 2022 from the email service provider CoinTracker’s database.

“Specifically, they were using the Coinbase API key connecting to CoinTracker to verify that they were me (in addition to other info). At the very least, cycle your API keys if you have been using CoinTracker,” Miller advised.

Bitget Wallet Announces an MPC Solution for TON Mainnet

Bitget Wallet has announced the launch of a multi-party computing wallet (MPC) linked to Telegram and the TON blockchain. MPCs are non-custodial solutions that use public-key cryptography to jointly sign transactions. Typically, for each private wallet, there is a single owner who holds and protects the private keys needed to make transactions.

However, MPCs are designed to be shared by multiple users by “splitting” the private key into several parts: each of them has a share of this resource, sufficient to ensure cryptographic participation in the blockchain.

With this approach, there is no need to disclose the full key across devices, increasing security in a shared digital environment. When a transaction requires a signature, the wallet’s co-owners collaborate to create one without completely reconstructing the private key, ensuring that assets remain secure throughout the process.

The Bitget team has already presented MPC technology in October last year when it launched its non-custodial shared wallet. Bitget Wallet has expanded its MPC solution to include support for the TON and Solana networks. The update complements the existing support for Bitcoin and various blockchains on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

TON supports a wide range of decentralized applications (dApps) in areas such as DeFi, data storage, tokenization, etc. Toncoin is a native blockchain token that is currently quite popular, originally developed by Telegram but is now being developed by the global community. Investors and developers are actively involved in the project. Today, the token is available for trading on many cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Bybit, OKX, WhiteBIT, etc. In addition, the latter recently announced the possibility of depositing and withdrawing USDT on the TON network.

Nigeria’s Central Bank Reports Unauthorised Transactions on Binance

The crypto exchange Binance has been facing regulatory problems in Nigeria for a long time. On July 5, an official of the Central Bank of Nigeria reportedly testified in court that Binance does not have the necessary licenses and regulatory approvals. Specifically, Olubukola Akinwunmi, the head of the CBN’s Payment Policy and Regulation Department, testified to the judge, arguing that deposit and withdrawal operations on the exchange should be reserved for banks and authorized financial institutions.

The Nigerian government has accused the exchange and its executives, Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla, of conspiring to conceal the origin of $35.4 million in financial proceeds from illegal activities in the country.

Akinwunmi said that on the Binance, Nigerians were misled into using the platform to conduct transactions in naira using a payment link. The platform offers free deposits and withdrawals with fixed fees, activities that are regulated by the CBN and reserved for licensed banks and financial institutions. Akinwunmi also alleged that Binance facilitated currency conversion from naira to US dollars without prior CBN approval.

The key issue that is the subject of the conflict remains the process of peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions on Binance. Akinwunmi detailed how users can transfer naira to each other’s bank accounts and confirm the transaction on the platform, prompting Binance to issue a cryptocurrency or fiat. He argued that this service is a regulated activity for which Binance does not have a permit.

Cooperation Between SingularityNET and Filecoin

SingularityNET, the developer of the AI platform, and Filecoin, the company that manages the Filecoin network, have announced the start of cooperation. The partnership aims to integrate the fields of artificial intelligence and DePIN while preserving decentralization, AI ethics, and data provenance.

According to the official press release provided by Cointelegraph, the cooperation will include the creation of an AI ethics working group to ensure compliance with ethical standards in the development and implementation of artificial intelligence.

Ben Goertzel, CEO of SingularityNET and co-founder of the Artificial Intelligence Alliance, said: “AI ethics has many aspects, including minimizing unhealthy biases in AI models, directing the use of AI toward beneficial applications, minimizing odds of adverse outcomes from breakthroughs to superintelligence and others.”

The cooperation has several goals, depending on the timeframe:

In the short term, the use of the SingularityNET Lighthouse SDK Filecoin for storing metadata.
In the medium term, the integration of the Filecoin technology stack into SingularityNET to improve security and support the storage infrastructure for data generated by artificial intelligence.
In the long term, the use of Filecoin to manage Knowledge Graphs is an important element of SingularityNET’s initiative to create a “Knowledge Layer”.

Goertzel also confirmed that the new solutions will use the tokens of Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI) and Filecoin (FIL).

Weekend News Recap: New Pixels Games, Animoca Partnership with Futureverse, CoinStats Hack was Caused by Employee

Deniz Tutku — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 08:19:49 +0000

The number of hacker attacks on celebrity accounts continues to grow. In recent weeks, a significant number of famous people have fallen victim to fraudsters on social network X. This week was no exception, with American actress Sydney Sweeney joining the list. And while X is fighting against such frauds, the crypto industry has been enriched by innovations and partnerships this week.

Animoca Brands to Partner with Futureverse

Venture capital company Animoca Brands has announced cooperation with artificial intelligence developer Futureverse. Animoca plans to add Futureverse's AI technology to its investment portfolio of more than 400 Web3 projects, including the metaverse of The Sandbox game. In addition, they will also use The Readyverse search platform to improve their interaction with the Mocaverse network.

Aaron McDonald, co-founder of Futureverse, says: "Animoca Brands is the clear market leader in web3 game publishing, and its expertise and reach in growing this ecosystem is unparalleled. We are excited to deepen our strategic ties with and bring our world-leading AI, web3 gaming technology, and A-list IP to help supercharge its portfolio,"

The Futureverse platform contains artificial intelligence and metaverse tools aimed at combining web2 and web3 technologies to improve the user experience. These include services such as a digital passport, the creation of compatible NFTs and game assets, an engine enabling developers to compose and decompose NFTs from one another, and more.

"With Futureverse's sophisticated L1 blockchain, The Root Network, and its suite of AI-driven tools, we see significant potential to accelerate the growth of our ecosystem," commented Animoca Brands executive chairman and co-founder Yat Siu.

Pixels Creators Are Working on New Games

Pixels is a Web3 social gaming platform on the Ronin network that combines farming, exploration, and community building in an open universe. The game has become one of the most popular cryptocurrencies of the year thanks to its migration to the Ethereum Ronin gaming network in late 2023 and the launch of its tokens in February.

In a recent interview with Decrypt, founder Luke Barwikowski said that the studio is currently working on new games in the Pixels universe. He also added that they are joining forces with third-party developers to consider expanding the franchise.

Barwikowski noted that his in-house team sets the direction for these games and then outsources them to third-party studios for development. He also noted that his team adds elements of blockchain and user engagement before releasing them to the world. Among other things, the Pixels founder announced the possible launch of the game on Telegram.

"We're looking at maybe kicking off another one on Telegram. That's maybe some alpha - but that's like a side experiment. Telegram's an interesting ecosystem… we might dip our toes there." he said.

Crypto Industry Lost $572.7m to Hacks in Q2

The second quarter of 2024 recorded a loss of cryptocurrency totaling $572.7 million due to 72 incidents caused by hacking and fraud. According to the latest report by Web3 platform Immunefi, the figure is up 70.3% from the $336.3 million lost in the first quarter and 112% from the second quarter of 2023, during which $265.5 million was stolen.

Since the beginning of the year, more than $900 million has been lost, which is 24% more than in the same period last year. The report notes that fraudsters have also changed their target. While in the first quarter, DeFi platforms were the main target of attackers, the situation changed in the second quarter. Centralized finance (CeFi) platforms suffered the most attacks in the second quarter, accounting for 70% ($401.4 million) of the losses. At the same time, decentralized financial platforms (DeFi) accounted for 30% ($171.3 million) of the losses in the quarter.

Mitchell Amador, founder and CEO of Immunefi, emphasized the severity of infrastructure compromises, stating, "This quarter highlights how infrastructure compromises can be the most devastating hacks in crypto, as a single compromise can lead to millions in damages."

BingX Takes Partnership with Chelsea Football Club to the Next Level

Cryptocurrency exchange BingX has announced the expansion of its partnership with Chelsea Football Club. Starting from the 2024/25 Premier League season, the exchange will move from being a "sleeve partner" to an official "training kit partner" of the Chelsea men's team.

The BingX logo will be featured on the front of the training kit worn by the men's team players and coaching staff during all training sessions, marking a closer and more visible collaboration between the two organizations.

Vivien Lin, Chief Product Officer of BingX, expressed her enthusiasm for the evolved partnership: "We are excited to take our collaboration with Chelsea to the next level as the Official Training Wear Partner of the Men's team. This partnership is a testament to our shared commitment to the unremitting pursuit of excellence and innovation. We look forward to empowering our users and fans with unique experiences and opportunities, building a future that's smarter and bolder."

In recent years, sports and financial technologies have become increasingly intertwined, creating new opportunities for interaction. Cryptocurrency exchanges are actively involved in sponsoring sports teams, which not only promotes the popularisation of cryptocurrencies but also provides additional resources for the development of sports.
For example, the cooperation between Crypto.com and Formula 1. Their agreement allowed the exchange to become an integral part of the Formula 1 event, and the company's brand was included in the official name and logo of the world-famous event.

The other one is OKX, which has been the official partner of Manchester City Football Club since 2022. In particular, as part of their collaboration, they recently released a limited edition T-shirt collection dedicated to rare NFTs. In addition, OKX has also partnered with the McLaren Racing Formula 1 team, securing space for its emblem on their sports cars in the 2024 Formula 1 season.

Another example is WhiteBIT. Since 2022, they have been the official partner of FC Barcelona as well as their professional football research center, the Barça Innovation Hub. As part of the agreement, they released an online course "Game-Changing Tech: Mastering Blockchain", which aims to develop an understanding of blockchain technology and explore its practical applications in everyday life.

CoinStats Hack was Caused by Employee's "Social Engineering"

On 22 June, the popular crypto platform CoinStats temporarily suspended operations after detecting an active attack on its wallets. Despite a quick and effective response, hackers gained access to 1.3% of all CoinStats wallets, resulting in a loss of $2 million.

A few days later, Coinstats CEO Narek Gevorgyan released the results of an internal investigation, noting: "Our AWS infrastructure was hacked, with strong evidence suggesting it was done through one of our employees, who was socially engineered into downloading malicious software onto his work computer."

Social engineering is a fairly common tactic used by hackers to manipulate, influence, or deceive a victim to gain control of a computer system. Although Gevorgyan's statement does not contain a direct promise of compensation to all victims, the company plans to provide a detailed action plan after thoroughly analyzing the situation.

"I empathize with those who lost money; I'm sure their situation is just as difficult. CoinStats will definitely support the victims of the hack, and we've been discussing options internally," he commented.

Exclusive Interview With John Lilic: His Path to Web3, the Evolution of Blockchain, And the Value of Partnerships

Deniz Tutku — Sun, 30 Jun 2024 07:38:06 +0000

In recent decades, technological innovations have changed the way we think about finance, networking, and personal security. Among the most impressive achievements of this time are the development of blockchain technology and Web3. What started as a cryptocurrency concept quickly grew into a profound transformation of various areas of the economy and social life.

To delve deeper into this rapidly evolving landscape, I asked John Lilic to share his perspective on the evolution of blockchain technology and Web3. Exclusive insights from the Executive Director of Telos, a key contributor of ConsenSys and Polygon, and one of Web3’s top 150 angel investors.

Q: Can you walk us through your journey from being involved with the NYC Bitcoin Center to becoming a key member at ConsenSys and Polygon? What were the pivotal moments in your career that shaped your focus on blockchain and Web3 technologies?

I found out about the Bitcoin center sometime in late 2013. At this point, I had already moved to New York, mostly because, at that time, the only robust community where there were BitDev meetups was New York. I mean, there were some meetups in Amsterdam and San Francisco, but New York was having lots and lots of BitDev meetups.

So I went and met a guy named Nick Spanos. He was one of the biggest commercial real estate brokers in New York; he used to own a real estate agency called Bapple. He was an early Bitcoin guy and was also involved with the Ron Paul campaign. So I met a lot of these libertarian guys early on because of Bitcoin. They found out about Bitcoin through this newsletter circulating, which was called Run to Gold, advocating the benefits of gold relative to the fiat monetary and fractional reserve monetary systems.

So he rented a place, a massive venue right next to the New York Stock Exchange on 40 Broad Street, and I volunteered there. I spent all of 2014 as a volunteer at the Bitcoin Center. It was an educational center. We used to just do open, peer-to-peer trading on the street there, right on Wall Street. There was a bunch of media coverage later. Morgan Spurlock did a big, basically hour-long feature that was on CNN.

Nathaniel Popper, the New York Times writer, was there all the time. He wrote his early book, his first Bitcoin book, basically by coming to the Bitcoin Center and meeting everybody. Later, Chris Canuzziari created a film called Banking on Bitcoin, which went on Netflix. I’m actually in that film. So it was just a focal point for Bitcoin at that time, and I was fortunate enough to be volunteering there. Of course, we were doing meetups every week, multiple days a week, and so early Bitcoin and crypto pioneers would come: Bryan Armstrong, Jesse Powell, and the CEO of Kraken.

That’s where I met Joe Lubin and heard about Ethereum. He told me he was starting this thing called ConsenSys. The first employee of ConsenSys is a young lady named Ashley Taylor. So that’s where I met Joe and Ashley, and I started working for ConsenSys in early 2015. Although, I was following Ethereum throughout the middle part onward of 2014. So I spent six years intensely working at ConsenSys from 2015 until the end of 2020.

While I was at ConsenSys, I was doing a bunch of things, I helped build our enterprise business. So basically, ConsenSys in October 2015 signed a global partnership with Microsoft. We helped develop the enterprise Ethereum Alliance with all the big Fortune 500s who joined. We formed partnerships with big corporates around the world, including RWE, the largest utility in Germany. I helped develop a bunch of projects. I did biz dev for many years and fundraising as well. And, by, let’s say, 2016-17, I was doing lots of research on L2.

I found a guy on Twitter, this guy named Mihailo, who at the time had a few hundred followers. He was like this obscure kind of, I mean, a little bit weird, but super cool guy. And he was talking about scaling Ethereum with a Swiss army knife solution. In other words, multiple scaling solutions in one network. His original concept was called NETH. He was living in Belgrade, Serbia, so I would go to Belgrade in 2016–2019.

He was doing a lot of research, I was hanging out with him. He became like one of my best friends. He was going to take NETH forward on his own, and I pitched it to ConsenSys, but our VC decision-makers decided to pass on it. So I left at the end of 2020. At that point, Mihailo had gotten with the MATIC guys, a couple of Indian guys who launched a POS Plasma side chain in 2017.

And together, alongside a few other kinds of well-known Ethereum people—a guy named Hudson, Pete Kim, the guy who built the Coinbase wallet, RSA, the bankless guy, and later Mark Cuban, myself—we became kind of the face or the advisors of Polygon. We rebranded, and then the whole thing kind of exploded in 2021. So that’s kind of the story of Bitcoin Center, ConsenSys, and Polygon.

In terms of pivotal moments, there’ve been lots of them, I would say. But definitely, let’s say, from 2010 to 2012, I was doing lots of e-commerce. I was doing all sorts of different e-commerce things, like buying domain names and doing search engine optimization. I had a payment system on my website, so I could accept credit card payments. I would take orders for various items before Amazon sort of ate the world.

Then I would plug into the manufacturers, who would drop-ship directly, and I would earn a small commission. Well, one day, the bank shut me down. They closed my merchant services account and frozen my bank account, froze my money for nine months. They said, We know you’re not doing anything illegal, but you’re hurting our reputation. At the time, I was with a big bank in the UK, very famous for laundering tens of billions of dollars of Mexican drug cartel money. It was an unbelievable moment towards the end of 2012.

But actually, it wasn’t so funny because my money was frozen. My business died. I didn’t have any money, literally none for nine months. I had to get my dad to Western Union money just so I could buy groceries. And I thought having a bank account was like a human right or something. But that’s where I learned it’s not, and how fragile the whole thing is. So in some weird way, I got canceled. But it was at the time the worst thing I couldn’t even do.

I was so stressed out, but it turned out to be a great blessing because it forced me to look for alternatives. I quickly realized PayPal is not an alternative. And I discovered Bitcoin sort of in the early part of 2013. I got obsessed with it and that was kind of like a pivotal moment.

Q: With your experience as an early member of ConsenSys and an early adopter of Polygon, how have you seen the blockchain and Web3 space evolve over the years? What excites you most about its current trajectory?

I would say the biggest thing is in terms of how I’ve seen the space evolve—just the level of competition. It’s tremendous. In the very early days, there weren’t many of us, and some great people were working very hard and being very talented, but it wasn’t anything like today. So the level of competition, the intensity, the pace at which innovation happens—just everything’s happening so much faster. We now have quantum physicists who are in our space, for example. So the level of competition has increased significantly, and the pace of evolution and development has increased dramatically. So those are two of the main, I would say, changes.

What excites me about that trajectory is just going into the future; obviously, we’re approaching quantum, we’ve got AI, and we’ve got a convergence of lots of tremendous technologies. So I think everything is going to get way more weird and exciting, and I’m very curious to see how it all sort of develops.

Q: You are one of Web3’s top 150 angel investors, what criteria do you typically look for when considering investment opportunities in blockchain projects? How do you identify potential winners in a rapidly evolving ecosystem?

I always say that my investment thesis, my entire strategy, is to be stupid and be lucky. So that’s kind of like what I do. I’m stupid, and I’m lucky. Stupid in the sense that you don’t want to like mid-wit, a lot of things. In other words, when you meet really smart people who have a great work ethic, you should invest in them. It’s very simple.

And maybe what they’re doing doesn’t work out, but you should still invest in those people. And so it’s less about the project and more about the people, for me. I think as long as I stick to that recipe, eventually, I’m gonna get lucky. And that’s pretty much my entire strategy.

Q: You advocate Zero Knowledge (ZK) technology. Could you tell us why ZK technology is considered the future of blockchain? What specific achievements or opportunities do you think it allows you to realize on a scale that is not available to traditional blockchain systems?

I think ZK is part of the future of blockchain because you sort of think about AI, and you think about AI and blockchain. So intelligent systems are going on chain, sort of like doing all kinds of things, competing and out-competing. I mean, you can imagine, when we get to a certain point, that all financial institutions will be offloading decision-making as far as how they go in the markets and compete with these two super-intelligent systems. And those systems will necessarily demand fully provable infrastructure. Fully provable is important because it’s one of the things that ZK can kind of enable.

There’s the scalability side of things and sort of data protection, but also makes it very hard or essentially impossible for others to improperly manipulate the system and/or make claims that are not true, against which you assume risk. Where, in fact, with a fully provable infrastructure, it’s very, very hard to do that. So I think once you sort of see that, it’s very hard to unsee it. So fully provable infrastructure is something that I think AI will necessarily demand. And that’s kind of why I think ZK is the future of blockchain.

Q: SNARK Proving ASICs are a relatively niche topic. Could you explain what they are and how they will contribute to the evolution of zero-knowledge technology? What advantages do ASICs bring to SNARK Proving that traditional computing methods cannot?

Concerning SNARK Proving ASICs, I mean, I think we have a ways to go. There’s going to be an FPGA interim step, in other words, programmable chips. But basically, you look at Ethereum right now in its current state, and it’s quite a poor ZK execution environment for a lot of reasons. Likewise, you look at some of the competing monsters that are coming, like Aleo, Monad, and others. These are purpose-built ZK systems that sort of happen to be blockchains rather than a blockchain that was created 10+ years ago where a ZK ecosystem has since emerged. Taking a hardware/software co-design approach from the start is very critical, very important so that you can accelerate effectively. Eventually, the dream is to get to a system-on-chip design, where the entire ZK system is on a board.

So, the proving is done by the ASICs. It’s done in a hyper-efficient way at a low cost. In doing so, you can achieve some of these performance characteristics, which are going to be necessary for the user to have a good experience. I think in particular proving, and doing proofs are hard and they’re very expensive. They require a lot of computing. The extent to which you end up with software, hardware that’s specialized in this direction, and the extent to which you then optimize software in a code as a hardware-software co-design approach I think is the way to get to a place where you can do ZK proofs efficiently, quickly, and cheaply. So that the user experience is fast, low cost, and not cumbersome and expensive like what we have today.

Q: Web3 is developing very rapidly, and projects such as Solidity, WB Soul, Web3.js, etc. are becoming more and more popular. How do you see the future of Web3, and what potential opportunities or obstacles do you foresee for developers in this area? And what projects do you think are worth paying attention to?

I think the single biggest, why I love Solidity, I think it’s great. The vast majority of developers on the planet don’t use Solidity. And so the extent to which VMs can go in a direction where you can program in any language, I think, is very exciting. I think that’s sort of the future and it seems inevitable. Solidity also has limits. I mean, you can reach the limits of solidity pretty quickly. We did so at ConsenSys even in 2015, and 2016, trying to experiment with some stuff.

So I think as the community moves forward, and I’m not just talking about Ethereum, I’m talking about Web3 in general. As we try to onboard the rest of the world and all the rest of the developers in the world, we have to be mindful that the vast majority of them don’t use Solidity. So, how can we make virtual machines in such a way that other programming languages that developers are using can be utilized as well? I would say that’s probably the biggest area that I’m paying attention to.

Q: You collaborate with such large corporations as Google, Github, and PwC. Could you tell us how successful such partnerships are in promoting projects? And how does it affect community engagement?

Collaborating with large corporations is interesting on the one hand. I mean, the ones you mentioned—that’s in the context of partnering with my nonprofit. And so in that context, they’ve all been very, very helpful. We built the first coding school in Afghanistan for girls. It’s been about 10 years now. We put hundreds of them through the program. We’ve employed many of them. And so the large corporations have contributed donations—cash donations, donations in kind—and also employed some of the girls who qualify. So they’ve been nothing short of spectacular. And we hope to continue working with them.

Q: What were some of the key lessons or experiences you gained from being an early member of ConsenSys and an adopter of Polygon? How have these experiences influenced your current work with the Telos Foundation?

Being an early member of ConsenSys and Polygon there’s this tendency towards bloating the organization. People feel good once they’re successful, once there’s some validation. And the first kind of instinct is to hire tremendous amounts of people. At ConsenSys, we went from 60–80 people, maybe, to 1,800 people in like, I don’t know, a year and a half. And I think that was a big mistake. So growing too fast and adding more people doesn’t necessarily add better results. Lots of the innovation that happened was just small, two- or three-person teams. So I think fighting and resisting that tendency, I won’t.

I love Polygon very much. I think it’s a great project, but they also hired a tremendous amount of people. They hired a huge number of people at Polygon Labs and have publicly been winding that down. I mean, that’s public information. I think, resisting the urge to hire a tremendous amount of people when you don’t have to isn’t to say you shouldn’t hire. You should hire, but you should also be smart. You should also take into account that maybe less is more sometimes. And you should be hiring proportionate to your growth and what your organization needs. I think that’s the biggest lesson.

Q: You’ve met with industry influencers like Joseph Lubin and Ashley Taylor. Are there any current leaders in the field of new technologies that you regularly follow or are inspired by?

The guy I’m inspired by the most right now is Alberto Garoffolo, the ZK lead at Telos. He’s the guy who developed Snartor. The wonderful, very smart guy works tremendously hard, super easy to get along with, and he’s just wonderful. He’s got a partner in crime, a guy named Daniel Di Tullio. A mathematician, very humble, super nice. And then the guys at Pono’s Technologies. So Slobodan, the CEO, Milos, the CTO, a few of these other guys. Very, very smart. I mean, they’re all PhDs. They work hard and they’re very humble. And those are my heroes these days.

Q: Looking back at your career so far, what achievements are you most proud of, and what do you hope to accomplish in the future within the blockchain and technology sectors?

I guess the thing I’m very proud of, is the work we did at ConsenSys early on. It started with a few of us in a small co-working space. And of course, Ethereum was just a baby. Today, it’s a global network. I’m very, very proud of the kind of growth we’ve been able to accelerate.

Likewise, at Polygon, very proud of Mihailo. I saw him working just day and night. He was like a broke student. All he did was research for years, and he stayed with it. He didn’t like to deviate and chase ICOmania and all these other things. No, no, he just stuck to it, and eventually it paid off. And I think his determination is very inspiring for me. So he’s somebody that I’m very proud to have worked with and helped enable to some extent. But really, he helped enable me.

And then, of course, the nonprofit Code to Inspire. I’m very proud. We’re 10+ years into it. We’ve been grinding through, we’ve put 700 students through the program, and we’re gonna continue working there. I’m very proud of Fereshteh. She’s the founder. I’m her co-founder, but it’s her project that I’m just supporting. And yeah, she’s somebody I’m very, very proud of in that organization. I hope we’ll continue for many more decades.

Weekly Crypto News: Strike Enters UK, 50 Cent In Da Club of Hacker Victims, Solana’s New Feature

Deniz Tutku — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 10:26:56 +0000

In the crypto industry, every day brings new challenges, achievements, and interesting news. From illegal schemes using celebrity names to initiatives that promise to revolutionize the way we interact with cryptocurrencies. What more exciting things are in store for us in the world of crypto innovation?

50 Cent In Da Club of Hacked Celebrity Accounts

Recently, the number of hacker attacks on celebrity accounts on the social network X has increased. Attackers use their profiles to promote fraudulent celebrity meme coins. In particular, the famous rapper Curtis James Jackson III, better known as "50 Cent," recently became a victim.

The fraudsters created a new crypto token called "GUNIT" and used the rapper's account to attract more investors. They used the so-called "pump and dump" scheme. This means that fraudsters usually spread false or misleading information to create a rush of demand that "pumps" the price of a stock and then "dumps" it by selling their shares at an inflated price.

On June 21, Jackson posted on his Instagram that his X account and website had been hacked, and a significant amount of victims' money had been withdrawn through a fraudulent project.

"Twitter worked quickly to lock my account back down. Whoever did this made $300,000,000 in 30 minutes," Jackson said, adding that he has nothing to do with this cryptocurrency.

The rapper posted three images showing posts by other members of the crypto community discussing the GUNIT. The graphs show a sharp price spike followed by a rapid drop. DexScreen's data indicates that several wallet addresses are selling significant volumes of tokens. Four accounts sold more than $100,000 worth of meme coins after they were advertised on rapper X's account.

Deepfakes with Elon Musk are Booming

In addition to the problem with hacker attacks on celebrity accounts on X, the number of deepfakes with the network's owner Elon Musk has recently increased. Over the past few months, fraudsters have been using AI-generated videos of investors to deceive users and lure them out of their money.

The other day, a 5-hour broadcast with more than 30,000 viewers was held, using semi-pixelated videos of Elon Musk. The video showed a fragment in which Musk was broadcasting live during a Tesla event. In the video, the voice of the entrepreneur, created using artificial intelligence, urged viewers to visit the website and contribute their cryptocurrency to participate in the drawing. During the broadcast, donations were requested in BTC, ETH, and DOGE. The repetitive message promised to "automatically refund double the amount of cryptocurrency you deposited."

The account "@elon.teslastream" pretended to be Tesla and had a verification icon on the page. Google has now removed both the video and the channel.

Solana Foundation is Introducing a New Feature

The Solana Foundation is introducing a new feature that promises to connect the blockchain to any website via a link. On June 25, the company announced the launch of Solana Actions and blockchain links ("blinks"). They allow any website that can display the URL to execute a Solana transaction. The new feature can be used for crowdfunding, online shopping, and voting.

John Wong, head of ecosystem engineering at Solana Foundation, said that Actions and Blinks will allow sending funds directly from the Phantom wallet, buying NFTs on Tensor, voting for Realms projects, subscribing to Acess Protocol newsletters and content, exchanging cryptocurrencies on the Jupiter exchange, etc.

"We must reach the "first billion" users where they already are - on their favorite apps and websites," Wong said. To enhance security, the launch takes place using authorized domains from Solana's partners, including Jupiter, Helium, Truffle, Phantom, and Backpack.

Most Profitable Crypto Sectors in the First Half of 2024

Recently, the most profitable areas of the crypto industry in the first half of 2024 were revealed. According to BitEye, CoinGecko, and Wu Blockchain, meme coins are in the first place, bringing in 1834% of the profit.

New tokens such as Brett (BRETT) and BOOK OF MEME (BOME) have captured the attention of investors, with BRETT soaring by 14,353.54% from its launch price. The second place was taken by the real asset tokenization sector, which brought investors 214% of the return. The artificial intelligence sector also performed well, taking third place with an average return of 71.56%. Tokens such as Arkham (ARKM) and AIOZ Network (AIOZ) showed significant gains, reflecting the increasing integration of AI with blockchain technology.

Meanwhile, the major cryptocurrencies have shown significant results: BTC grew by 45% since the beginning of the year, and ETH by 49.65% over the same period. In addition, layer-1 platforms generated an average of 43% of revenue. Despite the growth in these areas, the once-leading DeFi sector has struggled. The gaming industry and decentralized finance lagged behind competitors but still managed to record a modest increase of 19% and 3%.

Bitcoin Payments App Strike Enters UK

Strike, a payment application based on the Bitcoin Lightning Network, has officially launched in the UK, significantly expanding its target market to 100 countries around the world. This became known from the publication of the official Strike account in X.

Founded by Jack Mallers, the project aims to make Bitcoin more accessible and functional for ordinary users through its mobile application that uses the Lightning Network for fast and inexpensive transactions.

The UK launch of Strike includes several key features for local users. Customers can buy Bitcoin directly using free, unlimited GBP deposits from their bank accounts that support this feature.
In addition, the app allows for automatic conversion, scheduled recurring purchases, and self-execution of withdrawals. Users can sell Bitcoin and withdraw funds to their bank accounts, transfer to self-storage wallets, or make instant payments via the Bitcoin or Lightning Network.

Using the Lightning Network allows for fast and cost-effective micropayments, eliminating some of the scaling issues associated with traditional Bitcoin transactions. Strike users receive a Lightning address in the format of username@strike.me, which simplifies the process of receiving payments compared to the more complex Lightning invoices.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire's Optimism on the Future of Cryptocurrency

Deniz Tutku — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 07:02:44 +0000

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire has been leading the company behind the USDC stablecoin for 11 years. According to him, now is the time when he is most optimistic about the future of cryptocurrencies. Why exactly now? He explained this in his recent post at X.

Allaire's View on the Crypto Market

Jeremy Allaire explains that his view on the crypto market is based on the experience and knowledge of 35 years of observing the life cycles of Internet technologies.

"We've seen an unrelenting march of open networks, open protocols, and open software, with layer upon layer of infrastructure on the internet that deepens its utility for society and the economy," he says.

Allaire points out that the Internet used to lack trust, without which it was limited in terms of the utility it could provide to the world. There was no way to fully trust data, transactions, or computation, leading to a deepening dependence on hyper-centralized structures (corporate and government). However, the role of the Internet in society was increasingly growing, and its ability to perform an increasingly important function in the organization of society and the economy was evident.

He notes that after the emergence of Bitcoin, developers began to think more deeply about how they could extend the foundations of cryptocurrencies to provide a more generalized Internet infrastructure that could become fundamental to society and the economy.

Allaire sees the current state of cryptocurrencies as a new layer of Internet infrastructure that adds an important component of trust that was not previously present. He argues that this allows the industry and the technology behind it to significantly impact social and economic functions.

"This is what drew me into this space" Allaire notes.

The Future of Cryptocurrency

Allaire noted that he is particularly interested in breakthroughs in ZK technology in modern industry. He envisions a future where cryptographic computing is at the heart of important applications across a variety of industries. Over the past two years, this technology has been increasingly perceived as an important part of solving the blockchain trilemma by supporting scalability and interoperability without compromising privacy.

Currently, zkSync is one of the most popular ZK Layer 2 projects in 2024. The coin has gained popularity due to its technical advantages that help ensure speed, efficiency, and privacy for Ethereum users, making it a key player in the development and integration of blockchain applications. Currently, zkSync is available for trading on many cryptocurrency exchanges, including Gate.io, OKX, WhiteBIT, and others.

He also pointed out the growing recognition of digital assets in the global financial system, as well as the fact that clear regulatory frameworks are emerging around the world.

"Bitcoin has become one of the largest and most important alternative investment assets on the planet," Allaire says.

He added that the largest asset management companies are now offering blockchain-based products and services, including direct regulated access to Bitcoin through spot and futures exchange products around the world.

Aller also emphasized the widespread adoption of stablecoins, which he considers the "killer app" of cryptocurrencies. He predicted that by the end of 2025, stablecoins will be legally recognized as digital currencies in almost all major jurisdictions, potentially transforming the market.

Conclusion

Jeremy Allaire believes that the current moment is the most important for cryptocurrency technologies and their future role in society and the economy. His many years of experience observing the development of Internet technologies allows him to view cryptocurrencies as a new stage of the Internet infrastructure that brings the necessary component of trust to expand their influence on global finance and technological progress.

Weekend Recap: Solana’s Loyalty Platform, Buterin Backs TiTok AI, XLink Partners Fireblocks and Ancilia

Deniz Tutku — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 14:22:09 +0000

Elon Musk’s social network X is not doing “enough” to prevent the spread of cryptocurrency fraud on the platform. Such an opinion was shared by Binance co-founder Yi He, who recently asked how the billionaire owner is going to deal with this problem. However, this was not the hottest news of the week.

Buterin Supports TiTok AI

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has endorsed TiTok AI for its potential application in the blockchain. We are not talking about the social network TiTok but about Token for Image Tokenizer, a new method of image compression that makes them more practical for storing on the blockchain.

On his Warpcast account, Buterin called the image compression method a new way of “encoding a profile photo.” He also noted: “320 bits is a hash. Small enough to go on chain for every user.”

The co-founder became interested in the method after reading a post in X published by Ethan, a researcher at Leonardo AI, an artificial intelligence-based image creation platform. The author described how the technology could help those interested in reinterpreting the high-frequency details of images to successfully encode complex visual objects into 32 tokens. For his part, Buterin expressed an opinion on how much easier it would make it for developers and creators to create profile images and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

TiTok AI, developed in collaboration between ByteDance and the University of Munich, is characterized as an innovative one-dimensional tokenization framework that is significantly different from the dominant two-dimensional methods in use. The White Paper of the project describes the challenges faced by previous image tokenization methods such as VQGAN.

TiTok, using artificial intelligence, plans to overcome this problem with technologies that efficiently convert images into one-dimensional hidden sequences to provide a “compact hidden representation” and eliminate redundant regions.

AI is Now on TikTok

The social network TikTok may soon be filled with ads with “digital avatars” created by artificial intelligence. On June 17, the platform announced the expansion of its Symphony advertising package with “stock avatars” and “artificial dubbing” functions.

According to TikTok, all avatars are created from videos of real paid actors licensed for commercial use. In addition, users will be able to use “voice and accent” to read the script voiced on the avatar using artificial intelligence.

The attached video demonstrates how the tool converts text into voiceover and can dub actors with voices in several languages, trying to imitate mouth movements in each language. The script itself can also be generated using artificial intelligence. The feature supports ten languages and dialects, including English, Spanish, Japanese, and Korean. The tool detects the language used and duplicates it in the user’s target language.

Today, artificial intelligence technology is becoming increasingly widespread. Influential companies are integrating AI into their operations to increase efficiency, optimize processes, and develop innovative products and services. One example is Microsoft, which has a multimillion-dollar partnership with OpenAI, the company behind the development of the famous ChatGPT chatbot. Their partnership aims to develop and promote cutting-edge research in this area and democratize AI as a new tool for companies and organizations in various industries.

One of the largest crypto exchanges in Europe, WhiteBIT, also uses artificial intelligence in its operations. In particular, to analyze big data, market trends, user behavior, transaction processing, etc. The financial company JPMorgan Chase also announced the use of artificial intelligence in its work. In particular, they use a neural network to obtain information about potential investments and speed up decision-making. Moreover, the head of the bank’s asset and wealth management department, Mary Erdos, recently spoke about the implementation of engineering training for new employees to work with artificial intelligence.

XLink Onboards Fireblocks, Ancilia to Prevent Hacks

Following a recent security breach that stole $10 million in user funds, XLink, a Bitcoin bridge by Alex Lab, has partnered with Fireblocks and Ancilia. According to the company, the collaboration with Fireblocks will allow it to implement multi-party computing (MPC) technology to manage XLink’s wallet and smart contracts.

Chiente Hsu, CEO and co-founder of Alex told Cointelegraph: “[The] partnership with Fireblocks will implement two of three multiparty computation wallets to hold all these user assets, with one key held by the validator network of Bitcoin Oracle (that validates the XLink bridging events), another key held by Fireblocks and the last key held by Coincover who provides the disaster recovery service.”

At the same time, the partnership with Ancilia will help ensure continuous monitoring and real-time threat detection, offering instant alerts and proactive measures to prevent hacks.

Hsu explained that the “source of the hack” was the leak of a private key with “administrator access” to a smart contract that stores users’ assets. He also added that the cooperation will maximize the security of users’ assets, which they have been planning for some time, but the recent incident has accelerated this process.

Funding for Crypto Startups Exceeded $100 Billion

The total amount of funding for crypto startups has crossed the $100 billion mark. According to DefiLlama, since the end of May 2014, crypto projects have raised $101.36 billion in 5287 investment rounds.

A noticeable peak occurred in October 2021, when funding amounted to more than $7 billion. No other month has come close to this figure, although February 2022 – $3.67 billion – was the second highest in history.

The 2023 study shows that almost half of all funding comes from US investors, followed by the UK and Singapore. At the end of 2023 and in the first half of 2024, several high-profile funding rounds took place, further strengthening investor confidence. Specifically, Together.AI, Wormhole, Totter, and Eigenlayer received significant investments of more than $100 million each.

Solana Labs Debuts Blockchain Loyalty Platform

Solana Labs has announced the launch of Bond, a platform designed to increase customer engagement through direct customer interactions, digital collectibles, and more. In its publication, the company notes that Bond will provide brands, including non-cryptocurrency brands, with a platform “to create personalized, transparent, and engaging digital experiences that deepen customer connections and foster long-term loyalty.”

In addition, the technology will be able to eliminate the “critical limitations” of modern loyalty programs, namely the loss of connection with the end user if the product is ever resold or given away. The company promises that brands will not be required to have experience with blockchain, as the service will be available through a single application programming interface.

The platform uses the Solana blockchain to create collectible “digital twins” and limited edition products complemented by their real-life models to “encourage repeat purchases and increase overall customer value.”

By using digital product identification, customers can verify the authenticity of a product, and brands can track their items even if they are subsequently resold or given away.

Weekly Crypto Updates: Google and Magic Leap Collaborate, CertiK Introduces New Initiative, Binance User Loses $1 Million

Deniz Tutku — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 10:09:21 +0000

Meta vice president Yann LeCun and Tesla founder Elon Musk started the most popular nerd battle on social media in 2024. During the week, both executives argued on the X social network and actively criticized each other. In the meantime, many other interesting events took place, which we will discuss today.

Google and Magic Leap Collaborate to Expand the Potential of AR Technologies

One of the leaders in the augmented reality industry, Magic Leap, has announced a partnership with Google to expand the potential of the technology. According to the statement, the cooperation aims to launch unique product offerings and further expand the relationship between the companies.

Shahram Izadi, vice president and general manager of AR/XR at Google, expressed his excitement about the collaboration, commenting on it: “We look forward to bringing together Magic Leap’s leadership in optics and manufacturing with our technologies to bring a wider range of immersive experiences to market. By combining efforts, we can foster the future of the XR ecosystem with unique and innovative product offerings.”

Julie Larson-Green, Magic Leap’s CTO, described the partnership as a move that will accelerate the transformation of augmented reality (AR) by leveraging the expertise of the two companies. She also noted that she is looking forward to “expanding the potential of extended reality (XR) — connecting the physical world with valuable, contextually relevant solutions.”

The publication does not describe any specific products or potential services, but it is possible that this could mean the emergence of a new headset suitable for AR/XR, and thus much-needed competition for the current market leaders, Meta and Apple.

ChatGPT for Universities

AI company OpenAI has launched several initiatives aimed at expanding ChatGPT services to universities and non-profit organizations. The first of the new directions is ChatGPT Edu, a version of the large-scale AI language model designed specifically for use by students, teachers, researchers, etc. According to the company, the new offering “includes enterprise-level security and management tools and is available for educational institutions.”

OpenAI also outlined specific use cases of chatbots at the university level. Among the institutions that used the service were Oxford, Wharton, the University of Texas at Austin, Arizona State University, and Columbia University.

For example, researchers at Columbia University are using ChatGPT to develop strategies aimed at reducing overdose deaths. At the same time, an assistant professor at Arizona State University has developed the GPT Buddy program, which allows German language students to practice their language skills conversationally in their free time.

Kyle Bowen, Associate Director of Information Technology at Arizona State University, praised the ChatGPT Edu initiative: “Integrating OpenAI’s technology into our educational and operational frameworks accelerates transformation at ASU. We’re collaborating across our community to harness these tools, extending our learnings as a scalable model for other institutions.”

Binance User Loses $1 Million Worth of Cryptocurrency

A Chinese trader lost $1 million to a hacker scam using a Google Chrome adware plugin called Aggr. The plugin steals cookies from users, which are then used by hackers to bypass passwords, verify two-factor authentication (2FA), and log into the victim’s Binance account.

A Nakamao user shared the details of this incident on the social network X. On May 24, the trader noticed unusual trading activity in his account. The crypto hacker was making large trades on the USDT pair with high liquidity and placing limited orders for sale at inflated prices in pairs with limited liquidity. In this way, the hacker made significant profits without triggering any alerts from Binance. Additionally, he added that the exchange’s delay in contacting other platforms to freeze the hacker’s funds led to a loss of opportunities to recover the stolen assets.

Despite Nakamao’s immediate attempts to contact the exchange’s support team, the attacker continued to manage the victim’s account, eventually successfully withdrawing all funds. The trader expressed frustration with Binance’s slow response and lack of effective risk control, which left the hacker’s apparent arbitrage operations unchecked.

Nakamao also noted that Binance had been aware of the malicious plugin and the hacker’s activities for some time. However, the exchange did not take immediate action to warn users or stop the promotion of Aggr.

Bybit Restructures Executive Team after Airdrop Fiasco

A few days ago, cryptocurrency exchange Bybit restructured its team after a mistaken airdrop distribution of more than $26 million. Reports of the management changes appeared on May 31.

A representative of the exchange told Cointelegraph that the company regularly updates its business structure: “Together with the team, we made a joint commitment to placing the right people in the right roles. […] This improvement led to some leadership role changes, which we believe are essential. […] The affected team members are not leaving the company but moved to take up other internal roles.”

The changes came after the failed airdrop of the Notcoin (NOT) token. In a statement, Bybit explained that the distribution of tokens was delayed due to system maintenance and an unusually high volume of transactions.

The delay in token distribution resulted in a lower trading price for those who received their tokens later. According to the exchange, the balance problem affected 320,000 users. In response to the incident, Bybit announced a $26 million compensation plan on May 17.

“Total around $26M compensation will be processed within 3 working days, and emails will be sent to you. Again, sorry for the problem caused, we will do a deep dive internally to make sure it never happens again,” wrote Bybit’s CEO Ben Zhou.

Launched in January 2024, Notcoin is a free-to-play money-making game on Telegram where users can earn rewards in the eponymous Notcoin token by simply tapping on coin icons. The NOT cryptocurrency is based on the TON blockchain. Shortly after the launch of the Notcoin game, this clicker game went viral on Telegram, attracting millions of users, even though its token is not yet traded on cryptocurrency exchanges. The coin is currently available for spot and futures trading on many cryptocurrency exchanges, including Gate.io, OKX, WhiteBIT, and others.

CertiK Introduces CertiK Ventures to Spur Blockchain Development

CertiK, a well-known blockchain security solutions organization, has announced the creation of CertiK Ventures, aimed at supporting new network platforms. The new initiative will focus on promoting security-focused projects, participating in venture capital (VC) rounds, and establishing partnerships in the ecosystem.

Jason Jiang, CertiK’s business director, spoke about the importance of this initiative and its direct impact on Web3: “The launch of CertiK Ventures is a pivotal part of our mission to secure the Web3 world. By combining our years of expertise in blockchain security with strategic investments, we aim to accelerate the growth of innovative projects that will shape the future of the industry.”

CertiK Ventures’ portfolio includes companies such as Pantera, LINE, Sei, Hashkey Capital, WEMIX, Dora Hacks, Meta Era, Playbux, Shima Capital, SevenX Ventures, Borderless Capital, and Ling Feng Capital. CertiK Ventures will use CertiK blockchain security to provide resources and expertise to its portfolio companies to support the “development and adoption” of blockchain technology.

Weekend News Recap: Series of Hacks on X, WhiteBIT’s Partner of Money20/20 Europe, New Ethereum Update, and More

Deniz Tutku — Thu, 30 May 2024 07:01:50 +0000

While rumors about the insolvency of the Bybit crypto platform were spreading online, many significant events took place in the crypto community. New hacks to watch out for, technologies to watch out for, and events to attend. What else is interesting? Read on to find out.

A Series of Hacks of Celebrity Accounts in X

Over the weekend, a series of massive hacks of accounts on X took place. The victims were several influential industry figures and celebrities who promoted everything from Luna2 and ORDI to meme coins inspired by famous personalities.

Among the latest victims is a crypto investor going by the pseudonym Gigantic-Cassocked-Rebirth, known as GCR. He confirmed that his profile had been hacked. His account was used to publish posts about ORDI and Luna2.0, after which both tokens instantly increased by 6% and 274%.
Some have noted that the hacker could have used the account to place a micro-cap, but chose to publish two tokens, resulting in a limited profit.

“GCR hacker fumbled the bag hard. Bro could’ve picked ANY believable micro-cap to pump 10-20x, yet chose to shill ORDI and LUNA2 for a measly 10% wick” said crypto analyst Miles Deutscher.

Another victim was the famous American rapper Rich The Kid. His account posted a link to buy a new $RICH token launched on the Solana meme coin creation tool pump.fun.

DEX Screener data indicates that within the first two hours after launch, the token accumulated a market capitalization of $90,000. The post was later deleted, but the rapper never made any statement about the hack.

A Supercomputer with AI

Billionaire Elon Musk’s company xAI, in cooperation with Oracle, plans to create a computer that will run the next version of the large-scale language model of artificial intelligence Grok.

According to The Information, citing a presentation shown to xAI stakeholders, the project is described as a “gigafactory of computing.” The computer is expected to be ready by the fall of 2025.

During the presentation to investors, Musk said that the new supercomputer will use up to 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs based on the Hopper architecture, making it at least four times larger than the largest existing GPU clusters. He also emphasized his commitment to the timely completion of the project.

WhiteBIT is a Partner of Money20/20 Europe

WhiteBIT, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Europe, is once again a partner of international blockchain events. In particular, this time it has announced its participation in Money20/20 Europe, one of the largest events in the financial technology industry. The event will take place in Amsterdam on 4-6 May, where the exchange will present its innovative solutions and products.

Money20/20 Europe brings together representatives of financial institutions, technology companies, start-ups, regulators and investors. The conference program includes presentations by leading experts, panel discussions, and demonstrations of innovative solutions. More than 350 speakers will take part in the event, including representatives of such major companies as Visa, Mastercard, Lloyds Banking Group, JPMorgan, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Ukrainian bank PrivatBank.

The main topics of the event will include the implementation of AI solutions in the industry, current cybersecurity issues, blockchain as a new reality of the fintech industry, personalization in the banking sector, etc.

Volodymyr Nosov, founder and CEO of WhiteBIT, noted: “This is already the third global event this year in which we are participating, following the Paris Blockchain Week Summit and Token2049 Dubai. As one of the largest European crypto exchanges, we must stay at the center of events to continue innovating and offering our clients the best solutions on the market.”

New Ethereum Update

At a recent leadership meeting, Ethereum developers set a date for the Pectra update. They plan to release it by the end of the first quarter of 2025. Previously, the team expected the update to appear in late 2024 or early 2025.

Pectra will introduce the Ethereum Virtual Machine Object Format (EOF), which includes about 11 suggestions for improving the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) in both first- and second-tier solutions. One of the notable additions to Pectra is EIP-7251, otherwise known as “increase maximum active balance.” With this proposal, individual validators will be able to deposit more than the current maximum of 32 ETH, increasing the limit to 2,048 ETH.

Along with the new improvements, Ethereum developers have decided to replace the EIP-3074 account abstraction proposal with EIP-7702, a new initiative introduced by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. EIP-7702 introduces a new type of transaction that allows Ethereum account addresses to temporarily act as smart contract wallets during a transaction and then return to their original state.

Aptos Reaches Record Transaction Volume

Aptos, a first-tier blockchain platform, has reached a new high in terms of the number of transactions. In one day, May 25, it recorded 115.4 million transactions, surpassing Solana's 31.7 million.

The transaction volume growth not only set a new standard but also surpassed the previous L1 record of more than 65 million transactions held by Sui Network by a significant margin of more than 50%.

Aptoscan's data shows that the number of transactions per second (TPS) of blockchain users has also reached a historic high of 32,000. This surge in transaction activity may be due to the launch of Tapos Cat, a new game that has gained rapid popularity. The game processed 10 million transactions on its first day online, which significantly contributed to the growth of activity on the platform.

At first glance, Tapos Cat may seem to have no clear purpose, but Aptos supporters argue that it is an important engineering project that demonstrates the reliability and scalability of the network and paves the way for future developments.

Listing News

BounceBit (BB) is a BTC restocking network with an innovative CeDefi framework. Thanks to the CeFi + DeFi framework, BounceBit allows BTC holders to generate income from various sources. The BB token is available for spot trading on Binance, Bybit, and futures on WhiteBIT.

Retik Finance (RETIK) is a DeFi token based on the Ethereum network that complies with the ERC20 standard. RETIK powers the Retik Finance ecosystem, stimulating decentralized transactions and innovative financial solutions. It is traded on UniSwap, MEXC, and BitMart exchanges.

Notcoin (NOT) is a community-driven token aimed at engaging users in the Web3 ecosystem through a clickable game. Currently, the coin is available for spot and futures trading on many cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance, OKX, WhiteBIT, etc.

MON Protocol (MON) is the native coin of the MON Protocol, which serves as the ecosystem token for all Pixelmon games. Mon Protocol unveiled the MON token at the TGE event in early 2024 and also launched a pre-sale program for the community. The coin has recently become available for trading on Bitget, Gate.io, MEXC, and other cryptocurrency exchanges.