Bitcoin code contributors need to consider a move away from the cryptocurrency’s proof-of-work consensus mechanism, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen argued. In a Wednesday blog post, Larsen outlined major PoW-related vulnerabilities, noting growing concerns over Bitcoin’s carbon footprint. According to the executive, PoW-based coins like Bitcoin (BTC) should consider a code change to carbon-neutral validation methods like proof-of-stake or federated consensus, or something yet to be developed. “I would argue that such a change is critically important for Bitcoin to remain the world’s dominant cryptocurrency. PoW’s current energy demands and carbon footprint are already unsustainably high, with Bitcoin alone consuming an …
Chinese cryptocurrency miners are reportedly buying Nvidia's new laptops to mine Ether (ETH) amid the altcoin hitting new all-time highs. Nvidia’s latest GeForce RTX 30 laptops have become increasingly popular in China as a tool for mining cryptocurrency, according to several sources. On Feb. 6, a Weibo user known as BTCer posted a bunch of images showing off GeForce RTX 30 series gaming laptops making up a solid crypto mining farm. “A laptop mine is up ,” BTCer noted in the post depicting dozens of laptops stacked up on shelves. Several tech media outlets including VideoCardz and Wccftech subsequently suggested …
Proof-of-work and proof-of-stake have a lot of benefits to offer the community, and the discussion around these algorithms has dominated conversations in the cryptocurrency community. The use of staking will become more widespread this year on the protocol level with Ethereum 2.0’s expected arrival, along with the continued development of Cardano, Tezos and Algorand, ultimately changing the landscape of the future networks and blockchains. On the other side of the protocols is the mad rush for the hyper gains from decentralized finance projects that utilize high yield farming from loans, which will further the adoption of these staking protocols. The …
For years, tribalism has plagued the blockchain industry. Developers align to specific consensus protocols and defend technologies that use them, regardless of their limitations. These deeply rooted divisions are slowing the innovation needed to scale blockchain for future adoption. The enterprise market is only beginning to understand the promise of blockchain, and that promise will be difficult to achieve until blockchains can communicate and cooperate with each other. To achieve this, developers, companies and hobbyists alike must be able to leverage every platform without being locked into one simply because the platform developers are not working together. Blockchain can bring …
According to blockchain data from Nansen analytics on Tuesday, over $1.096 billion worth of Ethereum (ETH) has been burned in the past month. With the introduction of the EIP-1559 last August, a portion of fees is taken out of circulation for every transaction that occurs on the Ethereum blockchain. While sending and receiving ETH does not cost much, higher-level tasks, such as minting nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, via smart contracts, cost far more gas. In January, the total volume of NFT transactions on OpenSea hit an all-time high of $3.5 billion. It currently ranks No.1 on a burn leaderboard compiled …