The technology stack behind Dfuse’s advanced blockchain APIs has been made open-source, according to a March 19 announcement. These APIs are primarily used in EOS development. Cointelegraph took the opportunity to interview the CTO of Dfuse, Alexandre Bourget, who revealed some of the far-reaching consequences of this for the EOS community. What is Dfuse? Dfuse provides a high-performance set of APIs to read blockchain data, primarily on EOS and Eosio-based platforms, as well as on Ethereum (ETH). As Bourget explained to Cointelegraph, EOS’ fast blockchain times make it difficult to implement software that reads blockchain data, like blockchain explorers. Dfuse …

As the SEC lawsuit against Telegram Open Network (TON) forced it to postpone mainnet launch, working blockchain explorers are already available for the testnet. Blockchair announced the creation of a user-friendly alternative to Telegram’s own explorer. A stalled launch has not stopped blockchain explorers In 2018, TON raised more than $1.7 billion in a private initial coin offering (ICO). On a technological level, it aims to replace Bitcoin and Ethereum by featuring a transaction throughput that is reportedly competitive with Visa and MasterCard. As per its white paper, it will be a Proof-of-Stake network employing sharding technology to achieve high …

South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb has established its own research and development (R&D) center. According to an announcement on Jan. 6, the initiative makes Bithumb the first company with a blockchain and cryptocurrency research center in South Korea. Bithumb expressed high hopes for the research center’s impact on the company: “Bithumb will become a leading company in the blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystem by strengthening its own R&D capabilities.” The center’s purpose The new R&D center is going to employ around 30 people and will start its activities this month. Bithumb’s research team will study system architecture design to strengthen public …

Advisory firm Valley Capital Partners has invested $3 million into encryption platform-as-a-service StrongSalt. Per a Sept. 26 press release, StrongSalt raised $3 million from Valley Capital Partners in a seed round to further develop its encryption platform designed for developers and enterprises. The startup aims to build an encrypted ecosystem, allowing individuals to keep personal data private and to defend against theft and fraud. StrongSalt claims to be the first firm that provides an application programming interface (API) platform for developers to make existing applications and workflows privacy-enabled. The company plans to release its encryption API platform in the fourth …

San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken’s users are experiencing difficulties with connecting to the site and application programming interface (API). In a tweet published on Aug. 13, Kraken warned the public that it is receiving reports of clients having issues connecting to the site and API. The exchange further states that it is investigating the issue and will post related update. Back in January, the Exchange Security Report from independent analysts at ICORating gave 16 percent of the world’s biggest crypto trading platforms an A rating, and none of them an A+. The analysis ranked Kraken (A) as one of the …

On Aug. 7, Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange (by daily trade volume), fell victim to a hacking scandal that saw the miscreant allegedly gain possession of a huge chunk of the firm’s Know Your Customer (KYC) data (10,000+ personal photos). The hacker is reportedly demanding a total of 300 Bitcoins (worth around $3.5 million) from the exchange, or else he or she will release all of the data. Also, it bears mentioning that upon commencing his activities, the hacker set up a couple of dedicated Telegram groups (which have since been shut down) that allegedly featured a lot of …

Major crypto platform Coinbase announced today that it is exploring support for eight new digital assets. The expansion is part of a larger agenda by the exchange to give customers access to 90% of the aggregate market capitalization of all digital assets. Coinbase announced its plans in an official blog post on Aug. 5. As part of the announcement, Coinbase noted that they may roll out public-facing APIs and show other indications of engineering work during the exploratory phase. Per the announcement, the exchange is currently exploring support for Algorand (ALGO), Cosmos (ATOM), Dash (DASH), Decred (DCR), Matic (MATIC), Harmony …

The appearance of blockchain technology can be compared with the emergence of internet at the initial stage of its development: Users were cautious about a decentralized system and failed to understand many of its subtleties. But just as firms opened up to the internet, almost all corporations are now working on integrating blockchain into their processes — at least as a trial. And there are some reasons for this trend: With the acceleration of data transfers, globalization and the amount of information, the security questions concerning personal data are becoming more acute for users. Personal information, in a way, is …

Norway-based internet browser company Opera has launched the iOS version of its mobile web browser, Opera Touch, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph. Opera Touch reportedly supports the Ethereum (ETH) protocol and the Ethereum Web3 application programming interface (API). This means that the browser accommodates Ethereum-based decentralized applications (DApps) and all ERC-20 tokens, stablecoins, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The browser also is said to feature a cryptocurrency wallet for storing Ether, the “Opera Crypto Wallet.” Opera released the Android version of its mobile browser at the end of 2018, which offers these same Ethereum-related capabilities. Opera Touch, however, …

This article has been updated to correct that BitMEX is not Hong Kong-based. Peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX has reported an influx of attacks on user account credentials, according to an official blog post on June 11. In addition to covering a litany of best practices for user security, the cryptocurrency exchange stressed the importance of using two-factor authentication (2FA) in particular. The report summarizes 2FA as follows: “2FA, sometimes referred to as ‘two-step verification’ or ‘multi-factor authentication’, adds an additional layer of security to your account by requiring not only your username and password at login, but also the …

Hackers have reportedly compromised nearly 100 XRP Ledger wallets on cryptocurrency wallet service GateHub. The incident was announced by GateHub in a preliminary statement on June 6. In the statement, GateHub reveals that it was notified by some of its customers and community members that funds on their wallets had been stolen. The company estimates that hackers managed to compromise around 100 XRP Ledger wallets. Although the company did not initially identify any nefarious activities on its platform, it began an investigation on the matter, wherein it discovered increased application programming interface (API) calls coming from a small number of …

Blockchain software firm Digital Asset will integrate their smart contract language DAML with Hyperledger Sawtooth, a modular platform for distributed ledgers. Digital Asset announced the development in a blog post on April 16. In the post, Digital Asset revealed that it has begun working with Hyperledger members, Blockchain Technology Partners (BTP), in order to integrate the Digital Asset Modeling Language (DAML) runtime with Hyperledger Sawtooth, which is a modular platform for building, deploying, and running distributed ledgers like blockchains. The company explained that a number of the Hyperledger Sawtooth characteristics already comply with the DAML team expectations. “Hyperledger Sawtooth’s Transaction …