For many years, Ethereum reigned supreme over the decentralized finance (DeFi) landscape, with the blockchain serving as the destination of choice for many of the most innovative projects serving up their take on decentralized finance. More recently, however, DeFi projects have started to crop up across multiple ecosystems, challenging Ethereum’s hegemony. And, as we look to a future in which the technical problem of interoperability is solved, one unlikely contender for the role of DeFi power player emerges — Bitcoin (BTC). In that future, Bitcoin plays potentially the most important role in DeFi — and not in a triumphalist, maximalist …

What are the risks and flaws of the Ethereum merge? One of the foremost concerns regarding the Merge is that of centralization. Another potential concern is the risk of scams, as the general public may not be aware of how the Merge works. A fundamental flaw in the Merge is that it will likely increase the concentration of power within the network. The more valuable a staker’s position is, the more they will be rewarded for validating blocks. This could lead to a situation where a small number of wealthy individuals or groups control the majority of the stake and …

Ethereum blockchain shifted from a proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism on Sept. 15, 2022. Along with this move, ETHPoW, a distinct PoW blockchain (basically the old pre-Merge Ethereum) forked from Ethereum's Merge, became live. This forked version of Ethereum aims to maintain the proof-of-work mining process for ETH miners. Any miner is permitted to add a block to the PoW network with the clear stipulation that the first valid block published is the correct one. In reality, more than one legitimate block is occasionally discovered by the network due to the latency of data propagation, creating numerous …

The Ethereum Merge may be coming sooner than planned, after core developers announced a tentative Merge date of Sept. 15, which will see the blockchain transition to Proof-of-Stake. The Ethereum mainnet Merge date came into view after core developers such as Tim Beiko and Prysmatic Labs co-founder Terence Tsao agreed in an Aug. 11 developer call it would be when Total Terminal Difficulty (TTD) hits 58750000000000000000000. This was confirmed in a Github post titled "Tentative mainnet TTD" which was committed to by Beiko on Aug. 11. While the exact date and TTD could be still be changed, the successes of …

F2Pool co-founder Chun Wang has responded to allegations that his mining pool has been manipulating Ethereum block timestamps to “obtain consistently higher mining rewards." The allegations came from an Aug. 5 paper from researchers at The Hebrew University, claiming the mining pool has been engaging in a "consensus-level" attack on Ethereum over the last two years to gain an edge over "honest" miners. However, Wang on Twitter responded by saying that “we respect the *consensus* as is”, implying that intentionally exploiting the system's rules doesn’t necessarily mean that rules have been broken. We respect the *consensus* as is. If you …

While some believe that Ethereum’s upcoming shift to proof-of-stake (PoS) may push the platform to eventually surpass Bitcoin (BTC), others are taking this opportunity to make snarky remarks on Twitter, triggering a rebuttal from Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of Ethereum. In a tweet, Bitcoiner Nick Payton called out “Proof of Stakers” and argued that voting to change the properties on PoS platforms proves that PoS assets are securities. Dear Proof of Stakers, The fact that you can vote on something to change its properties is proof that it's a security. Love, Bitcoin — Nick (@NickDPayton) July 11, 2022 Buterin responded …

The Internet of Things (IoT) blockchain Helium shut down for about 4 hours on Monday due to validator outages from a software update, causing delayed transaction finality. During the outage, devices transferring data over the network were not affected, but miner rewards and token transfers were left pending. The team resolved the issue by skipping the blockchain forward by one block and resuming normal functions. At 10:20 am EST, the Consensus Group stopped producing blocks at block height 1435692 on the Helium blockchain, according to a status update. Lacking network consensus, token transfers could not be completed, and new blocks …

Garry Kasparov, the Russian chess grandmaster and chair of the Human Rights Foundation, doesn’t appear at all bothered by the current crypto bear market. Kasparov, who is also a long-time Bitcoin supporter, told Cointelegraph during Consensus 2022 “so what” in regards to his thoughts on the bear market. Kasparov added that he thinks 99% of all coins are “crap,” yet he expressed that both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are already integrated into traditional financial markets due to recent price fluctuations. He said: “They'll lose a bit more, but they’ll also gain more, which shows that these are already being …

“I like to call myself a future, or aspiring, cult leader,” Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer of CoinShares — a publicly listed investment firm managing around $5 billion in assets — told Cointelegraph. Demirors, who first entered the Bitcoin (BTC) space in late 2012, further mentioned that it has been “fun to see how big the crypto sector has become,” noting that people from all walks of life are now interested in the cryptocurrency space. As such, Demirors explained that “crypto cults” are bringing people together in a positive manner, especially since it gives people a sense of purpose and …

“Everything is bigger in Texas” proved to be true during Consensus 2022. The crypto conference took place June 9–12 in Austin, Texas, this year, attracting over 20,000 people from across the globe, despite the 100-degree plus weather. According to the event sponsors, Consensus 2018, which was held at the Hilton Hotel in New York, had previously drawn in almost 9,000 attendees. Caitlin Long, CEO of Custodia — the Wyoming-based digital asset bank — told Cointelegraph that the event this year speaks volumes. “New York has sent a lot of this industry fleeing to places like Austin, Wyoming and Miami. It …

Ethereum network developers have decided to delay the difficulty bomb, a major step leading up to the highly anticipated Merge upgrade for the layer-1 blockchain. They set the delay to two months in order to “be sure that we sanity check all the numbers before selecting an exact delay and deployment time,” according to core developer Tim Beiko in a Sunday tweet. In short, we agreed to the bomb delay. We were already over time, and want to be sure that we sanity check all the numbers before selecting an exact delay and deployment time, but we are aiming for …

The Ropsten testnet on the Ethereum network is ready to set the stage for the “first dress rehearsal” of the Merge to adopt the proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Core Ethereum developer Tim Beiko announced on Tuesday that a new Beacon Chain for Ropsten has been launched. It will serve as the precursor for the final test Merge, which is expected to be “around June 8th.” Ropsten Merge Announcement Ethereum's longest lived PoW testnet is moving to Proof of Stake! A new beacon chain has been launched today, and The Merge is expected around June 8th on the network. Node Operators: …