ConsenSys has announced the upcoming release of its zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) rollup to a public testnet on March 28, allowing for stress testing of the layer-2 scaling technology. ConsenSys’ research and development team has been working on its zkEVM rollup over the past four years. The zkEVM is touted to offer fast finality, high throughput and security of settlements on the Ethereum blockchain. A private beta launched in Q4 of 2022 gave early access to limited users, which processed over 350,000 transactions and onboarded various decentralized applications (DApps). The testnet allowed Solidity developers to build, test and launch …

The founders behind the alleged $340 million “global Ponzi” scheme Forsage have been indicted by a federal grand jury in the District of Oregon. The four Russian founders — Vladimir Okhotnikov, Olena Oblamska, Mikhail Sergeev, and Sergey Maslakov — have been formally accused of having key roles in the scheme which raised approximately $340 million from victim-investors, according to a Feb. 22 Department of Justice (DOJ) statement. “Today’s indictment is the result of a rigorous investigation that spent months piecing together the systematic theft of hundreds of millions of dollars,” said U.S. Attorney Natalie Wight for the District of Oregon, …

Play-to-earn blockchain gaming experienced a downturn over the last year as gamers prioritized improving the gameplay experience. However, according to a new report from DappRadar, in the first month of 2023, gamers made up nearly half (48%) of all blockchain activity. January also saw the market caps for top gaming tokens increase by 122% on average, with Gala (GALA), the digital utility token of the Gala Games ecosystem, surging by 218%. According to the report, the rise in interest in these gaming tokens comes as industry buzz hits mainstream audiences. For example, Gala Games made headlines after it acquired a …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols experienced a boom in total value locked across different staking pools in January 2023. The market hit $74.6 billion worth of staked assets, increasing by 26% from December. In its latest monthly report, DappRadar outlined the growth of the DeFi sector alongside rejuvenated nonfungible token (NFT) markets that have also had upticks in trading volume and sales. Optimism emerges as the top DeFi performer, seeing a 57.44$ increase in total value locked (TVL) at $808 million. Blockchain Analyst Sara Gherghelas told Cointelegraph that Optimism’s transaction volumes were likely driven by a "learn-to-earn" incentives program that ended …

Solana’s (SOL) recent 250% rally to $25 has shocked many investors in the crypto market. At the same time, traders who had eyes on the negative funding rate for SOL in the futures market could have anticipated the bullish move ahead of others. It’s because excessive negative funding rates, like the one in Solana displayed below, implies that the majority of traders are on the short side, providing an opportunity for buyers to run their stops. Regardless of the reason behind the price increase, if enough buyers are interested in joining the bullish move, it can turn into a medium-to-long-term …

Over the last year, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) continued to play an important role in the growing Web3 industry. NFTs initiated a shift away from hype-based drops, to utility-centric projects with long-term value. A new DappRadar report on blockchain and decentralized application (DApp) adoption in 2022 revealed that the NFT sale count last year reached 101 million. This is a 67.57% increase from the previous year. According to the report, the Ethereum ecosystem holds the top spot in the NFT ecosystem, holding 21% of the market share and over 21.2 million transactions processed. It is followed by Wax (14.5 million), Polygon …

NFT Influencer CryptoNovo announced on Jan 4. that they have fallen victim to a cyberattack and lost two cryptopunks. The post on Twitter says “I just got hacked!!! Are you kidding me!?!” and includes a screenshot from OpenSea displaying two cryptopunks being transferred to another address. I just got hacked!!! Are you kidding me!?! pic.twitter.com/r1xS0mhD6P — CryptoNovo (@CryptoNovo311) January 4, 2023 The two cryptopunks were immediately sold by the attacker, one for 70 ETH (worth an equivalent $88,434 at time of publication) and the other for 199 ETH ($251,404). This implies that CryptoNovo lost over $300K worth of cryptopunks in …

Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and the crypto market had a rough 2022 from a price perspective, but traders are hopeful that 2023 will include bullish developments that push crypto prices higher. Despite the market-wide downturn, a handful of altcoins continued to make a positive contribution to the crypto space and thanks to Ethereum, the term altcoin is no longer a derogatory term. Let’s explore the top altcoins that made a difference in 2022. Ethereum fundamentals shone in 2022 Ether’s price hit a yearly high at $3,835 on Jan. 2 and has struggled to regain footing amidst the bear market and …

2022 will go down as a challenging year for the cryptocurrency and blockchain space, but the adversity faced has been strewn with plenty of positives for the decentralized application (Dapp) ecosystem. DappRadar has released its yearly report on the industry, focusing on challenges faced alongside notable technological achievements and an increasing number of active daily users. Cointelegraph highlights the main takeaways from the DApp industry in 2022, which are pertinent, considering macro factors like inflationary concerns in major economies, the collapse of industry-specific projects like Terra/Luna and FTX as well as market woes across the board. Perhaps most telling is …

In a recent blog post, cryptocurrency legend and former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes mentioned he holds sizable bags of GMX and LOOKS tokens. According to Hayes, his main reasoning for investing in both tokens was their platform revenue and the potential of both assets to outperform standard treasury bills. Let’s take a brief look at on-chain data and compare GMX and LOOKS to competitors to determine whether Arthur’s assumption will work out. GMX usage cooling after a strong November The week prior to Nov. 16 provided decentralized Finance (DeFi) with a significant influx in fees after the centralized exchange (CEX) …

While decentralized finance (DeFi) is expected to be an upgrade to traditional finance mechanisms, some believe that denying users access to decentralized exchanges based on their wallets is a backward move. In a tweet, entrepreneur Brad Mills criticized DeFi for denying users access to decentralized exchanges (DEXs) due to various factors such as location and wallet content. Because of this, Mills described the future of Web3 as a “surveillance panopticon” and said that it has rebuilt everything wrong with Wall Street but on a blockchain. Within the tweet, Mills also shared an image of a pop-up message from 1inch Network’s …

A new oracle system aims to retrieve the additional fees paid by decentralized application (DApp) users to miners called maximal extractable value (MEV). It is the maximum value a miner can extract from moving-around transactions when producing a block on a blockchain network. MEV can be defined as the maximum value that can be extracted from block production in excess of the standard block reward and gas fees. The MEV comprises arbitrage and liquidation fees, among others, that could amount to millions and are often extracted by block producers. A new oracle system called oracle extractable value (OEV) promises to …