While testifying before United States (U.S.) lawmakers, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon referred to himself as a “major skeptic” on “crypto tokens that you call currency like Bitcoin,” labeling them as “decentralized Ponzi schemes.” Dimon was asked what keeps him from being more active in the crypto space during an oversight hearing held by the House Financial Services Committee on Sept. 21. Dimon emphasized that he sees value in blockchain, decentralized finance (DeFi), ledgers, smart contracts, and “tokens that do something," but then proceeded to lambast crypto tokens that identify as currencies. Asked for his thoughts about the draft U.S. …

Despite the current struggle in the global economy, the gap between traditional finance (TradFi) and crypto seems to be closing with each passing day. For example, earlier this month, Vienna-based fintech unicorn Bitpanda announced that it was adding commodities to its list of investment options, thus allowing investors to rake in profits from short-term price fluctuations related to traditional instruments such as oil, natural gas and wheat. In a recent interview with Cointelegraph, the company’s CEO, Eric Demuth, noted that the bear market had had no major impact on investor demand. He claims that more people are now looking for …

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has come out swinging in defense of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), arguing that in some circumstances they can be more efficient and fairer than a traditional corporate structure. In theory DAOs are collectively owned and managed by their members and have no central leadership. All decisions relating to aspects such as the usage of treasury funds or protocol improvements are made via voting on proposals submitted to the community. In the lengthy Sept.20 post on his website, Buterin outlined that critics often argue DAO governance is inefficient, that DAO idealists are naïve, and traditional corporate governance …

Insurance is key for financially securing important assets. Yet, the cryptocurrency sector — which is predicted to reach a global market size of $4.94 billion by 2030 — may be lagging behind when it comes to insuring digital assets. For instance, it’s been noted that less than 1% of all crypto investments are currently insured. This statistic is alarming, considering the rapid growth and high-risk profile associated with today’s cryptocurrency market. Ben Davis, team lead for digital assets at Superscript — a British startup and Lloyd’s of London-licensed insurance broker — told Cointelegraph that crypto has been marginalized when it …

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) have been heralded as the future of governance, unlocking a more egalitarian approach to decision-making. However, decentralizing leadership isn’t a magical solution that instantly leads to better results. To truly get the most out of a decentralized organization, steps must be taken to regulate weighted voting and tokenomics. If not carefully balanced, DAOs can implode — and some already have. Decentralized governance explained DAOs offer a model for managing a project or company that distributes voting rights across all members. There is usually no central authority, only the will of the collective. While this sounds equitable …

Following the completion of The Merge upgrade, Ethereum (ETH) transitioned into a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, helping the blockchain become energy efficient and secure. However, mining data reveals Ethereum’s heavy reliance on Flashbots — a single server — for building blocks, raising concerns over a single point of failure for the ecosystem. Flashbots is a centralized entity dedicated to transparent and efficient Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) extraction, which acts as a relay for delivering Ethereum blocks. Data from mevboost.org show that there are six active relays currently delivering at least one block in Ethereum, namely Flashbots, BloXroute Max Profit, BloXroute …

Analysis from Santiment indicates that 46.15% of Ethereum’s PoS nodes are controlled by only two addresses. Hours after the Merge, the first address has validated about 188 blocks or 28.97% of the nodes, and the second has validated 16.18%, or 105 blocks. On Twitter, the data became a controversial topic as users debated about the impact of the Merge on centralization for the largest network in the world. According to our #Ethereum Post Merge Inflation dashboard, 46.15% of the #proofofstake nodes for storing data, processing transactions, and adding new #blockchain blocks can be attributed to just two addresses. This heavy …

With the convenience of centralization seemingly threatening the original crypto vision, decentralization will still help escape a potential dystopian future, according to a panel discussion at the DeData Salon 2022 conference held in Berlin, Germany. Cointelegraph’s editor-in-chief Kristina Cornèr moderated a panel discussion dubbed “Shaping The Next Economic Era With Web3 Technology.” Panelists included Paul Claudius, the co-founder of DIA; Hoon Kim, the chief technology officer of the AStar Network; Matt Gurbiel, growth manager at Redstone Finance and Riccardo Lamanna, the founder of OpenQ. While the panel discussed various topics, one of the highlights was the decentralization of Web3. Cornèr …

Ethereum’s upgrade to proof-of-stake (PoS) may make it more vulnerable to government intervention and censorship, according to the lead investigator of Merkle Science. Speaking to Cointelegraph following the Ethereum Merge, Coby Morgan, a former FBI analyst, and the Lead Investigator for crypto compliance and forensic firm Merkle Science expressed his thoughts on some of the risks posed by Ethereum’s transition to PoS. While centralization issues have been broadly discussed leading up to The Merge, Moran suggested the prohibitive cost of becoming a validator could result in the consolidation of validator nodes to the bigger crypto firms like Binance, Coinbase, and …

With the Trade Ministry officially approving the use of cryptocurrencies for foreign trade, Iran will become the first-of-a-kind adopter in the world. The obvious problem with the news is that the country’s innovative policy obviously aims at circumventing financial sanctions that have been hampering its participation in the global economy for many years. These circumstances set an ambivalent tone for Iran’s experiment — while for some, it could prove crypto’s emancipating ability to shirk the all-too-real hegemony of the United States political will and international financial institutions that enforce it, hardline crypto skeptics could get the proof they need for …

Amazing things are being built in Web3 — often by pseudonymous individuals who prefer to keep their real-world identity private. In some ways, this is liberating. It means that anyone can have a chance to get involved in a project and deliver value to the community — irrespective of their background. But as decentralized identities proliferate, there's one issue that cannot be ignored: Ensuring that there's an easy way for us to verify the reputation of others. This matters… for many reasons. If you're about to start using a DeFi project created by someone pseudonymous, you'd like a way to …

A new protocol has bold ambitions to become the feed of Web3. RSS3 is an open-sourced information syndication protocol — a search engine that delivers an aggregated human-readable feed about every crypto wallet in existence. The project has been built on three core ideologies: Transparency, decentralization and modularity. Founders say they're determined to ensure no single, authoritative figure controls everything — and want to encompass everything going on in this fast-moving space. RSS3 says its product is a convenient way to know everything addresses, with keywords to be added in the near future. Intuitive features allow you to keep track …