A blockchain financial services provider now offers an Ethereum 2.0 validator node hosting service that does not charge fees or take a cut of the staking rewards. Abyss Finance promises to make earning rewards for validating transactions on the in-development Ethereum 2.0 proof-of-stake blockchain as cheap and safe as possible. To begin with, Abyss Finance moves beyond the usual methods by which validator node hosts earn money. Some staking services demand a 10% to 15% cut of the rewards generated, while others charge a hosting fee for virtual nodes. In exchange for locking into a staking contract with an unlock …

Issues with Ethereum congestion and high fees have led to many companies adopting layer-two solutions like Optimistic Rollups, OMG Network and many others. These platforms allow transactions to be created outside of the Ethereum network on what are known as “sidechains,” which then can be reconciled on the main Ethereum network in one simple transaction. These layer-two options are gaining a lot of traction in anticipation of the release of Ethereum 2.0, which aims to solve the current high gas fees through sharding and splitting transactions throughout multiple blockchains. Many projects have been adopting both layer-one and layer-two solutions to …

Breaking new all-time highs, the recent price action of Ether (ETH) took the crypto market by storm and signaled an official start to alt season. Several analysts are predicting that Ether will surpass its previous all-time high of $2,130 and continue to outperform Bitcoin in the foreseeable future. Price predictions aside, Ethereum is undeniably leading the charge in crypto, being home to flagship decentralized finance and nonfungible token projects. However, this move comes at a time when the network is at a major crossroads. Although many layer-one projects have been labeled as “Ethereum killers” over the years, Ethereum is only …

With the rapid growth of decentralized finance, upcoming scaling developments on Ethereum 2.0, and increased crypto allocation in the portfolios of institutions, the price of Ether (ETH) is rapidly ascending. In fact, we’ve already seen ETH break the $2,000 barrier for the first time, marking a brand-new all-time high. All this action may be bullish for ETH holders and DeFi investors, but for smaller DApp developers and other users on the network — such as traders using ERC-20-based stablecoins — it’s quickly pricing them out. That’s because the cost of using any stablecoin depends on the blockchain network on which …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) recent institutional investor-driven rally has steadily pushed its price to new all-time highs and while investors are intensely focused on BTC’s price action, a number of altcoins have also secured new multi-year highs. On. Feb. 10, the total crypto market capitalization hit a new high at $1.42 trillion less than a week after Tesla disclosed that it purchased $1.5 billion worth of BTC. Despite being the center of attention for the past few months, Bitcoin’s market dominance has actually decreased from 70.2% on Jan. 13 to its current reading at 61.5%. Historical data shows that when Bitcoin dominance …

This week the total value locked in decentralized finance platforms reached a new high at $26.2 billion, and this record high was achieved even as Bitcoin (BTC) price appeared to be slipping into a downtrend. This asymmetrical performance from DeFi tokens suggests the sector has staying power and the ecosystem built up around DeFi platforms is likely to have a far-reaching impact that may even alter the way traditional finance operates. As DeFi protocols gain traction, decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregators have also emerged among the thriving trading and staking market. The 1inch protocol sources liquidity from different DEXs and executes …

Another year has come and gone. The rollercoaster that was 2020 requires little (if any) preamble. It must be said, however, that the blockchain segment experienced something of a return to form during these otherwise painful latter days. Indeed, we closed the year with prices on the up, legal ambiguities increasingly dehazed, and the adoption of distributed technology at a historic apex. With these expository factors lighting our way, let us take a moment to gaze into the future, as speculatively foreseen by the staff at Cointelegraph. We asked our teammates where they saw our industry heading in 2021. The …

In the past month, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) basked in the limelight as each rallied to new yearly highs. Investors tend to focus their energy on the larger cap altcoins, which leads to smaller cap coins that reside outside of the top-10 being ignored. For example, Zilliqa (ZIL) has rallied 69% in the last 30-days. Despite this impressive performance, the altcoin has significantly underperformed Ether in the past six months. The project was founded in 2017 by National University of Singapore researchers who w looking to bring scalability to smart contracts. Currently, ZIL is ranked 49 on CoinMarketCap, ahead …

Enterprise blockchain applications are slowly but surely making their way to public networks, especially as new upgrades and features are being implemented into the Ethereum ecosystem. While Eth2 promises to bring scalability, security and capacity across the Ethereum network to advance enterprise use cases, other techniques are being developed to help enterprises properly leverage the Ethereum network. For example, the Baseline Protocol is a set of techniques using advances in peer-to-peer messaging, zero-knowledge cryptography and blockchain to coordinate complex and confidential workflows between enterprises. While the Baseline Protocol can be leveraged with any blockchain network, it operates well alongside the …

On June 19, 2020, Ethereum increased its gas limit by 25% from 10 million to 12.5 million. In no less than two days, this newfound capacity was used up, bringing the block use right back to 100%. This cat-and-mouse game between a higher gas limit and a surge in use has occurred the last three times Ethereum has raised its gas limit. There is evidently a genuine market demand to use Ethereum, but the gas prices are prohibitively expensive for most use cases. This is where Ethereum 2.0 comes in. What does Ethereum 2.0 bring to the table? In a …

This deposit contract is the first step that would eventually lead to the launch of Ethereum 2.0. If to consider that the launch will go down successfully, Ethereum will ship the Beacon Chain and introduce proof-of-stake to the ecosystem, which is currently based on the proof-of-work, another consensus algorithm that is based on mining. Shard chains would be the next upgrade to follow Beacon Chain. Ultimately, the eventual launch of Ethereum 2.0 will have an effect on the decentralized finance market. In 2020, the DeFi sector has grown significantly but has already experienced a slight cooldown. Due to this, there …

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) is nearing $16,000 after achieving $15,960 on Binance. Following the dominant cryptocurrency's rally, analysts are now looking toward Ether (ETH). The Ethereum blockchain's native token has seen heightened momentum in the past week. After underperforming against BTC in October, the probability of a new ETH rally is beginning to increase. There are two key reasons why analysts expect Ether to perform strongly in the near term. First, the capital in the Bitcoin market could move into ETH following the announcement of Ethereum 2.0. Second, ETH recently tested a critical resistance level, raising the chances of …