It’s been a month since Ethereum said goodbye to an essential feature its blockchain shared with Bitcoin (BTC). Called the Ethereum Merge, the long-hyped upgrade was widely celebrated, with the blockchain ecosystem. However, for the mainstream audience or even for the average trader, it felt more like a Star Wars Day celebrated by sci-fi geeks than an early Christmas. As the Ethereum Merge occurred on Sept. 15, the most extensive blockchain ecosystem parted ways with the proof-of-work (PoW), the energy-hungry consensus mechanism that makes Bitcoin tick. The Ethereum blockchain now works on a more eco-friendly proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism that doesn’t …

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes that solo validators that choose not to include certain transactions should "be tolerated" to stop the Ethereum community from becoming the "morality police." Vitalik Buterin made the comment in reply to a Twitter poll from latetot.eth, discussing a hypothetical scenario whereby a validator censors a transaction that doesn't align with their beliefs. The thread, published on Oct. 17, asked what should happen if a solo validator, in a country at war with another, decides not to process a block because it includes donations to the opposing military force. I’m a solo home validator in Country …

Ripple users may be able to interact with Ethereum-compatible decentralized applications (DApps) in the future following the launch of a test phase of Ripple’s new XRP Ledger sidechain. The launch of the sidechain was shared in a Tweet by blockchain development firm Peersyst Technologies on Oct. 17, noting that the new sidechain is compatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). This means that Ripple users could eventually have access to decentralized applications like Uniswap (should it port over) and Web3 wallets such as Metamask and XUMM Wallet. The new sidechain also comes with a cross-chain bridge built to transfer XRP and …

Ethereum bulls have hit back against claims the network has become prone to censorship post-Merge, with one arguing that “not even a single” transaction has been censored on the network. In a 19-part thread to his 29,100 followers on Oct. 17, Cyber Capital founder and CIO Justin Bons argued that contrary to “what some Bitcoiners are falsely claiming,” not a single transaction on Ethereum has been stopped as a result of Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions. Bons was referring to recent reports suggesting Ethereum has become too reliant on OFAC-compliant Miner Extractable Value (MEV)-Boost relays since the Merge. …

The United States equities markets have made a bullish start to the new week. The S&P 500 is up about 2.60% and the Nasdaq Composite has rallied more than 3%. This indicates that the markets have shrugged off September's high inflation reading and shifted focus onto the third-quarter earnings. The stock market’s recovery could pave the way for Bitcoin (BTC) to break out of the range it has been stuck in for the past several days. A positive sign for the bulls is that the amount of Bitcoin held in cold storage or lost has risen to a five-year high, …

Ether (ETH) price has been unable to close above $1,400 for the past 29 days and it has been trading in a relatively tight $150 range. At the moment, the $1,250 support and the $1,400 resistance seem difficult to break, but two months ago, Ether was trading at $2,000. The current price range for Ether simply reflects how volatile cryptocurrencies can be. From one side, investors are calm as Ether trades 50% above the $880 intraday low on June 18. However, the price is still down 65% year-to-date despite the most exciting upgrade in the network's 7-year history. More importantly, …

Crypto exchange Binance announced it will launch its first index product, the Top 10 Equal-Weighted Index, to kick off its Binance CoinMarketCap (CMC) Index Series. The Top 10 Equal-Weighted Index will monitor the performance of the industry’s top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). Binance indices will utilize pricing information from crypto price tracker CMC, of which the crypto exchange is the owner. According to the announcement, the Equal-Weighted Index will be rebalanced monthly and is designed to help investors evaluate price and performance. The index products, beginning with the Top 10 Equal-Weighted Index, …

Over the last few years, the cryptocurrency industry has been a primary target for regulators in the United States. The legal battle between Ripple and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Nexo’s lawsuit with the securities regulators of eight states, and the scrutiny targeting Coinbase’s Lend program last year are only a few high-profile examples. This year, even Kim Kardashian had first-hand experience with regulatory scrutiny after agreeing to pay a $1.26 million fine for promoting the dubious crypto project EthereumMax. While Ethereum developers intended to pave the way for key network upgrades in the future, it seems …

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 …

A software program called a web service enables computer-to-computer communication over the internet. However, web services are nothing new and typically take the form of an application programming interface (API). The Web is a collection of related hypertext materials that may be accessed online. For example, a user examines web pages that may contain multimedia using a web browser and uses hyperlinks to move between them. Tim Berners-Lee, who was employed by CERN, The European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Geneva, Switzerland, invented the Web in 1989. Since then, Berners-Lee has actively directed the development of web standards and has …

The United States consumer price index (CPI) increased 8.2% annually in September, beating economists’ expectations of an 8.1% rise. The CPI print lived up to its hype and caused a sharp, but short-term increase in volatile risk assets. The S&P 500 oscillated inside its widest trading range since 2020 and Bitcoin (BTC) also witnessed a large intraday range of more than $1,323 on Oct. 13. However, Bitcoin still could not shake out of the $18,125 to $20,500 range it has been stuck in for the past several days. Both the U.S. equities markets and Bitcoin tried to extend their recovery …

One month after the Merge, 51% of ethereum blocks were compliant with OFAC standards, according to blockchain development Labrys' data, as MEV-boost relays takes over market share. On Twitter, users highlighted how the figures represent a milestone towards censorship, as more blocks are under surveillance: We reached another sad milestone in censorship: 51% This means if the censoring validators would now stop attesting to non-censoring blocks they would eventually form the canonical, 100% censoring chain. pic.twitter.com/JrYUjowLpt — Martin Köppelmann (@koeppelmann) October 14, 2022 OFAC stands for Office of Foreign Assets Control, the entity in charge of enforcing the United States …