In light of the recent ban on crypto mixing tool Tornado Cash and the subsequent arrest of the Tornado Cash developer, there has been a growing debate around what crypto services providers would choose between decentralization and censorship in form of compliance. The question has become more prominent as Ethereum (ETH) is moving from its current proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain to a proof-of-stake (PoS) mining consensus. With the transition less than a month away, a user pointed out that more than 66% of validators on the Beacon chain (Ethereum PoS chain) will adhere to the United States Department of the Treasury's …

David Schwartz, the chief technical officer of Ripple, didn’t take Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s dig on XRP very kindly. In a discussion that started around the recent $30,000 limit imposed by the Ontario crypto exchange on altcoins purchases barring Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Buterin, in a quoted response to a tweet, lauded the Ethereum community’s pushback against regulations that privilege ETH over other legitimate cryptocurrencies. David Hoffman, the founder of decentralized media and education platform Bankless.eth responded to Buterin and said that he wouldn’t have minded if they had restricted XRP. XRP already lost their right …

The majority of 4,653 active Ethereum (ETH) nodes are in the hands of centralized web providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), which could “expose Ethereum to central points of failure,” according to crypto analytics platform Messari. An Aug.15 post shows that three major cloud providers account for 69% of hosted nodes on the Ethereum Mainnet, with over 50% of that coming from Amazon Web Services (AWS), over 15% from Hetzner and 4.1% from OVH. Figures from Ethernodes additionally show that Oracle (4.1%), Alibaba (3.9%) and Google (3.5%) also provide web hosting services on Ethereum. While the distribution of cloud service …

The Ethereum network’s long-awaited transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake is set to occur on Sept 15 to Sept. 16 and for the last year traders and analysts have been discussing various outcomes for the upgrade and possible trading strategies. Let’s take a look at three options investors and traders have. Hodl ETH to earn the expected “hardfork” token The first strategy is relatively simple. Traders can simply buy Ether (ETH) in the spot market and hold it in their exchange wallet, or whatever platform/wallet will support forked tokens, and wait for the expected PoW token. Way back in 2017, when …

As the Ethereum Merge draws near, many are speculating on its economic effects. To provide a clearer view to those who anticipate the major upgrade, Lex Sokolin, the head economist at ConsenSys, shared his insights in an interview with Cointelegraph. The expert discussed the effect of the EMerge on users, developers and businesses. Additionally, Sokolin also cleared up some misconceptions about the Merge and explained how the new development can have an impact on the price of Ether (ETH). On the user level, the economist said that the average user will be able to use the chain as they normally …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) bounce fizzled out near $24,500 on Aug. 17, indicating that the recovery still faces stiff resistance from the bears. On-chain monitoring resource Material Indicators said the ask liquidity on the Fire Charts was similar to prior local tops. Another reason for caution among crypto investors was that the recovery in the S&P 500 was reaching extreme overbought levels in the near term. Jurrien Timmer, director of global macro at asset manager Fidelity Investments, said that 88% of stocks in the S&P 500 were trading above their 50-day moving average, which was “stunning.” Some were also cautious as Michael …

According to a new clarification statement on Wednesday, the Ethereum Foundation that the network's upcoming proof-of-stake transitory upgrade dubbed "Merge" will not reduce gas fees. With regards to this, the Ethereum Foundation wrote: "Gas fees are a product of network demand relative to the network's capacity. The Merge deprecates the use of proof-of-work, transitioning to proof-of-stake for consensus, but does not significantly change any parameters that directly influence network capacity or throughput." The Merge, which seeks to join the existing execution layer of Ethereum mainnet with its new proof-of-stake consensus layer, the Beacon Chain, will eliminate the need for energy-intensive …

Ethereum (ETH) is all set to transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) network by Sept. 15-16 that would see an end to its current proof-of-work (PoW) chain. This event would eliminate PoW mining from the Ethereum ecosystem. The terminal total difficulty has been set to 58750000000000000000000. This means the ethereum PoW network now has a (roughly) fixed number of hashes left to mine.https://t.co/3um744WkxZ predicts the merge will happen around Sep 15, though the exact date depends on hashrate. pic.twitter.com/9YnloTWSi1 — vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) August 12, 2022 In light of such a major upgrade, the PoW proponents, especially miners, have decided to keep …

Bitcoin (BTC) returned to range resistance on Aug. 17 amid ongoing concerns that a retracement is imminen. No success for Bitcoin bulls Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting $24,448 on Bitstamp, up 3.25% from the previous day's low before diving $600 in under an hour. Momentum gained speed on the day, but bulls faced familiar resistance at levels keeping them broadly in check since mid-June. The past week's trips to $25,000 and beyond remained brief breakouts beyond a two-month price ceiling. Analyzing the scenario, veteran trader Peter Brandt eyed a rising wedge setup in progress for …

Aave token holders have been asked to take part in an Aave Request for Comment (ARC) that would require them to "commit" to Ethereum’s proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus. The ARC, proposed on Aug. 16, comes in light of Ethereum's upcoming transition to proof-of-stake. It calls for members to select the Ethereum Mainnet running under PoS consensus as the new “canonical” governance system, while also giving power to an authority to shut down any Aave deployments on any alternative Ethereum forks. ARC for the Aave DAO to signal support PoS ETH upon The Merge https://t.co/0A4YkpHLdq — stani.lens @ ETHLatam (,) (@StaniKulechov) August …

Bitcoin (BTC) sank to intraday support on Aug. 16 as concerns emerged over the fate of United States stock markets. U.S. stocks face stiff resistance Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting $23,685 on Bitstamp, nearing lows from Aug. 12. After an eerily calm 24 hours, downside set in at the day's Wall Street open as previous highs in excess of $25,000 looked increasingly like a double top. #BTC is dipping right now as part of a potential technical retest of previous resistance$BTC #Crypto #Bitcoin https://t.co/quL4gaM2nG pic.twitter.com/zrqzIbCvp2 — Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) August 16, 2022 Analyzing the potential …

The market capitalization of Tether (USDT) tokens has increased by nearly $2 billion since the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash. The Office of Foreign Asset Control essentially barred Americans from using Tornado Cash on Aug. 8, blacklisting 44 USD Coin (USDC) and Ether (ETH) addresses connected to the service to a list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN). OFAC alleges that Tornado Cash was used by individuals and criminal organizations to launder over $7 billion worth of cryptocurrency since 2019. Funds linked to North Korean Lazarus Group hackers are also believed to have …