This year, Oct. 31 marked the 14th anniversary of the issuance of one of this century’s most consequential white papers — Satoshi Nakamoto’s “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” Its 2008 publication set off a “revolution in finance” and “heralded a new era for money, one that did not derive its value from governmental edict but rather from technological proficiency and ingenuity,” as NYDIG celebrated in its Nov. 4 newsletter. Many aren’t aware, though, that Satoshi’s nine-page white paper was met with some skepticism initially, even among the cypherpunk community where it first surfaced. This reluctance may be understandable since …

For many years, Ethereum reigned supreme over the decentralized finance (DeFi) landscape, with the blockchain serving as the destination of choice for many of the most innovative projects serving up their take on decentralized finance. More recently, however, DeFi projects have started to crop up across multiple ecosystems, challenging Ethereum’s hegemony. And, as we look to a future in which the technical problem of interoperability is solved, one unlikely contender for the role of DeFi power player emerges — Bitcoin (BTC). In that future, Bitcoin plays potentially the most important role in DeFi — and not in a triumphalist, maximalist …

The future of blockchain and biometrics merge The merge of blockchain and biometrics has cogent potential. A new emerging ecosystem based on it is here to improve human life as such. The current crypto paradigm is dominated by power- and capital-based schemes. Appearing as an alternative, Sybil-resistant human-based protocols allow reorienting the systems away from such technocratic and oligopolistic narratives, providing true decentralization and democracy. Infrastructures based on human biometrics combined with blockchain are capable of creating innovative decentralized human-based digital verification layers and stable financial networks that rely on the existence of human life itself. Biometric-based blockchain projects formalize …

It's been a big year for Ethereum — with The Merge heralding the switch from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake. But there are still issues looming for the network, issues significant to the health of the entire industry, with scalability chief among them. We were able to talk with Cartesi founder Erick de Moura about what his project is doing to tackle this issue and what steps need to be taken to refine DeFi and make good on its promise. You say The Merge was an important step but doesn't solve scalability issues. Why's that? Whoever had the chance to attend the …

Ethereum's native token, Ether (ETH), looks poised to log a major price rally versus its top rival, Bitcoin (BTC), in the days leading toward early 2023. Ether has a 61% chance of breaking out versus Bitcoin The bullish cues emerge primarily from a classic technical setup dubbed the "cup-and-handle" pattern. It forms when the price undergoes a U-shaped recovery (cup) followed by a slight downward shift (handle) — all while maintaining a common resistance level (neckline). Traditional analysts perceive the cup-and-handle as a bullish setup, with veteran Tom Bulkowski noting that the pattern meets its profit target 61% of all …

Happy white paper day, Bitcoin. It’s been 14 years since Satoshi Nakamoto first sent an email to the Cypherpunk mailing list with the subject line, “Bitcoin P2P e-cash Paper.” The email included a link to the white paper, an outline of what would soon become a one trillion-dollar market. The first sentence of the email has become iconic among the Bitcoin community: “I’ve been working on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.” Over the past 14 years, Bitcoin (BTC) has morphed from a hobbyist pastime into a globally recognized brand. Bitcoin has been …

The Merge, which is considered one of the most significant blockchain upgrades on Ethereum (ETH) to date, brought down the network’s energy consumption by 99.9% immediately. On Sept. 15, the Ethereum blockchain migrated from proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism in an effort to transition into a green blockchain. What followed was an immediate and steep drop in total energy consumption of the Ethereum network. Before the Merge upgrade, in 2022, the energy consumption of Ethereum ranged between 46.31 terawatt hour (TWh) per year to 93.98 TWh per year. The lowest energy consumption for Ethereum was recorded on …

The shift of the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain to a proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol opened new opportunities for developers and investors to explore, including the burning of Ether. Now, Ethereum PoS transactions are validated through staking rather than mining. Staking impacts the supply and price dynamics of Ether in ways that are different from mining. Staking is expected to create deflationary pressure on Ether as opposed to mining that induces inflationary pressure. The increase in the total amount of funds locked in Ethereum contracts could also push its price up in the long term. This is because it affects one of the …

Ethereum went through a key network upgrade on Sept. 15, shifting from its proof-of-work (PoW) mining consensus to a proof-of-stake (PoS) one. The key upgrade is dubbed the Merge. The Merge was slated as a critical change for the Ethereum network that would make it more energy efficient, with later improvements to scalability and decentralization to come. A little over a month later, however, some industry observers fear the PoS transition has pushed Ethereum toward more centralization and higher regulatory scrutiny. The Merge replaced the way transactions were verified on the Ethereum network. Instead of miners putting in their computational …

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 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. …

Ethereum's native token, Ether (ETH), looks ready to undergo a massive rally due to a mix of technical and fundamental factors. From a technical perspective, ETH's price now eyes a 35% rebound by the end of October after holding testing a key support level. This level is a rising trendline that has capped Ether's downside attempts since June 2022, as shown below. In other words, traders have shown interest in buying Ethereum tokens near this level in recent weeks. Meanwhile, the accumulation sentiment has prompted the price to rise toward another significant level — a horizontal trendline resistance near $1,800, …