Avichal Garg, the CEO and co-founder of Electric Capital, defines himself as “an NFT maximalist” – who believes that nonfungible tokens (NFTs) will play an essential role in bringing crypto to the masses. Unlike other crypto niches, NFTs are relatable to aspects of everyday life such as art, music and games. “I could imagine that NFTs are actually many billions of people because it's ultimately culture. And that's something that everybody can participate in and everybody can understand,” said Garg in an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph. In particular, Garg is bullish about NFTs being used in the gaming industry, which …

After Ethereum’s long-awaited Merge, it’s an ideal time to think about how we can also improve smart contracts. Essentially apps that run on blockchains, smart contracts are a vital component of our Web3 applications. But interacting with them remains quite dangerous, especially for non-developers. Many of the incidents where users lose their crypto assets are caused by buggy or malicious smart contracts. As a Web3 app developer, this is a challenge I think about often, especially as waves of new users keep onboarding into various blockchain applications. To fully trust a smart contract, a consumer needs to know exactly what …

Ethereum (ETH) is heading for the most significant upgrade in its history, which is scheduled to happen at around 5:27am UTC on Sept. 15. Those wanting to watch the Ethereum network make its historic shift to proof-of-stake (PoS) in real-time will have plenty of options to choose from. The Ethereum Foundation has scheduled an Ethereum Mainnet Merge Viewing Party live stream ready to go live on YouTube around 4:00 am UTC, which is roughly an hour and a half before the estimated time of the Merge. The Merge will take place when the network reaches a total terminal difficulty of …

On Sept 14, Coinbase Co-Founder and CEO Brian Armstrong announced the company’s plans to begin integrating crypto policy efforts into its app. According to him, this will help the company’s 103 million verified users know where their local political leaders and representatives stand when it comes to cryptocurrency. 1/ Starting today, Coinbase will begin integrating our crypto policy efforts right into our app. These will help our 103M verified users get educated on the crypto positions held by political leaders where they live. pic.twitter.com/3GqWZIioZQ — Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) September 14, 2022 Coinbase will rely on some of the data compiled …

As with many things in life, events are not siloed. When any type of event or action occurs, planned or unplanned, it causes changes and reactions to surrounding components. Think of a stone thrown into a pond creating ripples in the water while also altering the aquatic environment below the surface. This school of thought can also be applied to the Ethereum Merge. The Ethereum blockchain, with its native coin Ether (ETH), is a pillar of the crypto asset industry — an industry that has become increasingly mainstream with each passing year. Ether is the second most popular altcoin, with …

A recent report from the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance (EEA) highlights how the Ethereum ecosystem has matured to a point where the network can be used by businesses to solve real-world problems. From supply chain management use cases to payment solutions utilized by companies like Visa and PayPal, the report demonstrates how the Ethereum network has grown to become one of the most valued public blockchains. Although notable, the EEA report also points out that the rapid growth of the Ethereum ecosystem has created a number of challenges for companies, specifically regarding energy consumption, scalability and privacy. For example, the document …

Ethereum is just over a week away from officially moving to a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain with the Merge slated for completion around Sept. 13–15. With the transition, Ethereum would abandon its current proof-of-work (PoW) chain, eliminating miners from the ecosystem. Ethereum is a vast ecosystem with thousands of decentralized applications and decentralized finance protocols working on top of it. Additionally, there are several layer-2 solutions, i.e., solutions built on top of the blockchain itself, the layer 1, to facilitate faster transactions and make Ethereum more scalable. The Merge would mark the completion of the second phase of the three-phase transition …

Avalanche-based lending protocol Nereus Finance has been the victim of a crafty hack that saw a user net $371,000 worth of USD Coin (USDC) using a smart contract exploit. Blockchain cybersecurity firm CertiK was one of the first to detect the exploit on Sept. 6, indicating that the attack impacted liquidity pools on Nereus relating to decentralized exchange Trader Joe and automated market maker Curve Finance. CertiK also suggested that underlying protocols themselves were impacted, however, Curve Finance responded via Twitter on Sept. 7, stating “maybe you meant ‘assets impacted,’ not ‘protocols impacted’. Only @nereusfinance and its assets seem impacted.” …

High transaction fees have been a long recurring issue for users on popular blockchain networks like Ethereum and Bitcoin during periods of increased demand. However, there are protocols, platforms and methods that help users to reduce costs. What are transaction fees? Transaction fees are fees that users pay to send a transaction or interact with a smart contract on a blockchain network. While gas fees can refer to transaction fees on any blockchain, the term is mainly used to describe the Ethereum network transaction fees. Transaction fees are paid in small fractions of the network’s native cryptocurrency. For example, with …

According to a new United States Patent and Trademark Office publication on Tuesday, Swiss-based blockchain startup PraSaga has been awarded a patent placing its operating system, dubbed "SagaOS," on the blockchain. Titled "Systemic Extensible Blockchain Object Model Comprising A First-class Object Model And A Distributed Ledger Technology," the methods described U.S. patent no. 11436039B2 relates to processing multiple message passing transactions via blockchain. Smart contracts of the present only allow for processing just one transaction or action at any given time. However, PraSaga claims that its proprietary methods described in the patent can allow for the execution of multiple actions …

Decentralized finance (DeFi), one of the fastest growing ecosystems in the cryptocurrency market, has long been a dilemma for regulators, given the decentralized nature of the space. In 2022, United States regulators paid special focus to the nascent area with significant attention to ending the anonymous nature of the ecosystem. DeFi protocols allow users to trade, borrow and lend digital assets without having to go through an intermediary. DeFi ecosystems by nature are decentralized with the majority of projects being run by automated smart contracts and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). Most DeFi protocols don’t require heavy Know Your Customer (KYC) …

The Ethereum network’s transition from a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus is likely to flood the crypto industry with out-of-work ETH miners, causing severe disruption to all PoW tokens. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Andy Long, CEO of Bitcoin miner White Rock believes the upcoming Ethereum Merge will force PoW miners to look for greener pastures, such as other PoW blockchains, and thus "swamp” other coins — increasing mining difficulty and reducing profitability, stating: "As GPU miners point their hardware at other chains their difficulty will increase causing lower returns and splitting the reward amongst more miners." Long added that the migration will likely …