The allure of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) has been growing in popularity recently, and for a good reason. Nonfungible tokens are a new form of asset that can represent anything from digital art to game items and are stored on the blockchain ledger. This implies that NFTs are unique, immutable and transparent. People collect NFTs for a variety of reasons, including art appreciation, value speculation and as part of playing games like Decentraland or Cryptokitties that are based on blockchain technology. There are many possible reasons that NFTs have become popular, and different people will have different reasons for investing in …

MetaMask is arguably one of the most well-known self-custodial Ethereum software wallets in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, with its signature Orange Fox avatar plug-in acting as a portal to the world of Ether (ETH)-based tokens, decentralized applications (DApps) and decentralized finance (DeFi). The retail browser plug-in wallet surpassed 30 million users worldwide in 2022 and has slowly turned its attention to serving a growing number of institutional users that have looked to gain exposure and manage assets in the growing DeFi space. Cointelegraph caught up with Elizabeth Mathew, head of growth and partnerships at MetaMask Institutional (MMI), at the firm’s stand …

When things don't go as planned in your career, finding opportunities in other fields is the way to go according to Lewis Neal, a former National Football League (NFL) defensive tackle. Speaking to Cointelegraph at the Blockchain Economy Dubai Summit 2022, Neal shared the story of how he went from playing professional football to exploring the finance world, eventually leading him to Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto wallets. Neal explained that his expectations were high when he started football. Like many aspiring professional sports guys, he thought that he would be the star of the show. However, things didn't turn out …

Ethereum blockchain shifted from a proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism on Sept. 15, 2022. Along with this move, ETHPoW, a distinct PoW blockchain (basically the old pre-Merge Ethereum) forked from Ethereum's Merge, became live. This forked version of Ethereum aims to maintain the proof-of-work mining process for ETH miners. Any miner is permitted to add a block to the PoW network with the clear stipulation that the first valid block published is the correct one. In reality, more than one legitimate block is occasionally discovered by the network due to the latency of data propagation, creating numerous …

Crypto and stock trading platform Robinhood announced the launch of Robinhood Wallet, a self-custody, Web3 wallet, with Polygon (MATIC) as its first supported blockchain. Robinhood launched the beta version of its Web3 wallet on iOS and is being made available to the first 10,000 users that joined the waitlist on May 2022. Hosted first over the Polygon blockchain, Robinhood Wallet allows users to trade and swap cryptocurrencies with no network fees. Sharing his thoughts on the crypto wallet’s launch, Johann Kerbrat, CTO of Robinhood Crypto - Robinhood’s crypto trading platform said: “Like we did with the stock market, Robinhood Wallet …

Fantom (FTM) is known for its speed and inexpensive layer-1 blockchain. Like other blockchains (for example, Solana (SOL) and Avalanche (AVAX)) that scale better than their counterpart, it has been dubbed an “Ethereum killer.” After raising $40 million in funds, Fantom launched its mainnet in December 2019. Since then, it has grown to become one of the most popular blockchains, sitting in the top 10 blockchains by total value locked (TVL) with $1.3 billion in TVL. Fantom’s high-throughput blockchain is an open-source smart contract platform. It is scalable and EVM-compatible, meaning you can deploy and run your Ethereum decentralized applications …

As crypto ownership becomes more and more common, holders will need to think about how they protect and hold their assets. The safest option is storing cryptocurrency in a personal wallet. Crypto wallets are programs that allow users to store, send and receive cryptocurrency. Each wallet has a private key that allows the wallet to be spent. Private keys are cryptographic strings of code that allow owners to spend the funds inside a wallet, as well as prove ownership. Wallet information is also stored offline, reducing the risk of a hacking attempt. Everyday non-technical crypto users can benefit from the …

Australian-based crypto platform Marhaba DeFi says there has been a strong take-up of Halal-approved cryptocurrency products on its platform, with aims to release a suite of new products which align with Islamic law by the end of 2022. Launched in 2020, the platform is focused on adhering to the rules of “Islamic finance” which refers to how businesses and individuals raise capital in accordance with Sharia, or Islamic law. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Marhaba DeFi founder and CEO Naquib Mohammed said active users of their non-custodial multichain “Sahal Wallet” have grown to around 40,000 since its launch, stating: “People need a …

Decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch Network issued a warning to crypto investors after identifying a vulnerability in Profanity, an Ethereum (ETH) vanity address generating tool. Despite the proactive warning, apparently, hackers were able to make away with $3.3 million worth of cryptocurrencies. On Sept. 15, 1Inch revealed the lack of safety in using Profanity as it used a random 32-bit vector to seed 256-bit private keys. Further investigations pointed out the ambiguity in the creation of vanity addresses, suggesting that Profanity wallets were secretly hacked. The warning came in the form of a tweet, as shown below. RUN, YOU FOOLS ⚠️ …

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 …

Arbitrum is one of Ethereum’s layer-2 scaling solutions designed to improve smart contracts’ efficiency and transaction execution on the network while reducing fees drastically and adding extra privacy features. L2 networks are software that sit on top of the base layer of a blockchain like Bitcoin or Ethereum to boost the platform’s efficiency and offer inexpensive transactions. In recent years, Ethereum’s surge in the development and adoption of Web3, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized applications (DApps) has resulted in the platform’s excessive congestion leading to skyrocketing fees. Different solutions have been explored to resolve Ethereum’s scalability, including layer-1 dedicated upgrades. …

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domain names have surpassed Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) as the most traded asset on NFT marketplace OpenSea over the last seven days — seemingly ahead of the Ethereum Merge. According to OpenSea data, the weekly volume of the Ethereum domain NFTs eclipsed 2,249 ETH at the time of writing, beating out RTFKT Clone X (1,992 ETH) and Bored Ape Yacht Club (1,777 ETH). ENS domains are a distributed, open and expandable naming system on the Ethereum blockchain that allows users to turn a long string of keys for a crypto address into a single ENS …