Just yesterday, OpenSea announced a smart contract upgrade, which requires users to migrate their listed NFTs from Ethereum (ETH) blockchain to a new smart contract. As a direct result of the upgrade, users that don't migrate over from Ethereum risk losing their old, inactive listings — which currently require no gas fees for migration. Major nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea has reportedly fallen victim to an ongoing phishing attack within hours after announcing a week-long planned upgrade to delist inactive NFTs on the platform. However, the urgency and short deadline opened up a small window of opportunity for hackers. Within …

The Ethereum Foundation has removed all references to Eth1 and Eth2 in favor of calling the original blockchain the “execution layer” and the upgraded Proof of Stake chain the “consensus layer.” Ethereum’s long-awaited transition from a Proof-of-work mining model to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism is expected to go live around in the second or third quarter of this year. Announcing the change the foundation cited a number of rationales including a “broken mental model for new users,” scam prevention, inclusivity and staking clarity. In a Jan.24 blog post, the Ethereum Foundation noted that the branding of Eth2 failed to …

Vitalik Buterin has walked listeners through a five-part roadmap on the latest Bankless podcast where he outlined the necessary steps for Ethereum to survive and thrive. In order to achieve ultimate scalability and decentralization, Butalik claimed that Ethereum needs to be more agile and more lightweight in terms of blockchain data so that more people can manage and use it. At the beginning of December, Buterin also published an article titled “Endgame” where he makes the case that all blockchains will ultimately converge in the future, while listing the tools that would allow for block verification to happen in a …

Ethereum-based layer two scaling network Polygon has quietly fixed a vulnerability that put almost $24 billion worth of its native token MATIC at risk. According to a Dec. 29 blog post from Polygon, the “critical” vulnerability in the network’s Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Genesis contract was first highlighted by two whitehat hackers on Dec. 3 and Dec. 4 via blockchain security and bug bounty hosting platform Immunefi. All you need to know about the recent Polygon network update. ✅A security partner discovered a vulnerability ✅Fix was immediately introduced ✅Validators upgraded the network ✅No material harm to the protocol/end-users ✅White hats were paid …

Decentralized automated market maker (AMM) Bancor is set to launch new staking pools and an upgrade to its impermanent loss protection mechanism as part of its long-awaited Bancor 3 update. Bancor was founded in 2017 and was the first DeFi protocol to introduce AMMs to the blockchain. The Ethereum-based exchange and lending platform also allows users to earn staking rewards via various liquidity pools. In a Nov. 30 blog post introducing the upcoming Bancor 3 update, the platform announced several new features and upgrades including the Omnipool, Infinity pools, and “Instant Impermanent Loss Protection.” Introducing Bancor 3 pic.twitter.com/TuIyUnN13U — Bancor …

Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed a new limit on the total transaction calldata in a block to decrease the overall transaction calldata gas cost over the ETH network. Buterin’s post on the Ethereum Magicians forum, EIP-4488, highlights concerns regarding high transaction fees on Layer-1 blockchains for rollups and the considerable amount of time to implement and deploy data sharding: “Hence, a short-term solution to further cut costs for rollups, and to incentivize an ecosystem-wide transition to a rollup-centric Ethereum, is desired.” While the entrepreneur cited an alternative wherein the gas costs parameters could be decreased without further adding …

Supply chain tracking network VeChain has just upgraded its consensus mechanism to what it claims is the “world’s greenest” method of verifying blocks on the chain. On Nov. 16, VeChain reached a milestone in its six-year history by upgrading its VeChainThor mainnet to the first phase of the Proof of Authority (PoA) 2.0 SURFACE consensus algorithm. VeChain is a supply chain tracking system that launched in 2015 and combines physical tracking with blockchain record keeping. PoA and Proof of Stake (PoS) differ from Proof of Work (PoW) in that they do not require mining to reach network consensus. PoA achieves …

The Bitcoin (BTC) network successfully activated the Taproot soft fork following a 90% lock-in consensus from miners and mining pools between blocks 709,488 and 709,632. The milestone signifies the first major upgrade for Bitcoin since August 2017, which saw the launch of Bitcoin’s leading layer-two solution, the Lightning Network and Segregated Witness (SegWit). The Taproot upgrade aims to improve the scripting capabilities and privacy of the Bitcoin network. To do this, the soft fork introduces the concept of Merkelized Abstract Syntax Tree (MAST). According to a Taproot-dedicated website run by prominent Bitcoin developer Hampus Sjöberg: “[MAST] can help make smart …

Real-world use cases are one of the main adoption drivers for every crypto ecosystem, which also holds true for the Bitcoin (BTC) network. In the next seven days, the Bitcoin protocol will undergo a soft fork in the name of Taproot upgrade, which aims to improve the network’s privacy, efficiency and smart contracts capability. Taproot is Bitcoin’s first major upgrade since August 2017, which saw the introduction of Segregated Witness (SegWit) and resulted in the launch of Lightning Network. While the previous fork primarily sought to fix transaction malleability and improve Bitcoin’s network scalability, the Taproot upgrade aims to revamp …

The price of Ether (ETH) nearly hit a new all-time high on Oct. 21 before falling below $4,000 after the $435-million options expiry on Oct. 22 soured the mood. The Ethereum network is set to take another step toward Ethereum 2.0 on Oct. 27 at epoch 74240 with the Altair upgrade to Beacon Chain. Eth2 will be an entirely proof-of-stake (PoS) network, for which the community has been gearing up for over a year now. As per an Ethereum Foundation blog post explaining the development, Altair is an update to the Beacon Chain that brings support for light clients, pre-validator …

The Ethereum (ETH) network is currently the dominant layer-one protocol in terms of smart contract deployment and active users, but the race to become the 'world’s computer' is far from settled because competing protocols are gaining traction by offering solutions to high transaction costs and slow confirmation times, the biggest problems facing the network. One project that has been on the rise over the past month is Tezos, a proof-of-stake blockchain network that is designed to evolve over time without the needing to undergo a hard fork. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since hitting a low …

Cardano blockchain’s native asset, ADA, reached a new record high on Monday as investors pinned hopes on an upcoming smart contracts feature that expects to boost the cryptocurrency’s adoption. The ADA/USD exchange rate topped out at $2.899 around 9:00 am UTC, raising anticipations that it would easily close above $3 in the coming sessions. Many analysts, including pseudonymous chartist PostyXBT, noted that the Cardano token had entered a “price discovery mode.” Meanwhile, David Gokhshtein hinted that ADA/USD might continue its bull run until Sep. 12, the day Cardano is going to integrate a smart contracts feature to its blockchain via …