Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has warned of the dangers of ‘smart contract risk’ in DeFi protocols in an interview to mark Ethereum's fifth birthday. Buterin also warned users not to ‘risk their life savings’ in DefI in his appearance on Laura Shin’s Unchained Podcast. Smart contract risk When asked about his main criticism and concerns about DeFi, Buterin responded; “I think one big one is just that a lot of people are underestimating smart contract risk.” Buterin said that the interest rates are exponentially higher than traditional bank accounts meaning DeFi products are far riskier and have a much higher …

Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin has called for reform to the cryptocurrency’s fee system, warning that rising transaction fees could undermine the security of the network. The idea is based on a paper that suggests miners’ increasing reliance on transaction fees may incentivize selfish mining practices in a bid to extract greater profits, risking disruptions to how transactions are processed. Buterin’s comments come as users report Ether transaction fees tagging 100 gwei. Mythos Capital founder Ryan Adams tweeted earlier today that the Ethereum network must “find ways to fit more value in each block.” Buterin is advocating for the implementation …

The five-day Unitize virtual blockchain conference organized by BlockShow and San Francisco Blockchain Week ended with the final session on Friday. The event saw appearances from Heath Tarbert, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of Ethereum; and Tim Draper, a serial blockchain investor, as well as other speakers from a diverse pool of market segments both within and outside the crypto space. Blockchain adoption, decentralized finance, central bank digital currencies and the future of Bitcoin (BTC) dominated the conversation in many of the panels. The event also saw speakers chart possible paths forward for …

Torus, a Singaporean crypto key management platform, now allows users to send cryptocurrencies through social media platforms such as Twitter. With Torus’ latest update, v1.7.2, users can now send tokens to any Twitter or GitHub account, even if that account has never used Torus’ crypto wallet, the firm said. Torus publicly sends ETH to Buterin, Musk, and CZ on Twitter Announcing the news on Monday, Torus showcased a couple of Twitter transactions, featuring 0.01 Ether (ETH) transfers to major crypto figures such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao as well as Elon Musk. As of press time, …

The Hashing It Out podcast recently hosted Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin. During the show, he explained how he would handle Ethereum’s creation differently if he were building it now. Buterin acknowledged the presence of a number of changes, both large and small, such as putting more thought into gas costs for example. “We didn’t really do a good job of setting those at the beginning,” Buterin said on the July 2 podcast interview. Buterin’s larger changes involve sharding and Proof-of-Stake After mentioning gas prices and other smaller alterations he would have made from the start, Buterin took a look at …

Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin tweeted that TRON (TRX) sympathizers within the Bitcoin (BTC) community are a “perfect example” of German Nazis aligning with Japan during the Second World War. Vitalik drew the questionable comparison in a reply to Bitcoin activist and independent developer Udi Wertheimer, who tweeted: “#Tron > #Ethereum”. The Ethereum co-founder wrote: “I feel like this weird half-joking tron stanning in the BTC community might be a perfect example of this from @slatestarcodex” He also attached a number of screenshots from a 2014 article that was originally posted on Slate Star Codex — a now-deleted blog created …

Ethereum expects boosted transactions per second, or TPS, as the network shifts toward the long-awaited Ethereum 2.0, or ETH 2.0, according to Etheruem co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Vitalik says the transition will not be instant "ETH2 scaling for data will be available before ETH2 scaling for general computation," Ethereum Buterin said in a June 30 tweet. "This implies that rollups will be the dominant scaling paradigm for at least a couple of years: first ~2-3k TPS with ETH1 as data layer, then ~100k TPS with ETH2 (phase 1)," he noted, adding — "Adjust accordingly." Essentially, Buterin said the network will not …

Ethereum (ETH) miners are currently voting to expand the block gas limit from 10,000,000 to 12,500,000 gas, according to a recent tweet from Bitfly, the parent company of Ethermine pool. What is gas and the gas limit? Gas is a unit that measures the amount of computational effort required to send a transaction or perform other actions on the Ethereum blockchain. It is denominated in Gwei, or extremely small fractions of ETH. Block gas limit, in turn, is the threshold of gas that can be spent on the transactions featured within one block. How could this vote affect the network? …

Vitalik Buterin tweeted today that the Ether (ETH) supply is 40 million less today than what was estimated in the original whitepaper. He believes this refutes the theory that Ethereum is run by inflationist technocrats. Buterin’s tweet from June 17, 2020. Source: Twitter. What about Ethereum development? The estimate cited by Buterin was forecasting a supply of 150.8 million Ether five years out. However, the actual supply today is only 111.3 million. The issues of inflation and deflation are always contentious for crypto enthusiasts, as many believe that the purported deflationary nature of cryptocurrency is one of its main advantages …

Last week, the crypto community spotted transaction fees of up to $2.6 million featured in several transactions on the Ethereum network. Vitalik Buterin has since suggested that the abnormous fees “may actually be blackmail," but some researchers have now challenged that claim. Blackmail theory The first suspicious transfer took place on June 10, when $2.6 million in fees was paid to move just 0.55 Ether (ETH). Within 24 hours, a second transaction of 350 ETH was made from the same wallet, spending the exact same amount — $2.6 million — in gas. The next day, the Ethereum blockchain processed a …

Multiple transactions recently incurred millions in transaction fees on the Etheruem network, which creator Vitalik Buterin thinks could have been blackmail. "So the million-dollar txfees *may* actually be blackmail," Buterin said in a June 12 tweet. What happened? Proposing his theory on the situation, Buterin explained: "Hackers captured partial access to exchange key; they can't withdraw but can send no-effect txs with any gasprice. So they threaten to 'burn' all funds via txfees unless compensated." Multiple transactions have incurred exorbitantly-high network fees Over the last few days, someone sent approximately $130 worth of Ethereum (ETH), as of press time pricing, …

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin says the current financial crisis is very different to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis that Bitcoin emerged from — and that the crypto community needs to adjust its thinking accordingly. Writing in a Twitter thread on June 2, Buterin said that some of Bitcoin’s most dearly held narratives had not been borne out this time around. Pandemic and protests The Ethereum (ETH) co-founder said 2020 is not a repeat of the financial crisis in 2008/2009. Rather, he tweeted, it is a “virus crisis”, a crisis of “epistemology” and one of “overbearing policing”. He challenged the idea …