Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin and other core devs have dismissed allegations that a new smart contract creation feature set to be released in the forthcoming Constantinople hard fork will have negative security implications. The discussion was held during a Ethereum core developer call on Feb. 15. The feature in question is called “Create2” — designated as Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) EIP-1014 — and is intended to allow for interactions with a contract that does not yet exist on the blockchain — specifically, “addresses that do not exist yet on-chain but can be relied on to only possibly eventually contain …

Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed a new smart contract creation function dubbed “Create2.” This function reportedly introduces a new attack vector to the platform, according to a post on the Ethereum developers forum Ethereum Magicians published on Feb. 8. According to a Medium post by software developer Tim Cotten, the original create function creates a new contract at an address that is calculated (through a hash function) with the creator’s address and a random number (nonce) associated with it. Create2, on the other hand, reportedly does the same, but with the difference that the contract is created at …

As reported by Cointelegraph on Jan. 24, the press service of the Massachusetts Technical Institute (MIT) announced the development of a new cryptocurrency design based on the proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol. Ethereum — Algorand’s closest competitor, according to the existing estimates — will launch its PoS system sometime between 2019 and 2021. Scheduled updates required for a gradual transition from the proof-of-work (PoW) to a PoS algorithm have been regularly postponed by the Ethereum Foundation due to network vulnerabilities and failures in the process of the network’s upgrade. Trilemma: It's all about scalability The term “trilemma” was first used by Vitalik …

Ethereum (ETH) has launched its first pre-release for phase zero of the network’s evolving transition to Ethereum 2.0, according to new post published to Ethereum’s github on Jan. 31. The post notes that “this marks the first release in a series of weekly releases through February 2019. Phase 0 in v0.1 is relatively feature complete and approaching stable.” Ethereum 2.0, also known as Serenity, is planned to be the system’s final upgrade, as the entire network transitions from a proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus algorithm, and tackles fundamental questions such as scalability, economic finality and security. Serenity thus …

Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin declared that future blockchains with sharding based on proof-of-stake (PoS) will be “thousands of times more efficient” in a lengthy Twitter thread posted on Dec. 10. In the long series of tweets, Buterin addressed non-financial applications of blockchain technology. He stated that, as scalability advances (driving fees down) and user experience (UX) gets better, non-financial applications will become “a bigger part of the story.” He further noted that blockchains are not about “cutting computational costs,” but are instead about increasing computational costs while decreasing “social costs.” Buternin stated that computers have become 1 trillion times …

Coming every Sunday, the Hodler’s Digest will help you to track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions, and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week Nasdaq Notes Bitcoin Futures Could Launch in Quarter 1 2019, Bloomberg Reports Major U.S. stock exchange Nasdaq still intends to launch Bitcoin futures, and may do so in the first quarter of 2019, according to “two people familiar with the matter.” Speaking to Bloomberg this week, the two unnamed sources note that Nasdaq …

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin unveiled the roadmap for what he described as the “coherent whole” Ethereum 2.0 in a keynote presentation at the Devcon4 conference in Prague Oct. 31. Dubbed ‘Serenity,’ the project encompasses multiple projects Ethereum developers have been working on since 2014. “Ethereum 2.0 is [...] a combination of a bunch of different features that we’ve been talking about for several years, researching for several years, actively building for several years that are finally about to come together in one cohesive whole,” Buterin summarized during his talk. Ethereum users and analysts have long debated the potential timeframe of …

The interview has been edited and condensed. Nouriel Roubini is a New York-based economist that famously predicted the 2008 financial crisis when only a few considered there might be a threat to the existing course of events at the time. A Harvard alumnus and now a professor at NYU Stern School of Business, Mr. Roubini has always been critical of the crypto and blockchain industry. Oct.11, 2018 he testified at the Congressional hearing on Capitol Hill, Washington D.C., warning U.S. senators about “the mother or father of all scams and bubbles," — crypto. We met with Mr. Roubini during BlockShow …

Bitcoin (BTC) remained stable Sunday, October 7, capping a week of sideways trading as overall exchange volumes reached their lowest level for thirteen months. Market visualization by Coin360 Data from Cointelegraph’s price tracker and Coin360 show BTC/USD hardly moving compared with the same time last week, with daily and weekly movements concluding at around 0.03 percent up and 0.65 percent down respectively. At press time, Bitcoin is trading at around $6,545, slightly up on its position during the first week of September, while seeing volatility topping $1,500 in the intervening period. Bitcoin 7-day price chart. Source: Cointelegraph Bitcoin Price Index …

This week, EOS found itself in hot water after allegations arose that a major part of its blockchain governnance, led by Chinese crypto exchange Huobi may be involved in a corruption scheme. EOS’ parent company and Huobi have issued public statements since these allegations, but refrained from admitting or denying the charges. What is EOS? EOS.io is a blockchain-powered smart contracts protocol for the development, hosting, and execution of decentralized applications (dApps). It aims to operate in a way similar to the web-based applications and retains similar structural principles, which makes it comparable to Google’s Play Store or Apple’s App …

Coming every Sunday, the Hodler’s Digest will help you to track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions, and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week New York Judges Rules Securities Laws Be “Flexible” And Apply To Cryptocurrencies In an apparent first, a New York federal judge has ruled that U.S. securities laws are applicable for prosecuting crypto fraud allegations. During the fraud case against Brooklyn resident Maksim Zaslavskiy — who allegedly defrauded investors by promoting two cryptocurrencies reportedly …

Thursday, September 13: total market cap has soared by almost $12 billion today, as a flush of green spreads across virtually all of the top 100 cryptoassets. Several top 20 cryptocurrencies are seeing double digit gains, with Ethereum (ETH) leading the pack, up over 18 percent on the day, as data from Coin360 shows. Market visualization by Coin360 Ethereum has skyrocketed almost 20 percent on the day to trade at $207 at press time. After accelerated losses yesterday, September 12, saw the top alt sink below the $170 mark to post new 2018 lows, Ethereum has today rapidly recovered back …