Ethereum

Lending protocol Geist Finance is shutting down permanently due to losses from the Multichain exploit, according to a July 14 social media post from the app’s development team. Geist contracts were been paused on July 6, then resumed in “withdraw and repay only” mode on July 9. The latest post confirms the team does not

Coinbase’s Base mainnet is now “open for builders,” according to a July 13 blog post from the network’s development team. The team is opening the network to builders ahead of its public launch to allow more time  for user onboarding. Base also announced that the public launch of the network will occur in August. Since

Coinbase Wallet users can now send instant messages to each other using their Ethereum identities, according to a  July 12 blog post from Coinbase. The new feature relies on the Extensible Message Transport Protocol (XMTP), an instant messaging system that allows users to communicate using blockchain addresses. XMTP is also used by decentralized social media

Ethereum (ETH) scaling protocols are dominating the use of zero-knowledge (ZK) rollups, with major launches, new research and healthy competition key points in a sector report published by ZK Validator. The node infrastructure operator’s “State of ZK Q2” report reflects on significant events across the ZK ecosystem, with notable launches of ZK-powered layer 2’s highlighting the

Crypto mining firm Hive Blockchain is now calling itself Hive Digital Technologies — after enacting a branding pivot that seeks to highlight its foray into artificial intelligence. The Vancour-based mining company said in a July 12 statement it has dropped “blockchain” from its name to better represent the company’s “evolving focus” on revenue opportunities in

In this week’s newsletter, read about Ethereum nonfungible token (NFT) royalties hitting their lowest point in two years. Check out Bitcoin Ordinals trading volume, which hit $210 million in the second quarter of 2023, and how a decentralized finance (DeFi) borrower used an NFT representing a physical luxury watch to take out a loan. In

The proposal to launch GHO on Ethereum’s mainnet reached quorum after protocol delegate AaveChan voted “Yae” on Wednesday. Aave DAO’s community wholly backed the plan as all members of the DAO voted in support with over 698,000 votes at press time. This comes after months of successfully testing the GHO stablecoin on the Ethereum testnet

The much-anticipated Quantum Leap upgrade by layer-2 scaling protocol Starknet was recently deployed on the Ethereum mainnet, allowing for as much as 90 transactions per second (TPS), boosting the network’s speed.  MOARRR TPS DADDY STARKNET MAINNET QUANTUM LEAP 0.12.0 LIVE ON MAINNET pic.twitter.com/RaI1XKcgy7 — Starknet (@Starknet) July 12, 2023 According to Uri Kolodny, the co-founder

A person is using the Multichain Executor to drain tokens associated with the AnySwap bridging protocol, according to a July 10 report from on-chain sleuth and Twitter user Spreek. The report follows outflows of over $100 million from Multichain bridges that occurred on July 7, which were reported by the Multichain team as “abnormal.” The

The Ethereum ecosystem welcomes another layer-2 scaling solution as ConsenSys begins onboarding partners to its Linea network, which has produced significant scaling milestones in testing. Linea is an Ethereum layer-2 scaling network that allows developers to build or migrate decentralized applications for Ethereum. It operates using zero-knowledge proofs and is Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) equivalent, meaning its

An Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) made on July 7 seeks to standardize how tokens are bridged between networks. The “Sovereign Bridged Token” standard, or EIP-7281, allows token issuers to create canonical bridges across multiple networks.  The proposal was co-authored by Arjun Bhuptani, founder of the Connext bridging protocol. In a July 7 social media post,

The Arcadia Finance attacker used a reentrancy exploit to drain $455,000 from the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, according to a July 10 post-mortem report issued by the app’s development team. A “reentrancy exploit” is a bug that allows an attacker to “re-enter” a contract or interrupt it during a multi-step process, preventing the process from

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes the Bitcoin network needs scalable solutions like the zero-knowledge (ZK) rollups to become more than another payment network. Buterin’s comments came during a Twitter space hosted by Bitcoin developer Udi Wertheimer with discussions revolving around Ethereum’s scaling experiments. A ZK-rollup chain is an off-chain protocol that operates on top of

The news surrounding BlackRock’s application for a spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (EFT) sent the asset’s price from its local lows in mid-June to a strong monthly close of +12%. To most observers, this was a sign that institutional investment into the cryptosphere is once again on the horizon. A future approval of a spot

Blockchain network Avail has launched a testnet data availability bridge to Ethereum, according to a July 7 announcement. Once testing is completed, the bridge will allow developers to easily create “validiums” or low-cost layer 2s that do not store full transaction data on Ethereum, the announcement stated. Avail was originally created by Polygon Labs, but

Ether has been on a downward trend, with the $2,000 level forming a crucial resistance level in recent months. While Bitcoin (BTC) recorded 11.94% gains, moving past $30,000 in June after BlackRock filed an application for an exchange-traded fund with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States, the upside in Ether (ETH) stayed around 3.16%. In