Liquid staking solutions such as Lido and Rocket Pool now have more total value locked (TVL) than decentralized exchanges (DEXs), making them the top category of DeFi protocols, according to data from crypto analytics platform DefiLlama. For the first time, the Liquid Staking category has surpassed DEXes in total value locked, making it the leading
The deadline has come for comments on a consultation paper and call for evidence released by the United Kingdom’s HM Treasury on a proposed crypto asset regulatory framework. The long-awaited paper, published in February, drew detailed responses from a variety of cryptocurrency industry players. Blockchain provider Polygon Labs, venture capitalists Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), the Association for
Bitcoin (BTC) headed toward $28,000 support after the May 1 Wall Street open as markets digested fresh United States banking jitters. Suspicions mount over First Republic contagion Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD dropping to multi-day lows at the time of writing. The pair continued a comedown that began after the weekly
Your biweekly roundup of cool AI stuff and its impact on society and the future. The past two months have seen a Cambrian explosion in the capabilities and potential of AI technology. OpenAI’s upgraded chatbot GPT-4 was released in mid-March and aced all of its exams, although it’s apparently a pretty average sommelier. Midjourney v5
On May 1, cryptocurrency exchange OKX announced that it would be listing memecoin Pepe (PEPE) at 17:00 Hong Kong Time (HKT) and open Pepe withdrawals on May 2 at 17:00 HKT. In supporting the listing decision, OKX staff wrote: “Pepe the Frog is a cartoon character and internet meme created by cartoonist Matt Furie. Pepe
Ethereum network fees have experienced a significant upswing following the implementation of the Shapella upgrade on April 12th. In the last 30 days, onchain fees have soared by over 153%, from a prior rate of $4.65 per transfer to a current average of $11.80 per transaction. The data highlights a substantial surge in the costs
JPMorgan Chase emerged as the winner in the auction to acquire the deposits and a “substantial majority of assets” of the troubled bank First Republic. This marked the failure of the third regional bank in the United States since March and laid open the vulnerabilities in the legacy banking system. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) has risen
Layer-2 blockchain protocols have been in the spotlight in 2023, bringing major performance improvements to a variety of platforms and services operating in the Ethereum (ETH) ecosystem. Zero-knowledge proofs have been key in the roll-out of a variety of layer 2s, with the technology pioneered by the decentralized scaling network Starknet. StarkWare, the technology firm behind
Gary Gensler, the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) chair, recently appeared before the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee for a hearing regarding his leadership of the regulatory agency. The hearing, with Gensler as the only witness, promised to be unpleasant for the SEC chair, with the federal agency’s actions during Gensler’s leadership
Uday Kotak, the CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, a financial institution based in India, recently expressed his view on the dominance of the U.S. dollar in global financial markets. Kotak stated that the U.S. dollar has “disproportionate power” as a reserve currency, retracting his previous statement in which he referred to the currency as the
Block, a financial services and technology company owned by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has announced it has completed the prototype design of its new five-nanometre (5nm) Bitcoin (BTC) mining chip — which it claims is key to decentralizing the supply of Bitcoin mining rigs. According to a blog post published on April 28, Block
Influence from friends and the fear of missing out (FOMO) were some of the reasons investors bought crypto for the first time in 2022, according to a survey by a United States financial regulator. Published by the United States Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Investor Education Foundation in late April, the survey found that a
Immutable is a game development platform that simplifies building Web3 games on the Ethereum blockchain. Headquartered in Sydney and co-founded in 2018 by James Ferguson, Robbie Ferguson and Alex Connolly, this leading Web3 gaming platform is focused on a mission to bring digital ownership to players by making it easy to build Web3 games for
The United States securities regulator has handed down nearly $4 million in fines to crypto exchange Coinme for allegedly offering unregistered securities and giving “misleading statements” on its crypto token UpToken (UP). On April 28 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it settled charges against Coinme, its subsidiary Up Global SEZC and the CEO
A Coinbase executive claims to have discovered a “jailbreak” for artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, allowing it to calculate the probability of bizarre crypto price scenarios. The crypto exchange’s head of business operations and avid ChatGPT user Conor Grogan shared a screenshot of the results in an April 30 Twitter post — showing that ChatGPT states
BRICS nations can lead efforts to abandon the U.S. dollar in international settlements, according to President Bashar Assad of Syria. At a meeting with China’s top diplomat for the region, the leader of the war-torn Middle Eastern country called for using the Chinese yuan for cross-border trade. Economic Clash With West Requires Discarding Dollar, BRICS