Ernest & Young's (EY's) attempts to promote secure and private transactions over public blockchains at cheaper costs has culminated in the release of Nightfall 3. The company announced the news via a release on July 1, stating that Nightfall 3 combines zero-knowledge proofs with optimistic rollups — zk-Optimistic Rollups — to improve transaction efficiency on Ethereum. Indeed, zk-Rollups are one of the layer-two scaling solutions being developed to achieve scalability for networks like Ethereum, using a process of batched transfers “rolled” into one transaction. EY’s first contribution to ZK proofs was in April 2019, previously reported by Cointelegraph at the …

In a battle of animal-themed cryptocurrencies, a bullock-branded, anonymity-focused protocol is making the case that it is faster, safer and cleaner than the shiba inu-faced joke coin that became a top 10 cryptocurrency this year, largely on the strength of Elon Musk’s memes. Animals aside, the Oxen privacy coin does have some reason to compare itself with market darling Dogecoin. Speed, for one. While DOGE’s block time is one minute compared to OXEN’s two, Oxen can use what it calls Blink technology, which is the default setting for OXEN to make the transactions nearly instant. On top of that, Oxen …

You might have heard the term “smart city” before — a futuristic, utopian idea that we might see implemented in the foreseeable future. Indeed, some metropolises — like Singapore, Seoul, Amsterdam, Oslo and Tokyo — are already on their way to becoming “smart.” So, what makes a city smart? That label is still quite abstract and might entail different meanings, but if you go the boring route and actually Google it, you’ll come across this unified definition: an interconnected urban area that utilizes various sensors and other methods to collect data and use it to improve its operations. In other …

On June 12, Bitcoin (BTC) mining pool Slush Pool mined block 687,285 with the transaction including a Taproot upgrade activation signal. That particular block was the 1,816th to include a signal for Taproot activation by a BTC miner within the difficulty epoch that lasted from May 30 to June 13. With 2,016 blocks created every difficulty period, crossing 1,816 blocks with a Taproot activation signal satisfied the 90% signaling threshold required to lock in the upgrade. This event meant that Taproot, Bitcoin’s first protocol upgrade in over four years, was set for its activation phase to be expected in mid-November. …

Numerous governments are attempting to ban cryptocurrencies, with recent examples from China, India, Turkey and Nigeria. The reason for doing so is simple: The decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies poses a threat to the legacy financial system, and as the technology itself is still in its infancy, it seems to attract hackers. Even so, banning crypto will not dissuade hackers or scammers in the slightest. Hackers remain drawn to cryptocurrency Ever since the inception of cryptocurrency, hackers have shown an appetite for this form of money. The perceived appeal of being anonymous when receiving payments has created an aura of invincibility …

An OG cryptocurrency dating to 2014 is making an aggressive push towards interchain operability, following up the launch of a new privacy protocol and wrapped token bridge to Binance Smart Chain with the launch of yield farming last month. Aimed at allowing frictionless and extremely cheap cross-border transactions, the fully decentralized Navcoin protocol launched a wrapped version of its NAV coins— Wrapped NAV, or wNAV — in April, building a bridge to the Binance Smart Chain, and through it to the world of decentralized finance (DeFi). The Binance BEP-20 token wrap opens decentralized exchanges (DEX) to NAV and xNAV. Ultimately, …

Frank McCourt, a billionaire real estate mogul and former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is backing a new effort for a decentralized social media project based on blockchain technology. McCourt is investing $100 million into an attempt to reinvent the foundations of social media by building a publicly accessible database of people’s social connections on a blockchain, Bloomberg reported Sunday. “Project Liberty” aims to allow users to move records of their interactions between social media services instead of being locked into a few dominant applications. The project would use blockchain technology to construct a new internet infrastructure called the …

European Central Bank (ECB) executive board member, Fabio Panetta, has argued that a digital euro offers superior privacy protections than privately issued stablecoins. Panetta criticized the profit motive of private firms, emphasizing it is in their commercial interests to harvest masses of data on their users. “We are not like private companies,” the board member told Financial Times. “We have no commercial interest in storing, managing, or monetizing the data of users.” The ECB official also confirmed that the European Central Bank has carried out pilots testing “offline payments for small amounts, in which no data is recorded outside the …

It is a given that connected devices need reliable, distributed ledger, technology-based digital identity solutions. That is an essential requirement for the Internet of Things (IoT). In the machine economy, devices must be able to recognize and communicate with one another; robust identity management solutions are key to effectively securing data and processes. But what about the multitude of analog “things” all around us? Surely they can also benefit from the advent of digital identity. Imagine the following: You are just back from a grocery run or a walk in the park with your pooch when you suddenly realize the …

A privacy-enabled blockchain platform says its goal is to build a responsible data economy and usher in a new era for this technology. Oasis Protocol says it brings privacy and scalability to DeFi — ensuring that this new approach to finance can expand beyond early adopters to reach the mass market. Controlling privacy Support for confidential smart contracts is a key differentiator of the Oasis Network. The contracts play an important role in preserving privacy by allowing a trustless decentralized blockchain without having to make that smart contract’s data public. This leaves the network able to solve emerging problems in …

Artificial intelligence research lab Fetch.ai has partnered with blockchain network Iota to enable a “controlled data sharing environment” for connected devices, setting the stage for a broad leap in Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities. The partnership, which was announced Wednesday, will allow sectors such as mobility, supply chain logistics, finance, healthcare, energy and others to utilize automated data sharing across IoT networks. Iota’s native Tangle technology will help facilitate secure payments and communications between devices. “While there are numerous partnerships focusing on data privacy, this one adds the layer of economic benefit for stakeholders via autonomous economic agents without compromising …

The anonymity of Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies is a hot topic in the crypto space. While the transactions are open to track in a public blockchain, it is challenging to link a transaction with a real-life person in many use cases. As an identity-centric platform, Concordium takes a different direction by offering complete transparency. “The time has come for the blockchain industry to respect the general rules of society,” Concordium chairman Lars Seier Christensen said in an announcement. The launch of Concodium Blockchain marks the end of the era of anonymity, opacity, and the lack of transparency, he added. …