China’s ongoing crackdown on Bitcoin (BTC) mining resulted in a mass relocation of mining operations out of the country and it has led to a more than fifty percent drawdown in the Bitcoin network hashrate from an all-time high of 197.9 exahash per second (ehash/s) on April 15 to its current rate at 97 ehash/s. One token that was hit especially hard by the hashrate drop was the Bitcoin Standard Hashrate Token (BTCST), a project that collateralized the Bitcoin hashrate with each token representing 0.1 TH/s of Bitcoin mining power. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that BTCST …

For luxury brands, usual business and marketing practices work upside down. While other businesses aim to scale, optimize and become accessible — luxury brands are supposed to be a cold and beautiful dream, causing admiration and (rarely fulfilled) desires of ownership. Building a luxury brand takes generations of storytelling, and the skill of maintaining a fragile balance between making profits and remaining exclusive, one-of-a-kind perfection. This paradigm has shifted with the trends of the modern era, in which a successful business should be data-driven and community-driven. Digitalization aims to democratize everything from finance to art, and luxury brands need to …

Ether (ETH) perhaps had the most bullish outlook entering the July session, with the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559 promising to make ETH scarcer through the network’s first-ever burning mechanism. But so far into the month, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has vastly tailed its top rival Bitcoin (BTC). The positive correlation was visible on Tuesday, following the New York opening bell when Ether plunged below $2,000 to hit a two-week low in sync with Bitcoin, which slipped below $32,500. As it happened, the ETH/USD exchange rate reached its intraday low of $1,961.10 following a 3.43% drop. The pair’s …

Bison Trails, an enterprise infrastructure provider for the cryptocurrency sector, announced Tuesday that it is providing network support to Provenance, a multi-billion-dollar platform that enables traditional financial institutions to offer blockchain services to their clients. Provenance will utilize Bison Trails’ infrastructure to strengthen its network and provide support to Hash holders to run validator nodes, according to June Ou, the executive director at Provenance Blockchain Foundation. Hash is the native cryptocurrency of the Provenance blockchain, serving both as a medium of payment as well as a governance token. “We’re proud to support Provenance in its mission to transform the financial …

Cryptocurrency staking protocol ClayStack has secured $5.2 million in seed funding from several prominent blockchain investor funds, putting it on course to introduce new innovations in staking later this year. The seed round was co-led by CoinFund and ParaFi Capital, with around a dozen other venture funds also participating, ClayStack announced Tuesday. Most notably, Coinbase Ventures, Solana Foundation, Hashed and Spartan Group were among the investors. On an individual level, some of the seed investors who participated in the round include Meltem Demirores of CoinShares, Aave founder Stani Kulechov, Solana co-founder Raj Gokal and Sandeep Naiwal, the co-founder of Polygon. …

Ethereum 2.0 (Eth2) is being pegged as the blockchain Messiah of Ethereum. Newsflash: it's not. The long-awaited changes are not expected to solve core issues that are plaguing the network and forestalling wider adoption. Vitalik Buterin, the brilliant mastermind behind the Ethereum blockchain, considers the personnel working with Ethereum as a bigger problem than the actual software, as he stated in a recent interview with Forkast news. While the personnel working on the project may or may not be problematic, it's surely not the only shortcoming. As promising as the new rollout may seem, the kind of software upgrades set …

Over the past week, astute crypto market analysts noticed some interesting developments related to the supply of Ether (ETH) as the network’s Aug. 4 London hard fork approaches. Recent data from CryptoQuant, an on-chain analytics firm, indicates that the amount of Ether held in cryptocurrency exchanges’ reserves has hit new daily lows since the start of July. To determine if this is a bullish or bearish development for the top altcoin, let’s take a closer look at some of the factors playing a role in the increased demand for Ether, including the Eth2 staking contract, increased activity in decentralized finance …

A Romanian cannabis cooperative focused on the production of cannabidiol turned to blockchain as a way to overcome the challenges of running a legal business in a grey area of the law. While the health benefits of cannabidiol — better known as CBD — are becoming more widely accepted and understood, the possession, production, and transportation of cannabis remains illegal in many parts of the eurozone. As a result, service providers ranging from banks to trucking companies shy away from what is still considered a “shady market” according to The Coop Network. “As a result, the industry is not able …

The crypto markets are as volatile as ever — and now, a major trading platform is making it easier to have “diamond hands.” eToro supports staking, which means that those who purchase and hold supported cryptocurrencies on its platform have a way of growing their capital. According to the platform, the mechanism that’s used to achieve this is not dissimilar to the way that interest accrues in a savings account. With many people beginning to gain exposure to crypto for the first time, eToro says it aims to ensure that the staking process is “simple, secure and hassle-free.” Any rewards …

A blockchain platform that allows businesses and developers to issue and manage verifiable credentials has announced that it is transitioning to a proof-of-stake algorithm. Dock says the switch to PoS will further decentralize its network — increasing the number of validators involved in securing its infrastructure, and enhancing governance measures. Until now, the project’s blockchain has been based on a proof-of-authority algorithm, where validators were selected by the Dock Association, a nonprofit organization. The move to PoS means that validators will now be chosen by the network based on how many Dock tokens have been locked up to back their …

Whales can be bashful and clever creatures, but when you manage to catch one in action it’s a sight to behold — consider, for instance, the single entity responsible for depositing 100k ETH into the Eth 2.0 deposit contract from 133 different addresses last week. Deposits into the ETH 2.0 staking contract have been picking up as of late, with 100k ETH pouring into the Eth 2 deposit contract on a single day last week. It caught the attention of the crypto space and, like most stories about on-chain activity, looking at the actual transactions and associated accounts can shed …

The Ethereum network witnessed the deployment of its London upgrade on the Ropsten testnet on June 24. This upgrade consists of the highly anticipated Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559. Following the launch on the Ropsten testnet, the London upgrade will be deployed on Ethereum’s Goerli, Rinkeby and Kovan testnets at weekly intervals. This is one of the important steps in the roadmap to implement a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus on the Ethereum network, also known as Ethereum 2.0. The London upgrade brings five EIPs that are going to be deployed on the testnets — EIP-1559, EIP-3198, EIP-3529, EIP-3541 and EIP-3554. The …