CasperLabs has raised $14 million in a private validator token sale, with over a dozen investors participating in a round led by Digital Strategies. The company expects to launch its public mainnet in the first quarter of 2021, followed by a public token offering which will exclude U.S. investors. In 2018, CasperLabs raised $14.5 million in an equity Series A round led by Terren Piezer. The original plan provisioned for an Exchange Validator Offering on the BitMax exchange, but the recent announcement makes no mention of the exchange. Casper started out as a scaling solution for Ethereum (ETH), but eventually, …

ConsenSys developer Ben Edgington has published an update that predicts the ETH 2.0 beacon chain genesis will happen within the next six to eight weeks. In a post announcing the launch of ‘V1.0.0 release candidate 0’, Edgington revealed the protocol’s deposit contract address feature should be announced this week. The deposit contract allows ETH to be sent between Ethereum and ETH 2.0, and is one of the few remaining updates needed to facilitate the roll-out of ETH 2.0 phase 0: “As I understand it, we are good to go: deposit contract in the next few days; beacon chain genesis 6-8 …

A study of cryptocurrency taxation regimes from around the world by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, found that global crypto taxation laws are highly inconsistent. Source: OECD Report. The way crypto assets are defined vary greatly by jurisdiction. Cryptocurrency is most commonly defined as a “financial instrument or asset”, followed by a “commodity or virtual commodity." In the U.S., the asset class remains mostly undefined for tax purposes. Source: OECD Report. The same inconsistency is observed when it comes to determining the first taxable event for mined cryptocurrency assets. The most common approach here is to …

In March, the crypto world saw the first instance of what many saw as a hostile takeover attempt of another blockchain. Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, had acquired Steemit, Inc. and the Steem blockchain with it — or so he thought. A complex battle of hard forks, block production takeover, alleged bribes and misdirection ultimately resulted in most of the Steem community migrating to Hive, a completely grassroots version of the previous platform. Meanwhile, the original employees and developers of Steemit, Inc. left the company almost immediately after the purchase. Their role in the ensuing battle was limited, but …

Ethereum successfully launched yet another dress-rehearsal testnet for the upcoming Ethereum 2.0 Phase 0, dubbed Zinken. The launch occurred on Monday at 12 P.M. UTC and unlike previous attempts, was a smooth launch with enough participation and no major bugs. The testnet was organized following the bittersweet launch of Spadina, the first rehearsal that aimed to test the launchpad for stakers. As Cointelegraph reported at the time, the Spadina testnet suffered from low participation rates, which meant that a lot of validators who signed up for the testnet failed to bring their clients online. While initially it was believed that …

Solana, the smart contract platform that recently entered the spotlight thanks to FTX’s Serum, announced the upcoming release of what it says is a decentralized bridge for Ethereum ERC-20 tokens. Called Wormhole, the bridge would allow users to transfer value between the different blockchains, turning ERC-20 tokens into Solana’s corresponding SPL standard. The bridge is currently being audited by Kudelski, a major Swiss security firm. Anatoly Yakovenko, the CEO of Solana, told Cointelegraph that release is expected for the end of October. A beta of the bridge will be available to developers in a Oct. 28 hackathon, with a full …

The eToro trading platform announced on Thursday the launch of a dedicated staking service for its clients, letting users earn staking rewards from Cardano (ADA) and Tron (TRX). Users who hold positions in either of these currencies will be eligible for staking rewards, awarded monthly. The company said that other assets will be introduced later on as well. The system is completely automated and does not require any action from the part of the users, who are able to trade the assets normally. An eToro spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the rewards are calculated based on daily snapshots taken at 00:00 …

The latest in a series of Ethereum 2.0 testnets, called Spadina, launched on Tuesday with mixed success. Spadina was proposed as a short-lived “dress rehearsal” for the mainnet launch process, signaling that Ethereum 2.0 Phase 0 is getting ever closer. The network launched on Sept. 29 at 12 P.M. UTC, and was intended to last for only 72 hours. Developers said that this is likely to be the last chance for prospective Ether (ETH) stakers to test the deposit and launch tools before the Phase 0 genesis. From that perspective, the test appears to have been largely successful. No major …

A new blockchain protocol helps delegators in proof-of-stake protocols to mitigate slashing risks — their exposure to financial penalties whenever a validator fails to meet a network’s reliability requirements. The DSLA Protocol is a decentralized marketplace for peer-to-peer service level agreements, otherwise known as SLAs for short. This allows anyone to hedge against the risk of service delays and disruptions, while cutting out legal teams, support teams and insurance companies in the process. Executives behind the project estimate that 80% of businesses currently use SLA contracts to protect themselves against the failures of third-party service providers. However, they argue that …

Popular hardware wallet company Ledger added Algorand's ALGO token to the list of wallet-compatible assets available on its desktop app, Ledger Live, allowing holders to store and stake the asset. “The integration with Ledger Live will provide users with additional opportunities to earn passive income, ensuring the highest level of control and flexibility," Ledger's CEO, Pascal Gauthier, explained Tuesday in a statement provided to Cointelegraph. The addition also means storage compatibility for tokens built on Algorand's blockchain, known as Algorand Standard Assets. Assets built using proof-of-stake technology mean holders can earn passive income by helping to provide consensus for the …

Are there any examples of projects offering offline staking? Unfortunately, it’s still the case that most staking, whether directly under a pure proof-of-stake model or indirectly using a delegated proof-of-stake consensus, is online. This usually means handing control of your cryptocurrency to a third party or delegating to a random service. Tezos (XTZ) would be the most similar model to offline staking, since its coins stay liquid and users can set up their own “baker,” or validator, but “bakers” are required to hold at least 10,000 to become a delegate, which costs close to $40,000 at current prices. Qtum has …

While being a relatively young correction to energy-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) network validation, proof-of-stake has existed in theory since 2012. However, rising market cap of PoS tokens like Cardano (ADA) and Tezos (XTZ) over the past two years and Ethereum’s much-hyped but much-delayed shift from PoW to PoS have brought the subject to the forefront. Alongside an overall increase in regulatory attention on crypto generally, PoS protocols are an area of much debate. One question highlighted by a recent letter from several Congresspeople to the IRS is taxes. Specifically, the letter voiced worries about overtaxing staking rewards. Unfortunately, the IRS is …