Last week, Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum (ETH)'s co-founder, voiced his disapproval regarding the emergence of cross-chain bridges, citing security vulnerabilities due to their interdependency. In the days that followed however, developers working on cross-chain technologies largely dismissed his skepticism. In a statement to Cointelegraph, Kadan Stadelmann, chief technology officer of atomic swap blockchain Komodo, responded to Vitalik's critique: "What we ultimately need is true decentralization. For example, instead of relying on one or two trusted bridges that have a single point of failure, it would be better to work towards a future where we have numerous bridges that are secure, trustless, …

Russian punk rock collective Pussy Riot is planning to launch a DAO for LBTQ+ and women artists. As the group’s co-founder Nadya Tolokonnikova told Cointelegraph, The DAO will be working on reducing the gender inequality that still marks the NFT space and, more broadly, the crypto industry. Despite the large gender gap in crypto — around 60% of US crypto investors are white men according to a survey from August 2021 — Nadya is convinced that it is still early enough for Pussy Riot to make an impact. “The NFT space is still so small, I feel that with a …

On Wednesday, Komodo, a multichain architecture network, announced the introduction of 12 protocols on its non-custodial multi-coin software wallet and atomic swap-powered decentralized exchange AtomicDEX. The 12 protocols consist of Avalanche, Polygon, Harmony, Fantom, smartBCH, Ethereum Classic, Moonriver, KuCoin Community Chain, Huobi ECO Chain, Ubiq, Arbitrum and Optimism, with the latter two being wallet-only. After the upgrade, users will be able to swap Avalanche tokens to Polygon, Ethereum to Binance Smart Chain (BSC), etc., and vice versa. Unlike cross-chain functionality, multi-chain enables users to access their crypto without the use of wrapped or proxy tokens, with potentially better security results. …

Brokerage firm eToro introduced MetaverseLife, a new smart portfolio covering stocks and crypto-assets from within the growing metaverse industry, on Jan 11. The company stated that its goal is to offer a diverse range of investments made for long-term exposure. Currently included in the portfolio are Meta Platforms, the new parent company behind Facebook, Roblox and other blockchain-based metaverse developments like Decentraland, Sandbox and Enjin. There are also a few companies listed in this portfolio that aren’t exclusively blockchain-based but have still contributed to metaverse adoption and development. These include tech firms like Microsoft, Amazon and Nvidia. Dani Brinker, head …

On Monday, Polygon (MATIC), a layer two Ethereum (ETH) scaling solution known for its fast transaction times and negligible gas fees, announced the launch of Plonky2, a zero-knowledge scaling technology claimed to be the fastest in the world. Zero-knowledge algorithms ensure everything is correctly computed on layer two and return the succinct proof to Ethereum without sending the entire data. Instead of every miner, or staker, verifying every posted transaction, zero-knowledge allows the verification of simplified rolled-up proofs, thereby significantly speeding up the overall network. 1/2 We are proud to announce Plonky2, the world's fastest ZK scaling tech! Plonky2 is …

Tim Draper of Draper Associates and Draper Fisher Jurvetson Tim is a pioneer of business ventures in the United States and a co-founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a leading investment firm in early-stage tech startups. “I expect the best regulators to embrace the new technology and innovation that comes with it. I expect the worst regulators to try to block it. Bill Clinton was smart to just let the internet run and see what happened. That brought in huge economic value to America. The countries that use a light touch or no touch governance will be the big winners over …

Yat Siu of Animoca Brands Yat is the co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, which delivers digital property rights to the world’s gamers and internet users, thereby creating a new asset class, play-to-earn economies and a more equitable digital framework contributing to the building of the open Metaverse. “Regulation will start to become more defined in 2022, although how, exactly, remains to be seen. 2021’s milestone was probably the substantial growth in public awareness of blockchain — Collins Dictionary even declared ‘NFT’ the word of the year.” These quotes have been edited and condensed. The views, thoughts and opinions …

In a Reddit post on Friday, Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), outlined critical security concerns surrounding cross-chain bridges in the blockchain ecosystem. As told by Buterin, storing native assets directly-chain (Ethereum on Ethereum, Solana on Solana, etc.) provides a certain degree of immunity against 51% attacks. Even if hackers manage to censor or reverse transactions, they cannot propose blocks to take away one's crypto. The rule also applies to the Ethereum application. For example, if hackers launch a 51% attack (by controlling 51% of all circulating ETH supply) while an investor swaps 100 ETH for 320,000 DAI stablecoin, …

2021 was an exciting year for crypto, with several well-known — some unexpected — brands entering the crypto sector. Here’s looking at you, Charmin, and your toilet paper nonfungible tokens (NFTs). The year saw its fair share of moments that had crypto enthusiasts on the edge of their seats. While many people continued to talk generally about the revolutionary power of cryptocurrencies and blockchain, it seems as though 2021 was the year when the ideas underlying these technologies truly took hold of the consciousness of the mainstream. From NFTs to Web3, there has never been more interest expressed from traditional …

The Human Rights Foundation announced on Jan 4 that it intends to distribute 425 million satoshis — the smallest divisible unit of a Bitcoin — to various contributors as a part of its ongoing Bitcoin Development Fund. Launched in May 2020, the Bitcoin Development Fund launched with a primary focus on improving the Bitcoin network’s privacy, usability and security. The foundation said that it will focus this particular round of grants on expanding Bitcoin education and translation as well as Bitcoin core, lightning, and wallet development. According to the organization’s press release, it will divide these grants between a number …

The year 2021 was unprecedented for crypto, with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) gaining 60.58% and 408.5% throughout the year, respectively. For the latter, the explosion of decentralized finance (DeFi), nonfungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized applications (DApps) and decentralized exchanges (DEXs) built on its blockchain created a whole new digital currency cyberspace encompassing all corners of the world. But, the year was also an auspicious one for altcoins, whose performance far outweighed that of BTC and ETH during the same time period. So, without further ado, let's look at five cryptocurrencies that went from zero to hero in 2021. 1. Shiba …

The advent of the internet led to a paradigm shift that has transformed nearly every aspect of society since then. This was compounded by the growing interconnectivity of an ever-increasing amount of WiFi-enabled devices known as the Internet of Things (IoT) that fostered the development of Web 2.0. Innovations enabled by blockchain technology, such as decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible tokens (NFTs), are now being referred to as the basis for Web 3.0. Whereas Web 2.0 integrated the internet into our daily lives and greater culture and society, Web 3.0 portends a decentralized digital version of the world online, which …