Since our last update on Pendle Finance, the project has experienced substantial growth. From 2023, its Total Value Locked (TVL) has consistently risen and then saw a dramatic surge at the start of 2024, increasing more than 19-fold to surpass $4.4 billion. Pendle now ranks as the eighth-largest decentralized application (dApp) by TVL in the […]
On May 2, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the arrest of Maximilien de Hoop Cartier for his involvement in a scheme to launder drug trafficking proceeds using Tether's stablecoin. 👀 Maximilien de Hoop Cartier, also known as Max Cartier, is an entrepreneur and musician. He was involved in the trade and production of […]
Non-fungible tokens have switched gears. Once seen as the future of art, these blockchain-based assets are increasingly being used in the brand-building strategies of companies and projects. According to CoinGecko, 21 of the 50 biggest global fashion brands have launched at least one NFT collection, with sports brands like Adidas, Nike, and Puma leading the […]
The Sui project’s tokenomics have drawn scrutiny from both investors and market observers due to concerns that a large portion of SUI tokens are concentrated in the hands of investors and founders. Although the project officials insist that most of its circulating supply remains locked, they have not provided tangible proof to back up their […]
AI and machine learning can identify money laundering patterns that would be missed by traditional blockchain analytics, according to new research by Elliptic. The company has been dabbling with this experimental technology for the best part of five years — and has now publicly released a dataset containing over 200 million transactions so the wider […]
Last week, Web3 publishing startup Paragraph announced the acquisition of its competitor Mirror, an Ethereum blogging platform and a rising player in the space. This move, coupled with Paragraph's $5 million funding round boosted by industry heavyweights Union Square Ventures and Coinbase Ventures, shows the firm's strategic effort to streamline onchain publishing and strengthen its […]
Last week, at the Microstrategy World conference in Vegas, Michael Saylor, the founder and executive chairman of the largest holder of Bitcoin, Microstrategy, unveiled a Bitcoin-based decentralized identifier (DID) called Microstrategy Orange. Just like the blockchain it is based upon, the mechanism is set to be truly global, decentralized, incorruptible, and equalitarian. A standard by […]
On May 4 we celebrated Hal Finney's 68th birthday. A software developer received the first Bitcoin transaction from the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. Having worked on projects very similar to Bitcoin and being part of the Cypherpunk community, Hal Finney is widely believed to be the real person behind the 'Satoshi Nakamoto' pseudonym. Adding to this […]
For all the key details of new Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) projects in the banking world, real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, stablecoins, and central bank digital currency (CBDC) updates, the Observers 'Banking and CBDC Roundup' has you covered. CBDC Updates The Deutsche Bundesbank has released some interesting research concerning the potential impact of a digital euro. […]
Recent observations by Bitcoin researchers suggest that Bitcoin mining maybe even more centralized than previously thought. Researchers claim that several Bitcoin mining pools, previously considered independent, share identical methods for prioritizing transactions. This similarity raises suspicions that these pools may actually be under the control of a single entity. 💡 While a few can afford […]