Consolidations In Web3 Publishing: Paragraph and Mirror Developer Take Niches

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 […]

Michael Saylor’s New Bitcoin-Based Identity Protocol Skips Some Key Issues

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 […]

Sunday Review 05/05/2024

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 […]

Banking and CBDC Weekend Roundup: 04/05/2024

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. […]

Who Mines All Bitcoins? The Hidden Links Behind Bitcoin Miners

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 […]

It's More Fun With An Airdrop: Cross-Chain Messaging LayerZero Joins The Game

LayerZero Labs, the team behind the leading open-source protocol for cross-chain interoperability LayerZero, is gearing up to reward its user base with an airdrop of its long-awaited tokens, as announced on May 2 by the firm via an X post. The airdrop snapshot aligns with the company's previous announcement, aiming for a token launch in […]

Nigeria's Crackdown on Crypto Continues

The Nigerian government is relentlessly targeting the entire crypto industry in a desperate effort to stabilize its fiat currency, the debasement of which they attribute to alternative financial instruments. Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission recently blocked 1,146 accounts associated with an ongoing investigation into offenses of unauthorized forex trading, money laundering, and terrorism financing. […]

Mayday

(Any views expressed below are the personal views of the author and should not form the basis for making investment decisions, nor be construed as a recommendation or advice to engage in investment transactions.) Mayday ! Mayday ! Mayday ! Some of you degens were screaming “Mayday” as you watched crypto markets puke from mid-April […]

Now Live: Pre-Launch Futures Contract for EIGEN with 2x Leverage

A new Pre-Launch futures contract for EIGEN (EigenLayer) – EIGENUSDTK24 – is now available to trade on BitMEX. The new listing is margined in Tether (USDT) and offers up to 2x leverage so you can long or short EIGEN before it’s listed on spot exchanges. Trading for EIGENUSDTK24 started here at 09:00 UTC on 30 […]

PoW Centralisation Hysteria – What Size War Chest Is Required?

Abstract: According to new findings from @mononautical, Bitcoin mining is dangerously centralised, with one entity controlling the coinbase outputs for around 47% of the network hashrate. Bitcoin analyst Alex Bergeron claims the reason for this centralisation is that miners want to eliminate all the variance in their revenue and that entities with large balance sheets […]