With the global cryptocurrency market cap now reaching US$2.1 trillion, the industry is experiencing a time of both heightened interest and heightened scrutiny by regulators, consumers, businesses and governments — some warranted, some not. This scrutiny runs parallel to the massive increase in concern directed toward big technology firms that are hoarding consumer data, creating a sense of urgency not seen since the advent of the World Wide Web — and for good reason. While blockchain technology has facilitated great strides toward data protection, it, too, has its downfalls. Blockchain…
Tag: Blockchains
Riot Blockchain’s hashing capacity grew 460% in 2020: Report
According to its latest annual financial report, leading U.S.-based mining firm Riot Blockchain increased its hashing capacity by 460% and more than doubled the amount of Bitcoin held on its balance sheet in 2020. Riot saw a 78% growth in total mining revenues from $6.7 million to $12 million, owing to the increase in operational hash rate from 101 pentahashes per second, or PH/s, as of December 2019 to 566 PH/s as of December 31. While the company said it achieved profitability in the fourth quarter with $3.9 million in…
Too little, too late? Ethereum losing DeFi ground to rival blockchains
2021 has been a great year for Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto in general. However, Ethereum and the decentralized finance, or DeFi, sector have outshined other niches of the cryptocurrency space, dazzling the community with enormous growth in terms of popularity, engagement and sheer volume, with the total value locked currently sitting at around $56 billion, according to DappRadar. The nonfungible token, or NFT, space is also seeing unprecedented growth. Many believe 2021 is shaping up to be the year of NFTs. However, DeFi continues to thrive, especially on the Ethereum…
The Graph (GRT) Looks Into Integrating With L1 Blockchains Bitcoin, Polkadot, Solana, Cosmos
The Graph protocol, which launched its mainnet on Ethereum last December 17, 2020, is looking into adding eight more L1 (Layer-one) blockchains, which will include Bitcoin, Binance Smart Chain, Polkadot, NEAR, Cosmos, Solana, Avalanche, and Celo. The Plan to Add More Layer-1 Blockchains The Graph, a decentralized protocol for indexing data from blockchains, had recently integrated with other DeFi projects like AAVE, Synthetix, Uniswap, and many more. The new L1 blockchains under review, if chosen, will be integrated with The Graph’s current list of supported chains, which would enable data…
The Graph explores integrations for Bitcoin, Polkadot, and other Layer-1 blockchains
Following a successful mainnet launch on Ethereum in December, The Graph is exploring integrating eight additional Layer-1 blockchains including Bitcoin. On Feb. 16, The Graph Foundation revealed it is also considering integrating Bitcoin, Polkadot, Near Protocol, Cosmos, Solana, Avalanche, Binance Smart Chain, and Celo. The protocol already runs on Ethereum having launched on Dec. 17, 2020, and supports the InterPlanetary File System — a peer-to-peer network for storing and sharing data. The Graph has also recently integrated with several DeFi protocols including Uniswap, AAVE, Decentraland, Gnosis, Balancer, and Synthetix. The…
Blockchains LLC Proposes to Build Smart City in Nevada Desert
Nevada governor Steve Sisolak said the proposal would turn Nevada into “the epicenter of this emerging industry and create the high-paying jobs and revenue that go with it.” Blockchain incubator and investment firm Blockchains LLC is progressing in its plans to create a smart city in the Nevada desert. Blockchains LLC revealed details on its plans to build the smart city in an interview with the Associated Press. In the interview released on the 13th of February, the CEO of Blockchains LLC Jeffrey Berns revealed that he had asked the state government…
Circling back to blockchain’s originally intended purpose: Timestamping
What was blockchain technology originally intended for? It’s generally presumed that it was created in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto as part of his white paper, creating Bitcoin (BTC). Since Bitcoin would be built on decentralized ledger technology, a blockchain needed to be established as the foundation for the cryptocurrency. Since 2008, blockchain technology has expanded well beyond cryptocurrency usage and is now being applied in a variety of use cases from healthcare to finance to green tech and more. But blockchain tech didn’t start with Satoshi’s white paper. It was…
Despite Growth on Other Blockchains, DeFi Is Still Ethereum’s Forte
Ethereum has a major DeFi lead in several key metrics, including the overall number of DeFi apps, number of DeFi users, number of DeFi developers, and total value transacted through DeFi apps. As the race for decentralized finance (DeFi) supremacy heats up, Ethereum is still leaps and bounds ahead of the pack, and it doesn’t look like that’s about to change any time soon. In the last few months, a wide variety of other blockchains have seen DeFi development activity skyrocket, with platforms like TRON, Cardano, EOS, Algorand, KAVA, and…
It’s time to put the dukes down and work together for blockchain’s future
Humans over the centuries found themselves quarreling with each other over everything from food to land to ideology, only to later find themselves at peace and cooperating. Later, once more, they’d return to draw arms. Great schisms between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity later repeated with the Protestant–Catholic wars of the 17th century, until peace finally settled upon the parties centuries after they’d begun. Fast forward 400 years, and it’s clear that technology has done nothing to curb our tribal instincts. If anything, the rise of blockchain has magnified these…
RAMP DeFi Leads The Liquid Staking Race, Opening Ethereum-Based DeFi to Staked Liquidity From Other Blockchains
Participation in the DeFi and staking ecosystems has seen explosive growth over the last year, with the combined sectors currently accounting for over $50 billion in value. DeFi growth was predominantly fueled by the breakthrough success of Ethereum-based projects such as Aave, Compound, and Uniswap, utilizing ERC20 stablecoins like USDC and Dai to generate yield. Digital assets staked on other networks were left behind, unable to participate in the emerging DeFi ecosystem. If those stakers wanted to access DeFi without introducing new capital, they needed to unstake and sell their…