The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day |
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Welcome to The Node! This is Marc Hochstein to take you through the latest crypto news. In today's news: At EthCC, Vitalik assesses Ethereum's strengths and weaknesses; reading the on-chain tea leaves about bitcoin's price; crypto could be yuge for Trump. The takeaway: Think bitcoin or AI uses too much energy? That's a "very Malthusian worldview," says crypto OG Meltem Demirors. Read more of her spicy 🌶️ comments on the matter from Consensus 2024 below. 👇 |
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Vitalik on Hardening Ethereum |
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin gave a keynote talk about hardening the Ethereum blockchain as a base layer, in front of a packed room full of an estimated 1,100 attendees, at a developer conference in Brussels on Wednesday. Buterin spoke at length during his presentation at the Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC) about the strengths and weaknesses of the largest smart-contracts blockchain and its sprawling ecosystem, including his concerns about transaction censorship, as well as a proposal to increase the “quorum threshold” from 75% to 80%. Buterin said he believes the strengths of the Ethereum ecosystem include that it is a “large and reasonably decentralized staking ecosystem,” and that it is a highly international and intellectual community. Weaknesses of the blockchain still need to be addressed, Buterin said, including the difficulty of solo staking given the requirement for 32 ETH to become a validator for the blockchain, and that running a node is technically complicated. He said both of these issues “are very addressable.” The Ethereum community's intellectual leader ran through an array of technical improvements – meant to fix the various weaknesses that exist on Ethereum – that would allow for “protocol simplification.” “So if you want a robust ecosystem, it needs to be simple," Buterin told the crowd. "It should not have these, like, 73 random hooks and some kind of backwards compatibility because of some random dumb thing that this random guy called Vitalik came up with in 2014.” Read more of the dispatch from CoinDesk's Margaux Nijkerk. |
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This week CoinDesk is publishing a "theme week" devoted to the emerging field of GameFi - or the fusion of Web3 gaming with decentralized finance. Here, to start off, is an interview with Catizen's Tim Wong about the runaway success of that game on TON and a second article about gaming on TON. (Note: Catizen is also the sponsor of the week). We'll have continuing coverage throughout the week. Why We're (Still) Investing in Web3 Gaming For innovation, adoption and impact, gaming stands out as a leading use case for blockchain technology, say Leah Callon-Butler and Nathan Smale, directors of Web3 advisory firm, Emfarsis. Catizen’s Tim Wong: 'We Are Here to Build a Business Ecosystem' The Chairman of the Catizen Foundation explains how the team behind the Web3 game attracted 23 million players, and how it hopes to build a lasting franchise. |
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Bitcoin Bear Market Beckons: Onchain Data |
Bitcoin (BTC) is at a crucial stage of this market cycle as several factors signal continued downside while others indicate that prices are set to bottom out. Currently trading at $57,700 having bounced from last week's low of $53,600, bitcoin remains in a technical downtrend from March's record high of $73,800, having made consecutive lower highs at $71,300 and $63,900. Data from CryptoQuant suggests that a major correction or the onset of a sustained bear market could be on the horizon as the profit-and-loss index is hovering around its 365-day moving average. Previous crossovers to the downside acted as a precursor to deep declines begun in both May and November 2021. CryptoQuant's bitcoin bull-bear market cycle indicator is also approaching a key level that suggests descent into a bear market. Read more. |
Crypto Could Be Yuge for Trump |
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Former President Donald Trump's recent embrace of cryptocurrency after his long-standing skepticism may win him some votes among reluctant Republicans as he seeks a return to the White House in November, according to an industry-sponsored poll released on Wednesday. His party's presumptive nominee for president, Trump made a series of positive remarks about aiding the U.S. crypto sector that have caught the attention of some voters, the poll paid for by crypto investment firm Paradigm indicated. The snapshot of Republican sentiment suggested 13% of those who weren't planning on voting for him felt his crypto position made them see him in a more positive light, according to the data compiled by polling firm Echelon Insights. Most of those surveyed (60%) believe Congress needs to come up with regulations for crypto businesses, the polling suggested, and the Republicans generally don't like how today's financial system operates. "Republicans understand the appeal of crypto and support congressional action to establish clear and predictable rules," Katie Biber, Paradigm's chief legal officer, and Alex Grieve, the company's government affairs lead, wrote in an analysis of the data. The poll of more than a thousand likely GOP voters was conducted in mid-June, well before the televised debate that threw the race between Trump and President Joe Biden into some turmoil. Read more. |
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Phemex CEO shows how to capitalize on meme coin trends Federico Variola Shares Tips as a Pioneer of the Web3 Revolution Federico Variola’s journey from academic researcher to Web3 entrepreneur is a unique one. Variola, known popularly by his nickname Fed, earned a doctorate by studying how state actors can resist cyber intrusions. And now, as CEO of Phemex, he’s leading a non-state, distributed system. This must have been a huge departure for him. “Transitioning to the crypto industry can be a challenging journey that presents a steep learning curve,” Fed says. “This is precisely why I place such a high value on user experience at Phemex. We are dedicated to creating an interface that simplifies the entry into the world of crypto for newcomers.” Continue reading |
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The Takeaway: Meltem vs. the Malthusians |
"The focus on reducing energy use and reducing resource utilization is a very Malthusian worldview. ... "Human civilization consumes more power and more energy and more atoms as it becomes technologically more advanced. ... "This idea that the goal should be reducing resource utilization is a preposterous worldview. Being pro-progress means 'let's create technological innovation that changes the economics and the supply curve of how much energy we can provide and how much compute we can put on the grid.' "But being anti-energy consumption is fundamentally anti-progress and inhumane. We should be seeking to use more energy. We just need to get better at extracting energy." – Crypto investor Meltem Demirors in a Consensus 2024 discussion of technology's impact on physical infrastructure. Watch the full video here. |
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