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Vitalik Buterin says rollups must prove security before decentralizing

If you’re a crypto enthusiast and are looking for an easy way to generate passive income, staking your USDT could be your answer with Loopring. You could enjoy steady, passive income, without the worry of price fluctuations. In this article, I will explain everything you need to know about USDT staking, why Loopring’s AI-powered staking platform is a game-changer, and how you can start earning with it.

Staking your USDT is a low-risk way to increase your crypto with limited concern of a price drop (and craziness). Staking is a great way to quickly earn passive income and is an excellent tool for crypto enthusiasts looking for a capped growth strategy. In addition, staking stablecoins like USDT requires no specification on your institutional risk tolerance. However, it is still important to choose a staking platform that will provide good rates. Always do your research on these platforms to verify their safety and security before instead.

Staking USDT with Loopring 2025: With crypto maturing faster than anyone thought possible, 2025 will be a pivotal year in crypto, particularly in the DeFi (decentralized finance) space. Staking stablecoins like USDT

Low Risk with High Returns: Since USDT is pegged to the dollar, you don’t have to worry as much regarding price crashes for the sake of proportionate returns. Loopring offers fixed returns; for example, 5-12% APY (depending on the platform’s terms) is a consistent way to create passive income. AI Driven Performance: Loopring employs artificial intelligence to track the market for you, to ensure you are maximizing your staking opportunity, so your USDT is always working as hard as possible for you. User Friendly for All Types of Users: Unlike other platforms that require cryptocurrency knowledge or a degree in tech, Loopring has a straightforward user interface that is easy for all users to stake. Additionally, with the crypto sector buzzing in 2025, players like Loopring are bringing DeFi truly into the ecosystem with their technology and customer orientated focus.

Staking USDT using Loopring: A Step-by-Step Guide  So you want to get started? Staking USDT using Loopring is as easy as ordering your favorite coffee! Here’s how you can do it:

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Get Some USDT: If you don’t have USDT already, you can purchase some on a reputable exchange like Binance, Kraken, or Coinbase. You can choose fiat (USD) via bank transfer, credit card, or some platforms even let you use Apple Pay. Set Up a Web3 wallet: You will need a wallet like MetaMask or Trust Wallet to interact with the Loopring’s smart contract. Download either wallet, set it up, and send USDT to it. Make sure you keep your private keys safe; think of them as the keys to your crypto house! Connect to Loopring: Visit the Loopring website (make sure it is the correct website so that no one scams you). Connect your wallet by pressing the “Connect Wallet” button. It’s just like logging into your favorite app, just in the crypto world! Choose Your Staking Plan: Loopring offers flexible or fixed staking options. Flexible lets you withdraw anytime, while fixed plans (e.g., 30 or 90 days) often give higher returns. Pick what suits your goals. Stake Your USDT: Enter the amount of USDT you want to stake, confirm the transaction, and pay a small gas fee (Loopring operates on Ethereum or compatible chains, so fees are low thanks to Layer 2 tech). The AI will handle the rest, allocating your funds to the best pools. Watch Your Earnings Grow: Sit back and relax! You’ll see your rewards roll in, either weekly or monthly, depending on the plan. You can track everything on Loopring’s dashboard. That’s it! You’re now earning passive income like a crypto pro.

Plans and Pricing Loopring’s AI-powered automated staking platform offers six USDT staking plans tailored to different investment levels. Whether you’re just starting out or ready to go big, there’s something for everyone. Below, you can explore the plans and pricing of Loopring’s USDT staking platform:

Caption 12.50% Daily Profit: Invest 15 to 100 USDT—great for beginners testing the waters.

13.50% Daily Profit: Stake 100 to 800 USDT to step up your earnings.

14.50% Daily Profit: For 800 to 3,000 USDT, enjoy a solid return.

16.00% Daily Profit: Invest 3,000 to 10,000 USDT for even higher rewards.

17.50% Daily Profit: Stake 10,000 to 30,000 USDT and watch your income grow.

20.00% Daily Profit: Go big with 30,000+ USDT and maximize your returns.

Risks to Consider No investment is ever 100% risk-free, and staking USDT is no different. But don’t worry; Loopring was designed to limit those risks to the greatest extent possible. Keep in mind the following:

Smart Contract Risks: The best smart contracts can still have bugs in them. Loopring staking platform utilizes an automated smart contract for staking, which is innovative, but it is still risky. Even audited contracts can have bugs or exploits, and if a hacker finds a bug and exploits that, they can drain the funds, including potentially any USDT you contributed. Platform Reliability: As a DeFi platform, Loopring has no central authority to lean on if anything goes wrong while you’re staking. You should only ever use platforms that have robust reviews and stay away from anything that feels “too good to be true.” Regulatory Changes: Stablecoins such as USDT have always come under regulatory scrutiny. Loopring operates decentralized (which is why you’re staking through Loopring), but just be mindful of news regarding the reserves that Tether is holding, or local news on regulations of cryptocurrencies in your area. If you stake with a trusted platform such as Loopring, and you utilize basic security (like a secure wallet), you can keep the main risks to a minimum.

That’s it! You’re now earning passive income like a crypto pro. Click here to enter the platform

Disclosure: This is sponsored content. It does not represent Crypto Briefing's editorial views. For more information, see our Editorial Policy.

According to Circle, the asset’s primary goal is to provide institutions with a neutral, highly secure alternative to wrapped Bitcoin. The most popular wrapped Bitcoin token, wBTC, is offered by BitGo and has 119,157 tokens in circulation. Its market cap is at $8 billion. Circle, a stablecoin issuer, has announced its intention to offer a wrapped Bitcoin, positioning itself to compete with BitGo and Coinbase among institutional customers. On Thursday, the asset cirBTC was revealed. It will debut on Ethereum and will be backed 1:1 by bitcoin. It is designed for OTC desks, market makers, and lending protocols.

According to Circle, the asset’s primary goal is to provide institutions with a neutral, highly secure alternative to wrapped Bitcoin. Many banks and other financial organizations have started to invest heavily in Bitcoin and are looking at decentralized finance. Wrapped Bitcoins would make DeFi available on other chains like Ethereum by making the asset usable on other chains.

Tough Competition Ahead The new asset will debut on Ethereum, Circle Mint, and their layer-1 blockchain Arc, according to Circle. The new wrapped Bitcoin from Circle follows in the footsteps of BitGo’s Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) and Coinbase’s Wrapped Bitcoin (cbBTC), which are the market leaders at the moment. With an initial quantity of 88,800 tokens and a market cap of $5.9 billion, Coinbase’s cbBTC debuted in September 2024.

The most popular wrapped Bitcoin token, wBTC, is offered by BitGo and has 119,157 tokens in circulation. Its market cap is at $8 billion. But that’s just half of what it was in November 2021, when Bitcoin reached its all-time high for the cycle.

Wrapped Bitcoin variants have been introduced by a number of cryptocurrency exchanges, including as Kraken (KBTC), Gate (GTBTC), Binance (BBTC), Huobi (HBTC), and OKX (XBTC), but their market capitalization pale in comparison to those of the two front-runners. Based on data provided by CoinGecko, the combined supply of wBTC and cbBTC is around 208,000 BTC.

Highlighted Crypto News Today:

IMF Flags Financial Stability Risks Amid Growing Tokenization Boom

A trader himself, Rossi has 7 years of experience trading in the forex market and the passion for writing has brought him to Newscrypto. He is the perfect combination of market knowledge and writing skills, making him one of the most sought-after writers on cryptocurrency.

Whales Buy the Dip as Ethereum Exchange Reserves Keep Falling

In This Article cirBTC Explained: What 'Wrapped Bitcoin' Actually MeansCircle's Institutional Play: Why cirBTC Is Different From WBTCRotation, Not Revolution: How cirBTC Fits Into the Wrapped Bitcoin Market Circle, the regulated financial infrastructure company behind USDC, launched cirBTC on Ethereum on June 8, 2026, adding a new 1:1 BTC-backed wrapped Bitcoin token to a market already anchored by WBTC at roughly $8Bn in market capitalization and Coinbase’s cbBTC at approximately $5.9Bn.

Each cirBTC token is backed by native Bitcoin held in segregated, regulated custody and verified in real time through Chainlink Proof of Reserve. That is a meaningful structural claim in a category where custody transparency has not always been the default.

Here is the central tension this article unpacks: wrapped Bitcoin has existed since 2019, yet most crypto holders have never had to think about it. So why does Circle’s entry into this market matter, and does its regulated approach actually change anything for the people who would use it?

cirBTC is live on @ethereum.

Circle helped establish the institutional standard for dollar collateral with USDC.

Now cirBTC brings that same approach to Bitcoin, bringing 1:1 BTC-backed collateral to institutional DeFi markets with neutrality, transparency, and Circle…

— Circle (@circle) June 8, 2026

cirBTC Explained: What ‘Wrapped Bitcoin’ Actually Means Think of wrapped Bitcoin like a coat-check counter at an exclusive club. You hand over your actual coat – your real Bitcoin – and the attendant gives you a numbered ticket.

That ticket represents your coat inside the venue. You can trade the ticket, use it to get a drink tab, or hand it to someone else. But the coat itself stays safely in the back room, and you can always redeem the ticket to get it back.

That is exactly how tokenized Bitcoin works. Real BTC goes into custody with a regulated entity, in cirBTC’s case, a Circle group company with assets kept explicitly separate from Circle’s corporate holdings. In exchange, an ERC-20 token is issued on Ethereum that represents the BTC at a 1:1 ratio.

The token can then move freely through Ethereum DeFi apps, smart contracts, and lending protocols. When you want your BTC back, you burn the token, and the custodian releases the underlying Bitcoin.

Why does any of this matter? Bitcoin cannot natively run smart contracts or act as collateral inside Ethereum-based lending protocols. Wrapping solves that. It is the bridge that allows Bitcoin’s roughly $1.7 trillion in value to participate in decentralized finance without the underlying asset ever leaving the Bitcoin blockchain.

Chainlink Proof of Reserve is the accountability layer; it continuously verifies on-chain that the number of circulating cirBTC tokens matches the BTC held in custody, so anyone can check the math without relying on a periodic third-party audit.

DISCOVER: Best Meme Coin ICOs to Invest in 2026

Circle’s Institutional Play: Why cirBTC Is Different From WBTC

(SOURCE: CoinGecko)

Circle is not just a crypto startup; it has established USDC as a key player in institutional digital finance and is now applying that compliance to Bitcoin collateral with cirBTC. This new offering aims to set an institutional standard for Bitcoin similar to what USDC achieved for dollar liquidity, emphasizing transparency and regulated custody.

While BitGo’s WBTC, the market leader, has around $8Bn in wrapped Bitcoin, its custodial model has faced scrutiny. Coinbase’s cbBTC, launched in September 2024, reached $5.9Bn in market cap but benefits significantly from Coinbase’s distribution.

cirBTC, however, positions itself with a compliance-focused approach while avoiding competition, appealing to institutions like OTC desks and corporate treasuries that want to leverage Bitcoin as collateral.

Despite its strengths, cirBTC faces challenges, including WBTC’s established liquidity and integrations, as well as cbBTC’s distribution advantages. While Circle’s compliance reputation is strong, it may not be enough to drive DeFi liquidity on its own.

EXCLUSIVE: Earn $10 USDC Via Binance Sign-Up

Rotation, Not Revolution: How cirBTC Fits Into the Wrapped Bitcoin Market $BTC short-term momentum is still bearish.

If we want a potential trend reversal, the first step is to have a clean break of $64k and $66k.

If $BTC doesn't manage to do that within a few days, the bearish momentum is probably going to continue.

I think in that case we… pic.twitter.com/qRIGnNPRLf

— Quinten | 048.eth (@QuintenFrancois) June 9, 2026

The wrapped Bitcoin market is poised for growth rather than disruption. The rise of corporate Bitcoin treasuries has created demand for efficient collateral deployment in institutional DeFi, a need cirBTC aims to meet.

Bull case: Circle’s compliance and USDC distribution position cirBTC well for institutional adoption, especially with integrations into major lending platforms like Aave and Morpho, creating significant liquidity and a unique cross-collateral workflow. This could lead to a substantial market share within 12 to 18 months.

Base case: cirBTC becomes the go-to wrapped Bitcoin product for compliance-focused institutions, while WBTC maintains dominance due to liquidity; cirBTC may serve as a solid third option as overall institutional demand for Bitcoin collateral rises.

Bear case: Slow integration with DeFi protocols and regulatory challenges could hamper cirBTC’s expansion, leaving it a niche product without the network effects needed to compete with established providers.

The competition is heating up as traditional finance explores tokenized products alongside crypto options, making Circle’s reputation as a regulated issuer increasingly important.

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The US stock market's optical communication sector rises across the board in pre-market trading, with Corning up 9.28%.

According to Bitget market data, the U.S. stock market's optical communication sector saw broad pre-market gains, with MRVL rising 4.99%, LITE up 3.24%, Nokia up 3.11%, Corning up 9.28%, and AXTI up 6.69%.

1 seconds ago

US-listed AI chip stocks saw mixed pre-market performance, with Qualcomm surging 13%.

According to Bitget market data, U.S. AI chip stocks posted mixed pre-market performance: Qualcomm (QCOM.O) surged 13%, Intel (INTC.O) rose nearly 6%, AMD (AMD.O) gained nearly 4%, and Google (GOOG.O) declined 1.4%.

1 seconds ago

Micron Technology surges 18% in pre-market trading on US stocks

According to Bitget market data, the US stock storage sector is seeing broad pre-market gains. Micron Technology (MU.O) jumps 18% in pre-market trading, as its strong earnings significantly exceeded expectations, with multiple major banks raising the stock’s target price. SanDisk (SNDK) rises 12.25%, Western Digital (WDC) gains 12.05%, and Seagate Technology (STX) climbs 8.63%.

1 seconds ago

SBI announced it will acquire cryptocurrency trading platform Bitbank for 46.7 billion yen.

According to Nikkei News, Japanese financial group SBI Holdings announced on the 25th that it will acquire cryptocurrency exchange platform bitbank for 46.7 billion yen (approximately $288 million). Upon completion of the transaction, SBI Group’s crypto asset custody scale is expected to exceed 1 trillion yen, making it one of the largest operators in Japan’s crypto industry. Per the plan, a subsidiary under SBI Holdings will acquire Bitbank shares from individual shareholders including its founders as early as August this year. Bitbank will then repurchase shares held by existing shareholders MIXI and Ceres by the end of October. If combining data from SBI’s own crypto exchange SBI VC Trade and Bitbank, as of April this year, the two firms had a total of around 2.92 million accounts and total custody assets of approximately 1.1 trillion yen. While different crypto exchanges disclose custody assets at varying time points, among Japan’s major industry competitors, bitFlyer held about 960 billion yen in custody assets as of the end of December 2025, and Coincheck had around 800 billion yen as of the end of March 2025.

1 seconds ago

The week opens with crypto markets focused on the macro backdrop: while several protocol-level events are scheduled, developments around the Iran conflict and Fed signaling are likely to remain the dominant drivers.

Reuters reported Sunday that the Pentagon is preparing for possible weeks of ground operations in Iran, though Trump has not approved those plans, and by Monday AP reported he was floating the idea of seizing Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal even as diplomacy was still being discussed. Brent settled last Friday at $112.57, up 4.2% on the day.

BREAKING: President Trump says the US is in “serious discussions with a new and more reasonable regime to end our military operations in Iran.”

Trump also says that if a deal is not made, the US will “blow up and completely obliterate all of their electric generating plants, oil… pic.twitter.com/UAsFbQuWWF

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) March 30, 2026

Powell is due to speak later Monday, March 30, at Harvard, where markets will look for any signal on how the Fed is assessing the current oil-driven shock. With the Iran conflict pushing energy prices higher, policymakers are facing a familiar trade-off between inflation risks and slowing growth.

As in recent weeks, macro developments are likely to remain the dominant driver for crypto. Any escalation in Iran or a shift in Powell’s forward guidance could quickly feed through into broader risk markets, including crypto assets.

Crypto Events To Watch This Week In crypto land, the AAVE gets the spotlight this week. The project is set to activate Aave V4 on Ethereum mainnet. Aave V4 is already beyond the rumor stage and through the ARFC process, with the forum proposal laying out a “security-first” rollout, conservative risk parameters, and a narrower initial hub-and-spoke setup.

For ETH, the calendar matters less as a one-day catalyst than as a sentiment and narrative checkpoint. EthCC[9] begins March 30 in Cannes and bills itself as the largest and longest-running annual European Ethereum event, running through April 2. The adjacent EthCC Week schedule also includes “The Agora” on March 31, an institutional forum focused on market infrastructure, operational efficiency, and capital deployment.

JUP’s watchpoint is product expansion. Jupiter’s Offerbook is already in private beta, with registration open, and the pitch is unusually direct: “Onchain finance needs onchain credit. Time-based P2P loans, without price-based liquidations.” The product lets borrowers and lenders create fixed-term orders with customizable collateral, APR, loan size, and duration.

SUSHI is lining up a derivatives push. The official Sushi account has set April 2 for perps, while Sushi’s own site already shows a dedicated perps page telling users “Perps on Sushi Coming Soon” and collecting waitlist signups. That matters because perps remain one of the deepest and stickiest revenue arenas in crypto, and Sushi has been framing derivatives as a strategic priority since Sushi Labs outlined its roadmap.

FTX is also back on the radar because cash is about to move. FTX Recovery Trust said it will begin its fourth distribution on March 31, totaling about $2.2 billion for eligible creditors in the convenience and non-convenience classes who completed the required steps, with funds expected via BitGo, Kraken, or Payoneer within one to three business days. The market question is straightforward: how much of that recovered capital, if any, makes its way back into crypto trading once claims are paid.

Based, a Hyperliquid-powered DEX, will launch its token on March 30. The project confirmed its March 30 TGE on X, and KuCoin has already scheduled BASED/USDT trading for 10:00 UTC on Monday, with withdrawals opening a day later. KuCoin describes Based as a non-custodial DeFi “SuperApp” spanning crypto, equities, commodities, and spending rails.

At press time, the total crypto market cap stood at $2.32 trillion.

Total crypto market cap, 1-month chart | Source: ETHUSDT on TradingView.com Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

Volo Protocol Loses $3.5 Million in Sui Vault Exploit Amid DeFi Hack Streak

PANews reported on April 24 that, according to Ember, the hacker who stole approximately $98 million from Balancer last November has recently begun exchanging some of his ETH for BTC via the cross-chain protocol THORChain. Today, the hacker exchanged 7,000 ETH for 204.7 BTC (approximately $15.88 million), and the transaction is still ongoing. Currently, the hacker still holds 15,000 ETH (approximately $34.65 million) on the Ethereum blockchain and 204.7 BTC (approximately $15.88 million) on the Bitcoin blockchain.

A Balancer attacker has converted 21k ETH (about $48.7M) to 617 BTC over three days, leaving only 1k ETH in the hacker’s address. The probability of another $100 million crypto hack by December 31 is at 100% YES on Polymarket.

This conversion is part of the attacker’s ongoing liquidation of stolen funds. The crypto hack market sits at 100% YES with 251 days left until resolution. The certainty reflects how frequently hacks exceeding $100M have occurred, making another one before year-end a near-foregone conclusion.

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The liquidation of this much ETH into BTC has added selling pressure on Ethereum. The probability of Ethereum being above $2,600 on April 26 is at 0.2% YES across multiple sub-markets. That market has minimal daily trading activity at $3 actual USDC, meaning traders are not expecting a price rebound within the next two days.

The hack prediction market has zero volume, so the 100% YES price reflects the near-certainty of resolution rather than active trading. Buying YES at 100¢ offers no return since the market is already priced to certainty.

Watch on-chain investigators like ZachXBT and firms like Chainalysis for further details on the Balancer attacker’s movements. Ethereum’s short-term price will depend partly on whether the remaining 1k ETH gets liquidated and on any additional large ETH outflows tied to this or similar exploits.

Get prediction market intelligence as a structured API feed. Early access waitlist.

Another Crypto Hack Over 100m December 31

Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h December 31 100% 0.0¢ — View market → Ethereum Above On April 26

Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h April 26 0.2% — — View market → What Price Will Ethereum Hit Before 2027

Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h December 31 1.9% -2.1¢ $13K View market → Updated 4min ago

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Ethereum price on april 26 bearish

0% FLAT

Posted: March 3, 2020

Behind the rollercoaster-like price fluctuations of cryptocurrencies, there exists another class of coins that promises to offer price stability. Stablecoins attempt to bring in the best of both fiat, as well crypto, and over the past few years, they have gained massive traction, primarily because it is a major source of liquidity in the cryptocurrency market.

Unlike cryptocurrencies, the value of a stablecoin is pegged to a stable real-world asset that can range from commodities to fiat, held in reserve by the stablecoin issuer, bringing in centralization factor to the game. Meaning, there has to be a central authority holding and monitoring the backing of such crypto-assets.

This goes against the very ethos of cryptocurrencies. Along the same lines, Wiess Crypto Ratings’ latest tweet read,

“There’s a big problem with the 1st generation of #stablecoins: Users have to trust a central authority to hold sufficient dollar balances to back the coins they issued.”

Tether is unarguably the biggest stablecoin in the realm. Tether, with a market cap of $4.46 billion, holds a dominance of 11.7% over the entire cryptocurrency market. But in less than four years of its inception, USDT has garnered significant bad press. with numerous scandals and issues under its name.

Speculations alleging Tether manipulated Bitcoin’s price were the most damaging for the space. To top that, last years’ Bitfinex-Tether fiasco has only added to the woes.

Even policymakers are not a big fan of stablecoins, with numerous papers published on how this sector can threaten the monetary systems. Grant Baker, Chief Innovation Officer at STAE and author of the 2019 Blockchain Compliance Paper, was quoted as saying,

“While stablecoins provide shelter for cryptocurrency investors during times of turbulence, they haven’t seen much usage elsewhere. We anticipate this will change when Singapore begins issuing licenses and regulating stablecoin issuers this year. Decentralized stablecoins will likely be a very practical application of blockchain and that’s what we’re focusing on.”

However, even as the crypto-space continues to evolve, dethroning the largest stablecoin by market cap is be a tough job. Nevertheless, there is a growing breed of stablecoins that has made its presence known over the last couple of months.

The rise of crypto-collateralized stablecoins

The most appealing factor is the decentralized notion of this breed. While most popular stablecoins like USDT, USDC, PAX, Gemini Dollar are all fiat collateralized stablecoins, ie., backed by legal tender, crypto-collateralized stablecoins are trustless in nature. They are linked to the reserves of other cryptocurrencies.

Without a central authority, the most prominent decentralized stablecoin is DAI. This stablecoin uses smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain to manage the collateral and maintain order. Another token that has gained traction is Synthetix [$sUSD] and it allows the creation of on-chain synthetic assets on the Ethereum blockchain.

Its advantages include transparency, accountability, and efficiency [in using due to the quick process of liquidation into other cryptos],

But, everything has its own pros and cons. A recent blog by DeFi Rate explained the drawback of this emerging class of stablecoins,

“Where fiat-backed stablecoins only need to hold 1:1 reserves in legal tender, this subset of stablecoins often require over-collateralization to account for price volatility. Most commonly, this ratio is set at 150%, meaning that in order to issue $100 worth of $DAI, you will need to post AT LEAST $150 worth of $ETH as collateral.”

There is also a high volatility factor. Additionally, there also may be chances of instant liquidation, meaning, the underlying crypto can be instantaneously liquidated if its price falls below a certain threshold, which is a risky affair for investors.

That being said, the growing trend depicts a more mature crypto-space, despite mounting regulatory threats from agencies across the world.

Bitcoin and ETH Deposits to Yield Higher Interests on BlockFi

Bhutan moved $22.4 million in Bitcoin out of sovereign wallets this week, including a direct transaction to institutional market maker QCP Capital. The Himalayan nation’s crypto portfolio has dropped from a $1.4 billion peak to about $412 million.

The outflows continue a pattern of periodic liquidations by the Royal Government of Bhutan, which began mining and holding Bitcoin in 2019. These recent transactions highlight questions facing sovereign crypto strategies amid ongoing market pressures.

Recent Bitcoin Sales and Transaction PatternsBlockchain analytics platform Arkham confirmed the Bitcoin sales. Two major outflows came from Druk Holding Investments (DHI), Bhutan’s sovereign investment arm. The transactions included 184.03 BTC, worth $14.09 million, and 100.82 BTC, valued at $8.31 million, five days earlier. The latter went directly to labeled addresses tied to QCP Capital, a Singapore-based institutional market maker active in derivatives and spot markets.

According to Arkham’s analysis, Bhutan usually sells Bitcoin in roughly $50 million tranches. Historical data shows especially heavy sales between mid and late September 2025, with multiple transactions surpassing $50 million each. The current $22.4 million in weekly outflows is smaller than past sales, suggesting either more measured liquidation or reduced holdings.

Recent Bitcoin transactions from Bhutan’s sovereign wallets show outflows totaling $22.4 million (Arkham)The QCP Capital transaction signals a strategic liquidation rather than distressed selling. Market makers such as QCP enable large block trades without major market disruption. This allows sovereigns to exit positions while minimizing price impact, unlike direct exchange deposits that may trigger sharper reactions.

Bhutan’s Bitcoin Mining Operation and ProfitabilityBhutan’s Bitcoin strategy began in 2019, with DHI launching a mining operation powered by the country’s abundant hydroelectric resources. Arkham estimates that Bhutan has generated over $765 million in Bitcoin profits since its inception, while total energy costs were about $120 million. Hydropower has kept costs low compared with competitors that rely on fossil fuels.

The 2024 Bitcoin halving fundamentally changed mining economics. This event, which occurs about every four years, halves block rewards. The halving essentially doubled the cost to mine one Bitcoin, making operations less efficient. Data indicate that Bhutan mined most of its holdings before April 2024 and then sharply cut back production.

Pre-halving profit margins enabled Bhutan to amass substantial holdings at favorable costs. However, reduced efficiency after halving likely pushed the nation to monetize its reserves rather than continue energy-intensive mining at lower returns. This strategic shift from accumulation to selective selling mirrors a wider industry trend as sector profitability compresses.

Portfolio Decline and Current HoldingsBhutan’s cryptocurrency portfolio has experienced a dramatic contraction. Arkham Intelligence data show DHI’s on-chain assets currently total about $412 million, down over 70% from the $1.4 billion peak. The portfolio consists mostly of 5,700 BTC, with negligible holdings in Ethereum and other tokens.

The portfolio decline is due to ongoing sales and depreciation in the Bitcoin price. Some value erosion came from strategic liquidations for profit or fiscal needs, but broader market conditions during 2025 and early 2026 also contributed. Bhutan’s peak holdings aligned with Bitcoin’s price highs, amplifying the percentage drop as prices corrected.

Transaction history shows DHI’s main exchange partners are Binance—which has $261 million in transferred value, or 68% of activity—and Celsius Network, with $118 million (31%). Smaller amounts moved through Kraken. These exchange interactions, combined with direct transactions with market makers, show a sophisticated approach to treasury management by Bhutan.

The Druk Holding and Investments entity manages these digital assets along with traditional investments as part of Bhutan’s broader diversification strategy. The integration of cryptocurrency into the sovereign treasury positions Bhutan among a select group of nations involved directly in digital asset markets. Whether Bhutan’s continued liquidations indicate a full exit or just portfolio rebalancing remains an open question as observers track sovereign crypto adoption trends.

Theta Token is taking the blockchain to video streaming, seeking to decentralize video streaming and video on demand.

Their vision is to provide high quality video streams without the buffering issues often seen today. In addition, they plan on utilizing bandwidth and storage from users to reduce the cost of video streaming while also improving the quality.

However, with such strong competition, does it have what it takes?

In this Theta Token review, we will take an in-depth look at the project including the team, technology, unique selling points and prospects for the THETA token.

We already know that internet users have a huge appetite for video and video streaming services. That’s been proven by the popularity of YouTube, Twitch, Live.ly and the video streaming additions to Facebook and Twitter, as well as the increasingly popular Tik Tok.

In fact, networking hardware company Cisco estimates that over two-thirds of today’s internet bandwidth is taken up by video streaming. That amount is expected to increase to 82% over the next 18-24 months.

While that’s all well and good, today’s video streaming is not perfect. Many video streams suffer from what is known as “last-mile” delivery problems. The Content Delivery Networks have created an infrastructure where large datacenters provide streaming services for specific geographic areas.

However, streams are only as good as the infrastructure that feeds into the actual users homes, and this can sometimes be slow and cause frequent lag, rebuffering and choppy streams.

Traditional CDN Network vs. Theta Token "Hybrid" solution. Source: White Paper

Theta Token’s team has come up with a solution to the “last-mile” problem using decentralized blockchain technology. That has led to the world’s very first Decentralized Streaming Network (DSN). Not only that, but in September 2020 Theta Labs received the first ever decentralized streaming patent covering “Methods and Systems for a Decentralized Data Streaming and Delivery Network.”

In this blockchain network users are incentivized to share their unused memory and bandwidth to improve the overall network. This leads to better overall performance for everyone, all across the globe. According to the Theta labs founder, Mitch Liu

At its core, Theta is enabling users to share their idle bandwidth and computing resources to mine Theta tokens and in turn cache and relay video streams to others in the network

Technology behind Theta TokenThe Theta blockchain network is secured by a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, which is far less demanding computationally, and has a higher transaction throughput when compared with Proof-of-Work protocols. By using PoS as the consensus mechanism it’s possible to have many different devices acting as viewers and caching nodes.

You might wonder how Theta Token is handling the issues of scalability in blockchain and video streaming. They have developed a Resource Oriented Micropayment Pool to solve scalability issues. In addition, they are implementing something called Proof-of-Engagement to track the delivery of video segments.

The distribution and collection of rewards on the platform is handled by Smart Streaming Contracts, which are a specific type of smart contracts on the Theta Token blockchain.

Here are more detailed explanations of these new concepts:

Resource-Oriented Micropayment PoolThe Resource Oriented Micropayment Pool was created by Theta Token specifically to create off-chain payment pools that users can for off-chain withdrawals. They have been designed to be resistant to double spending and also offer more flexibility than other off-chain solutions.

Resource Oriented ​Micropayment Pool ​overview. Source: Whitepaper

If a double spend is attempted it is detected by the validators on the Theta Network. One use case for the Resource Oriented Micropayment Pool is to allow for payments to multiple caching nodes without using on-chain transactions.

The major benefit of using this solution is that it allows for much greater scalability by keeping many micro-transactions off the blockchain.

Proof-of-EngagementAs you might guess from the name, this is a protocol that proves viewers have actually watched a live video. It’s a means of providing transparency for advertisers, as well as being a means for users to earn Theta tokens in return for their engagement.

The Proof-of-Engagement protocol is necessary to create a reliable measure of video stream engagement and a trustworthy way for viewers and advertisers to measure their video stream engagement.

Smart Streaming ContractsSmart Streaming Contracts are type of smart contract or incentive contract used to help facilitate reward distribution and collection.

Examples of Incentive Contracts on Theta Network. Source: Whitepaper

There are a number of use cases for Smart Streaming Contracts, including:

Advertisers rewarding streamers and viewers;Viewers gifting rewards to streamers;Gift contracts for multiple streamers;Premium or paid video content;Subscriptions to streamers content or to Decentralized Content Networks;Cachers can share rewards with viewers and content streamers.The Smart Streaming Contracts were designed to be executed by validators, which means the original person or entity who funds the contract doesn’t need to be involved with distributions or validations.

Currently these Smart Streaming contracts are being tested on the Testnet, but is expected that they will deploy on the mainnet in early 2021 with the release of the THETA mainnet 3.0. Once Smart Streaming Contracts go live on the mainnet Theta will also implement TFUEL staking and burning.

Theta Token NetworkThe THETA tokens were launched in December of 2017 and were issued as ERC-20 tokens. Once the blockchain launches (est. late 2018) these ERC-20 tokens were exchanged for native tokens at a 1:1 ratio.

These tokens were also an early part of the SLIVER.tv platform and are used to reward viewers, streamers and those who share their resources (memory/bandwidth) with the Theta Network.

In fact the mainnet did not launch until March 12, 2019, which was a few months late, but the launch went well, with no issues. In addition to swapping the ERC-20 THETA tokens, users also received an airdrop of the Theta Fuel (TFUEL) tokens.

Following that intial launch, v 2.0 of the mainnet went live in May 2020. At that time Theta introduced Guardian nodes, a revolutionary, two layer consensus mechanism to complement Enterprise validators run by a premiere set of global partners including Google, Samsung, Binance, Blockchain.com, and Gumi.

The Theta Network Value Proposition and the TFuel Token Flow

Theta Fuel was created to be similar to the “gas” used in the Ethereum network. With the launch of the mainet the Theta Fuel tokens are being used as the reward token of the Theta network.

One of the most important aspects of the Theta mainnet launch was the introduction of Theta Fuel (TFUEL), the “gas” or payment token of the Theta Network. TFUEL powers on-chain operations like payments to relayers for sharing a video stream, or deploying or interacting with smart contracts.

Relayers earn TFUEL for every video stream they relay to other users on the network. You can think of Theta Fuel as the “gas” of the protocol. In conjunction with THETA, the staking and governance token of the protocol, these two tokens make up the economic system of Theta Network.

Once the network moves to version 3.0 in the spring of 2021 Theta will add a new mechanism for staking and burning TFUEL.

Network ParticipantsThere are numerous stakeholder and nodes that help prop up the Theta Token ecosystem. The network was created with 5 major groups of stakeholders:

Streamers/Influencers – These are the content producers of the network who produce live content and videos for later consumption. They are rewarded with Theta tokens for their contributions.Viewers – The users who come to THETA.tv to consume video content. They provide viewer engagement, which is arguably the most important part of the entire video streaming network. Viewers are rewarded for viewing and engaging with videos and can also choose to be rewarded for viewing advertisements.Advertisers – They use the platform to promote services and products to the viewers. They spend Theta tokens to buy advertising time in the network, and to sponsor influencers.Caching Nodes – These are the computers and servers that provide the network with caching services to improve the quality and delivery of the video stream. They are also rewarded with Theta tokens.Ingest Nodes – These are nodes which assist in providing various bitrates, stream resolutions, etc. They provide their services to the caching nodes for live streams and are rewarded for doing so.Most recently Theta introduced their new Guardian Nodes with the May 2020 launch of version 2.0 of the mainnet. Guardian nodes are designed to finalize blocks in the Theta multi-BFT consensus protocol. These Guardian Nodes are meant to be run by members of the Theta community, and are rewarded with TFUEL. Those wishing to run a Guardian Node must have a computer or server with minimum technical specifications, and must stake 1,000 THETA tokens.

Image via Theta Token Twitter

The hardware requirements to run a Guardian Node are:

Internet speed: 5Mbps+ up and down;CPU: 8 cores or more;Memory: 32 GBytes or more;Disk size: 1TB or more, SSD hard drive preferred.The on-boarding on pre-Guardian nodes began in March 2019, and as of November 2019 Theta announced the first 100 Guardian nodes have been selected to run on the Theta testnet.

By May 2020 the Guardian nodes were transitioned to mainnet and began helping validator nodes in securing the network, producing blocks, and earning TFUEL for their contributions. The addition of the Guardian nodes helps to ensure that no single entity or group can easily control the Theta staked in the ecosystem, significantly improving the decentralization of the network.

The Guardian nodes provide additional decentralization for Theta. Image via Publish0x.com

Guardian Nodes earn a share of all the new Theta Fuel (TFUEL) generated on Theta blockchain, which is 250m annually. The proportion of TFUEL you earn as a GN depends on how much THETA you have staked relative to the total number of THETA. 

As an example, if you stake 100,000 THETA and the total network has 300m THETA stake, you are staking 0.033% of the THETA total staked to the network. That would translate into your node earning about 0.264 TFUEL per 100 block period, or 6,944 TFUEL monthly.

THETA EdgeCastThe core thesis for THETA has always been to build a fully decentralized video infrastructure that could benefit all the involved stakeholders from the platforms to the content creators and down the very end-users.

One of the ways to bring this to market includes the ability for end-users and content creators to choose which platform will be the most benefit to them. This doesn’t only include new, decentralized platforms. It also includes the existing advertiser sponsored platforms such as YouTube and Twitch, along with existing subscription based services like Netflix and Amazon Prime.

In order to make this a reality the Theta team released the beta of Theta EdgeCast in November 2020. This is the very first totally decentralized video streaming dApp built completely on the native Theta blockchain, including smart contracts. Theta EdgeCast has the ability to do video capture, the transcode it in real-time, and to cache and relay it to users all around the globe. This is a fully decentralized solution with no central servers or services. It is all accomplished through the more than 2,000 Theta edge nodes operating globally.

EdgeCast adds fully decentralized video streaming, distribution, and compute . Image via Theta.tv

EdgeCast comes as part of the Edge Node application, and users can now broadcast streams on EdgeCast or view other users EdgeCast streams, as well as earn TFUEL via the Edge Caching and Edge Compute features. The Edge Node now encompasses all aspects of decentralized video streaming, distribution, and compute in one streamlined app.

The Theta team sees EdgeCast as a preview of the future, when Theta.tv evolves from its current hybrid platform status to a fully decentralized platform. In the long term they see decentralization as a key feature for all media and entertainment. They are positioning Theta to be a part of this future, and upgrades like EdgeCast bring the project closer to this future.

With Theta as the infrastructure users of 5G, smart TVs, mobile devices, and future connected devices will have a means to efficiently transfer video and data without the need for a centralized entity controlling the ecosystem. With Theta every user and device on the network will be able to benefit from the storage, transmission, and delivery of video and other data streams.

THETA Mainnet 3.0The Spring of 2021 is set for the projected launch of Theta Mainnet 3.0 which will introduce TFUEL staking and burning, among other changes. That’s just two years after Theta initially introduced its peer-to-peer decentralized video delivery infrastructure. One year ago Theta introduced Guardian nodes to that infrastructure, as well as adding Enterprise validator nodes run by premier global partners such as Google, Samsung, Binance, Blockchain.com, and Gumi.

After Mainnet 2.0 was released in May 2020 the EdgeCast technology was introduced, adding significant enhancements to the Theta network and the video streaming capabilities of the decentralized edge network that’s been developed by Theta.

In December 2020 Theta added support for Turing-complete smart contracts, opening up a whole new realm of potential use cases and dApp feature sets. For example, the smart contract support has made it possible for Theta to launch ThetaSwap v1, the very first decentralized exchange (DEX) for the Theta network. Future upgrades could see fully digitized item ownership, innovative payment-consumption models, transparent royalty distributions, trustless crowdfunding mechanisms, and much more.

With these improvements as the foundation, Theta is now working on releasing Theta Mainnet 3.0 with two primary protocol innovations.

The first of these is the addition of Elite Edge Nodes. These are Edge Nodes that have had TFUEL staked to them, making them Elite Edge Nodes. This will enable Uptime Mining and will allow Elite Edge Nodes to earn TFUEL through the staked TFUEL, while also earnings additional TFUEL by providing higher performance for video platforms.

The overarching goal of the Theta crypto economics design is to properly incentivize and reward all Theta ecosystem stakeholders, and thus ensure the security and utility value of the Theta network. This includes a new 2-4% TFUEL inflation mechanism through Uptime Mining.

TFUEL staking and burning. Image via Theta blog

Basically Elite Edge Nodes will earn rewards based on the amount of TFUEL staked and the total uptime of the node. Additionally, there will be a lower and an upper limit on the amount of TFuel that can be staked to an Elite node. The lower limit is necessary to prevent sybil attacks, will be explained later. The upper limit is to ensure the most optimal level of decentralization. If users want to stake more TFuel than the upper limit, they can launch multiple edge nodes and split their TFuel across those nodes.

In addition to TFUEL staking, there will also be a TFUEL burning mechanism added as a cost for using the Theta edge network. This burning mechanism is being added as a balancing force against the additional supply that will come from the TFUEL inflation mechanism.

When Theta Mainnet 3.0 is launched there will be a minimum of 25% of each TFUEL payment to the network burned, effectively making it a cost for using the network. The Theta team believes that in the long-run, as Theta’s edge network becomes more widely adopted, this could meaningfully reduce the supply of TFuel.

These changes and more can be studied in greater detail in the Theta Mainnet 3.0 whitepaper.

ThetaSwap DEXWith the addition of Turing-complete smart contracts to the Theta network many potential new use cases have been added to Theta, and one of these has been realized with the launch of the ThetaSwap DEX, the first decentralized exchange on the Theta blockchain. It is based on the Automated Market Maker logic similar to that of UniSwap. It allows users to exchange their newly-created TNT20 tokens built on Theta blockchain in a trustless, non-custodial way. Just hours after the release of the DEX on February 4, 2021 there were already a number of Theta streamers and community leaders creating their own TNT20 tokens. It is expected that this activity will only increase as the community and ecosystem grows.

The creation of a decentralized exchange was seen as necessary for Theta, given the new tokens being created on the blockchain. The Theta DEX gives users an easy way to trade the new tokens, and gives markets an efficient way to price the tokens. Now that ThetaSwap has been created there is a way for TNT20 tokens to function completely.

ThetaSwap is the first fully decentralized exchange on the Theta blockchain. Image via Twitter.com

Streamers will now be able to issue loyalty tokens that will have real value to their fans, while pools or DAOs can fund media ventures more easily. There are many exciting new ways to monetize content on Theta now that ThetaSwap is active.

Version 1 of ThetaSwap allows trading of TFUEL and TNT20 tokens, but future versions will add functionality for THETA trading via a version of the THETA token in a TNT20 wrapper (similar to wETH or wBTC which you may have used in other DeFi protocols, you would use wTHETA in ThetaSwap).

Several stablecoins issuers have also expressed interest in bringing their assets to Theta blockchain in TNT20 form, making it even easier to trade on ThetaSwap. There are continued upgrades planned for ThetaSwap throughout 2021.

Theta Token Team & PartnersThe Theta Token team is led by CEO and co-founder Mitch Liu, who was also co-founder of the video streaming site SLIVER.tv as well as Gameview Studios and Tapjoy.

A second co-founder is Jieyi Long, who was also a co-founder at SLIVER.tv as well as holding a PhD in computer engineering from Northwestern University. SLIVER.tv is a video game streaming service similar to Twitch, and is one of the backbones in the Theta Token infrastructure.

Adding to the knowledge and growth of Theta is an experienced group of Media Advisors, which includes YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, and Twitch co-founder Justin Kan.

From Left: Mitch Liu (CEO), Jieyi Long (CTO), Ryan Nichols (Chief Product Officer), Riz Virk (Head of Corp Development)

The Theta Token team has forged several crucial partnerships, including one with Twitch that will allow viewers to earn Theta Fuel Tokens (TFUELHETA) by sharing their bandwidth to broadcast streams.

It also has partnerships with Steam, a video game provider, and with the decentralized cloud computing blockchain Aelf. One other key partnership is with the startup accelerator Play Labs. More recently it has formed partnerships with SamsungVR and with Littlstar, a media platform that gives Theta access to 100+ million Playstaion platforms.

The community behind any blockchain project is certainly an important factor to consider as it helps with both spreading the news about the platform, and ultimately with adoption.

The largest community following Theta is on Twitter, which you might expect as Twitter followings seem to be highest for blockchain projects. Theta Network has nearly 83,000 Twitter followers.

What is surprising is the number of Facebook followers the project has. Typically blockchain projects don’t see much activity from Facebook, but the Theta Network’s Facebook page has over 62,000 followers.

Telegram has become increasingly important for blockchain projects, and they often use Telegram as their first place to share news, and as a place to carry on discussions about changes within the platform and community. Theta has almost 11,000 Telegram members, which isn’t a bad showing on that platform.

Another surprise for the project comes from Reddit, which is usually a popular hangout for cryptocurrency enthusiasts, but in the case of Theta there are just 3,300 followers for the Theta subreddit. There are also over 5,000 followers on a defunct Theta subreddit that moved almost a year ago.

Token Price PerformanceRather than holding a public ICO, the Theta Token team held a private sale in which $12 million was raised. The pre-sale token price was $0.15 and by the following month the price had more than doubled to an all-time high of $0.314425 on January 27, 2018. Price wouldn’t return to that level until May 2020. And from May 2020 until February 2021 the price continued climbing, reaching a new all-time high of $2.56 on February 5, 2021.

THETA Price Performance. Image via CMC

Of course the initial all-time high was during the huge rally in blockchain markets in January 2018. And the new all-time high is occurring during another huge rally in cryptocurrencies that’s been lifting many of the most popular and successful projects to new all-time highs.

TFUEL Price HistoryTFUEL appeared on exchanges on March 28, 2019 at an opening price of $0.017001 and it closed nearly unchanged that day at $0.017193. Price fell over the next several weeks, but a spike higher in late May allowed TFUEL to print an all-time high of $0.025061 on May 25, 2019.

Price fell off that high and in March 2020 TFUEL printed its lowest price ever of $0.0008894. That low was followed by a rally that would culminate with TFUEL hitting its highest level ever at $0.04020 on December 27, 2020.

Buying & Storing THETA & TFUELThe two largest exchange services for THETA are being provided by Binance Exchange and BkEx. There’s also decent volumes being exchanged at Huobi Global, UpBit, and DigiFinex. There’s a handful of other exchanges selling THETA, but with smaller volumes.

Register at Binance and Buy THETA Tokens

The majority of trading volume in TFUEL is at Binance, although there is a decent amount being exchanged at Upbit. There are only a few other exchanges listing TFUEL and the volumes being exchanged are negligible.

The Theta native wallet was released just days before the mainnet was launched. On March 9, 2019 Theta announced the release of the native web wallet, which can be used for both THETA and TFUEL tokens. This who prefer more security in their cryptocurrency storage can opt for the Trezor or Ledger hardware wallets.

There are also several third-party wallets that support storage of THETA and TFUEL and these include the Trustwallet and the Atomic wallet. Theta Labs has also released mobile versions of the Theta wallet for both Android and iOS

Development & RoadmapThis all sounds well and good but how much development output have the team been pushing recently?

One of the best ways to get a sense of this is to look into a project's GitHub. By observing the total commits to their open source repositories, we can get a sense of the raw output.

So, I decided to dive into the Theta Token GitHub. Below are the total commits to the top two most active repos over the past 12 months.

Commits to Select Repos over past year

As you can see, the developers have still been busy working on the core protocol. This is a bit less than we would expect from a project in this stage of development but its still progress.

In fact, if we were to look at sites such as CoinCodeCap, it is clear that the Theta Labs code output falls quite far behind. There are a further 8 code repositories but none of these had any reasonable development in them recently.

In terms of the Roadmap,

they have done very well and have an impressive amount of work planned for 2021, some of which has already been completed and implemented.

The 2021 roadmap for Theta. Image via ThetaToken.org

If you wanted to keep up to date with the latest business developments, then you are best suited to follow their Twitter account as well as their official blog.

ConclusionSince the launch of the Theta live streaming platform back in 2016 the project has come a very long way. With THETA now live on the SLIVER.tv platform and the mainnet working well and nearly ready for version 3.0, the team has been working to expand the partnerships and reach of the Theta Network.

Video streaming has a huge and increasing demand in the 21st century, and the Theta Token team is looking to make their platform the go-to blockchain for video streaming. It remains to be seen if they can succeed, but they have a very talented and experienced team and a solid vision. Plus they have a very good start compared with some other similar projects.

There are more interesting things being planned now the network is launched, including shared mining rewards to distribute rewards among several users; anti-piracy measures to dis-incentivize piracy.

They are also planning for the inclusion of a general service platform that goes beyond streaming videos, but provides such services as smart streaming contracts. The team has also been looking into ways to integrate the Theta platform into smart TVs, which would theoretically give Theta hundreds of millions of new users.

Despite some recent downward pressure the THETA token is the 24th largest coin on Coinmarketcap.com, while TFUEL is the 116th largest. Both tokens are at or near their all-time highs, and with the launch of version 3.0 of the mainnet, which will add staking of TFUEL, it’s quite possible the rally in these tokens has only begun.

Disclaimer: These are the writer’s opinions and should not be considered investment advice. Readers should do their own research.

June 14 — The Humanity Project team issued a statement in the early hours of yesterday regarding a cross-chain attack targeting its H token that took place on June 8. The attacker used a phishing email to gain access to a board member’s device, stealing their private key to execute on-chain transactions. The report noted the attack displayed technical tactics and tooling similar to those linked to a North Korean hacker group. The breach occurred across both Ethereum and BNB Chain. Using the stolen key, the attacker upgraded the Ethereum contract and transferred roughly 141.18 million H tokens. Simultaneously, they seized control of the BSC-side ProxyAdmin contract and minted additional tokens. Over an approximately 8-hour window, the attacker gradually sold these assets on Uniswap and PancakeSwap, disrupting liquidity and harming token holders. The project team confirmed the attack vector was a targeted social engineering phishing email disguised as an update notification from crypto trading platform Bithumb. The victim was tricked into opening a malicious attachment, which installed a remote access trojan that granted full device control, enabling theft of wallet data and private keys. As of the latest update, the Ethereum-side H contract has been frozen via an unaffected multi-signature (multi-sig) mechanism. However, the BSC-side deployment remains under the attacker’s control, leaving open the potential for additional minting. The team is collaborating with exchanges and stakeholders to develop fixes and remedies, and advised users to stay on alert for phishing links and scam messages.

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While there are plenty of blockchain projects focused on dApps and the conversion of tokens, one that stands out is the Bancor Network and its BNT token.

Indeed, this project is one of the most well known in the cryptocurrency space. It has also had its fair share of ups and downs. From a blockbuster ICO to legal challenges. From widespread partnerships to a widely publicized hack.

However, is it something you should consider?

In this Bancor Network Token review, I will give you everything that you need to know. I will also take a look at the long term prospects and adoption potential of BNT.

The Bancor Network has created an elegant solution in its decentralized network which allows traders to swap a wide selection of tokens seamlessly across nearly 10,000 token pairs, and all with a single click.

Image via Bancor Website

Bancor allows users to instantly convert between two tokens without needing a counterparty to the trade. This is all done right within the Bancor wallet, and this model has allowed Bancor to provide traders with automatic liquidity for trades.

More importantly, it allows the network to remain completely decentralized, and much of the functionality of the network is thanks to the innovative use of the BNT token to facilitate trades.

So, this all sounds really intriguing but in order to understand the real heft behind Bancor, we have to go over its relatively eventful history.

Bancor Network BackgroundThe Bancor Network is overseen by the Bancor Foundation, which is based in Zug, Switzerland. The company also operates a Research & Development center in Tel Aviv, Israel, which gives the company a foothold in the rising blockchain hub in Zug as well as the rising Middle Eastern technology center of Tel Aviv.

The company was founded in 2016 by a group is Israelis with a background in Silicon Valley start-ups, as well as experience in scaling startups and blockchain technologies. It was named after the international trade balancing currency initially envisioned by John Maynard Keynes.

Token Sale Page for the Bancor Network Token

The Bancor Network is perhaps most well-known for holding one of the most successful ICOs ever. In 2017 it set a world record by raising over $153 million in Ethereum tokens in less than 3 hours. The world-record has since been topped by several projects (including SIRIN Labs and Tezos), but remains an impressive beginning for the project.

Since the ICO the Bancor Network has seen over $1.5 billion in token conversions take place on its platform, all facilitated by the BNT token. In addition, there are over 100 liquidity providers serving as Bancor nodes, and these nodes provide over $13 million in liquidity by staking BNT tokens to power token conversions.

More recently, on January 1, 2020 Bancor has added dramatically to its liquidity pool by airdropping all of its Ethereum Reserve, which totaled 10% of the BNT marketcap at the time, in the form of ETHBNT Bancor Pool Tokens.

In effect this added 60,000 liquidity providers, although it’s understood that many of the airdrop recipients simply turned around and sold the tokens. Still, the Bancor network has gone from liquidity of just under $4 million on January 1, 2020 to over $17 million as of mid-June 2020.

Cross-chain ConversionBancor has made the user experience of exchanging tokens quite easily. The intuitive wallet app is slick and allows for the quick and easy conversion of tokens similar to what users get when using Coinbase or other custodial wallets.

While the user interface makes it look simple, behind the scenes the Bancor wallet is transacting directly with BNT smart contracts on the blockchain, all while allowing users to retain full control of their private keys and funds at all times.

Cross Chain Token Swap on Bancor

The obvious advantage of Bancor’s wallet is that it not only allows for the exchange of tokens, but it does so without the need for a counterparty. This makes it the first network to allow cross-chain conversions without requiring users to give up their private keys in the process of the exchange.

Bancor began their cross-chain integration efforts with EOS and Ethereum, however, they have plans to add other bridges over time, eventually enabling them to function as a multi-chain liquidity solution that can provide instant token conversions for many of the popular blockchains such as Bitcoin, Tron, and Ripple.

Range of ConversionsAlready Bancor gives traders and investors an amazing range of conversion options, with fee-less, instant trades available for tokens across more than 8,700 token pairs right through the Bancor wallet.

To make a comparison, one of the most popular exchanges Binance has roughly 196 tokens available, but just 586 trading pairs.

Automatic LiquidityOne of the greatest benefits of Bancor and the BNT token is that they bring liquidity to cryptocurrency markets, and without liquidity, currencies are apt to wither and die. After all, who wants to own a currency that can’t be easily bought and sold.

Of course, the top cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, and others in the top 20 have enough trading volume on their own, but the Bancor Protocol brings a unique solution that delivers automatic decentralized liquidity to any token.

Instant & Affordable Liquidity on Bancor. Image via Bancor Blog

Through the Bancor Protocol any token at all, even those privately created, can get instant liquidity, no matter what size trade volume the token enjoys. This is incredibly important functionality when it comes to facilitating the adoption of decentralized applications.

Since many dApps have their own tokens, and now those tokens are able to be converted with other cryptocurrencies instantly and with a single click right within a user’s wallet.

How Bancor Protocol WorksAt this point, you might be wondering if it’s really necessary to have another decentralized exchange. After all, the centralized exchanges seem far more popular at this point, and there are dozens of active exchanges already providing a trading platform and liquidity for cryptocurrencies.

In short, yes the world does need another exchange, or at least it needs an exchange like Bancor. That’s because the Bancor platform provides a much-needed service of increasing liquidity for any token, and of creating a platform where any token can be exchanged without the need for a counterparty.

This is something that can’t be accomplished with any other asset. Take fiat currencies as an example. If you want to exchange U.S. dollars for Yen you need to find someone willing to sell Yen to complete the transaction. Every asset is like this. There must be a buyer and a seller for a transaction to work.

Overview of the Bancor Protocol for external developers

Bancor only requires one person to complete a trade, with the liquidity provided by the native BNT token and its smart contracts. The BNT token’s smart contracts ensure that there is a balance between tokens at all times. Once any trade is concluded there will also be a total remaining that represents the BNT balance coded into the smart contract.

This structure removes the need for the exchange to act as a third-party to transactions. With Bancor and its BNT token, you are able to continually perform exchanges for Ethereum and EOS compatible tokens right through the Bancor wallet.

You can think of the system as an hourglass. It’s a closed system and it doesn’t matter how you turn the hourglass, it always holds the same quantity of sand. In this analogy, the hourglass represents the BNT smart contract, and the grains of sand are the tokens being traded.

And next up from the team will be a development marketplace for dApps that will also make use of the cross-chain compatibility and balanced smart contracts. Also in the pipeline for the future is staking rewards to incentivize liquidity, and a BancorDAO to add self-governance to the blockchain and fully decentralize.

Bancor Staking RewardsBNT staking rewards are a future enhancement that is planned to incentivize users to provide liquidity for the network. The basis for adding staking is that Bancor needs liquidity to lower fees for traders, while also increasing trading volume and overall network fees. By providing users with an incentive to add liquidity to the network Bancor is expecting to see its network grow and flourish.

Simulated Staking APRs. Image via Bancor Blog

While plans for adding staking rewards are in the early stages the basics are that users will receive rewards of BNT for holding their BNT in an existing liquidity pool such as MKR/BNT or ETH/BNT. The amount of new BNT that will be created as staking rewards and the distribution of staking rewards to different pools on the network will be decided by users voting in the BancorDAO.

This type of reward system is expected to pull new users into the ecosystem thanks to the APR generated by fees and staking rewards. Bancor is carefully designing their staking rewards system to avoid concentrating the rewards in a small number of pools, choosing instead to provide an even distribution across dozens of network pools.

Bancor VortexVortex is the solution implemented in February 2021 which allows users to provide liquidity in BNT to borrow funds while continuing to obtain yield from swap fees.

Vortex reworked the existing vBNT mechanism, which gave the token more uitility aside from providing governance. As you’ll see later this turned out to be very good when Bancor moved to gasless voting, otherwise the vBNT token would have lost all utility.

vBNT is received when staking BNT into a liquidity pool making it the pool token for the Bancor network. Vortex adds additional functionality to vBNT such that user are able to sell vBNT for actual BNT tokens. That means once vBNT is converted the resulting BNT can be exchanged for any other token.

The addition of this functionality makes Vortex a no-liquidation lending platform, which is pretty cool since it allows a liquidity provider the ability to receive future rewards immediately. And because the principal will continue accruing swap fees the loan eventually repays itself.

The no-liquidation aspect of Vortex arises because vBNT and BNT are essentially the same token. Thus any change in the price of BNT is closely mirrored by vBNT. And while vBNT is created in a 1:1 ratio when staking, the price relationship between the two is not that simple.

vBNT Burner ContractOriginally Bancor Vortex was envisioned with a token supply management solution that would capture a portion of trade revenue and use it to buy and burn vBNT. That original model was dynamic and complex, however in March 2021 the DAO voted to replace the dynamic model with a flat-fee model.

Under that flat-fee model 5% of the total protocol swap revenue is shifted to the vBNT Burner Smart Contract, and the addition of this will turn vBNT into a scarcer asset. That is long-term deflationary and positive for the Bancor ecosystem.

The flat burn rate will be incrementally adjusted over the course of 18 months, with the final target being 15%. The theory is that as trade volumes increase the burning of vBNT will also accelerate. In the coming years this vBNT burn mechanism is expected to be a critical part of the flexible monetary policy employed by the DAO.

In the vBNT burn mechanism the burning of tokens is not automatic. Tokens are moved to the burned smart contract and users are then offered the chance to interact with that contract, also paying the necessary gas fees associated with the burn.

Each vBNT token burned represents a BNT token that is locked into the network forever. That increases the scarcity of BNT and supports the growth in total locked value over time.

The Bancor team also envisions new gamified DeFi strategies coming from this model. In addition to direct incentives to activate the burn mechanism, a new type of transparent and equal-opportunity game becomes available for vBNT.

Speculators will have ample capacity to observe each other’s activities on-chain, and may choose to simultaneously create and seize arbitrage opportunities on the vBNT pool at their leisure.

Bancor TeamThe Bancor Network was founded in 2016 by Israeli siblings Guy and Galia Benartzi. Both remain active with the project, with Guy on the Foundation Council, while Galia is in charge of business development. She is also a strong proponent of women in blockchain and crypto.

Other board members include Olivier Nathan Cohen, who is also the founder and COO of Altcoinomy, a crypto KYC operator- facilitating cash out in Swiss private banks, AML screening of ICO investors, and institutional crypto/fiat transactions.

The CTO of Bancor is Yudi Levi, and he’s held that position since the start of Bancor in 2016. Prior to that, he was co-founder and CTO of AppCoin. He also spent over a decade as a chief architect of several mobile projects, including Real Dice, Mytopia, and Particle Code.

The team also has an impressive list of advisors, including Brock Pierce, the Chairman of the Board at the Bitcoin Foundation, and venture capitalist Tim Draper.

The BNT TokenAs was mentioned earlier, Bancor held an ICO on June 12, 2017 that raised $153 million in just three hours. That ICO sold roughly 40 million BNT tokens at an average price of $3.92 each. Currently, there’s a circulating supply of BNT of nearly 70 million tokens.

The BNT token hit its all-time high of $10.00 on January 10, 2018 and its all-time low of $0.117415 on March 13, 2020. As of mid-June 2020 it recovered remarkably from its March all-time low and traded at $1.17 just three months after for an amazing gain of 1,500%! That gain was primarily powered by news of the July 2020 release of Bancor V2.

Bancor’s BNT did not experience quite the same rally as many other altcoins in 2021, although it did see some upside as it reached $9.15 on March 7, 2021. Since then it has cooled significantly and as of May 22, 2021 it is trading at $4.36.

BNT price movements over time. Image via Coinmarketcap.com

The circulating supply can change however since BNT is created as needed to initiate exchanges. The Bancor protocol will create as much BNT as needed to match the value of currencies held within the smart contract. Once staking rewards are added the circulating supply will necessarily increase more rapidly and regularly.

Trading & Storing BNTYou’ll find that most of the trading volume in the BNT token is at Bancor, naturally. It is also offered at a number of other platforms, including Binance and Coinbase, although trade volumes are pretty low.

Moreover, if we were to take a look at the order books on an individual exchange such as Binance it is clear that there is a lack of liquidity there. You will need to be very careful when placing an order there as if reasonable sized orders are likely to lead to slippage.

Once you have your BNT tokens you are going to want to store them in a secure offline wallet. Given that these are ERC20 tokens it means that you can store it any Ethereum compatible wallet.

If you’re trading or staking then storing BNT in the native Bancor Wallet will make sense.

Bancor V2Late in April 2020, with the BNT token languishing around the $0.20 level the team announced that they would soon be releasing Bancor V2. The token didn’t immediately respond, but by mid-May it had began a serious rally, and a month later is trading at $1.17. That’s especially amazing given that the token was at its all-time low just a short time before in mid-March 2020.

Bancor V2 Announcement. Image via Bancor Blog

The Bancor Protocol V2 is expected to add several important features that will put Bancor at the front of the pack of decentralized finance projects. The changes are meant to address four key issues commonly cited as obstacles to the widespread adoption of Automated Market Makers (AMMs):

Exposure to “impermanent loss”Exposure to multiple assetsCapital inefficiency (i.e., high slippage)Opportunity cost of providing liquidityIt’s interesting to see that the new features were created as opt-in and users are able to create and fund new AMMs with some, all, or none of the new features.

Bancor V2 features:

A new automated market maker (AMM) liquidity pool integrated with Chainlink price oracles that mitigates the risk of impermanent loss for both stable and volatile tokens.Provide liquidity with 100% exposure to a single tokenA more efficient bonding curve that reduces slippageSupport for lending protocolsBancor V2.1Even before Bancor V2 was fully launched the Bancor team was already discussing the necessary changes for Bancor V2.1. This next level update was designed to take the AMM model to the next level and it differs from Bancor V2 by finally offering solutions to two problems that have plagued AMMs ever since they were created. Those problems are:

Involuntary Token ExposureImpermanent LossUnlike other AMM protocols, Bancor uses its native BNT protocol token as the counterpart asset in every Bancor pool. Through the use of an elastic BNT supply, the v2.1 protocol co-invests in pools alongside LPs to support single-sided AMM exposure and to cover the cost of impermanent loss with swap fees earned from its co-investments.

Single-Sided ExposureIn the majority of 1st generation AMMs it’s necessary for liquidity providers to contribute equal amounts of each asset represented in the pool.

Obviously this is not only inconvenient, but it can also be a liability when an LP is only interested in providing liquidity for one asset, or possibly even holds just one asset. Bancor v2.1 breaks this by allowing LPs to provide a single token rather than and even or determinate pair.

Using Bancor v2.1 LPs are able to provide single-sided liquidity exposure using either ERC-20 tokens, or the Bancor BNT token.

Impermanent Loss InsuranceIt’s well known that AMMs which are subject to arbitrage opportunities also suffer impermanent loss as a side effect. Any time there are two assets paired in a constant product AMM the product of those two assets must remain constant.

That means any price variations in either asset leads to changes in the amount of each asset held. So, assets that rise in value are liquidated, while assets that fall in value are purchased to maintain the constant product.

In some cases swap fees are used to offset impermanent losses, however these losses can easily exceed any swap fees earned by the LPs. In this case the LP experiences a negative return when they eventually withdraw their assets.

Bancor v2.1 was designed to avoid this situation and ensure that every LP gets back the same value deposited plus trading fees. This is accomplished through a unique concept called Impermanent Loss Insurance.

Impermanent Loss Insurance isn’t automatic, however. It accrues by 1% each day over time, and after 100% it achieves 100% protection on funds in the pool.

There is also a 30-day cliff used, which means any LP who withdraws their capital before it’s been in the pool for 30 days will incur the same impermanent loss as if there was no insurance protection. Once 100 days has passed the insurance protection is full and the LP can receive 100% compensation for any loss incurred within the first 100 days or any time thereafter.

When the pool does not contain enough tokens to cover the losses fully with the staked tokens the insurance can be paid out in an equivalent value of BNT tokens.

LimitationsBancor v2.1 has some very special features, but to allow for the positive features there are also three notable limitations in the platform:‌

Bancor v2.1 will only work with two-asset pools. For pools with more than two assets and custom weights. Developers need to deploy legacy v1 pools.Bancor v2.1 does not support dynamically adjusting supply tokens ("rebase" tokens) that can control and adjust token balances in users' wallets.When withdrawn from the system, BNTs are locked for a pre-set time (default 24 hr) to prevent panic liquidation.RoadmapBancor does not have a formal roadmap, but they do have a focus and continue improving the platform and adding new features. As of May 2021 Bancor has announced three pillars of development that they are working on:

Token Onboarding: Open Bancor’s doors to as many assets as possible by lowering the barrier to whitelisting, and making bootstrapping and incentivizing liquidity easier and cheaper for token projects.Financial Access & Control: Design powerful financial tools for LPs to earn high yield on their idle assets and manage returns in a stress-free, user-friendly environment.World-Class Trading Venue: Capture a growing share of total crypto trading volume by offering the best prices on a broad range of assets, a world-class trading experience including advanced charting & analytics, and novel tools for professional and retail traders.Gasless VotingGasless voting via the Snapshot governance platform was added in April 2021. The popularity of the proposal to move to Snapshot was apparent as the Bancor community not only passed the proposal with a 98.4% majority, it was also the largest voter turnout for any DAO decision thus far, with 84 unique address participating.

The implementation of Snapshot makes it far easier for community members to participate in governance, and this has been borne out in the real world, with over two dozen proposals added to Snapshot in the month following the addition of gasless voting.

If there is ever a problem found with Snapshot there is a quick-release mechanism that will revert governance back to the Ethereum blockchain. This will serve to protect the DAO in the case of emergency.

ConclusionOne of the major roadblocks in mass adoption is the lack of liquidity, and difficulty in exchanging various tokens for each other. The Bancor Protocol has done away with this problem through the automation of liquidity.

It’s true that complete beginners will face a small learning curve, but the UI of the wallet is as simple as they come. Anyone new to cryptocurrencies should have no problem learning how to make exchanges using the Bancor wallet.

And the newest update to the online platform is making things even easier for users as the team is now focusing its efforts more on creating a powerful and easy to use platform rather than building liquidity.

Moreover, the Bancor Protocol is making it easier for developers to build a seamless exchange application between a plethora of tokens. There are also a host of updates that have been planned for the next 6 to 12 months. This is part of the ongoing upgrades to the protocol and applications involved in the Bancor ecosystem.

Of course, there are still questions linger around the project including the issues of regulations in the U.S. and beyond. Potential centralisation of control in the three year transition period may deter some who fear the potential for arbitrary frozen accounts.

You also have the really paltry token performance of BNT especially over the past year. While the majority of tokens were soaring 500% or more in early 2021 the gains for BNT were relatively tame. It was one of the few tokens that did not reach a new all-time high in 2021.

Either way, Bancor does have some great technology, use cases and a strong team powering it forward.

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Migrating Ethereum Subgraphs to The Graph’s Decentralized Network

USA₮ expands to Celo and introduces Google Cloud support for distribution.

PANews reported on March 31 that, according to an official announcement from USA₮, the compliant digital dollar USA₮ issued by Anchorage Digital Bank has officially expanded to Celo, becoming its first supported network after Ethereum. The project also partnered with Self and Google Cloud to launch a mainnet faucet, allowing the distribution of USA₮ to compliant users through privacy-preserving human authentication.

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USA₮, the dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Anchorage Digital Bank and supported by Tether, is expanding to Celo, marking its first blockchain deployment beyond Ethereum.

The move places the regulated token on a network that has become one of the most active rails for real-world stablecoin use.

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Tether introduced the token in January as a US-regulated product issued through Anchorage Digital Bank under federal OCC oversight, positioning it as a domestic complement to USD₮ rather than a replacement for its flagship offshore stablecoin. The project was built to comply with the GENIUS Act and target US users through a more tightly regulated structure.

Celo gives USA₮ immediate access to a distribution network that already looks built for stablecoin payments. Opera said this month that MiniPay, its self-custodial wallet on Celo, has grown to more than 14 million account registrations and processed over 420 million transactions across more than 66 countries.

Opera and Celo also said the network now counts more than 4.23 million weekly active USD₮ users, underscoring how central stablecoins have become to activity on the chain.

That helps explain why Celo was chosen as the first expansion chain. The network has leaned into payments with features such as fee abstraction, which lets users pay gas in stablecoins instead of a native token, along with a mobile-first design geared toward cheap and simple transfers. Celo describes itself as an Ethereum layer 2 focused on fast, low-cost payments and real-world adoption.

Google Cloud is also part of the rollout, adding a broader infrastructure layer to the launch. The company has been expanding further into digital asset and payments infrastructure through products such as Universal Ledger, which it says is built for programmable transfers and compliance focused financial applications. In this case, the USA₮ rollout connects that infrastructure to a privacy preserving proof of humanity distribution model through Self.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Tether’s USAT Expands to Celo in First Move Beyond Ethereum Mainnet

SBI announced it will acquire cryptocurrency trading platform Bitbank for 46.7 billion yen.

According to Nikkei News, Japanese financial group SBI Holdings announced on the 25th that it will acquire cryptocurrency exchange platform bitbank for 46.7 billion yen (approximately $288 million). Upon completion of the transaction, SBI Group’s crypto asset custody scale is expected to exceed 1 trillion yen, making it one of the largest operators in Japan’s crypto industry. Per the plan, a subsidiary under SBI Holdings will acquire Bitbank shares from individual shareholders including its founders as early as August this year. Bitbank will then repurchase shares held by existing shareholders MIXI and Ceres by the end of October. If combining data from SBI’s own crypto exchange SBI VC Trade and Bitbank, as of April this year, the two firms had a total of around 2.92 million accounts and total custody assets of approximately 1.1 trillion yen. While different crypto exchanges disclose custody assets at varying time points, among Japan’s major industry competitors, bitFlyer held about 960 billion yen in custody assets as of the end of December 2025, and Coincheck had around 800 billion yen as of the end of March 2025.

4 minutes ago

Bithumb was fined for sharing user data overseas without consent.

South Korean regulatory authorities have ordered cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb to pay a 210 million won (approximately $136,000) fine for sharing user personal information with overseas platforms without user consent. According to an announcement released Thursday by South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), the relevant user data exposure occurred between September and November 2025. At that time, Bithumb transferred user information to overseas platforms while sharing its USDT market order book data. The PIPC also noted that when assisting users with asset transfers to 13 overseas exchanges, Bithumb failed to obtain full and sufficient user consent before sharing personal details including names, wallet addresses, and dates of birth. For the two violations, the PIPC not only imposed the fine but also ordered Bithumb to rectify its processes and management systems related to cross-border transmission of user information.

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Analyst: SK Hynix’s US listing and fund-raising could trigger a valuation re-rating.

According to Bloomberg, SK Hynix is set to issue American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) on the Nasdaq on July 10. The listing aims to raise nearly $30 billion, making it one of the largest ADR issuances in history. Market participants widely believe the move will significantly expand its global investor base and may drive a valuation re-rating. Multiple asset management firms project that if its valuation converges with Micron Technology’s, its share price could rise by 30% over the next year. One fund manager noted that SK Hynix should trade at a valuation at least on par with Micron, as demand for memory chips is likely to outpace supply for years to come. The listing comes amid an unusually strong boom in the memory chip sector. Shares of Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung Electronics have all surged over 200% this year, marking their best annual performance in decades. Demand for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) from AI servers is widely seen as the driver of a structural "memory supercycle".

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Jefferies: Samsung is likely to follow SK Hynix’s example to list in the US via ADRs.

Jeff Kim, Head of Research at Jefferies, said Samsung is likely to follow SK Hynix in listing on the U.S. market via American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), which will boost the share price of the South Korean chipmaker whose valuation lags behind Micron. "Chip stocks are at a turning point. ADRs will serve as an important catalyst to drive their valuations," he added.

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The layer-2 (L2) scaling solutions ecosystem is booming. Can crypto achieve scalability without sacrificing decentralization?

The congestion and high transaction fees in established blockchains like Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) have sparked a need for additional solutions to handle the increased demand. The L2 sidechains such as Arbitrum (ARB), Optimism (OP), and Polygon (MATIC) emerged as an attempt to enhance transaction capabilities while ensuring smooth and orderly operations.

In short, layer-2 solutions are additional protocols or frameworks constructed on existing blockchains to improve scalability and transaction throughput. They come in various forms, such as rollups, state channels, and sidechains. 

They alleviate the computational load on the main chain by offloading it to a secondary layer while ideally ensuring security and decentralization.

Optimistic rollups, like Arbitrum and Optimism, take a trust-but-verify stance, treating transactions as valid unless a challenge proves otherwise.

Zero-knowledge rollups, like zkSync, perform calculations away from the main chain and then submit proof that everything checks out.

These solutions accomplish scaling by processing thousands of transactions off-chain and then bundling them into a single transaction on the main chain. This action effectively diverts the transactional load onto their parallel network, easing congestion on the mainnet.

Yet, prominent figures, including Ethereum’s co-creator, Vitalik Buterin, have recently voiced concerns about centralization and censorship in L2 solutions.

Pseudonymous blockchain researcher Andy recently took to X, stating that decentralization had been sidelined for “immediate feedback loops, accessibility, and user acquisition.” 

https://twitter.com/ayyyeandy/status/1711806284272382286

In their opinion, the current L2 stack significantly differs from the idealized version fronted by its backers.

The growing conundrum As the demand for blockchain scalability intensifies, many layer-2 solutions have sprung forth, offering varied approaches to tackle the scalability, security, and speed trilemma.

According to data from layer-2 watchdog L2Beat, there are currently 37 active layer-2 projects with the extensive user, transaction activity, and total value locked (TVL). 36 more are upcoming, and 11 projects have been archived.

Analysts estimate that by the end of the year, there could be more than 100 and even as many as a thousand L2s to address Ethereum’s scalability issues.

Yet, as the ecosystem expands, concerns arise about increasing centralization within these solutions. It’s a paradox: seeking to decentralize but inadvertently embracing centralization. 

This concern goes beyond philosophy; it may challenge what makes blockchain robust, transparent, and resistant to censorship.

The L2 solutions offer scalability while potentially compromising the core principles of decentralization. Is this sacrifice necessary, or can we strike a balance that preserves this delicate equilibrium?

Navigating the sequencer dilemma A key component of these L2 networks is the sequencer, which bundles user transactions and sends them to Ethereum. 

Sequencers verify, arrange, and compress transactions into a package that can be transported to the layer-1 chain. For this service, they receive a small portion of the fees collected from users.

The technology plays an important role in the functioning of L2s, making them faster, less expensive, and more user-friendly.

Critics argue that today’s sequencers are usually run by centralized entities, representing potential failure points and vectors for transaction censorship. There have also been suggestions that the profitable nature of running sequencers may inadvertently discourage decentralization.

Speaking to crypto.news, Kelsey McGuire, Chief Growth Officer at EVM-based smart contract platform Shardeum, opined that the centralization of some layer-2 platforms could lead to an increased reliance on specific validators and sequencers, creating a scenario where a handful of participants wield disproportionate influence over the network. 

Such a scenario could even create rifts in the crypto community between those willing to sacrifice a level of decentralization and those who see themselves as decentralization purists.

In her opinion, sequencers could have transaction ordering, thus creating concerns around front-running or censorship. McGuire suggested exclusively relying on such sequencers could lead to an industry where only a few entities have significant influence, undermining decentralization across the board.

“L2s that do care about decentralization should continue to focus on finding ways to ensure that all the power and influence doesn’t sit within the hands of just a few entities.”

Kelsey McGuire, Chief Growth Officer, Shardeum A recent Binance report also highlighted the risks the current centralized sequencer systems pose, including the potential abuse of transaction order control and the possibility of economic harm to users. For instance, the entire L2 is impacted if a centralized sequencer fails.

Some L2s also lack fraud proofs, although others, including the popular Optimism rollup, are currently developing such systems. 

Fraud proofs are layer-1 algorithms that validate the accuracy of layer-2 transactions. Many rollup networks “borrow” Ethereum’s security through these fraud proofs, enabling Ethereum validators to verify that an L2 network is functioning correctly.

Some analysts have suggested that without fraud proofs L2 networks are essentially asking users to trust their security measures instead of Ethereum’s.

I’ve raised the alarm bells about the dangers of L2s being marketed as such without fraud proofs or any meaningful L1 derived security for a very long time.

The response I generally got was “they’re good people. We can trust them to eventually build fraud proofs and not rug in… https://t.co/rbLVIoCShP

— Steven Goldfeder (@sgoldfed) November 22, 2023 Other L2s also lack what experts describe as an “escape hatch” for users to transfer their funds back to Ethereum if a sequencer fails. Without this, there’s a risk of users losing their funds if something goes wrong.

Ethereum’s centralization issues extend beyond L2 centralization. Its transition to the proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism created new centralization headaches for the network.

Under PoS, network validators are chosen based on the amount of staked ETH they have. It has led to hyper-scale staking platforms such as Lido, which currently houses as much as 20% of Ethereum’s total locked value (TVL) in its liquid staking instrument, the LSD. 

Lido also operates one in every three Ethereum validators, leading many to question the excessive dependency on such centralized staking platforms, which ultimately contradicts the Ethereum community’s ethos of decentralization.

The solutions in place Several solutions are being proposed to address these centralization issues. Shared sequencers and direct decentralized sequencers are some of them.

Shared sequencers are networks serving multiple L2s, promoting interoperability and composability. In contrast, direct decentralized sequencing allows each L2 to have its own set of sequencers, allowing for more customization and control.

There are reports that Coinbase and other rollup platforms plan to adopt decentralized sequencers, even as fears abound that large-scale implementation of the technology may compromise speed and security.

L2 platforms like Espresso and Radius are currently developing shared sequencing solutions, each with unique features in their respective architectures.

McGuire, who believes sharing is caring, at least as far as decentralization is concerned, thinks the shared sequencer route may be the best way forward in the L2 space. She feels that a number of the challenges facing L2s could have been negated had the solutions been baked into the underlying L1s from the start.

In his post on the Ethereum Magicians forum, Vitalik Buterin introduced a tiered framework, ranging from stage zero through stage two, to systematically evaluate the level of decentralization inherent in various L2 networks. 

This framework acknowledges the practical necessity for nascent L2s to temporarily employ certain centralized mechanisms—akin to “training wheels”—that ensure a secure testing phase and a controlled public roll-out before full decentralization is achieved.

Future horizons As the crypto community grapples with the centralization problem, the future remains uncertain yet hopeful. Innovators actively address these concerns, exploring novel architectures that balance efficiency with decentralization.

The road ahead involves iterative solutions and learning from the successes and pitfalls of existing L2 frameworks.

The conversation is dynamic, evolving alongside the blockchain landscape. The challenge is clear: to forge a path where scalability doesn’t compromise the decentralized ethos.

The community could collaboratively shape the future, steering toward solutions that align with the core principles of blockchain technology.

In the grand narrative of blockchain scaling, the centralization subplot is a critical chapter that will undoubtedly shape the destiny of decentralized networks. The question remains: can we scale without compromising the soul of crypto?

Crypto prices show bullish momentum today, with Bitcoin (BTC) steady in the $93K to $96K range. Binance Coin (BNB) soared 15%, setting a new all-time high. Tron (TRX) surged 70%, earning a spot in the top 10 cryptocurrencies. Reserve Rights (RSR) led gains with an impressive 121% rally.

The global crypto market cap rose by approximately 1%, now at $3.54 trillion. Trading volume also saw a boost, climbing to $292 billion. Let’s dive deeper into the top cryptocurrencies by market capitalization and their price movements today, December 4.

Crypto Prices Today: BTC at $95K, ETH, SOL Gain, XRP Drops by 6% Bitcoin (BTC) is inching closer to $97,000, continuing to trade within a consolidated range for over two weeks. Binance Coin surged to a new all-time high and is now trading at $750, reflecting strong market interest. Meanwhile, Tron (TRX) made a significant leap and has entered the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.

Bitcoin Price Today Bitcoin (BTC) price trades at $96,500, with a 24-hour range between $93,629 and $96,669. Its market cap reached $1.9 trillion. The trading volume in the last 24 hours stood at $70 billion. Bitcoin’s market dominance dropped by 0.3%, falling to 54.11%.

According to sosovalue BTC ETFs saw an inflow of $675 million, with BlackRock contributing $693 million. Fidelity added $52 million, while Ark & 21 Shares reported an outflow of $93 million.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin mining firm Foundry cut its workforce to just 80–90 employees. The firm aims to streamline its operations.

Ethereum Price Today Ethereum (ETH) price trades at $3,667, reflecting a 1% increase over the past 24 hours. Its 24-hour low and high are $3,504 and $3,708. The cryptocurrency has a market cap of $441 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $40 billion. Ethereum’s market dominance currently stands at 12.56%.

As sosvalue reported ETH ETFs saw an inflow of $132 million, with Fidelity contributing $73 million and BlackRock adding $65 million. However, Grayscale recorded an outflow of $6 million.

Meanwhile, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin emphasized the need for enhanced security and privacy in Web3 wallets. He urged wallets to integrate privacy features directly, reducing reliance on specialized privacy wallets.

XRP Price Today XRP is trading at $2.55, showing a 6% drop in the past 24 hours. Its 24-hour low and high are $2.36 and $2.86. XRP’s market cap stands at $145 billion, with $42 billion in trading volume. It is currently ranked 3rd by market cap.

In other news, Ripple lead attorney in the lawsuit, Jorge Tenreiro, has joined the US SEC as Chief Litigation Counsel. This move raises concerns over stricter crypto oversight, especially due to his role in the XRP case.

Solana Price Today Solana (SOL) price is trading at $238, reflecting a 5% gain in the past 24 hours. Its 24-hour low and high are $216 and $240. The cryptocurrency’s market capitalization stands at $113 billion, with $8 billion in trading volume. Solana ranks 5th among cryptocurrencies by market cap.

In a significant development, Grayscale Investments has applied for a Solana ETF with the US SEC. This move highlights the growing institutional interest in Solana’s ecosystem.

Meme Crypto Prices Today Meme coins are showing a mixed reaction today. Dogecoin (DOGE) price was down by 2%, trading at $0.41, with a 24-hour high of $0.42. On the other hand, Shiba Inu (SHIB) was up by 3%, trading at $0.00003015.

Other top meme coins are also showing mixed movements. PEPE was up by 1%, and WIF gained 4%, while Bonk was down by 1%. The meme coin market continues to remain volatile, with varied performances across different tokens.

Top Crypto Gainer Prices Today Reserve Rights Reserve Rights (RSR) price saw a massive 121% jump in the past 24 hours, trading at $0.026. Its 24-hour low and high were $0.01231 and $0.02669. This impressive rally has placed RSR among the top gainers today.

The surge in RSR price comes amid growing speculation about the potential appointment of Paul Atkins as the next U.S. SEC chair under President Donald Trump. This news has sparked increased interest in the project.

Tron Tron (TRX) price was the second biggest gainer in the last 24 hours, soaring by 70% and trading at $0.38. It has now entered the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. Its 24-hour low and high were $0.2245 and $0.4406, respectively. TRON’s market cap stands at $32 billion, with a trading volume of $12 billion. The strong price movement highlights growing investor interest and solidifies TRON’s position in the top-tier cryptocurrencies.

Top Crypto Loser Prices Today Kaia Kaia (KAIA) price was the worst performer in the last 24 hours, with a 17% decrease in price. Crypto prices today show it is trading at $0.34, with a low of $0.26 and a high of $0.39.

Flare Network Flare Network (FLR) price dropped by 10% and is now trading at $0.034. Its 24-hour low and high are $0.03199 and $0.0382.

The hourly chart looks bullish for the crypto market, with major altcoins and Bitcoin up by 1 to 2%. Overall, the crypto prices today show strong bullish signs, which could be a positive signal for investors looking for growth in the coming days.

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