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Researchers develop blockchain verification service for cultural artefacts
A combination of human expertise, NFTs and blockchain technology could help humanity protect its priceless artefacts from theft and looting.
When a cultural heritage organization has its collection validated, it uploads images and descriptions to the service. A group of experts then use a process similar to the one used by the Museums Association to grade the artefacts on a five-point scale.
According to the Salsal website:
“Once proven to be legitimate, the Collector can turn it into an NFT which is a Non Fungible Token. We use NFTs as their data is stored on the Blockchain and is immutable, allowing us to document the transfer of ownership accurately.”
Ultimately, the researchers hope to see mass adoption of their service. They envision a paradigm where curators aspire to have their collections validated via Salsal as a matter of verification — something that might be akin to having a rare collectable such as a comic book graded by a commercial validator. Read More
How an Ethereum Bot Used Uniswap to Save $5.4 Million From Curve Exploit
The MEV bot’s white-hat operator returned the funds to Curve Finance, which may have otherwise been lost to malicious hackers.
As crypto’s decentralized finance ecosystem quaked on Sunday amid $52 million stolen from Curve Finance, one trading bot jumped into the fray. Its mission: copy the attackers-at-large, secure millions of dollars in crypto before it’s gone, and then give it all back in an apparent white-hat intervention.
An issue with the programming language Vyper, used for writing smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain, provided a window of opportunity for exploits involving liquidity pools on Curve Finance, one of DeFi’s go-to exchanges.
At the time of writing, Curve has $1.6 billion in total value locked, down 42% over the past day, yet still a significant slice of Ethereum’s $23-billion DeFi landscape, according to DefiLlama.
Attackers manipulated the price of tokens in several liquidity pools, where one token can be exchanged for another. Recent reports from the blockchain security firm PeckShield estimate that $52 million has been lost. But the attackers didn't get away with the entire stash. Read More
Industry Still Isn’t Close to Solving the Blockchain Trilemma: Offchain Labs Chief Strategy Officer
Solving the famed trilemma “would be a huge breakthrough,” but it would also need to inspire developers, said the Offchain Labs’ exec.
Since the arrival of CryptoKitties in 2017 and DeFi Summer in 2020, the industry is still grappling with how to make blockchains better, cheaper, and faster.
And this is precisely where Offchain Labs’ chief strategy officer A.J. Warner and his team are setting up camp: solving the famed blockchain trilemma.
The blockchain trilemma refers to the three core challenges developers face when building a blockchain: scalability, security, and decentralization. Gains made in one of these areas are concessions in another.
With so many options for trade-offs, there have been several experiments across the layer-1 space, ranging from Ethereum to Solana, Algorand, and Celestia.
“Ethereum solves that by focusing on security, decentralization, and outsourcing throughput to rollups, that’s their version,” Warner told Decrypt. Read More
DeFi Contagion? Curve Finance Exploit Ripples Across Industry
Smart contracts built using older Vyper versions are vulnerable to hacks, according to the programming language’s developers.
Various teams that forked Curve Finance code are now reporting exploits after an attacker discovered a vulnerability in an old compiler in the programming language Vyper.
Curve Finance is a decentralized exchange for stable swaps between stablecoins and crypto tokens such as Ethereum and Wrapped Ethereum (WETH).
The platform was exploited on Sunday for an estimated $52 million.
Beyond the damage done to Curve itself, the hack exposed a critical vulnerability in the wider DeFi ecosystem, specifically affecting smart contracts built using certain versions of the programming language Vyper.
This has had knock-on effects given how prevalent Vyper is used among various crypto projects–though much less than Solidity, OpenZeppelin’s head of solutions architecture Michael Lewellan told Decrypt. Read More
REFER THREE TO MARKETHIVE TO RECEIVE BONUS AIRDROPS AND ACTIVATE MICROPAYMENTS
As Markethive continues to gain traction with new members joining daily, Markethive is steadfast and in preparation to take a large share of the new Market Network that is the next generation following the social media craze of Web 2.0. Markethive is a Social Market Broadcasting Network. It sounds like a mouthful, and it is!
Markethive is an all-encompassing platform that has integrated;
As Markethive’s foundation is Blockchain-driven, it has its consumer coin, currently named Markethive Coin (MHV), but soon to be renamed Hivecoin (HVC - the Ticker Symbol). It is fully integrated into the system and has created an Ecosystem for all Markethive members, free and upgraded Entrepreneurs.
So Markethive has established its niche as the only Social Market Broadcasting Network with an infinity Airdrop and a system that rewards the users for engaging on the platform and learning how to use it with ongoing, real-time micropayments, otherwise known as a Faucet.
Markethive has the combined power of Facebook, LinkedIn, Marketo, and Amazon, with the real advantage of deriving income within the Markethive system while promoting your business and enjoying the social media interface. Read More
Binance Japan Announces Launch Details, Set to Become Top Domestic Exchange with 34 Cryptocurrencies
Binance Japan has announced detailed plans for its upcoming cryptocurrency exchange service, aiming to launch within August. The announcement was made on August 1, 2023.
Binance Japan will handle 34 cryptocurrencies, surpassing major domestic competitors such as Bitbank (30 cryptocurrencies), GMO Coin (26 cryptocurrencies), and Coincheck (22 cryptocurrencies). This makes Binance Japan the top domestic exchange in terms of the number of cryptocurrencies handled at launch.
Binance Japan will initially offer two main services: a "cryptocurrency exchange" that matches user-to-user trades, and a "cryptocurrency sales office" that displays a single selling price in real-time. Leverage trading, which involves buying and selling assets using borrowed funds, will not be provided.
Binance's exchange token, "Build and Build (BNB)," is expected to be listed in Japan for the first time. Binance Japan will also offer features like "Simple Earn," where users can deposit their crypto assets and earn interest, an "NFT Marketplace," "Auto Invest," and "API Connection" functionalities. Read More
Sabre56 signs deal with Bootstrap Energy to become ‘one of world’s largest blockchain operators’
Sabre56, a digital asset management consultant offering specialist design of blockchain data centres, has announced a five-year agreement with Bootstrap Energy in what the company describes as the ‘biggest single operations contract’ in the crypto mining industry to date.
The agreement with Bootstrap Energy is to provide miner operations at the 300MW Saxet Energy Park in Texas, which has the capacity to host approximately 100,000 ASICs (application-specific integrated circuit), designed for the sole purpose of mining cryptocurrency, as well as AI and high-performance computing (HPC) platforms.
“Saxet Energy Park is one of the largest builds in the space and shows the shared vision of Sabre56 and Bootstrap Energy,” Sabre56 commented in a LinkedIn post announcing the news. “It is a perfect example of the future of at-scale mining and will host the industry’s most successful public and private miners.
“We shall we one of the world’s largest blockchain operators of miners under management, and together we shall be setting new and higher standards of performance via this partnership.” Read More
Genesis Digital Assets opens three new facilities in South Carolina in US expansion
The company has 400 MW of capacity spread across three continents, but most of its power is concentrated in Texas.
Bitcoin miner Genesis Digital Assets (GDA) announced on Aug. 1 that it has launched three new data centres in the American state of South Carolina. The facilities came online in February and March.
The facilities are located in the western part of the state, with the first opening in the town of Anderson on the site of an abandoned warehouse. It has a capacity of 18 megawatts (MW). Facilities were opened between the towns of Union and Lockhart the following month that have a combined capacity of 15 MW.
The company said in a statement that the new facilities were part of an expansion in the United States. GDA North American head Ankit Joshi said, “We were impressed to see how these local communities welcomed us so warmly as an opportunity for their economy.” Read More
Bitcoin Lightning on Coinbase agenda, Brian Armstrong tells Jack Dorsey
Armstrong confirmed that Coinbase was looking into adding support for the Bitcoin Lightning Network and reassured its support for Bitcoin payments.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has confirmed that the crypto exchange is “looking into” adding the Bitcoin Lighting network in its quest to advance crypto payments adoption worldwide.
On July 28, Armstrong addressed the crypto community on Twitter (rebranded to X), highlighting the potential of cryptocurrencies to improve global payments infrastructure. He further suggested:
“This will take lots of work from all of us, Coinbase included, getting layer 2’s integrated, better on-ramps, simpler UX/onboarding, etc.”
Armstrong’s vision for global crypto payments was questioned by long-standing Bitcoin supporters, including MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor and Square CEO Jack Dorsey, given no mention of Bitcoin in the post. Read More
Disclaimer: These articles are provided for informational purposes only. They are not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other advice.
