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Big changes coming to Ethereum’s account abstraction to save on gas
Ethereum smart accounts are getting tweaked in an upgrade to reduce gas usage on layer-2 networks.
The Ethereum Foundation is set to push through major changes to the account abstraction standard in Ethereum to reduce gas consumption — particularly for layer 2s.
On Jan. 10, the Ethereum Foundation shared a preview of the drastic changes to the ERC-4337 standard specification, which deals with account abstraction, also known as smart accounts.
The new version 0.7 applies learnings from nine months of ERC-4337 being used, according to developer John Rising in an update shared with Cointelegraph.
The biggest change is in the structure of account abstraction transactions, which are more complex than regular Ether transactions. These now require specifying five gas values instead of just one.
“The user has to specify more than one gas value to account for the fact that an account can do computation while its signature is being checked,” explained Rising. Read More
Coinbase partners with Yellow Card to expand USDC access in Africa
Coinbase integrated Yellow Card’s payment rails, enabling Coinbase customers in Africa to more easily on and off-ramp between fiat and crypto, including USD Coin.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has partnered with Africa’s Yellow Card to expand access to its products to 20 African countries, focusing on increasing USD Coin stablecoin access.
“Our new partnership [...] will help usher in the future of money by giving millions of users access to USDC and fast, reliable, cheaper transactions on our decentralized, open L2 Base through both Coinbase and Yellow Card products,” Coinbase said in a Jan. 11 statement.
Yellow Card CEO Chris Maurice told Cointelegraph that the partnership involves Coinbase integrating Yellow Card’s payment rails in Africa, so customers can on and off-ramp fiat to Bitcoin and USDC on Ethereum layer-2 rollup Base.
This will be accessible to African users via Coinbase Wallet, which recently implemented a new feature to make transfers via links from social media platforms like iMessage, Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram. Read More
Hashing It Out: GameFi must improve to drive Web3 adoption
Mita CEO Kena Amoah argues that GameFi could rival DeFi in attracting new users if developers combine incentives with fun.
As 2024 kicks off, Cointelegraph’s Hashing It Out podcast directs greater focus to narratives at the heart of the cryptocurrency conversation. In episode 43, Kena Amoah, CEO of MITA — a project building applications that combine metaverse, gaming and Web3 technology in Africa — explains how GameFi has evolved in the last few years and why it may lead the next wave of Web3 adoption. Amoah walks through the most significant GameFi developments of 2023 and highlights what trends he thinks will continue throughout 2024, as well as the problems that need to be fixed in the sector.
Amoah explains that the GameFi space is gaining traction because of the financial gains that may come with gaming and the decentralized nature of the entire space. With GameFi, developers are looking to build an experience that allows gamers to carry their credentials from one game to another.
On why Web3 gaming is not taking off as expected in developing markets, Amoah explains that the user experience needs to improve to make it as easy as Web2 games. He highlights how new Web3 gamers may find simple things like wallet addresses confusing. He explains that onboarding needs to improve, and the selling point must go beyond being a blockchain game to giving gamers a fun experience. Read More
Bitcoin ETFs Are Here—When Ethereum ETF?
After the historic approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF on Wednesday, analysts say a spot ETH ETF could be imminent.
The first step is always the hardest.
After years of repeated rejections, the Securities and Exchange Commission has finally approved its first spot Bitcoin ETFs—a seismic development that analysts say amounts to formally integrating Bitcoin with the global economy.
It’s a historic achievement—one that finally provides a way for Wall Street retail investors to gain direct exposure to Bitcoin without the need to fuss with cryptocurrency exchanges or wallets. And it might not just be good for Bitcoin. Read More
Also, Updates On New Integrations And The Markethive Wallet
As the bear market continues with its crypto-cleanse and traders bemoan the adverse price action, some industry leaders opine these conditions will eradicate bad actors and create more significant opportunities for upcoming projects and future participants. Several leading crypto analysts and engineers embrace the idea that this is the time to engage in moves leading to the loftiest gains when the bull cycle returns.
Markethive stands firm with these sentiments and continues to build its next-generation entrepreneurial platform and be ready for the market-cleansed bull run. Those on the Markethive journey may be aware that new features are being integrated into the newsfeed in preparation for the five-channel dashboard housing various feeds.
The innovative five-channel dashboard integration will consist of five newsfeeds—the general newsfeed, the blog, the video channel, curation, and surveys.
It will significantly streamline your activities and business facilitation and will include a search engine so you can build your personal algorithms. This will save time and effort by eliminating what you don’t want to see in your newsfeeds, be more intuitive, and enhance the user experience.
CEO of Markethive, Thomas Prendergast, and the team of engineers have made substantial headway with the wallet. It is all but done, and the release is imminent. It’s not a simple wallet that just transfers coins. It is a complete portfolio and accounts of all your transactions, payments, and affairs, including your ILPs. The wallet comprises fourteen major foundational processes and is your internal wallet on the Markethive database. Read More
How this decentralized protocol democratizes data by enabling users to build their own oracles
Concerns about increasing centralization plague the blockchain oracle market. A new decentralized oracle protocol addresses this by allowing anyone to deploy their own oracles.
Scry, a decentralized oracle protocol, enables anyone to build independent oracles with cross-chain data lookup, addressing the challenges of centralization in the oracle market and interoperability between networks.
Blockchain oracles are essential in the regular operation of decentralized applications (DApps), as they connect decentralized networks to real-world data.
Despite their undisputed importance, oracles are a niche market that hasn’t matured enough, offering a limited range of options.
The market has been dominated by the blockchain oracle network Chainlink, whose native token has ranked among the top 15 largest cryptocurrencies by market cap for years.
While Chainlink positions itself as a decentralized network, market players are concerned about its high level of centralization that can compromise decentralized finance (DeFi) and Web3 apps. Read More
Ethereum devs air concern over Vitalik’s plan to increase gas limit
Ethereum developers opposing Vitalik’s gas limit increase suggestion are concerned about the increasing size of the blockchain state.
Ethereum developers, node operators and users have yet to agree on Vitalik Buterin’s recent suggestion to increase the gas limit on Ethereum.
On Jan. 11, Buterin advocated for a “modest” 33% gas limit increase to potentially improve network throughput.
Increasing the gas limit to the proposed 40 million from the current 30 million would allow more transactions for each block, theoretically increasing the overall throughput and capacity of the network, he argued.
However, there are some drawbacks, according to Ethereum developer Marius van der Wijden, who aired his concerns in a Jan. 11 blog post titled “Why increasing the gas limit is difficult.” Read More
Gold on steroids? Bitcoin, gold correlation surges in 2023 — Fidelity
Bitcoin and gold recorded strong performances in 2023 amid geopolitical uncertainties and rising interest rates.
The correlation between Bitcoin and gold increased during 2023, according to a recent report from asset manager Fidelity.
Fidelity’s analysis shows Bitcoin’s price decoupled from its previously inverse relationship with interest rates and even rallied despite global rates increasing worldwide, which usually leads to a drop in demand for risk assets. Over the past twelve months, gold prices have followed the same pattern:
“But this past year, we saw a complete decoupling of this relationship as real rates continued to rise (with inflation subsiding and treasury yields screaming higher at one of the fastest paces in history), with bitcoin not only holding steady, but then rallying! Could this be due to an idiosyncratic event, such as the anticipation of a spot ETP? Perhaps. But we do not think so, because gold has also been showing similar behaviors recently.” Read More
Wise Lending drained of $440K worth of crypto in apparent flash loan exploit
The attacker used an unverified contract to borrow 1,100 Lido Staked Ether, which may have been used to manipulate prices and drain funds from the protocol.
Web3 lending app and yield aggregator Wise Lending was drained of 170 Ether, worth $440,000 at current prices, in an apparent exploit on Jan. 12, according to multiple security experts. The exploiter may have manipulated an oracle price through a flash loan in order to carry out the exploit.
Blockchain data shows that the attack took place at 7:29 pm UTC. The attacker used an unverified contract with an address ending in d82c to drain the funds. Multiple tokens were transferred into this contract, including $9,000 worth of USD Coin, $2,000 worth of Tether, $5,000 worth of Dai, 18.51 Wrapped Ether (WETH) ($47.694) and numerous Pendle Finance associated tokens.
The attacker borrowed 1,110 Lido Staked Ether (stETH) tokens ($2.9 million) from the Aave lending protocol as part of the exploit. Exploiters often use flash loans to manipulate oracle prices. 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.
