Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes,
Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.
Top Stories This Week
Vitalik Buterin outlines ‘endgame’ roadmap for ETH 2.0
With the long-awaited transition to Eth2 coming closer to fruition, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin outlined an “Endgame” roadmap on Monday to finally achieve the landmark upgrade.
While Buterin did not address the centralization issue with block production as the network works towards scalability, the 27-year-old essentially solved everything else to do with block validation.
He suggested the idea of implementing “a second tier of staking, with low resource requirements” to carry out distributed block validation; introducing “either fraud proofs or ZK-SNARKS to let users directly (and cheaply) check block validity;” and introducing “data availability sampling to let users check block availability [and] add secondary transaction channels to prevent censorship.”
“We get a chain where block production is still centralized, but block validation is trustless and highly decentralized, and specialized anti-censorship magic prevents the block producers from censoring,” Buterin explained.
Coinbase adds ‘ETH2’ despite Ethereum upgrade postponing difficulty bomb
Speaking of Eth2, major crypto exchange Coinbase added a mirror version of Ethereum’s native token, ETH, labeled Eth2, to its crypto price index on Tuesday. The new listing had no trading activity but was priced the same as ETH.
Despite the rollout of Eth2 not being expected until at least mid-2022, Coinbase listed a token bearing its name just days ahead of the smart contract network’s “Arrow Glacier” upgrade that will give devs more time to work on the groundwork for Ethereum 2.0.
On Thursday, Coinbase also announced that it will be expanding the platform’s support to crypto hardware wallets starting with Ledger’s models. The rollout will be phased in gradually from the start of 2022.
Major Indian bank breaks ‘banking ban’ with WazirX crypto exchange deal
According to reports from local media outlets, India’s leading private bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, became the first of its kind to partner with a crypto firm after it penned a deal with top crypto exchange WazirX.
The deal, which enables traders to liquidate their digital assets via Kotak’s banking services, marks a major milestone for a local crypto industry that has been bogged down by countless issues presented by the banking sector and the Indian government.
“WazirX has opened an account with Kotak which can be used to receive and pay money to investors trading on the exchange. The account is yet to become operational. Paperwork, KYC, and some testing are on,” said one of the people familiar with the matter.
Biden’s controversial anti-crypto Comptroller nominee withdraws
President Joe Biden’s crypto skeptic nominee for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Saule Omarova, withdrew her candidacy from consideration on Tuesday.
Omarova is a divisive figure who has essentially called for the banking and crypto sectors to be gutted on many occasions, often sparking widespread pushback from Republican politicians who hold opposing views and have tacitly accused the professor of harboring Marxist sympathies.
Commenting on her withdrawal from the candidacy, Biden said that “Saule was subjected to inappropriate personal attacks that were far beyond the pale.”
Visa announces new crypto consulting service for merchants and banks
On Wednesday, global payments giant Visa unveiled a new consulting and advisory service for crypto-curious firms, financial institutions and retailers that are looking to take the plunge into the sector.
Visa said that its crypto-focused advisory services can advise on anything from crypto features and services to NFTs and CBDC-focused digital wallets.
According to Visa, the company’s interest in crypto is driven by the need to remain competitive and meet consumer demand. Citing a recent in-house study, Visa said that “40% of crypto owners surveyed report they would be likely or very likely to switch their primary bank to one that offers crypto-related products in the next 12 months.”
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $47,524, Ether (ETH) at $3,956 and XRP at $0.81. The total market cap is at $2.20 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are NEAR Protocol (NEAR) at 6.44%, Huobi Token (HT) at 5.11% and BitTorrent (BTT) at 4.61%.
The top three altcoin losers of the week are THETA (THETA) at -32.53%, Cosmos (ATOM) at -32.04% and Qtum (QTUM) at -31.65%.
For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.
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