Bitcoin Price: US$ 56,190.06 (-3.15%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 2,368.81 (-3.34%)
Celestia has unveiled a technical roadmap to scale block size to 1 gigabyte, aiming to enhance transaction throughput and compete with major blockchain networks. This upgrade aligns with the broader industry trend of improving blockchain scalability, with Celestia’s larger blocks expected to surpass Visa’s transaction capacity and enable new onchain applications. Meanwhile, Telegram founder Pavel Durov, recently arrested in France, expressed surprise at the arrest, criticised it as politically motivated, and emphasised Telegram’s willingness to exit markets that conflict with its mission to promote free speech. French President Emmanuel Macron denied any political motivation behind Durov’s arrest, but the decision has sparked international criticism and debates over free speech. This backlash has even prompted Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski to flee Europe and condemn France’s actions, highlighting growing concerns over censorship. In a parallel development, researchers in Belgium have explored a blockchain-based method for decentralised AI training, demonstrating its potential to revolutionise autonomous learning while maintaining data privacy, though they noted vulnerabilities to sophisticated threats despite the method’s robustness against traditional hacking attacks.
VanEck’s August 2024 Crypto Monthly Recap highlights multiple factors contributing to Ether’s poor price performance, including declining network revenue, competition from higher-throughput blockchains like Solana, and internal value extraction by layer-2 solutions. Ethereum’s revenue has plummeted by 99% since the Dencun upgrade, which reduced fees for layer-2 networks and intensified competition within the Ethereum ecosystem. Meanwhile, decentralised physical infrastructure networks (DePINs) are poised to become the next big use case in Web3, potentially onboarding a significant number of new users, according to MV Global. These blockchain protocols, which decentralise real-world infrastructure like communication networks and data storage, are gaining traction with emerging projects that address longstanding challenges and significantly reduce costs. In a related development, Bybit has launched its liquid staking token, bbSOL, on the Solana blockchain, allowing users to earn staking rewards while retaining liquidity. Supported by partners like Sanctum and Orca, this initiative aims to boost the Solana ecosystem by empowering tokenholders and contributing to the network’s growth, mirroring the success of liquid staking on Ethereum, which has become the largest protocol category with a TVL exceeding $39 billion.
In the first two months of Q3 2024, over 600 Bitcoin ATMs were deactivated worldwide, with the United States leading the shutdowns as law enforcement increasingly targets these machines due to their frequent involvement in scams and extortion. According to Coin ATM Radar, the global Bitcoin ATM network lost 435 machines in July and 182 in August, with the U.S. accounting for the majority of these losses. Concerns over scams have risen significantly, with the FTC reporting a tenfold increase in Bitcoin ATM-related scams since 2020, resulting in over $110 million in losses in 2023. Meanwhile, Cardano’s IOHK and Hedera have joined the Decentralized Recovery Alliance (DeRec Alliance) as founding members, alongside Algorand Foundation, Ripple, and XRPL Labs. This alliance aims to enhance security and trust in the Web3 space by developing standardised protocols for digital asset recovery. In another development, Mastercard is expanding support for non-custodial cryptocurrency wallets through a new partnership with European crypto payments provider Mercuryo, allowing users to spend cryptocurrencies stored in self-custodial wallets at over 100 million merchants in the Mastercard network, reinforcing the importance of self-custody in the evolving landscape of blockchain and traditional payments.
Crypto investigator ZachXBT raised concerns about the poor quality of block explorers on several layer-1 (L1) blockchains in a Sept. 5 X post, emphasising the need for significant improvements in on-chain transaction tracking outside the Ethereum ecosystem. He rated most non-Ethereum explorers as requiring a “complete overhaul,” while praising Bitcoin explorers like Blockchair, Mempool, and WalletExplorer as “good,” but criticising others on L1 chains like Cosmos, Aptos, and Sui as “bottom tier.” Meanwhile, Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron discussed in a Sept. 4 interview the company’s vision to unify the Web3 space through AggLayer, an aggregation layer designed to connect blockchain networks, including L1s like Ethereum and Solana. This initiative is part of Polygon 2.0, which also includes the Polygon CDK and the new Polygon Ecosystem Token (POL), aiming to provide “infinite scalability” and address the costly and risky issue of interoperability between L1 blockchains. On the regulatory front, the U.S. Federal Reserve issued a cease and desist order to United Texas Bank on Sept. 4, citing “significant deficiencies” in its risk management systems and dealings with crypto clients, following a May examination that highlighted issues with corporate governance and compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) laws. This action, along with a similar enforcement against another crypto-friendly bank in August, has fuelled accusations of a coordinated government effort to limit banks’ engagement with the crypto industry, dubbed “Operation Chokepoint 2.0.”
Source: https://cointelegraph.com
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