Archive for the ‘Vitalik Buterin’ Category

Vitalik Buterin donates 30 ETH to support the Tornado Cash case – The Cryptonomist

Few hours ago, the well-known co-founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin offered his support to the Tornado Cash cause, donating 30 ETH (111,000 dollars) to a fund for the legal assistance of the platform developers Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm, both accused of money laundering.

Vitalik, like many other users passionate about decentralized finance, supports the concept of open source and considers Tornado Cash as a mere tool for privacy, despite it being used by unreliable actors to mix over 1 billion dollars in cryptocurrencies.

Tutti i dettagli della vicenda di seguito.

Tornado cash is a mixing service born in 2019 that operates on EVM-compatible blockchains such as Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, Gnosis chain, and Binance smart chain, capable of offering maximum privacy to those who use it.

Its operation is very simple: users can deposit predefined amounts of ETH, DAI, cDAI, and WBTC (e.g., 0.1 ETH, 1ETH, 10ETH, or 100ETH) on the platform, mixing their funds with those of other individuals, and withdrawing the same coins deposited from an address different from the deposit one, thus making the last entity that received the payment anonymous.

In 2022, Tornado Cash was sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the United States Department of the Treasury (OFAC) which accused it of facilitating money laundering and an alleged involvement with the North Korean hacker group Lazarus.

In particular, it is believed that the same group of hackers would have laundered about 455 million dollars on the platform, stolen with the exploit of the bridge of Axie Infinity in March of the same year.

From that moment on, several CEX, decentralized services, and infrastructural providers have blocked and added to the blacklist all addresses that have made or received transactions at Tornado Cash. The protocol, however, remains still active and usable (under custom RPC, see Chainlist.org)

Shortly after the OFAC sanctions, the founders of Tornado Cash were arrested and accused of violating the anti-money laundering rules of several countries.

First, Alexey Pertsev was arrested in August 2022 and sentenced to five years in prison by a Dutch court, then received confirmation of the sentence to 64 months a few days ago.

Immediately after the initial conviction of Pertsev, the attacks on the other two founders/developers Roman Storm and Roman Semenov arrived, both prosecuted by the United States Department of Justice.

In detail, Storm has been accused of having knowingly facilitated the money laundering of over 1 billion dollars, proceeds from illicit activities, while 8 Ethereum addresses linked to Semenov have been blocked for being involved in sanction evasion practices.

Questo tipo di repressione da parte delle forze dellordine per un servizio che sulla carta non provenie niente che di pi che da un codice open source, sfociato nellarresto dei fondatori della stessa piattaforma, viene da circa 2 anni criticata aspramente dallindustria delle criptovalute e dai sostenitori del concetto di privacy come Vitalik Buterin.

This is one of the first cases in the history of humanity where software developers are arrested and taken simply for writing code, regardless of the use made of the developed product.

The same crypto community that supports the Tornado Cash case, is asking in a similar case for the release of Ross Ulbricht, the creator behind the infamous Silk Road market, who is serving two consecutive life sentences without parole for non-violent offenses.

A tal proposito, il candidato presidente USA Donald Trump ha promesso di dare la grazie ad Ulbricht se verr eletto nelle prossime elezioni di novembre 2024.

Maybe Trump himself will be able to free the founders of Tornado Cash as well, with Pertsev who has appealed his conviction, filing an appeal with the Court of Appeal of S-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands and with Roman Storm who is awaiting his trial expected in September.

Vitalik Buterin, in addition to publicly defending the founders of Tornado Cash, who are only responsible for writing some lines of code, has recently committed to funding part of their legal defense.

Just a few hours ago, in fact, the magnate of the Ethereum Foundation donated as much as 30 ETH, equivalent to about 111,000 dollars, on the cryptographic crowdfunding platform Juicebox as support for the legal assistance of developers Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm.

Obviously Vitalik is not the only one to have participated in the crowdfunding, showing solidarity with the two developers of Tornado Cash in their legal battle to prove their innocence.

In total so far the fund on Juicebox has raised a whopping 592.95 ETH, for a total of over 2.2 million dollars across 888 different donations. The amount raised has increased by 7% in the last 7 days, with an acceleration of flows recorded after the gift of 30 ETH from Vitalik.

Other prominent figures have taken part in the initiative, such as the American computer scientist and activist naturalized Russian Edward Joseph Snowden, known for revealing to the public details of various top-secret mass surveillance programs of the US and British governments.

Questultimo effettuato diverse donazioni da 1 ETH ciascuna.

There are entities, like this one, that have donated up to 77 ETH.

In 2022, in a similar case Buterin donated 10 ETH (valued at $30,980 at that time) to AssangeDAO, a legal fund on Juicebox to support Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks.

It is clear that the co-founder of Ethereum is a staunch supporter of open source and that it is his personal (and moral) interest to defend this human right from the clutches of US regulators.

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Vitalik Buterin donates 30 ETH to support the Tornado Cash case - The Cryptonomist

Layer 2 rollup Taiko launches on mainnet with Vitalik Buterin proposing inaugural block – Crypto Briefing

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Taiko, an Ethereum-based rollup, has launched on the mainnet following a year of development and seven testnet iterations.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed the inaugural block, which included metadata containing the names of all Taiko core contributors.

As a based rollup, Taiko relies on Ethereum block validators to sequence transactions, benefiting from the liveness and security assurances provided by Ethereum. Initially, Taikos rollup protocol contracts on Ethereum are controlled by a multisig arrangement, with plans to transition to requiring 50% of blocks to use zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs as part of its long-term strategy.

The project incorporates a type-1 zero-knowledge virtual machine built to emulate Ethereums core architecture. Such a design enhances protocol security by allowing the submission and contestation of proofs.

Its been a long time in the making, and were beyond thrilled to deliver what we believe is the most secure technology to scale Ethereum, Taiko co-founder and CEO Daniel Wang shares.

The project will be launching a token some weeks after the mainnet launch, with plans to introduce an incentive program to engage its community through rewards for task completion and interaction. Ahead of the mainnet launch, an airdrop was run for its community, with a distribution scale of 5% of the planned tokens 5 billion supply. A DAO is also slated for launch sometime before the end of the year, with a phased governance mechanism to incrementally update its systems.

To ensure network stability post-mainnet launch, Taiko says that it will be setting up controls for block proposals and proving for up to two weeks. Based on the progress, the processes will then be decentralized and permissionless, enabling node running, and other requisite functions for all users.

Taiko has raised $37 million from two previous funding rounds, with a seed raise led by Sequia China in Q3 2022 and a $12 million pre-Series A round led by Generative Ventures. Its Series A funding round was completed on March 2 this year led by Lightspeed Faction, Hashed, Generative Ventures, and Token Bay Capital, with participation from Wintermute Ventures, Presto Labs, Flow Traders, Amber Group, OKX Ventures, GSR, and WW Ventures, among others.

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Layer 2 rollup Taiko launches on mainnet with Vitalik Buterin proposing inaugural block - Crypto Briefing

Vitalik Buterin Donated to That Controversial Altcoin: The Price Jumped! – Kriptokoin.com

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin showed his support for Tornado Cash developers with a donation. Buterin donated 30 ETH, about $113,000, to support the legal defense of Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm. Following this development, the price of Tornado Cashs native token, TORN, skyrocketed.

Etherscan data shows that Buterin donated to the Free Pertsev and Storm defense fund on the decentralized fundraising platform Juicebox early on May 30. The fund has raised 591 ETH worth $2.2 million as of press time. Buterins donation is actually not very surprising. After all, the Ethereum inventor is a leading advocate of crypto privacy tools. Moreover, Vitalik Buterin remains a consistent user of such platforms.

Following this development, the TORN price jumped to $3.17 from its intraday level of $2.73. The token then lost altitude, but outperformed the calm market. At the time of writing, TORN was trading at $2.97, up 7.6% on the day.

As you have been following from Kriptokoin.com, last year, Tornado Cash privacy protocol developers Pertsev and Storm faced legal troubles due to their involvement with the crypto mixer. Earlier this month, a Dutch court sentenced Pertsev to 64 months in prison for laundering approximately $1.2 billion through the Tornado Cash crypto mixer between July 2019 and August 2022. However, the developer appealed the verdict at the s-Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal in the Netherlands. Similarly, Storm has been in custody in the US since 2023. Furthermore, his trial is scheduled for September.

Meanwhile, Vitalik Buterins donation is symbolic for Tornado Cash and its developers. Because, this move reflects the projects growing support within the crypto community. Last month, three blockchain advocacy groups filed amicus curiae briefs in defense of Storm. They also supported his efforts to dismiss the charges.

In addition, US lawmakers Senators Cynthia Lummis and Ron Wyden also opposed the Department of Justices (DOJ) attempt to expand the definition of a money transmitting business to include non-custodial cryptoasset software services such as Tornado Cash. They argued that such broad definitions would stifle innovation. They also stated that it would undermine confidence in the DOJs respect for the rule of law.

Additionally, several crypto projects are preparing proposals to support developers. Discussions about potential donations are ongoing on the Optimism, Aave, MakerDAO, YearnFi, Alchemix, and Uniswap forums.

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Vitalik Buterin Donated to That Controversial Altcoin: The Price Jumped! - Kriptokoin.com

Crypto: Vitalik accuses economists of distorting inflation – Cointribune EN

Wed 29 May 2024 4 min of reading by Evans S.

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum crypto, has never been afraid to challenge conventions. Recently, he targeted the traditional definition of inflation, asserting that the crypto community has the right to redefine the term according to its own criteria. For Buterin, inflation should no longer be limited to a simple price increase but should encompass the increase in the money supply. This bold statement highlights the tensions between traditional economic definitions and modern perceptions in the crypto universe.

Vitalik Buterins remarks are a direct response to a post published by Axios on X, which argued that the word inflation now meant high prices rather than an increase in the money supply. Buterin, never short of sharp retorts, claimed that the crypto community had already claimed the right to massacre the term inflation, thus redefining its meaning.

According to him, inflation should be understood as the increase in the total money supply. This perspective clashes with traditional definitions, where inflation is often seen as a general rise in prices of goods and services. For Buterin and a part of the crypto community, this new definition is crucial for understanding and mastering modern economic dynamics.

Buterin is not alone in this semantic crusade. Many users of Farcaster, including former Coinbase employees like Binji.eth, have supported his position. This solidarity shows that the redefinition of inflation is not just a personal whim of Buterin, but a broader movement within the crypto community.

This bold redefinition of inflation by Vitalik Buterin has significant repercussions on the crypto community. By redefining inflation as an increase in the money supply, Buterin and his supporters aim to tackle misinformation and clarify fundamental economic concepts for new crypto investors.

Traditionally, inflation is perceived as a threat to purchasing power, reducing the value of money over time. However, in the world of cryptocurrencies, where supply and demand dynamics can be radically different, this new definition may offer a more accurate and relevant perspective.

Buterins critiques didnt stop at Axios. He also emphasized the importance of financial education, urging media and influencers to better inform the public rather than perpetuate false ideas. This approach reflects Buterins belief that knowledge and understanding are essential to navigating the complex world of cryptocurrencies.

Buterins vision is not limited to the redefinition of economic terms. He also advocates for greater transparency and better governance within the crypto community. Recently, he addressed Farcaster to propose solutions to recurring industry issues, such as miner extractable value (MEV) and challenges related to privacy preservation.

Buterin also stressed the importance of technological innovation, particularly concerning social media and zero-knowledge proof (ZK) technologies. For him, these advances are crucial to maintaining the integrity and security of decentralized networks.

However, not everything is rosy in the world of crypto. The decision by some researchers from the Ethereum Foundation to join EigenLayer in exchange for substantial compensation in EIGEN tokens has sparked a heated debate. While some community members have welcomed the transparency of the disclosures, others have criticized this decision, fearing that a huge compensation could inappropriately influence decision-making.

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Fascin par le bitcoin depuis 2017, Evariste n'a cess de se documenter sur le sujet. Si son premier intrt s'est port sur le trading, il essaie dsormais activement dapprhender toutes les avances centres sur les cryptomonnaies. En tant que rdacteur, il aspire fournir en permanence un travail de haute qualit qui reflte l'tat du secteur dans son ensemble.

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The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.

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Crypto: Vitalik accuses economists of distorting inflation - Cointribune EN

Taiko Launches First Based Rollup on Ethereum with Vitalik Proposing Inaugural Block – PR Newswire

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NEW YORK and LONDON and SINGAPORE, May 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Taiko, a based rollup protocol designed to scale Ethereum natively, is now live on mainnet. This milestone was marked by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposing the first block, embedded with the names of all Taiko core contributors.

Quote from Ethereum's co-founder Vitalik Buterin:

Vitalik expressed his excitement and anticipation for Taiko's mainnet launch with this quote:

"I'm excited to see that Taiko is launching as a based rollup. Ethereum benefits from L2s taking a plurality of different approaches, and I appreciate them being among the first to go in this direction."

Taiko's launch on the Ethereum mainnet signifies a significant advancement in blockchain scalability. By leveraging the based rollup design, Ethereum block validators sequence transactions and blocks for Taiko, ensuring robust security and liveness guarantees from the base layer.

Quote from Ethereum Foundation's researcher Justin Drake:

Justin also praised Taiko's mainnet launch, highlighting its innovative solution to the centralized sequencing problem. He said:

"Taiko is based. It is making a leap forward in the decentralization, credible neutrality, and composability of rollups. The L2 is trailblazing based sequencing, a form of decentralized sequencing where L1 proposers are enrolled for L2 transaction ordering.

Based sequencing is IMO the ultimate form of decentralized sequencing. By reusing the Ethereum base layer, based sequencing is the simplest to deploy and the simplest to reason about.

Based sequencing also means credibly neutral shared sequencing. This is key to synchronous composability across rollups and ultimately key to fixing Ethereum fragmentation."

Quote from Taiko Labs' co-founder Daniel Wang:

After years of development, Daniel Wang shares what the launch of the network means to him, saying:

"We're thrilled to bring Taiko to the Ethereum mainnet. After more than two years of extensive development and testing, we are confident that Taiko offers a different rollup design, a securer and more efficient [Ethereum] scaling solution."

Trailblazers

To celebrate this momentous launch, and to thank the growing community of over 1 million users, participants will be rewarded for their engagement within the Taiko network and ecosystem. This campaign is aptly named Trailblazers and will distribute 100M TKO tokens (10% of the total supply). The campaign will be divided into seasons continually allowing newcomers and long-term supporters alike to get a slice of the large token allocation. More details on the campaign will be released in the coming days.

Path to Decentralization

Since its inception in 2022, Taiko has secured $37M in funding and developed theBased Contestable Rollup (BCR), which minimizes costs, strengthens decentralization and enhances security through a multi-proof system.

Taiko's development journey included seven testnets, each offering permissionless interaction. Initially, Taiko will act as the sole block proposer and prover for the first two weeks post-launch to ensure network stability. This phased approach prioritizes security and a smooth user experience.

After the network stabilizes, both proposing and proving blocks will become permissionless. Node running, an activity as important as proposing and proving, is already accessible to everyone.

"At this point, security and a smooth rollout is our top priority," Daniel Wang emphasized. "By stabilizing the network first, we ensure a reliable foundation before opening it up to broader participation."

The Taiko token (TKO) is needed for block proving as bonds, which means the token contract was deployed with the mainnet launch, however, the token will not begin to circulate outside the core nodes until the network has been deemed stable, which is estimated within a couple of weeks.

Taiko will be in the "training wheel mode" for a couple of years. Over this period, transferring ownership to a DAO and revoking all privileges from Taiko Labs and the core developers will be our primary goal.

SOURCE Taiko

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Taiko Launches First Based Rollup on Ethereum with Vitalik Proposing Inaugural Block - PR Newswire