Archive for the ‘Vitalik Buterin’ Category

Vitalik Buterin Backs Ethereum PoS Transition amid Community Debates – FX Empire

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Vitalik Buterin Backs Ethereum PoS Transition amid Community Debates - FX Empire

Vitalik Voices Concerns Over FISA Section 702 Renewal – Crypto Times

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, publicly criticizes the recent renewal of FISA Section 702, raising concerns over the implications for privacy and the cryptocurrency sector. The U.S. Senate passed the renewal 60-34, extending the legislation for two years.

Senate Debates, Buterin Warns of Privacy Risks

During intense debate, the Senate saw a division among its members, with some pushing for stricter personal data protections. Despite these efforts, the renewal was approved just as the previous law lapsed.

The law continues to allow warrantless surveillance, primarily targeting foreign individuals but also affects Americans whose communications might be intercepted incidentally.

Buterin emphasized that the lack of substantial enhancements in privacy protections could erode trust within the crypto community. The crypto industry, valuing encryption and anonymity, could face increased governmental oversight, potentially altering how cryptocurrencies operate globally.

As the bill moves to President Joe Biden for his signature, the ongoing discourse highlights the struggle to balance national security interests with protecting individual privacy rights. The outcome will likely influence national security practices, digital currencies future landscape, and their governance.

Also Read: Ethereums Vitalik Buterin Makes Waves with 100 ETH Railgun Deposit

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Vitalik Voices Concerns Over FISA Section 702 Renewal - Crypto Times

DeFi whales have millions ‘forgotten’ in bridge contracts: Arkham – Cointelegraph

Several identified crypto addresses have millions of dollars either stuck or forgotten about in at least two large bridge contracts, according to blockchain intelligence firm Arkham.

There are dozens of accounts with 6-7 figures stuck in bridge contracts, forgotten about, said Arkhamin an April 22 X post., including wallets connected to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, crypto exchange Coinbase, and several DeFi whales.

The firm attached two screenshots of fund transfers to and from the Arbitrum and Optimism bridges to support their case.

Arkham noted a wallet that received 50 Ether (ETH) from Buterin has had $1.05 million stuck in the Optimism bridge for seven months now. If the address is owned by Buterin, it would represent a small fraction of his $789 million cryptocurrency portfolio, according to Arkhams data.

Another wallet linked to Bofur Capital, which shares the same name as a Celsius creditor, has $1.8 million in wrapped-Bitcoin (WBTC) stuck in the Arbitrum bridge, which hasnt moved in 27 months, while Thomasg.eth the pseudonymous founder behind decentralized air transportation solution Arrow has $800,000 in Ether stuck in the Arbitrum bridge.

Furthermore, Coinbase tried to bridge $75,000 in USD Coin (USDC) to Ethereum six months ago via the Optimism bridge, but it hasnt been claimed on Ethereums base layer yet, Arkham said.

Related: Wormhole bridge hacker from 2022 was briefly eligible for the recent airdrop

There is, however, also a possibility that the owners behind these wallets still have complete control of the funds and have voluntarily chosen to park the funds there for the time being.

Cross-chain bridges play an important part in modular blockchain networks like Ethereum, which prioritizes data availability and security on the base layer and offloads transaction responsibilities to layer 2s.

However, bridges have become a honeypot site for hackers, as they are often automated by potentially vulnerable smart contracts or a highly centralized validator set.

For example, the $650 million Ronin bridge hack orchestrated by North Koreas state-backed Lazarus Group came after it obtained access to five of the nine private keys held by transaction validators in March 2022.

Magazine: SEAL 911 team of white hats formed to fight crypto hacks in real time

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DeFi whales have millions 'forgotten' in bridge contracts: Arkham - Cointelegraph

Vitalik Buterin talks ‘Rainbow Staking’ at ETHTaipei to combat centralization risks – Blockworks

In his latest talk at ETHTaipei, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin introduces Rainbow Staking as a way to combat growing centralization concerns around staking.

Buterin notes that staking in general and liquid staked tokens today have become centralization risks on the Ethereum blockchain.

He highlights that there are not enough solo stakers on Ethereum today, citing technical challenges like running your own node and financial restraints like not having more than 32 ETH.

This is because, on Ethereum, solo stakers must deposit 32 ETH (~$ $113,233) to join the network as validators. Many individuals who wish to stake their ETH do so by delegating their tokens to liquid staking solutions.

One of the most popular liquid-staked solutions today is Lido, which currently has a 61.36% dominance over the market today.

Read more: Did Lido fly too close to the sun? Inside the centralization debate

Buterin remarked that a proposed solution to these centralization concerns around staking is Rainbow Staking.

The idea here is that you explicitly split up into two kinds of staking, and you call it heavy staking and light staking, Buterin said.

In this particular case, heavy staking is slashable and signs in every slot. On the contrary, light staking, which is not slashable, is pulled up to sign slots through a lottery system.

You basically try to explicitly separate out those two and potentially require both heavy stakers and light stakers to sign off on a block in order for the block to get finalized, he said. So you try to add the security of both of those approaches together.

Read more: The biggest Ethereum upgrade ever goes live

The framework of Rainbow Staking is ultimately hoping to counter the emergence of one dominant liquid staked token that could replace ETH as the main currency on the Ethereum network. It is also designed to offer competitive participation by bolstering the economic value of being a solo staker.

Buterin notes that more research and development is still required before Rainbow Staking becomes a viable design for staking on Ethereum in the long term.

To me, the biggest questions here are not even technical; theyre philosophical, Buterin said, noting that it is important to understand the intended answer behind ways to enable lazy ETH holders who want rewards to participate in securing the Ethereum network.

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Vitalik Buterin talks 'Rainbow Staking' at ETHTaipei to combat centralization risks - Blockworks

Vitalik Buterin talks sweets and verkle trees but don’t ask him about the SEC’s review of Ethereum – DLNews

It was an unusual question. Vitalik Buterin pondered it for a moment before answering.

When I make my own food its basically putting almond butter and dark chocolate and coconut milk and various fruits into a bowl, and then thats my breakfast, said Buterin.

So its sweet? asked the interviewer.

Its not sweet, he clarified. Ninety percent chocolate. When I say chocolate, I always mean chocolate, I dont mean sugar with a little bit of chocolate.

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There was a bit of laughter. It happened again when he made a Dogecoin joke. He spoke a bit of Mandarin and people clapped and cheered.

Buterin, the leading architect of Ethereum, was speaking to a room of reporters on Thursday at ETHTaipei 2024, one of the several conferences the networks governing foundation hosts to showcase the latest features of the worlds second most valuable cryptocurrency network.

Even as he answered queries that might be better suited for a social media influencer than a gifted computer scientist, the big news of the day went unmentioned.

On Wednesday, Fortune magazine reported that the US Securities and Exchange Commission was examining whether Ethereums token, Ether, should be defined as a security.

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Crypto lawyer Gabriel Shapiro told DL News the reported review may put the kibosh on the push by Wall Street asset management firms to bring out Ether ETFs.

It could give them an excuse to not approve an ETH ETF, which is likely their biggest objective here, Shapiro said.

The headlines eclipsed the buzz around Ethereums latest upgrade, dubbed Dencun, at least for a day.

And when I interrupted at the end of the group interview to ask Buterin about the regulatory issue, he shut me down quickly with a sharp no and a long stare.

It seems addressing the elephant in the room was way too off-message for the Ethereum co-founder.

In the meantime, the Ethereum enthusiasts in Taipei attending the conference at a former bottle cap factory called Popop dove into the arcana of decentralised finance.

In a keynote address delivered to a packed hall, Buterin talked about centralisation risks in the ecosystem, the barriers to people becoming validators, and rainbow staking.

His audience lapped it up, with hundreds of mobile phones pointed in his direction to capture his presentation.

As for what may happen if Ether is deemed a security by US authorities, that has yet to be addressed.

The Ethereum Foundation has not commented on the news that three companies were subpoenaed by the SEC for information related to the network.

This is a massive issue if Ether and other altcoins are legally defined as securities then their issuers would have to register them with regulators before they can be offered on exchanges such as Coinbase or Kraken.

While such a decision would almost certainly be challenged by the industry in court, it would also create a period of uncertainty just as institutional investors are finally embracing crypto as a bona fide asset class.

Which brings me back to the Buterin group interview and its restrictive setup.

Questions were submitted in advance and asked by one of ETHTaipeis organisers rather than the assembled reporters. You couldnt ask follow-up questions or seek clarification.

The pre-approved questions run the range from cooking and travel to human longevity and AI, interspersed with technical explanations on the minutiae of various aspects of Ethereum.

It felt more like watching an IRL webinar than a press conference. The format, needless to say, was hardly conducive to the open source, transparency-at-all-costs ethos Buterin has prescribed for DeFi.

Then again, the censorship vibe wasnt all that surprising.

At Token 2049 in September last year, Changpeng Zhao, then the CEO of Binance, waxed lyrical about NFT use cases during his talk rather than the regulatory pressure his company was confronting in the US and other nations.

And among the true believers in Taipei, few seem fazed by the format.

The conferences devs and fans are far more interested in verkle trees and zero knowledge roll-ups than regulatory battles on the other side of the world.

And Ether surged almost 10% on Thursday.

Callan Quinn is DL News Hong Kong correspondent. Get in touch at callan@dlnews.com.

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Vitalik Buterin talks sweets and verkle trees but don't ask him about the SEC's review of Ethereum - DLNews