The Ethereum community appears to have taken a bullish view of Coinbase’s newly announced layer-2 network, Base, which has been described as a “massive confidence vote” and a “watershed moment” for the blockchain network. Secured on Ethereum and powered by layer-2 network Optimism, Base aims to eventually become a network for building decentralized applications (DApps) on the blockchain. The layer-2 network is currently in its testnet phase, according to Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. 0/ Hello world. Meet Base, an Ethereum L2 that offers a secure, low-cost, developer-friendly way for anyone, anywhere, to build decentralized apps. Our goal with Base is …

The original manuscript of Neil Stephenson’s Snow Crash — the book which coined the term “Metaverse,” — will be auctioned by Sotheby’s, according to a page on Sotheby’s official website. The auction is part of a Feb. 23 series called “Infocalypse” that includes six physical and six digital items related to the famous book. The original manuscript is in Lot 2 of the series. It is “wrapped in original Xerox 4200 Paper,” secured with masking tape and contains “corrections and notations throughout in Neal Stephenson's hand in blue ink.” It also has the title of the book written on the …

On Feb. 22, cryptocurrency exchange MEXC Global released its proof-of-reserves (PoR) snapshot after 45 days of testing. In a document seen by Cointelegraph, MEXC claimed its reserve ratios for Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), Bitcoin (BTC), and Ethereum (ETH) were 120.70%, 240.18%, 116.50%, and 110.53%, respectively via the Merke Tree method. As of the date of snapshot on Feb. 10, MEXC held 232.4 million USDT, 33.0 million USDC, 1,869.0 BTC, and 12,472.0 ETH in custodied user assets. Meanwhile, the total assets held within MEXC wallets for the four coins were 280.6 USDT, 79.4 million USDC, 2177.5 BTC, and 13,785.6 ETH, …

In a dispute that originated Feb. 22, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) Onchain Trade and Camelot terminated an agreement for the former's initial fair offering (IFO), with both firms alleging that the opposing counterparty acted in bad faith. An IFO, whilst still an emerging concept, typically involves promises made by developers consisting of no venture capitalist involvement, no whitelist, no presale, and vast majority of income going to token holders, on top of a traditional initial coin offering. As told by Onchain, developers began negotiations with Camelot for an IFO, for which the latter charged a fee of 2%, and both parties …

Teaching cryptocurrency to children can be a great way to introduce them to the world of finance and technology. Here are some interactive ways one can utilize to teach cryptocurrency to children: Start with the basics and use analogies Start by defining and describing the nature of money. Inform your kids about the various types of money and the function of banks. It is also important to teach them the origin of money and how it got involved, from paper money to digital money. Related: What is cryptocurrency? A beginner’s guide to digital currency Furthermore, analogies can be a powerful …

On Feb 23, crypto exchange Coinbase announced the launch of Base — an Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) network. The company claimed this new network will offer a low-cost, secure, and developer-friendly environment for building decentralized apps (dApps) on the blockchain. According to Coinbase, Base is designed to be a bridge for users into the crypto economy, offering access to other L1 ecosystems like Solana and making it interoperable with other chains. It will also provide access to Coinbase's products, users, and tools, as well as easy fiat onramps and powerful acquisition tools. The company plans to progressively decentralize the chain …

The adoption of blockchain technology is on the rise, with the majority of enterprises looking into the technology in some capacity. As blockchain becomes more pervasive, all types of users will need the most efficient access to the capabilities of this technology. One of the responses to this has been the development of blockchain chips as energy-efficient accelerators. On Feb. 23, the Tel Aviv-based blockchain chip startup Chain Reaction announced it raised $70 million to expand its engineering team for developing its next chip. Alon Webman, the co-founder and CEO of Chain Reaction, said the new chip will be a …

USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle plans to increase its workforce by 15-25% in 2023 amid a sea of layoffs across the industry, reported the Wall Street Journal. At a time when a significant chunk of industry-wide firms is laying off staff to mitigate their financial woes, Circle has gone against the tide to hire more people. 41% of all layoffs in 2023 came from the cryptocurrency industry. Major cryptocurrency firms that made significant employee cuts include Polygon, Chainalysis, Bittrex, Huobi, Crypto.com, Coinbase, Gemini, Genesis, and Wyre. A major factor behind crypto companies reducing manpower was attributed to the prolonged crypto …

DZ Bank, Germany’s second-largest bank in terms of asset size, will fully integrate digital currencies into its asset management services in collaboration with the digital asset firm Metaco. According to the announcement sent to Cointelegraph, DZ Bank selected Metaco's custody platform Harmonize to offer digital currencies to its institutional clients. Nils Christopeit, an executive at DZ Bank, said that the Metaco Harmonize platform suits their requirements in terms of security and scalability. “With the offering, we can build by using this technology, we trust to create a durable and fast-growing business cooperation as well as an attractive solution for our …

Blockchain Association’s chief legal officer says “it would be absurd” for a United States court to rule that digital assets on private blockchains are securities, following a federal judge's decision to allow a lawsuit against Dapper Labs's NBA Top Shots NFTs to play out. U.S. attorney Jake Chervinsky made the comment after federal judge Victor Marreo denied a motion to dismiss a 2021 lawsuit that accused Dapper Labs of selling nonfungible tokens (NFTs) as unregistered securities. Chervinsky was among a host of lawyers on Twitter to reiterate that the judge’s denial of the motion does not mean a ruling has …

The community of decentralized finance stablecoin protocol Frax Finance has voted to fully collateralize its native stablecoin Frax (FRAX), marking an end to the algorithmic backing of the protocol. The FIP-188 governance proposal initially posted on Feb. 15 reached a quorum following a 98% vote in favor, according to a snapshot on Feb. 23 — which would change the collateralization model of FRAX. “The time has come for Frax to gradually remove the algorithmic backing of the protocol,” last week’s proposal read. Near unanimous vote to move $frax to 100% CR over time. Seems like @fraxfinance serious about making it …

Google's cloud computing arm has added another string to its Web3 bow, with a new partnership to see it becoming a network validator, or "corporate baker" to the Tezos blockchain. On Feb. 22, Tezos Foundation, a Swiss non-profit foundation supporting the Tezos blockchain announced it has teamed up with Google Cloud which will allow customers of the cloud computing business to deploy Tezos nodes and build Web3 applications on the blockchain. Tezos is a blockchain-based smart contract platform used to power decentralized applications, similar to Ethereum, Cardano and among others. Corporates that have used Tezos include gaming giant Ubisoft and …