ConsenSys, a prominent blockchain software company, has raised $65 million in strategic investments from major financial institutions including JPMorgan Chase, Mastercard and UBS, offering yet another sign that traditional finance is entering the crypto space. The investment round will aid ConsenSys in expanding its enterprise blockchain infrastructure solutions to enable more decentralized finance and Web 3.0 applications on Ethereum, the company announced Tuesday. After a year of significant growth, ConsenSys is now focusing on accelerating mainstream adoption of Web 3.0, which is considered to be the next phase of the internet’s evolution. In addition to the major finance players, blockchain-focused …

Ethereum infrastructure firm ConsenSys and venture capital fund Pantera Capital have led a group of investors in a $5-million funding round for Virtue Poker, according to an announcement on Monday. Other participants in the strategic investment round included blockchain investment outfit DFG and FunFair founder Jez San. Virtue Poker, an Ethereum-based decentralized poker platform, was founded back in 2016 within the ConsenSys suite of blockchain projects. Back in 2020, the company secured a B2C — Gaming Service License from the Malta Gaming Authority. The $5-million investment will be used to bootstrap the mainnet launch of the blockchain poker platform scheduled …

With a possible billion-dollar nonfungible token drop and a high-powered, multiproject collaboration in the works, the Ethereum ecosystem may finally be ready to compete with NFT-centric blockchain Flow. In a press release today, Ethereum software developer ConsenSys announced Palm, an environmentally friendly NFT scaling solution. Palm will be a sidechain designed to be “fully connected” to Ethereum, sporting faster settlement times, lower fees and an especially light carbon footprint — a noted bugaboo for artists as of late. Ethereum’s community — one of the chain's advantages over the faster, more efficient rival NFT chain Flow — is also on full …

ConsenSys, one of the most prominent Ethereum software companies, has launched an updated version of AirSwap, a peer-to-peer exchange that promotes full decentralization and guaranteed prices. ConsenSys introduced the new AirSwap on Tuesday, culminating “Phase II” of its development roadmap. The technical upgrades were based on AirSwap Improvement Proposals, or AIPs, which help the community select and prioritize new development projects on the network. The upgraded exchange will protect traders from both front-running and price slippage by leveraging the request-for-quote, or RFQ, protocol and atomic swaps for settlement, ConsenSys tells Cointelegraph. The company expects RFQ models will capture roughly 40% …

ConsenSys, a New York-based Ethereum software company, has partnered with cybersecurity firm Securosys to launch a more secure staking solution for Ethereum 2.0. The new product, dubbed Codefi Staking, provides “institutional staking tools for Ethereum 2.0,” whose Beacon Chain launched on Dec. 1, 2020 after securing the minimum deposit contracts. By partnering with Securosys, ConsenSys said it was able to create a more secure method for long-term Ethereum staking. The enhanced security is achieved by removing the “challenges of operating independent validator nodes,” ConsenSys said. Securosys provides multiple key control mechanisms to ensure that stakers never relinquish control over their …

ConsenSys, one of the world’s largest blockchain software companies, has partnered with the Blockchain-based Service Network, a Chinese government-backed nationwide blockchain project, As part of the partnership, ConsenSys’ Ethereum-based distributed ledger protocol, ConsenSys Quorum, will be featured in the BSN ecosystem, the firm announced on Monday. The protocol will be available in 80 different cities through the BSN’s public city nodes across mainland China. ConsenSys director Charles d’Haussy told Cointelegraph that ConsenSys Quorum will be available in all major cities and provinces, including Beijing, Xiong’an and Hangzhou. ConsenSys’ GoQuorum — an open-source Ethereum client and part of ConsenSys Quorum — …

Ethereum has consistently followed a roadmap for its continual evolution to a proof-of-stake consensus protocol, and 2020 saw the groundwork for Ethereum 2.0 soundly laid. The smart contract blockchain has firmly established itself as a platform backed by the second-most valuable cryptocurrency in the world, Ether (ETH), and has become a primary resource for developers to build blockchain-based applications and tools. The emergence of the decentralized finance sector has been largely built on top of the Ethereum blockchain, adding credence to the platform’s decentralized functionality. The surge in the use of the blockchain has come at a steep price though, …

Ethereum wallet MetaMask is seeking to attract institutional investors into the decentralized finance sector with the soon-to-be-launched institutional-grade version. The popular wallet, with more than 1 million monthly active users, introduced token swaps in October this year, and is now looking to expand even further. Developers ConsenSys identified that DeFi protocols are currently too inefficient for professional trading firms, and there is no “robust reporting for accounting, tax, and [profit and loss statement] purposes.” As per the announcement, the upgraded version is aimed at “trading firms and crypto custodians” and will provide them with “institutional-grade features,” including the ability to …

Speaking during the Ethereum in the Enterprise — Asia Pacific 2020 conference on Dec. 3, ConsenSys founder and Ethereum contributor, Joseph Lubin, predicted that Eth2 will devour Ethereum in “the not-too-distant future.” “People in the know around the ecosystem are very optimistic about how fast things could unfold, as the really complicated work has been done in launching Phase 0,” he said. While the Eth2 rollout was believed to be occurring in strictly regimented “phases,” Lubin emphasized that the other aspects of Eth2’s rollout are “proceeding in parallel” — meaning upgrades to the protocol may come much sooner than many …

Withdrawal contracts for Ether staked on Ethereum 2.0 could become available as early as Q1 2021 allowing decentralized Eth2 staking service Rocket Pool to launch. While Phase 0 of Eth2’s roll-out was launched with its Beacon Chain on Dec. 1, the 900,000 Ether deposited by stakers will not be available for withdrawal until Phase 1.5 — which is expected to arrive around early 2022. Last week, Ethereum developer Danny Ryan introduced a new proposal that would allow for “Simple (but expressive) withdrawal contracts to be written today”. Should the proposal be implemented, he estimates that “80% of withdrawal contract use …

Ethereum software firm ConsenSys has just sealed its sixth central bank digital currency project. On Oct. 28, the blockchain organization announced that it will be collaborating with Société Générale Forge on experiments for a digital euro. Société Générale Forge is the digital capital markets platform of major financial services group, Société Générale Group. SG Forge was involved in the issuance of a 100 million euro bond as a security token on the Ethereum blockchain back in spring 2019. It specializes in building institutional-grade models for regulated security token operations registered on the blockchain. Alongside Accenture, Euroclear, HSBC and others, SG …

Blockchain firm ConsenSys has made official a collaboration with open-source software laboratory Protocol Labs to integrate Filecoin’s marketplace for data storage with ConsenSys’ Ethereum product stack. According to the announcement, Filecoin’s miners, developers and users of the network will be able to access ConsenSys' development tools such as Infura, MetaMask and others to integrate with Ethereum’s decentralized finance ecosystem. Last Thursday, at block 148,888, the Filecoin network launched its public mainnet, featuring a capacity of more than 600 petabytes of data, as well as 600 active data miners and 230 projects interacting with the storage protocol. Given these figures, James …