Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has continued to refute claims that the Cardano’s testnet is “catastrophically broken,” implying the need to finally move forward with the long-delayed Vasil hard fork. In a Twitter thread on Aug. 21, Hoskinson shared his frustration concerning some of the videos claiming Cardano’s testnet has a “catastrophic” issue, which stems from an Aug. 19 thread from Cardano ecosystem developer Adam Dean. The developer claimed that the testnet is “catastrophically broken” due to an undiscovered bug in Cardano’s Node v 1.35.2 that creates incompatible forks — which had managed to slip under the radar of the previous …

Web3 came into existence posed as a blockchain-powered disruption to the current state of the internet. Yet, as a nascent technology, a fog of assumptions plagues discussions about the real capabilities of Web3 and its role in our day-to-day lives. Considering the promise of a decentralized internet using public blockchains, a complete transition to Web3 would require scrutiny across several factors. Out of the lot, security stands as one of the most crucial features as, in a Web3-powered world, tools and applications hosted over the blockchains go mainstream. Smart contract vulnerabilities While the blockchains that host Web3 applications remain impenetrable …

An attack in April 2022, which drained off nearly $80 million from various Rari Fuse pools, required the decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Fei Protocol to come up with a solution that minimizes damage to the ecosystem. Fei Labs’ latest proposal, which partly recommends revoking participation from Tribe DAO, received mixed sentiments from the community. Fei Protocol founder Joey Santoro announced the latest proposal, TIP-121: Proposal for the future of the Tribe DAO, revealing the company’s intent to reimburse Fuze victims. It also details plans for asset redemption and the distribution of protocol-controlled value (PCV) assets that manage the liquidity and …

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you significant developments over the last week. This past week, Celsius’s financial troubles mounted further as a new coin report showed the company had a balance gap of $2.85 billion, more than double what it had shown in the bankruptcy filing. Aave (AAVE) called upon community members to commit to the Ethereum proof-of-stake (PoS) Merge. Coinbase CEO said the exchange would rather wind down its staking services than implement on-chain censorship in the form of regulatory compliance. The crypto market saw …

After an impressive 73% rally between July 13 and Aug. 13, Avalanche (AVAX) has faced a 16% rejection from the $30.30 resistance level. Some analysts will try to pin the correction as a "technical adjustment," but the network’s deposits and decentralized applications reflect worsening conditions. To date, Avalanche remains 83% below its November 2021 all-time high at $148. More data than technical analysis can be analyzed to explain the 16% price drop, so let’s take a look at the network’s use in terms of deposits and users. The decentralized application (DApp) platform is still a top-15 contender with a $7.2 …

In light of the recent ban on crypto mixing tool Tornado Cash and the subsequent arrest of the Tornado Cash developer, there has been a growing debate around what crypto services providers would choose between decentralization and censorship in form of compliance. The question has become more prominent as Ethereum (ETH) is moving from its current proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain to a proof-of-stake (PoS) mining consensus. With the transition less than a month away, a user pointed out that more than 66% of validators on the Beacon chain (Ethereum PoS chain) will adhere to the United States Department of the Treasury's …

Interoperability protocol Celer Network (CELR) has asked its users to revoke the approval for several contracts after shutting down its cBridge over a suspected DNS hijacking. According to the project's initial analysis, there was some suspicious DNS activity at around 7 PM (UTC) on Aug. 17. However, the platform is still trying to investigate and know more about the issue at the time of writing. Meanwhile, as the platform continues to pinpoint the problem, the team has shut down the cBridge as an initial way to avoid any more mishaps and protect their users. In addition to shutting down the …

As the Ethereum Merge draws near, many are speculating on its economic effects. To provide a clearer view to those who anticipate the major upgrade, Lex Sokolin, the head economist at ConsenSys, shared his insights in an interview with Cointelegraph. The expert discussed the effect of the EMerge on users, developers and businesses. Additionally, Sokolin also cleared up some misconceptions about the Merge and explained how the new development can have an impact on the price of Ether (ETH). On the user level, the economist said that the average user will be able to use the chain as they normally …

High-profile security incidents continue to be a theme in 2022 as the Acala Network joined a long list of stricken platforms to fall prey to exploits. Acala’s aUSD token, which acts as the native stablecoin for the Polkadot and Kusama blockchains, saw its value plummet 99% after a misconfiguration of the iBTC/aUSD liquidity pool was exploited after its launch on Aug. 14. Initial estimates from Acala noted that 1.2 billion aUSD were minted without the necessary collateral - seeing the token’s value depeg from its 1:1 USD ratio to a bottom of $.01. Acala put its network in maintenance mode …

What are the disadvantages of CeDeFi? Currently, CeDeFi’s main downside is the high learning curve associated with its protocols because of their complexity. The concept is still young, and more intuitive and user-friendly interfaces are bound to emerge over time. CeDeFi also relies heavily on Ethereum, given that most CeDeFi protocols are still built on the Ethereum blockchain. If Ethereum fails, CeDeFi will likely fail as well. However, this risk is mitigated by the fact that other blockchains are beginning to adopt CeDeFi protocols. Another disadvantage of CeDeFi is that it’s still relatively new and unproven. While the sector has …

Aave token holders have been asked to take part in an Aave Request for Comment (ARC) that would require them to "commit" to Ethereum’s proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus. The ARC, proposed on Aug. 16, comes in light of Ethereum's upcoming transition to proof-of-stake. It calls for members to select the Ethereum Mainnet running under PoS consensus as the new “canonical” governance system, while also giving power to an authority to shut down any Aave deployments on any alternative Ethereum forks. ARC for the Aave DAO to signal support PoS ETH upon The Merge https://t.co/0A4YkpHLdq — stani.lens @ ETHLatam (,) (@StaniKulechov) August …

There are mounting concerns that recent United States government sanctions against Tornado Cash will become a “slippery slope” for Web3 privacy that could eventually make the entire space “meaningless.” Speaking to Cointelegraph, Shumo Chu, co-founder of privacy protocol Manta Network expressed worry that the strict sanctions against Tornado Cash could have a knock-on effect on every Web3 protocol including ones providing privacy. Chu is one of the co-founders of Polkadot-based Manta Network, a layer-1 privacy protocol that enables private transactions in decentralized finance (DeFi). Tornado Cash (TORN) is an Ethereum (ETH) privacy protocol that anonymizes coin transactions. These protocols are …