Mining helps verify the legitimacy of transactions conducted via a blockchain network such as the Bitcoin blockchain. Miners can start mining cryptocurrencies using hardware like a central processing unit (CPU) or application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). Alternatively, they can use smartphones powered by Android and iOS systems to mine the cryptocurrencies of their choice. READ ALSO What are the different ways to mine cryptocurrency? by Cointelegraph 2 months ago But, how about mining cryptocurrencies via a decentralized wireless network? Strange it may sound, but miners can now mine cryptocurrencies without relying on expensive infrastructure. Helium Network has made it possible by …

Billionaires, take note. It's one million times cheaper to send huge sums of money on the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain. A Bitcoin user sent over 50,562 BTC ($1 billion) to an address on the blockchain, paying a fee of just 2,513 Satoshis (the smallest denomination of a Bitcoin), equivalent to half a dollar for the pleasure. The unknown wallet address paid a tiny fraction (less than 0.0001%) of the total value transacted. Put simply, the user paid 50 cents to move double the GDP of the Bitcoin-friendly islands of Tonga. The billion-dollar transaction was processed in block 761374, at a transaction …

Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Arbitrum has seen a massive surge in activity since its Nitro update in August, having just clocked around 62% as many transactions as the Ethereum base layer. In a Nov. 1 report, crypto research firm Delphi Digital noted that as of the week ended Oct. 24, Arbitrum’s number of total transactions has increased by 550% since August, citing data from Dune Analytics. This week, @arbitrum had ~62% as many transactions as Ethereum L1. pic.twitter.com/DyuDNAjRGz — Delphi Digital (@Delphi_Digital) November 3, 2022 In an earlier Tweet, Delphi Digital initially phrased Arbitrum as accounting for 62% of all …

During the frenzied bull run, transaction fees were running rampant. Over on the Ethereum blockchain, they hit eye-watering highs of $196.638 back in May — rendering the network unusable for most everyday consumers. The Bitcoin blockchain suffered from a similar issue the year before, accelerating to a record-breaking $300.331. When demand is high, it's easy for Proof-of-Work networks to get congested — prompting miners to prioritize the transactions with the highest fees. Here's the problem: high fees undercut one of crypto's most potent use cases — a decentralized way of offering peer-to-peer transfers. If sending funds from A to B …

Technology heavyweight Apple has clarified its App Store rules around nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and cryptocurrency exchanges marking the first time its codified specific rules for NFTs. The new rules confirm how NFT purchases will be taxed and what they can and can't be used for, while also clarifying rules around when a crypto exchange app can be listed. The Oct. 24 update to its App Store guidelines saw language added that allows fo in-app purchases of NFTs, but bars any NFTs acquired elsewhere to be used for anything other than viewing. It also allows applications to use in-app purchases to …

Fat fingers? A Bitcoin (BTC) user spends over $200 to make a transaction, paying astronomically above the average fee. In a transaction that entered Bitcoin block 760,077, a user paid 1,136,000 Satoshis, (0.0136 BTC, $220.52) to move 3.8 BTC ($63,00). This extraordinarily high fee is a whopping 1,000 times the usual Bitcoin transaction fee, as at block height 760,077, the average transaction fee was roughly $0.20. Twitter user Bitcoin QnA first spotted the out-of-the-ordinary transaction, asking, “Y tho?”. The Bitcoin educator told Cointelegraph that "Ultimately we'll never know, [why they paid high], but there are a few possible answers." QnA …

United States-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase says the adoption of USD Coin (USDC) has been “more conservative” outside of the U.S., which it believes is a result of international currency conversion fees. In an Oct. 20 statement, the exchange said there is currently three times more USDC bought with U.S. dollars as compared to other currencies. “Currently, 3x more USDC is bought with USD versus non-USD currencies. In part this is because, outside of the US, users usually have to pay fees in the process of converting their local currency into USDC, and this is a barrier to broader international adoption.” …

OpenSea has officially opened up support for the Avalanche blockchain, with the move providing broader access for the network’s native NFT projects and faster transactions for OpenSea users. The Avalanche team noted in an Oct. 12 blog post that around 10 of the network’s native NFT projects have been initially listed on OpenSea, with more to come. “On Avalanche, OpenSea users will benefit from the fastest time to finality for NFT trades — regularly settling transactions in under a second — and consistently low transaction fees as a result of Avalanche’s success in horizontally scaling with Subnets,” the post reads. …

Non-fungible token (NFT) app developers and others have balked at a decision by tech giant Apple to impose a 30% commission on NFTs sold through apps on its marketplace, effectively putting NFT purchases in the same boat as regular in-app purchases. According to a Friday report from The Information, the smartphone company is now allowing NFTs to be bought and sold through apps listed on its marketplace but imposes its standard commission on in-app purchases of 30% — similar to that imposed by Android’s app store Google Play. The commission rate has however been slammed by some for being “grotesquely …

Arbitrum is one of Ethereum’s layer-2 scaling solutions designed to improve smart contracts’ efficiency and transaction execution on the network while reducing fees drastically and adding extra privacy features. L2 networks are software that sit on top of the base layer of a blockchain like Bitcoin or Ethereum to boost the platform’s efficiency and offer inexpensive transactions. In recent years, Ethereum’s surge in the development and adoption of Web3, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized applications (DApps) has resulted in the platform’s excessive congestion leading to skyrocketing fees. Different solutions have been explored to resolve Ethereum’s scalability, including layer-1 dedicated upgrades. …

Network outages continue to be the Solana network’s biggest challenge, according to its co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko. Launched in 2020, the Solana network has suffered a number of network outages, which have come from a number of different congestion and spam events, according to Yakovenko. In a Sept. 2 interview with Real Vision co-founder Raoul Pal, Yakovenko said the network outages had been Solana’s “curse,” but said the outages have resulted because of the network's low-cost transactions. "That's been, I guess, our curse, but it's because the network is so cheap and fast that there are enough users and applications that …

As we approach the date of Ethereum’s Merge, users have speculated about what it will mean for projects and the wider ecosystem. Some argue the Merge will have little impact on gas fees and believe transaction speeds might improve. However, in general, most ordinary users will not notice much change. The real changes for average users will only be seen after the sharding mechanism is introduced six months later. The Merge will reduce energy consumption and increase security The Merge is a planned update to the Ethereum network scheduled for Sept. 15. It will move transaction validation from proof-of-work (PoW) …