Coming every Sunday, the Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions, and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week Bitstamp Starts Investigation After Large BTC Sell Leads to $250 Million Liquidated on BitMEX Major crypto exchange Bitstamp launched an investigation this week after a large bitcoin (BTC) sell order heavily impacted its order book. Bitstamp reported on the execution of the large bitcoin sell order from BTC to United States dollars, without specifying …

Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Joseph Lubin said that the Ethereum blockchain will become about 1,000 times more scalable in 18 to 24 months. Lubin made his remarks during an interview with Cointelegraph on May 11. Lubin specified that the development which will bring such a drastic scalability increase to the ecosystem will be Ethereum 2.0, also called Serenity. He explained that the development is divided into four phases and that eight groups are already developing clients for the new chain. Lubin also promised: “In a small number of months, we should have a fully operational testnet and possibly, by the end …

Ethereum founders Joseph Lubin and Vitalik Buterin and their respective organizations ConsenSys and the Ethereum Foundation are each donating 1,000 ether (ETH) to the Moloch decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). This donation brings the organization's total funds up to $1 million, a Cointelegraph correspondent learned at the Ethereal Summit on May 10. The stated objective of Moloch DAO, created by Ameen Soleimani — the CEO of the Ethereum-based adult token platform Spankchain — aims to crowdsource funding for shared, open-source Ethereum infrastructure. Moloch DAO states: “Our objective is to accelerate the development of public Ethereum infrastructure that many teams need but …

Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Joseph Lubin said that he expects the global economy will be 10 times larger in 10 to 20 years, when blockchain is fully ramified, and blockchain will be involved in most of it. Lubin made the statement at the SXSW conference in Austin on March 14. During the same keynote, Lubin also pointed out that just as nowadays there aren’t many “normal” people using blockchain-based systems, “there weren’t a lot of ‘normal’ people firing email around in 1983.” He also reiterated the promises of Ethereum 2.0, stating that there are a lot of inefficiencies present in Bitcoin …

Ethereum co-founder and ConsenSys creator Joseph Lubin said that blockchain technology and decentralization can benefit content creators and journalists. Lubin spoke about different industries that are benefitting from blockchain technology in a video on March 12. In the video, Lubin said that artists are “set to benefit quite dramatically” from blockchain, as it allows them to attach policies and stipulations for how the content is consumed and shared i.e. derivative works, streaming, public performances, etc. In Lubin’s view, it also allows them to eliminate middlemen: “I think artists in the music industry on average capture about 11 or 12 percent …

Disclaimer: This article previously stated that the layoffs at ConsenSys mainly affected support staff. The company later informed Cointelegraph that technical staff were also affected. Recent layoffs at blockchain software technology company ConsenSys did not exceed 13 percent of staff. The company’s Executive Director of Enterprise and Social Impact Vanessa Grellet spoke to Cointelegraph about the recent developments at the Crypto Finance Conference in Switzerland on Jan. 18. Grellet said that the staff cuts were a “natural movement” and mainly affected support staff. A company spokesperson later told Cointelegraph that all teams were reevaluated including technical and non-technical staff. Grellet …

Joseph Lubin, co-founder of major cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH), declared that he is “calling the cryptobottom of 2018” in a tweet Dec. 21. According to Lubin, the crypto market’s bottom “is marked by an epic amount of fear, uncertainty, and doubt,” specifically from industry media and social commentators, which he refers to as “our friends in the 4th and crypto-5th estates.” Continuing in a Twitter thread, the founder of Ethereum blockchain-focused software firm ConsenSys then evidently addressed his firms recently reported major layoffs: “ConsenSys remains healthy and is engaging in a rebalancing of priorities and activities which started about nine months …

Blockchain software technology company ConsenSys may reportedly be making significant cuts to its staff, technology news outlet the Verge reported Dec. 20. Citing a source familiar with the matter, the Verge reports that ConsenSys is spinning out startups it previously backed, some of them without financial support. This will reportedly impact the ConsenSys’ workforce, especially its internal incubator Consensys Labs. The source said that the number of employees to be laid off could be anywhere between 50 and 60 percent of ConsenSys’ 1,200 person workforce. According to the source, ConsenSys Labs is also being reorganized and will subsequently cease to …

Major Ethereum (ETH) blockchain startup and incubator ConsenSys plans to streamline and toughen its business style amid an increasingly “crowded” competitive blockchain space. The shift in strategy was reported by online tech journal Breaker on Dec. 3. Breaker cites a letter to staff from ConsenSys CEO and Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin, reportedly sent late last Friday night, which outlines a new phase in the Brooklyn-headquartered company’s work. As per the letter, ConsenSys — which employed over 1,100 employees across 29 countries, as of February 2018 — is entering what Lubin calls “ConsenSys 2.0.” This, according to Breaker, represents a more …

Ethereum (ETH) co-founder and ConsenSys CEO Joe Lubin has said that with blockchain, society will move “from a scarcity to an abundance mindset,” in a New York Times (NYT) interview published Nov. 12. Lubin made his remarks at the NYT’s International Luxury Conference at the Intercontinental Hotel in Hong Kong, which runs Nov. 12-13 and brings together speakers that include the CEO of fashion brand Balenciaga, the president of Alibaba Group, and the CEO of luxury coat producer Moncler. During the conference, Lubin spoke about how the advancements heralded by blockchain tech could potentially give control back to society, allowing …

Blockchain will “probably take a little longer” to develop than the internet, because it is “much more complicated,” ConsenSys creator Joseph Lubin told German media outlet t3n in an interview, Cointelegraph auf Deutsch reported Nov. 9. Lubin, who is also the co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), told reporters that blockchain technology is developing in a similar way to the web, citing its exponential growth with “hundreds of projects that are already practical for humans” to date. Based on blockchain’s use case for decentralized cryptocurrencies, the digital entrepreneur also suggested that distributed ledger technology (DLT) will be able to “permeate society more …

Japan’s Shinsei Bank has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with blockchain startup ConsenSys to widen its exploration of the technology’s applications for finance, Cointelegraph Japan reports Nov. 8. According to an English-language press release published the same date, the MoU entails a business alliance between Shinsei Bank, Hong Kong-based restricted license bank Nippon Wealth, Singaporean private equity fund Tribay Capital, and ConsenSys. The latter was founded in 2014 by Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Joseph Lubin, and is currently headquartered in New York. The alliance between the four entities will focus on exploring the use of ConsenSys’ decentralized applications (DApps) to …