The number of reachable Bitcoin network nodes has crossed the 13,000 mark for the first time. As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the previous all-time high was 11,613 achieved back in January. According to data from Bitcoin network statistics dashboard Bitnodes.io, this milestone was reached back on July 5 when the number of reachable nodes clocked in at 13,374. At the time of writing, Bitnodes’ data puts the current network node count at about 12,835, Coin.Dance, another tracking website, also has Bitcoin’s node count at a new all-time high of 12,825. Nodes running the Bitcoin Core software make up 98.77% of …

The United States-based venture capital fund Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has picked T-Systems MMS validator group, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, to delegate its native Celo assets. According to a notice on Deutsche Telekom's website on Tuesday, T-Systems MMS is running the validator nodes via the company's Open Telekom Cloud, which reportedly delivers robust security capabilities. As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Deutsche Telekom invested in Celo back in April, becoming the first telecommunications firm to join the Celo Alliance for Prosperity. At the time, the company also purchased a significant amount of the mobile decentralized finance platform's native token, CELO. T-Systems …

Goldman Sachs has backed a $28 million Series A funding round for blockchain infrastructure firm Blockdaemon. The funding was led by Greenspring Associates and included participation from crypto lending firm BlockFi, and crypto-asset broker Voyager Digital Ltd, along with a $5 million investment from Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs is an American multinational investment bank with a net worth of $131 billion. The banking giant appears to be paying a significant amount of attention to crypto of late. In May the Goldma led a $15 million investment round in blockchain analytics firm Coin Metrics, and also launched Bitcoin derivatives trading for …

Blockchain infrastructure company Bison Trails has partnered with Volt Capital to allow users of the Celo Network to stake their tokens securely through their mobile devices. The collaboration sees Bison Trails running a Celo validator node for Volt Capital, thereby allowing Volt Capital’s community to stake the CELO cryptocurrency, earn rewards and help grow the network. Bison Trails’ node infrastructure allows delegators to more easily stake cryptocurrencies. Volt Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that has set aside $10 million to invest in various cryptocurrency projects focused on the end-user experience. Through its TD Labs subsidiary, Volt Capital has …

Oracle solutions provider Chainlink Labs has joined the governance council overseeing the Hedera network. In an announcement from Chainlink today, the project said it had become the 21st member of the Hedera Governing Council to help organizations utilize decentralized applications. Chainlink will now be the preferred oracle partner for the Hedera network and provide integration for tokenization on Hedera. “As enterprise adoption of distributed ledger technology continues to advance, decentralized oracle solutions become critical for every vertical — from DeFi and insurance, to gaming and NFTs, and more,” said David Post, managing director of business development and strategy at Chainlink. …

A blockchain financial services provider now offers an Ethereum 2.0 validator node hosting service that does not charge fees or take a cut of the staking rewards. Abyss Finance promises to make earning rewards for validating transactions on the in-development Ethereum 2.0 proof-of-stake blockchain as cheap and safe as possible. To begin with, Abyss Finance moves beyond the usual methods by which validator node hosts earn money. Some staking services demand a 10% to 15% cut of the rewards generated, while others charge a hosting fee for virtual nodes. In exchange for locking into a staking contract with an unlock …

The OpenEthereum client for Ethereum, formerly known as the Parity client, is reportedly malfunctioning for a number of users on Thursday afternoon UTC, including the popular block explorer Etherscan. According to multiple user reports on GitHub, the OpenEthereum client has been stuck on block 12,244,294, or just 294 blocks after the Berlin hard fork was executed. The error message seems to indicate that the client is rejecting the new blocks, thinking that its state Merkle root is invalid. The issue seems to be only affecting OpenEthereum nodes, with the more popular Geth functioning as normal. Issues with the OpenEthereum client …

A new contest is taking place that aims to test a node written in the Rust programming language — with the ambition of breaking the world record for the bandwidth of blockchain protocols in a real network. Free TON's current node is written in C++ and already has the ability to process thousands of transactions per second. Sharding plays an instrumental role in this network, as this means that smart contracts can be processed in parallel. It’s believed that a node written in Rust would be dramatically quicker due to better process parallelization, and organizers of the Rust Cup believe …

A decentralized platform that provides infrastructure services for DApp developers and users says its goal is to deliver safety and stability. According to Apron, the world remains reliant on the centralized artifacts of the Web 2.0 era — and its network is designed to serve as the foundational layer for the next generation. While the team acknowledges that Ethereum has contributed to DApps exploding in popularity, they say operating nodes on this blockchain is both expensive and energy intensive — prompting a centralized support structure to emerge. Apron Network is designed to shake things up by improving the infrastructure service …

Crypto-powered esports streaming app Theta’s mainnet 3.0 launch has been delayed until June. In an announcement from Theta Labs, the company stated that its development team is still working “to incorporate some building blocks” for a non-fungible token, or NFT, marketplace for the Theta Mainnet 3.0. They are also working to ensure that the network functions when scaled to more than 100,000 Elite Edge Nodes. As a result, Theta needs more time “to conduct a more thorough code review and testing” and will be pushing the expected launch date from April 21 to June 30. “While delays are never ideal, …

Technology giant Amazon just announced the general availability of Ethereum on its managed blockchain. According to Amazon Web Services, or AWS, users now have the ability to “provision Ethereum nodes” and connect to the blockchain’s mainnet in addition to the Ropsten and Rinkeby testnets through the Amazon Managed Blockchain. The program claims to offer secure access to the network with “standard open-source Ethereum APIs” and sync to the Ethereum blockchain. “Amazon Managed Blockchain monitors node health, replaces unhealthy nodes, and automates Ethereum software upgrades, improving the availability of customers’ Ethereum infrastructure,” said the firm. “In addition to DeFi applications, customers …

Bison Trails, a leading blockchain infrastructure company, has launched a new protocol that allows customers to scale their node operations without the lag times that normally accompany such functions. Beginning Tuesday, Global Blockchain Synch, or GBS, will allow Bison Trails customers to address the lag times associated with launching a new node operation. The company has claimed this will significantly reduce downtime risk, slashing penalties and costs while at the same time boosting scale and optimized participation. Joe Lallouz, Bison Trails’ CEO, explained the problem: “A significant pain point when launching new nodes is the time it takes for them …