Vitalik Buterin has claimed that Ethereum will support 3,000 transactions per second after the upcoming Istanbul fork. Will this unleash a new wave of Ethereum creativity? Might we expect a surge in traffic on the Ethereum network? Could its increase influence the price of ETH? Ethereum is slow The conventional wisdom is that Ethereum is too slow. But for what purpose is it too slow? It seems to be sufficiently fast for financial services. But the mistake people are making in saying “Ethereum is slow” is misunderstanding what a great thing, counterintuitively, it is to be slow. ETH works because …

Cointelegraph en Español spoke with Henry Sraigman, South-East Asia Regional Director of RSK, during the Asia 2019 Blockshow in Singapore. We covered the expansion of IOV Labs and RSK, the company’s present and future in Asia, and the prospects for Taringa! after its purchase. "RSK is a project that was born around 2015 trying to create the first smart contracts platform secured by the Bitcoin network," recalled Sraigman. "That implies that the miners of Bitcoin can mine on another network with all the same infrastructure — in this case the RSK network," he said. So about four years ago they …

The Algorand Foundation has released an upgrade to its protocol to include more tools for decentralized applications (Dapps) and develop scalable blockchain-native solutions for real-world use cases. The company announced the development in a Nov. 21 press release, detailing that it added new capabilities directly into Layer-1, thus improving speed, scalability and finality. The new features include such as Algorand Standard Asset (ASA), atomic transfers and Algorand Smart Contracts (ASC). New tools’ capabilities The platform claims to be the first to allow enterprise-scale Dapps to be built on a pure proof-of-stake (PPoS) blockchain without sacrificing performance. It specifies that ASA …

The CertiK Foundation, an organization that develops security infrastructure for blockchains, will introduce the open beta of its CertiK Chain next week. Per a press release shared with Cointelegraph on Nov. 22, CertiK Foundation is about to launch the Testnet 3.0 open beta for CertiK Chain designed to enable smart contracts to check for evidence of security audits of other smart contracts before engaging in a transaction. The CertiK Virtual Machine (CVM) includes full compatibility with Ethereum’s EVM, which allows existing Solidity smart contracts to run seamlessly. Since the CertiK Chain is built on the Cosmos Network, it also makes …

The French Armies and Gendarmerie’s Information and Public Relations Center has validated judicial expenses incurred during investigations on the Tezos (XTZ) blockchain. A press release published on Nov. 20 notes that the Gendarmerie’s cybercrime division (C3N) used the system to buy cryptocurrency from Europol-allocated funds and cover its operational costs with those assets. Blockchain ensures the ability to audit Tezos’ main development and research center, Nomadic Labs, claims that the system employs “the first smart contract ever developed by a public authority.” The program enables C3N to buy cryptocurrency from Europol-allocated funds and cover its operational costs with those assets. …

The United Kingdom Jurisdiction Taskforce of the Lawtech Delivery Panel published a statement concerning the status of cryptocurrencies, distributed ledger technology (DLT) and smart contracts under English and Welsh private law. U.K. entrepreneur network Tech Nation announced the paper’s publication on Nov. 18. The document attempts to address the legal uncertainties of cryptocurrency and recognizes crypto assets as tradeable property and smart contracts as enforceable agreements under local law. The importance of regulating blockchain Lawtech Delivery Panel director Jenifer Swallow noted that the worldwide smart contract market is expected to reach $300 million by 2023 while the World Economic Forum …

Decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) Maker will launch a new type of Dai (DAI) stablecoin today. Known as Multi-Collateral Dai (MCD), the new type of the DAI will be backed by several types of collateral in contrast to the existing Single-Collateral Dai (SCD), which will now be called Sai (SAI). While Maker previously announced the new protocol in October, the firm provided an update on the upcoming changes to Dai in a post on Nov. 18. As per the announcement, the launch of MCD will not require any action from Dai users today. Maker said it will be monitoring developments closely …

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has sparked controversy among cryptocurrency users after suggesting developers could reverse transactions. Buterin’s community feedback falls flat In a Twitter survey on Oct. 26, Buterin quizzed followers about their opinion of reversing chain activity in the event of a major hack of an exchange or similar entity. “Suppose a popular smart contract wallet that a large portion of the ETH community uses gets hacked. This could be reverted by reverting all chain activity since the hack and doing a DAO-style HF to recover the funds,” he wrote. Continuing, he asked how many coins would need to …

According to a senior advisor at consultancy firm McKinsey, John Straw, blockchain could make the City of London irrelevant in the near future. He made the claim at a Computing.co.uk Live Event on Oct. 24. Straw added that this could result in a breakdown of the United Kingdom’s tax system, and ultimately the demise of the country’s National Health Service. The straw that breaks the camel’s back Straw sees a huge potential for disruption if a scalable blockchain-based financial system gains popularity: “Let's say that somebody actually does produce a working blockchain peer-to-peer system. It'll be a lending system that …

United States-based blockchain security firm CipherTrace has expanded its crypto intelligence platform to 700 tokens. Tracing hundreds of ERC-20 tokens With the expanded platform launched on Oct. 15, CipherTrace now allows clients to trace more than 87% of the transactional volume of the top 100 cryptos such as Ether (ETH), Tether (USDT), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC), the firm said in a press release. CipherTrace’s increased monitoring support also includes the capability of tracing several hundred ERC-20 tokens, the company added. CipherTrace has not specified to Cointelegraph which cryptocurrencies will not be supported on the platform at publishing time. …

In September, Cointelegraph reported on a Dutch company said to have created the world’s first collection of recycled fabrics made from ocean plastics and whose provenance can be traced via blockchain.The premise is that socially minded consumers want assurance that they are really wearing recycled materials fished out from oceans and coastal areas. The firm, Waste2Wear, deserves applause, but it is unlikely to make a dent in the world’s plastic problem. The problem is volume. More than 8 million tons of plastic ends up in the planet’s oceans every year. That’s 2.1 pounds of ocean waste for every person on …

The Ethereum network’s Istanbul hard fork is expected to break 680 smart contracts on the decentralized management platform Aragon. Jorge Izquierdo, CTO at Aragon One, said that the upcoming upgrade will result in the breaking of roughly 680 smart contracts, industry-focused media outlet Coindesk reported on Sept. 30. Izquierdo explained that the impetus behind the update is to further ensure frictionless functioning of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) built on the Aragon platform and address affected smart contracts. Izquierdo added that DAOs will no longer be able to receive Ether (ETH) from one another and continued: “The issue we’re going to …