The honeymoon period for the Optimism layer-2 scaling solution has been cut short, as an exploit in its market maker’s smart contract led to the loss of 20 million OP tokens. The exploit took place on May 26 but has only just been reported to the community. One million tokens valued at about $1.3 million were sold on Sunday. An additional 1 million tokens valued at about $730,000 were transferred to Vitalik Buterin’s Ethereum address on Optimism earlier today at 12:26 am UTC. The remaining tokens are dormant for now but could be sold at any time or used to …

When was the last time you got a late payment? Chased an invoice? Waited for your monthly paycheck only to realize it’s late yet again? You might relate to these headaches as an investor, employee or client. But the tension that affects each of these unique parties is often caused by one unwavering contributor: an underlying traditional contract. Contracts affect every organization’s workforce, and 26% of employees are involved in managing these agreements at some point, according to the World Commerce and Contracting Association. With such a vast effect on a company’s contributors, these contracts should be up to par …

The persistent challenges faced by decentralized finance have been well documented by a handful of analysts and the recent collapse of the Terra ecosystem re-enforced the fact that something is critically wrong with DeFi. I think DeFi today is completely broken for 99% of the population. The promise of a more transparent financial system has been overtaken by greed. UST/LUNA is just the latest in a string of bad developments: — Peter Yang (@petergyang) May 11, 2022 Let's take a look at what experts say DeFi needs to do to have another revival. Improved usability To date, the promise of …

A mismatch in the reported price of underlying assets on synthetic assets decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Mirror Protocol has caused an ongoing exploit that has the potential to drain all of its funds. The exploit was observed on Sunday by governance participant Mirroruser on the protocol’s forum. As of the time of writing, the Mirror BTC (mBTC), Mirror Polkadot (mDOT), Mirror Ether (mETH) and Mirror Galaxy (mGLXY) synthetic asset pools on the protocol have lost almost all of their assets valued at over $2 million. Mirror allows trading of synthetic assets such as stocks and cryptocurrency on the Terra and …

Crypto prices have been exploring new lows for weeks and currently it's unclear what it will take to reverse the trend. Despite the downtrend, cryptocurrencies within the Polkadot (DOT) ecosystem began to rally on May 24 and have managed to maintain gains ranging from 10% to 25%, a possible sign that certain sub-sectors of the market are on the verge of a breakout. Here’s a look at three Polkadot ecosystem protocols that have seen their token prices trend higher in recent days. Acala launches a $250 million aUSD ecosystem fund Acala (ACA) is the leading decentralized finance (DeF) platform on …

Core Ethereum developer Tim Beiko has outlined a series of suggestions and expectations about the upcoming Merge for application and protocol developers on Ethereum. For the average users of apps and protocols, Beiko simply suggested testing things out to ensure nothing is broken as more tests are executed. He tweeted on Tuesday, “Run stuff, if something is unclear or broken, leave a comment.” Yes! Run stuff, if something is unclear or broken, leave a comment, as you probably aren’t the only one with that issue User PoV guides, how-go’s, etc. are always super useful, too! https://t.co/tyWqgVBSuc — Tim Beiko | …

It’s predicted that nonfungible tokens (NFTs) will have a vast impact on society. Given this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the trillion-dollar healthcare sector has begun to explore NFTs tokens to advance medicine. It’s also important to point out that blockchain technology can play an increasingly important role within the healthcare sector. This was recently highlighted in a report from the European Union Blockchain Observatory, which specifically documents how blockchain applications can solve challenges facing the healthcare industry. For example, the paper notes that patient engagement and transparency of how data is stored, along with the effective distribution …

For many layer 1 crypto projects, returning to normalcy from Terra’s death spiral meant a complete migration to a different ecosystem. But, how does one make the right move, especially after knowing the unfortunate fate of their initial platform of choice? In the case of Tracer, a Web3 fitness and lifestyle app, moving away from the Terra ecosystem for survival was just one piece of the puzzle. Choosing a new host to build on requires more than checking the technical compatibility with the blockchain ecosystems. As explained by Near Foundation’s Nicky Chalabi, projects like Tracer seek alignment with the ecosystem’s …

Ether (ETH) price has been trying to establish an ascending channel since the May 12 market-wide crash that sent its price to $1,790. Currently, the altcoin’s support stands at $2,000, but the high correlation to traditional markets is causing traders to be highly skeptical s cryptocurrency market recovery. To date, the Federal Reserve continues to dictate the markets’ performance and uncertainty has been the prevailing sentiment because the central banks of major economies are trying to tame inflation. Considering that the correlation between crypto markets and the S&P 500 index has been above 0.85 since March 29, traders are likely …

In a new development for the decentralized finance space, Ethereum scaling platform Polygon has partnered with layer-3 project Orbs to launch a program that supports DeFi builders through the DeFi accelerator platform DeFi.org. In an announcement, Polygon and DeFi.org noted that the program will provide funding opportunities, mentorship and market exposure to chosen projects. Building on Polygon is mandatory for participants in the DeFi.org accelerator round. On the other hand, those using Orbs’ infrastructure will be given special consideration. As Polygon focuses on scaling Ethereum, Orbs claims to be capable of providing benefits such as the enhancement of smart contracts …

This is a parody of the article published by the World Economic Forum titled “Welcome to 2030. I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better.” Welcome to Mars. Welcome to my city, or should I say “our city” because I, like every other inhabitant, am a stakeholder in it. No, I don’t mean “shareholder,” as this isn’t a dystopian future run by private companies. My city on Mars has a decentralized governance structure just like the greater Mars. It is not a corporation nor is it a militarized state. It is a set of institutions governed …

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban has tipped commercial smart contract adoption as the next catalyst to drive the crypto and blockchain sector. The Dallas Mavericks owner and crypto proponent was commenting on the current “lull” state of the crypto market, compared to the internet or dot-com bubble in the early 2000s that saw a lot of over-hyped and relatively similar companies collapse. The crypto market is painting a fairly grim picture of late, with nearly all of the top 100 digital assets facing double-digit losses over the past seven days. There are likely to be several factors behind the bearish sentiments, …