Bear markets are a good time to reflect — and a question that isn't asked often enough is this: Why do crypto projects have such a high failure rate… and how can they scale to boost their chances of success? That's a topic we're going to dive into during Cointelegraph's latest ask-me-anything session on YouTube, where we'll be joined by Qonetum Finance. CEO and CTO Yoda Regev will be with our very own Rachel Wolfson to discuss the challenges facing fledgling projects that are trying to get off the ground. While CoinMarketCap data shows that thousands of token projects have …

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is introducing proposals to better regulate the cryptocurrency industry in the aftermath of the bankruptcy of the Singaporean crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC). The central bank of Singapore has issued two consultation papers on proposals for regulating the operations of digital payment token service providers (DPTSP) and stablecoin issuers under the Payment Services Act. Published on Oct. 26, both consultation papers aim to reduce risks to consumers from crypto trading and improve standards of stablecoin-related transactions. The first document includes proposals for digital payment token (DPT) services or services related to major …

Crypto staking platform Freeway pointed at the failure of one of its trading strategies, along with market conditions as the leading reason for halting user withdrawals earlier this week. The crypto yield platform on Oct. 23 announced it was halting various transactions relating to its high-yield “Supercharger” product, citing “unprecedented volatility” at the time, without giving any more details at the time, which saw its token price plummet. In a 22-part Twitter thread on Oct. 25, Freeway shed more light on the situation, revealing that it was “one of Freeway’s trading strategies” that “appears to have failed” and has “dramatically …

This week, Bitcoin’s (BTC) price took a tumble as a hotter-than-expected consumer price index (CPI) report showed high inflation remains a persistent challenge despite a wave of interest rate hikes from the United States Federal Reserve. Interestingly, the market’s negative reaction to a high CPI print seemed priced in by investors, and BTC’s and Ether’s (ETH) prices reclaimed all of their intraday losses to close the day in the black. A quick look at Bitcoin’s market structure shows that even with the post-CPI print drop, the price continues to trade in the same price range it has been in for …

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has been pointing out the flaws affecting the Ethereum protocol following its latest upgrade. A major issue, according to Hoskinson, is the locking mechanism that prevents investors from withdrawing their staked Ether (ETH) from the Beacon Chain until the completion of the next upgrade. “Ethereum is the Hotel California of cryptocurrencies. You can check in but you can't check out,” said Hoskinson in a recent Cointelegraph Interview. According to Hoskison, this mechanism heavily impacts ETH's liquidity and could eventually spark a liquidity crisis. “You'll have less and less Ether trading in the marketplace," he explained. "And …

Ethereum’s long-awaited transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism kicked off on Sept. 15, thus finally putting its long-standing transaction woes in the rearview mirror. To this point, the network is now capable of processing anywhere between 20,000–100,000 transactions per second (tps) as opposed to its previous rate of just 30 tps. Furthermore, the Merge also saw the Ethereum network become up to 99.9% more energy efficient as compared to its previous iteration, thus allaying fears of its excessive energy consumption, a criticism that still lingers quite heavily in relation to Bitcoin (BTC). Amid these developments, however, a question that …

One of the biggest Merge staking providers, Lido Finance has launched on two layer-2 networks Arbitrum and Optimism, a move it says further improves accessibility to Ethereum staking while reducing gas fees. The plan to expand to L2 was first unveiled in July when the team acknowledged that several layer-2 networks had “demonstrated economic activity,” with the new deployment to L2 networks Arbitrum and Optimism launched on Oct. 7. Lido provides liquid staking, which allows more flexibility for stakers as they can withdraw their funds at any time as opposed to staking Ethereum directly and having it locked up. Industry …

Traders’ sentiment about Ether (ETH) has noticeably improved as the price rallied 7.5% from Oct. 2 to Oct. 6, but the price recapturing the $1,350 level was not compelling enough to trigger any bullish activity from derivatives traders. Ether price is still 32% below the $2,000 level last seen on Aug. 14 and the network’s average transaction fee stood near $2 after the Merge. The most significant upgrade on the Ethereum chain happened on Sept. 15, switching from energy-intensive mining technology to a set of validators required to deposit 32 ETH in staking. Although necessary to implement future sharding or …

After the Ethereum network’s transition to proof-of-stake (PoS), staking Ether (ETH) now plays a central role in validating blocks and securing the network. However, some community members believe that the staking process is too difficult, especially for regular people. In the Ethereum subreddit, a member of the community raised the topic of ETH staking and its difficulties. According to the user, it took them an entire weekend just to get things up and running. The user said that this may be something that those with "unforgiving" schedules can't accommodate. They wrote: “The Ethereum community likes to sugarcoat usability but it’s …

For years, various blockchain projects were rumored to be future “Ethereum killers,” projects that would unseat Ether from its throne and usurp its title as the top digital asset. That day seems to have come, though it appears it was an inside job. Lido-staked Ethereum (stETH) and other liquid staking derivatives are primed to render Ether (ETH), as an asset, obsolete. The transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoW) allows everyday decentralized finance (DeFi) users to benefit from rewards previously reserved for miners simply by holding stETH or any other ETH liquid-staking derivative. This has given way to a wave …

Crypto-focused finance company Delio has partnered with Blockdaemon to launch retail-focused staking services, giving customers a more seamless way to earn rewards on their digital asset holdings. Delio’s staking services expand its existing crypto-bank offerings, which include lending, deposits and deposit accounts, the company announced Thursday. The new service offering is powered by blockchain infrastructure provider Blockdaemon, which provides a suite of institutional staking products. While Delio didn’t specify which crypto assets will be included in the new staking services, Blockdaemon currently supports integration with over 60 blockchains. Delio representative James Jung also clarified that the firm also plans “to …

Fantom (FTM) is known for its speed and inexpensive layer-1 blockchain. Like other blockchains (for example, Solana (SOL) and Avalanche (AVAX)) that scale better than their counterpart, it has been dubbed an “Ethereum killer.” After raising $40 million in funds, Fantom launched its mainnet in December 2019. Since then, it has grown to become one of the most popular blockchains, sitting in the top 10 blockchains by total value locked (TVL) with $1.3 billion in TVL. Fantom’s high-throughput blockchain is an open-source smart contract platform. It is scalable and EVM-compatible, meaning you can deploy and run your Ethereum decentralized applications …