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Matt Hussey

Matt Hussey

Matt worked at Decrypt from 2018 to 2021. He was formerly Editor in Chief of The Next Web.

Stories by Matt Hussey

  • z cash crypto logo on a pedestal

    What is Zcash (ZEC)? The Privacy Coin Using Zero-Knowledge Proofs

    For many years, Bitcoin was used to buy drugs online because it was believed to be anonymous. Turns out, it’s surprisingly easy to track Bitcoin transactions. Zcash, on the other hand, is a cryptocurrency that promised something Bitcoin couldn’t deliver: privacy. How Zcash works Zcash is designed to hide key transaction details, such as the sender, recipient, and amount. By using cryptographic techniques, transfers can be made that can’t easily be traced on a public ledger while remaining verifi...

    ExplainersThe Coins
    10 min read
    Matt Hussey, Jason Nelson

  • What is Ethereum (ETH)? A Beginner's Guide to the Smart Contract Blockchain

    Ethereum, the second-biggest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, is a blockchain-powered platform for creating decentralized applications (dapps). Ethereum is not just a cryptocurrency. It’s a global, decentralized network that enables smart contracts—self-executing programs on the blockchain—and decentralized applications, or dapps, that run without banks, governments, or big tech. When programmer Vitalik Buterin published a “whitepaper” in late 2013 proposing a new kind of blockchain—not just for mo...

  • What is XRP? A Cryptocurrency Created For the Financial Sector

    XRP is a digital asset designed for fast, low-cost global payments and serves as the native cryptocurrency of the XRP Ledger, a decentralized, open-source blockchain created by Jed McCaleb, Arthur Britto, and David Schwartz. As of March 2025, XRP is the third largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, after Bitcoin and Ethereum, according to CoinGecko. What is XRP? Launched in 2012 alongside the Ripple Network, XRP has a maximum supply of 100 million coins and reached its last all-time hig...

  • Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? Image: Decrypt

    Who is Satoshi Nakamoto, The Creator of Bitcoin?

    Bitcoin arrived in 2008, but its creator to this day is known only by pseudonym: Satoshi Nakamoto. Many have spun up theories about who Satoshi really is—either to solve the mystery or, in some cases, to further an agenda of their own—but no one has offered a definitive answer. Adding to the intrigue, wallets linked to Satoshi, which collectively hold approximately 1.1 million BTC mined in Bitcoin’s earliest days, have remained untouched for years. The last known transaction from these wallets o...

    ExplainersThe People
    13 min read
    Matt Hussey, Jason Nelson, Stephen Graves

  • What Is Cardano? Inside the Third-Generation Blockchain

    What is Cardano? Cardano is a proof-of-stake blockchain that builds on peer-reviewed research developed using a methodical, academic approach. It positions itself as a third-generation blockchain designed to improve upon the technology behind Bitcoin (first generation) and Ethereum (second generation) by addressing their scalability, security, and sustainability. With its focus on formal verification and peer-reviewed advancements, Cardano aims to provide a sustainable and interoperable blockcha...

    ExplainersThe Coins
    5 min read
    Scott Chipolina, Adriana Hamacher, Matt Hussey, Jason Nelson

  • What is The Open Network (TON)?

    The Open Network (TON) is a layer 1 blockchain designed for speed and scalability. TON traces its origins back to Gram, a blockchain project originally conceived of by the Durov brothers, founders of messaging app Telegram. Gram was created with a view to integrating cryptocurrency into Telegram’s ecosystem. After the SEC sued Telegram over Gram’s ICO, the firm abandoned the project. An open-source, decentralized community of developers subsequently picked up the baton, developing TON as a separ...

    Courses
    4 min read
    Matt Hussey, Stephen Graves
  • The Bitcoin halving. Image: Decrypt

    What Is the Bitcoin Halving? How Bitcoin's Supply Is Limited

    Earn a free on-chain NFT by taking our course, "Bitcoin Halving 101: What it Means for Miners and Investors." Every four years, the amount of Bitcoin doled out to cryptocurrency miners halves in a process imaginatively known as the Bitcoin halving (or halvening, though the term has fallen out of favor in recent years). Here’s why—and how—it works. Bitcoin’s supply limit To understand the Bitcoin halving, we must first understand the theory behind its supply. The inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Naka...

  • crypto-trading c Rodrigo Martinez/Decrypt 2022

    What is Proof of Stake? How it Differs From Proof of Work

    Mining cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin is an energy-intensive business. But it doesn’t have to be. Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies such as Dogecoin and Litecoin, secure their networks using the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism. An alternative consensus mechanism used by cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum is called proof-of-stake (PoS), which radically reduces the blockchain’s carbon footprint. In this article we’ll explore what consensus mechanisms are, and how proof-of-stake differs fr...

  • The Bitcoin halving. Image: Decrypt

    Bitcoin Halving 101: What Is the Bitcoin Halving?

    The inventor of Bitcoin believed scarcity could create value where there was none before. The Halving also known as the Halving is occured in May 2020. To understand it, we must understand the theory behind Bitcoin’s supply. We explore it more below.  A bit about Bitcoin Bitcoin was revolutionary in that it could, for the first time, make a digital product scarce. This limited supply is one of the reasons the price of Bitcoin went from being worth nothing 10 years ago to $69,000 at its peak in 2...

    Courses
    4 min read
    Ki Chong Tran, Matt Hussey, Stephen Graves
  • Stablecoins. Image: Decrypt

    What Are Stablecoins and How Do You Use Them?

    Since their inception, cryptocurrencies have been considered particularly volatile investment instruments when it comes to their price. That's led to price jumps and crashes, preventing cryptocurrencies from being used for everyday goods and services in some cases, due to the risks for vendors and merchants. That's where stablecoins come in. The theory goes, if you create a currency that is 'pegged' or attached to a regular fiat currency like the US dollar or something else with a relatively sta...

  • What is the Lightning Network? Bitcoin's Scalability Solution.

    Bitcoin has been hampered by its own popularity. Thanks to the way the blockchain is designed, the speed of transactions is slow and the cost of transactions has increased. Researchers, developers, and the Bitcoin community have been trying to come up with a way of allowing Bitcoin—and other cryptocurrencies—to accommodate more transactions. Their best efforts to date have focused around something called the Lightning Network. Can it fix the cryptocurrency's scaling problems? Speed and cost A bl...

  • What is Tezos (XTZ)?

    2Tezos is a lot like Ethereum. It is a platform to create smart contracts and Dapps that are censorship-free. As with the current iteration of Ethereum, Tezos runs on Proof-of-Stake. This means there is no crypto mining involved. It also features a governance model to ensure that people who own the coin have a say in decisions regarding the future of Tezos. As there are no miners, the people who check and confirm transactions are called “bakers” and they run what’s known as a “baking operation.”...

  • Image: Shutterstock

    5 Key Technologies Streamlining the Crypto User Experience

    For crypto to gain traction beyond its niche of early adopters, it needs to offer a user experience that matches or exceeds that of legacy platforms. “By not optimizing user experience correctly, crypto products are losing a lot of potential customers if they don't implement the optimal processes,” Marcus Bengtsson, chief marketing officer at KYC software company Checkin.com, told Decrypt. “Each 1% of conversion loss compounds to thousands of dollars in revenue loss, relative to your customer va...

  • What is Tokenomics? How Blockchain Economics Works

    In traditional finance, government-controlled monetary policy issues currency, sets interest rates, and controls currency supply. Cryptocurrency has changed this. Individuals can create their own micro-economies. Tokenomics essentially takes what central banks use as monetary policy and apply it in blockchain networks. Here’s how. What is tokenomics? Tokenomics is the science of the token economy. It covers all aspects involving a coin’s creation, management, and sometimes removal from a network...

  • Image: Binance

    SEC Setback as Judge Denies Immediate Access to Binance US Software

    The Securities and Exchange Commission is licking its wounds after a judge denied its request to access the software powering Binance US, the American arm of the exchange. In a court hearing on Monday, the regulator had asked a federal magistrate judge to allow an inspection of Binance US’s technical infrastructure, and to force the company to share other requested information as part of its ongoing case against the exchange. But federal Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui said he wasn’t “inclined to a...

    NewsBusiness
    3 min read
    Matt Hussey
  • Law in Hong Kong. Image: Shutterstock

    Hong Kong Influencer Arrested Over JPEX Exchange Promotion

    Social media influencer Joseph Lam Chok was arrested in Hong Kong on Monday, following the suspension of trading on crypto exchange JPEX. Lam, a trained lawyer turned insurance broker who has hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, was among six individuals detained by Hong Kong police in connection with the exchange, according to South China Morning Post. Lam’s arrest related to his promotion of the Dubai-based exchange, which regulators alleged had been operating in the country withou...

    NewsLaw and Order
    3 min read
    Matt Hussey

  • What is Toncoin, the Native Currency of The Open Network?

    In 2018, the messaging platform Telegram released a white paper for a layer-1 blockchain it called the Telegram Open Network.  The project’s currency, called ‘Gram’, was designed to pay transaction fees, settle payments and validate transactions on the network.  Telegram Gets a Crypto Wallet—3 Years After SEC Pumped the Brakes The launch hit the headlines. It broke records in 2018 after raising an eye-watering $1.7 billion in a token sale. It was the second largest ICO in history, behind EOS, wh...

  • Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong at TechCrunch Disrupt 2018. Image: Wikimedia

    Flatcoins 'New Thing On the Horizon': Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong

    Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong believes “flatcoins” are the next iteration of stablecoins. “It’s a new thing on the horizon,” Armstrong said in a recent interview discussing the future direction of the exchange. “There's a couple teams working on it. We're not building something in that realm yet, but we're interested in it,” he added. Flatcoins, a term first mentioned on Twitter by ex-Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan in 2021, are designed to move in line with inflation, instead of being pegged to a...

    NewsCoins
    4 min read
    Matt Hussey
  • Vitalik Buterin. Image: Shutterstock

    Vitalik Buterin: SIM Swap Attack Behind $700,000 Twitter Hack

    Vitalik Buterin has shared details of how hackers managed to take over his Twitter account and steal $691,000 from his followers last week. In a post on decentralized social network Farcaster, the Ethereum co-founder told followers that hackers had used a SIM swap attack to spoof Twitter into resetting his Twitter password, giving them access to his account and his 4.9 million followers. “It was a SIM swap, meaning that someone socially-engineered T-Mobile itself to take over my phone number,” s...

    NewsBusiness
    2 min read
    Matt Hussey
  • FTX is a cryptocurrency exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried. Image: Shutterstock

    FTX Looks to Offload Billions in Crypto: Here’s What it Means

    It’s set to be a busy week for FTX’s legal team. The exchange is seeking regulatory approval to liquidate $3.4 billion in crypto assets, and FTX lawyers are also suing LayerZero, an onchain interoperability protocol to recover lost assets to the tune of $21 million. On September 13, Delaware Bankruptcy Court officials are set to rule on approving a $3.4 billion asset sale submitted by the defunct exchange’s legal team. The proposal, first outlined in August, would appoint Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy...

    NewsCoins
    3 min read
    Matt Hussey
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