Stories by Matt Hussey
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...
Who is Satoshi Nakamoto, The Creator of Bitcoin?
Bitcoin arrived in 2008 but its creator to this day is known only by the pseudonym they chose: 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. Satoshi Nakamoto: what we know The first evidence of the Bitcoin we know today turned up in August of 2008 when someone anonymously registered the domain name bitcoin.org. In October of that year, an author...
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...
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...
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...
What Is XRP? The Cryptocurrency Created by Ripple Founders
Earn a free on-chain NFT by taking our free course, Crypto Investing: Fundamentals First. Decrypt will cover gas fees for the first 10,000 mints! XRP has soared in the weeks following he U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's decision to drop its suit against Ripple in October 2023. The investment watchdog organization had charged the Ripple Chief Executive Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen in 2020 with an unregistered sales of securities, in the form of $1.3 billion in XRP. Ripp...
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.”...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
What are Staking and Lending? The Crypto Investment That Can Earn Interest
Want to trade NFTs but don't want to make it a guessing game? Take Degen U's new course, Mastering NFT Trading, and earn an on-chain certificate. A top instructor will help you seize the right moment to trade—and have fun while doing it. Staking and lending are ways crypto investors can attempt to profit from crypto. If buying a cryptocurrency and holding it is the first step on the ladder of investing in cryptocurrencies, lending and staking are step two. While staking helps secure a network, l...
What Are Decentralized Marketplaces?
Centralized marketplace platforms have the ability to provide a level of service and reliability that mainstream users have come to expect, but may also lack transparency, charge high fees, and impose rules that users may not agree with. That's where decentralized marketplaces come in. Below we explore what they are, how they work and give some examples of decentralized marketplaces in action. What is a Decentralized Marketplace? Decentralized marketplaces are what blockchains are all about. Th...
What are cryptocurrency wallets?
Want to start buying and trading in cryptocurrency? You’re going to need a cryptocurrency wallet first. In this guide you’ll learn about what a wallet is, the different types, and how they might be used in future. A cryptocurrency wallet is a piece of software that stores your public and private keys. More on keys below. Vitalik Buterin Explains How Ethereum Plans to Make Crypto Wallets as Simple as Email It also allows you to send and receive digital currencies and monitor your balance. It’s li...
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