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Nansen lays off 30% of its workforce

The CEO of Nansen cited two reasons for the layoffs, including an overly aggressive hiring phase during the bull market and the prolonged crypto bear market that followed.

Blockchain analytics platform Nansen has announced the trimming of its workforce by 30%. On May 30, the Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik disclosed on Twitter that the company had to make an “extremely difficult decision to reduce the size of the Nansen team.” 

Svanevik gave two major reasons for the reduction in Nansen’s workforce. The first was the company's rapid scaling during its initial years of operation, which “led the organization to taking on surface area that's not truly part of Nansen's core strategy.”

Svanevik also cited a brutal year for crypto markets as the second reason for the layoffs. Despite efforts to diversify revenue streams through enterprise and institutional customers, Nansen's cost base remained relatively high compared to the company's current position. He added that although the company has “several years of runway,” its “priority is to build a sustainable business.”

The CEO said laid-off employees would be entitled to severance packages. 

Related: Crypto layoffs decelerate, with layoffs falling to 570 in February

Mass layoffs continue to plague the crypto industry, though they have slowed significantly in recent months. In January, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced a workforce reduction of 20%. The decision to cut 950 jobs was attributed to Coinbase's efforts to decrease operating costs by approximately 25% amid the ongoing crypto winter. 

At the beginning of the year, companies owned by Digital Currency Group (DCG), a crypto venture capital firm, also laid off over 500 employees due to bearish market conditions exacerbated by the collapse of FTX. 

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Bitcoin’s next rally may be imminent, on-chain analyst says

On-chain data shows that an imminent Bitcoin rally could drive its price up to $32,000, says Glassnode lead analyst James Check.

After a long period of unusually low volatility, Bitcoin’s (BTC) next major price move is likely imminent and could drive BTC to $32,000, according to James Check, lead on-chain analyst at Glassnode. That price level is where Bitcoin’s “true cost basis is sitting,” Check explained in an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph. 

To calculate Bitcoin’s average cost basis — the average price at which BTC was bought — Check and his team removed coins that are lost forever from the calculation and focused on active Bitcoin investors. 

“It’s where the mean reversion level would be, so a rally to that level, to be honest, wouldn’t surprise me,” he said.

Despite this bullish scenario, Check also pointed out that a large number of investors are likely tired of the bear market and waiting for Bitcoin to reach that level before selling, thus putting pressure on the price. 

“That's an area where you start getting more resistance,” he stated.

To find out more about the chances of an upcoming Bitcoin rally, check the full interview on our YouTube channel — and don’t forget to subscribe!

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Coinbase Cloud plugs into Chainlink oracle network to improve smart contract reliability

Chainlink’s oracle network will welcome Coinbase Cloud as a node operator to improve high-quality data provision to several blockchain protocols.

Coinbase Cloud will leverage its global infrastructure and experience managing blockchain data to bolster the security and reliability of the Chainlink blockchain oracle network.

The United States-based cryptocurrency exchange’s cloud service will operate as a new node operator on the Chainlink network in a partnership set to improve the decentralization of the Web3 ecosystem. 

Coinbase Cloud’s infrastructure already services several leading blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, Algorand and Aptos. Chainlink node operators are integral to the network and are responsible for connecting smart contracts on different blockchains to data and systems.

Related: Google Cloud broadens Web3 startup program with 11 blockchain firms

Chainlink creates a bridge between Web2 and Web3 by sourcing, formatting and transmitting data to smart contracts. A prime example is Chainlink’s provision of decentralized price feeds, which secures an estimated $22 billion of value locked in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, including Synthetix, Aave, Compound and dYdX.

Coinbase Cloud group product manager Kai Zhao highlighted the importance of node operators across the cryptocurrency ecosystem, ensuring the security and reliability of smart contracts:

“By building decentralized Oracles, we are helping to create a more decentralized and trustworthy future for blockchain technology. We believe on-chain is the next online, and we look forward to working with Chainlink to further this future.“

Chainlink Labs global head of centralized finance, sales and strategy, William Reilly, added that the latest node operator would add experience and robust infrastructure to the oracle network, benefitting a wide range of Web3 products, services and applications:

“Their [Coinbase Cloud] involvement will undoubtedly contribute to the advancement of decentralized applications, further propelling the blockchain industry to new heights.“

Coinbase signaled its intent to become a central pillar in the wider Web3 ecosystem in 2021, with Coinbase chief product officer Surojit Chatterjee highlighting its ambition to become the Amazon Web Services of the crypto industry.

Coinbase Cloud is central to this gambit, with its suite of products powering a number of services across the ecosystem. The service emerged from Coinbase’s acquisition of blockchain infrastructure provider Bison Trails in early 2021.

Coinbase Cloud’s Node platform allows users to create and manage Web3 applications, while the firm also launched its own Ethereum layer-2 network called Base in February 2022.

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OpenAI’s ChatGPT re-enters Italy after obliging transparency demands

The revocation of the ban in Italy required ChatGPT to reveal its data processing practices and implement age-gating measures among other legal requirements.

Popular interactive artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, ChatGPT, has been reallowed to provide services in Italy after addressing the privacy concerns raised by the region’s data protection agency, Garante.

On March 31, OpenAI’s ChatGPT was placed on a temporary ban in Italy after a watchdog suspected the AI chatbot of violating the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirement.

Exactly 29 days after the ban, on April 29, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that ChatGPT was “available in Italy again” without revealing the steps taken by the company to comply with the Italian regulator’s transparency demands.

The revocation of the ban required ChatGPT to reveal its data processing practices and implement age-gating measures among other legal requirements. As highlighted by the Italian regulator, the temporary ban was a response to the recent data breach that CHaptGPT suffered on March 20.

While the abrupt ban initially raised possibilities about a wave of AI regulations, the willingness of ChatGPT to swiftly comply with local authorities is seen as an overall positive move, widely welcomed by its users globally.

Related: Bitget pledges $10M for Fetch.ai ecosystem amid ChatGPT boom

European Union legislators are working on a new bill to keep a check on the explosive AI developments.

As Cointelegraph reported, the bill aims to classify AI tools according to the perceived risk levels based on their capability. The risk levels range from minimal to unacceptable. According to the bill, high-risk tools will not be banned entirely but will be subjected to stricter transparency requirements.

If signed into law, generative AI tools, including ChatGPT and Midjourney, will be subject to disclosing the use of copyrighted materials in AI training.

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Solana Labs’ ChatGPT plugin allows AI to fetch blockchain data

The plugin will allow the AI chatbot to check wallet balances, transfer tokens and purchase NFTs when OpenAI makes plugins more widely available.

Solana (SOL) users will soon be able to interact with the network through an open-source plugin enabled on OpenAI’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT.

The plugin will allow ChatGPT to check wallet balances, transfer Solana-native tokens and purchase nonfungible tokens (NFTs) when OpenAI makes plugins available, according to an April 25 tweet by Solana Labs, the development firm behind the Solana blockchain.

Solana Labs is also encouraging developers to test out the open-source code to retrieve on-chain data that they may be interested in.

The screenshot shared by Solana Labs shows that ChatGPT can retrieve a list of NFTs owned by a particular Solana address, which shares an attached metadata link to the NFT — presumably sourced from Solana Labs' block explorer.

Solana Labs did not mention whether the plugin would be launched when OpenAI makes the plugin feature available to all.

The new ChatGPT plugins work by retrieving information from online sources and interacting with third-party websites to respond to commands requested by the user. The feature is currently being rolled out to all users.

However, not everyone is satisfied with the development.

One Twitter user asked Solana to firstly focus on developing a “working block explorer” while another questioned what benefit it would bring to the ecosystem.

It appears as though Solana Labs is now placing more focus on AI, having also announced on April 25 that it will provide $1 million in funding towards projects that build AI tools on Solana:

ChatGPT users can now delete chat history

On the same day, OpenAI announced ChatGPT users can now “turn off” their chat history, thanks to a new privacy feature.

The team announced the rollout of the new feature in an April 25 statement, which was launched to provide users with more control over their data. The firm added:

“Conversations that are started when chat history is disabled won’t be used to train and improve our models, and won’t appear in the history sidebar.”

The feature can be found in ChatGPT’s settings, which can be changed at any time, OpenAI said.

OpenAI explained that deleted conversations will be retained for 30 days for the purposes of reviewing them to monitor abusive material. Once that is cleared, conversations will be permanently deleted.

Related: First of many? How Italy’s ChatGPT ban could trigger a wave of AI regulation

The AI firm also added in a new “export” option for users to download their data and make more sense of what information ChatGPT stores.

The new privacy feature comes as Italy recently became the first European country to ban ChatGPT until it complies with the European Union’s user privacy laws pursuant to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

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Solana launches emissions dashboard to spur blockchain carbon footprint transparency

The Solana Foundation has launched a real-time carbon emissions tracker to monitor the Solana blockchain.

The Solana Foundation, in collaboration with data platform Trycarbonara, announced the launch of a real-time tracking dashboard to measure carbon emissions on the Solana blockchain. 

According to a blog post from the foundation, this represents the first “major smart-contract blockchain” to measure carbon emissions in real-time. The organization hopes this will spur a trend towards carbon emissions transparency in the blockchain ecosystem:

“The Solana Foundation hopes to set a new standard for measuring emissions in blockchain by publishing this data.”

The new dashboard can be found on the Solana Climate website. Trackers there currently display the total node count, megawatt-hours, total carbon emissions average and marginal use, and numerous other indicators.

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The new dashboard also contains several emissions comparison charts where users can view side-by-side conversions depicting Solana usage versus numerous other emission-producing activities.

Burning a gallon of gasoline, according to the chart, produces the equivalent of conducting 140,416.67 transactions on the Solana blockchain, whereas performing a Google search adds up to one and a quarter transactions.

The data used to power the Solana Foundation’s real-time carbon emissions dashboard is available open source and is modeled on the estimated carbon footprint of the Dell PowerEdge R940.

Whether other blockchain outfits will adopt similar tracking systems remains to be seen, but this move from the Solana Foundation comes amid increasing global efforts to utilize blockchain technology to monitor carbon emissions around the world.

As part of its “Shaping Europe’s digital future” initiative, the European Commission, a politically independent arm of the EU’s executive that operates in tandem with the European Council, has lauded blockchain’s ability to serve as a foundation for the accurate measurement of carbon emissions in any sector.

In an article on the EU’s digital strategy blog, the commission wrote, “blockchain can be utilised through smart contracts to better calculate, track and report on the reduction of the carbon footprint across the entire value chain.”

Meanwhile, in the U.S., President Joe Biden recently floated budget plans that would add an excise on electricity used for cryptocurrency mining in the amount of 30%.

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MetaMask third-party provider was hacked, exposing email addresses

The incident affected users who submitted a MetaMask customer service ticket between August 1, 2021 and February 10, 2023.

The email addresses of some MetaMask users may have been exposed to a malicious party due to a recently discovered cyber-security incident. According to parent company ConsenSys, the incident affected users who submitted a customer support ticket to MetaMask between August 1, 2021 and February 10, 2023.

According to the April 14 blog post, unauthorized actors gained access to a third party’s computer system that was used to process customer service requests, potentially allowing them to view customer support tickets submitted by MetaMask users.

These tickets did not ask for information other than what was necessary to help the user, including email address to facilitate replies. However, they did include a “free text-field,” which some users may have used to submit personally identifying information. This may have included “economic or financial information, name, surname, date of birth, phone number, and postal address,” the post stated.

Consensys emphasized that it does not ask for personally identifying information in customer conversations, but some may have provided it anyway.

The company estimates that the breach may have affected up to 7,000 MetaMask users who submitted customer support tickets.

In response to this incident, hardware wallet provider Keystone warned MetaMask users that some might receive more phishing emails due to the incident since the attacker may use this swiped email database to look for potential victims.

Phishing is a scam that tricks a user into providing sensitive information to an attacker. It is often performed by sending an email to the victim that appears to be from a trusted party or someone the victim knows.

Related: MetaMask launches new fiat purchase function for cryptocurrency

Consensys said it had taken steps to eliminate unauthorized access in the future. As a result, tickets submitted after February 10 should be unaffected by the incident. They have also contacted the Data Protection Commission of Ireland and the Information Commissioner’s Office of the United Kingdom to report the breach. In addition, the company’s third-party customer service provider is working with a cyber-security and forensics team to perform a more detailed investigation of the incident.

MetaMask came under fire from privacy advocates in late 2022 when it revealed that it sometimes logged users’ IP addresses. However, it updated its app in March to give users more control over which providers could obtain this information.

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Google Trends Data Shows Bitcoin Search Interest Surged This Week Amid 10-Month Price High

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