What happens when 1% of Bitcoin holders control 99% of BTC supply?

July 29, 2024 Coin Telegraph

Whales have amassed a large portion of the Bitcoin in circulation, with around 1.86% of addresses holding most of the supply.

Bitcoin first came into existence on Jan. 3, 2009 when Satoshi Nakamoto mined the genesis block, minting the first cryptocurrency. In the years since, some wallet addresses have amassed a large portion of the supply.

According to the Blockchain Council, more than 19.71 million Bitcoin (BTC) have been awarded to miners in block rewards. Nakamoto’s white paper dictates only 21 million are available, meaning most Bitcoin is already in circulation.

BitInfoCharts data shows that around 1.86% of wallet addresses — over one million — hold more than 90% of all total BTC currently in circulation. Known as whales, some of these individuals or entities hold large amounts of crypto.

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Compound Finance proposals elicit ‘governance attack’ allegations

July 28, 2024 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Community risk assessors warned against the perceived centralization effort days before the proposal’s passage.

Compound Finance, a decentralized lending and borrowing protocol, appears to be going through a tumultuous community disagreement over governance, according to community forums and a slew of recent proposals.

The passage of proposal 289, on July 28, appears to be the catalyst for a series of allegations on social media that a governance attack has occurred as perpetuated by a voting bloc called the “Golden Boys.”

Over on the Compound governance message boards, insiders specifically warned such an event would occur just days before as discussions over the proposals played out.

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VanEck says Bitcoin could hit $2.9 million per coin by 2050

July 25, 2024 Coin Telegraph

VanEck says Bitcoin could hit .9 million per coin by 2050

Analysis

Bitcoin Layer-2s could be collectively worth around $7.6 trillion, the report added.

Investment manager VanEck foresees Bitcoin (BTC) potentially hitting $61 trillion in total market capitalization — or some $2.9 million per coin — in 2050 as a result of massive demand for the decentralized currency as collateral for trade settlement and a reserve for central banks, according to a July 24 report.

“It is conceivable that by 2050 Bitcoin could be used to settle 10% of the globe’s international trade and 5% of the world’s domestic trade,” VanEck said in the report. “This scenario would result in central banks holding 2.5% of their assets in BTC.”

VanEck adds that scaling solutions for Bitcoin’s blockchain network — Bitcoin Layer-2s — could collectively be worth approximately $7.6 trillion, or around 12% of BTC’s total value.

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Fireblocks launches Web3 startup toolkit amid a surge in new ventures

July 25, 2024 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The number of startups using the Web3 platform has already increased by some 50%, according to Fireblocks.

Fireblocks, the Web3 infrastructure platform, launched a suite of tools specifically designed for startups amid a proliferation of early-stage blockchain ventures, according to a July 25 press release.

The toolkit — Fireblocks for Startups — is designed to help startups quickly build and launch Web3 products and includes solutions for treasury management, self-custody, private key storage, and secure digital asset transfers, the company said.

“The short history of crypto shows that successful projects — whether crypto exchanges, DeFi bridges, or NFT platforms — go through periods of hypergrowth during market upswings, with development teams focused solely on maintaining front-end stability while neglecting security in the process,” Idan Ofrat, Co-founder & Chief Product Officer of Fireblocks, said in a statement.

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Microsoft blames Crowdstrike meltdown on 2009 European Union deal

July 22, 2024 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The security incident affected 8.5 million Windows systems worldwide as commercial operations were hit with the “blue screen of death.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, a Microsoft spokesperson blamed the recent Crowdstrike failure on a 2009 regulatory deal between Microsoft and the European Union.

The spokesperson claimed Microsoft agreed to give external security developers the same level of access to interact with the software as Microsoft, paving the way for critical bugs.

Patrick Wardle, the CEO of DoubleYou, explained that monolithic ecosystems like Apple’s MacOS are more resistant to such critical errors because of their walled-off architecture. In 2020, Apple revoked similar security clearances for its operating system, insulating it from third-party security failures and coding conflicts.

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Grayscale launches new decentralized AI fund

July 17, 2024 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The fund is available only for accredited investors. Its basket includes native tokens from Bittensor, Filecoin, Livepeer, Near and Render.

Asset manager Grayscale has launched a new crypto fund that provides investors with exposure to decentralized artificial intelligence protocols.

According to a July 17 announcement, the Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund kicks off with a basket of tokens that include Bittensor (TAO), Filecoin (FIL), Livepeer (LPT), Near (NEAR) and Render (RNDR).

The fund is only available for accredited investors, which means it isn’t available to the general public.

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Valour launches first ETP for Near Protocol’s native token

July 17, 2024 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The exchange-traded product will be available on Sweden’s Spotlight Stock Market.

Crypto fund issuer Valour has launched an exchange-traded product (ETP) for Near Protocol’s native token, NEAR, according to a July 17 announcement from Valour’s parent company, DeFi Technologies (CBOE CA: DEFI).

The ETP will trade on Sweden’s Spotlight Stock Market, enabling retail and institutional investors to gain exposure to the decentralized application development platform, the announcement said.

Valour’s head of product, Elaine Buehler, said the new fund offering will allow investors to access an asset known for its “transformative impact on DeFi and NFTs,” referring to decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens.

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How DePin Networks can decentralize law enforcement

July 4, 2024 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Everything from radar arrays to acoustic networks that triangulate active shooters can be decentralized and community-owned.

A new report from venture capital firm Zee Prime Capital highlighted the decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePin) can potentially transform law enforcement from a collection of centralized structures monopolized by the state to community-based enterprises that maximize transparency.

Decentralized security (DeSec) is a nascent subsector of distributed infrastructure that involves building distributed surveillance and law enforcement architecture, like ballistic triangulation systems, radar arrays, and community patrol decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).

According to an article from Luffistotle, a writer at Zee Prime, blockchain and decentralized architecture can excel in these areas because of the tendency to build security redundancies in these systems.

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Sentient closes $85M seed round for open-source AI

July 2, 2024 Coin Telegraph

Sentient closes M seed round for open-source AI

Coin Telegraph

The round was led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund alongside Pantera Capital, Framework Ventures and others.

Sentient, an open-source development platform for artificial intelligence (AI), has secured $85 million in a seed funding round led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund alongside Pantera Capital and Framework Ventures.

According to a July 2 announcement, the funds will support the hiring of engineers and the development of Sentient’s open AI platform. The startup is an AI research organization that wants to enable AI developers to monetize their open-source models and data, similar to other ecosystems such as the Super Intelligence Alliance.

“We are in an era reminiscent of the 1995 closed-source software landscape. At present, the dominance of closed-source AI has centralized immense power with a few organizations. Although open-source AI development exists, it lacks sufficient incentives for developers and does not enable them to be equal stakeholders,” the company stated.

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Blockchain: A New Battleground in Age-Old Tussle Between Privacy Advocates and Data-Hungry Governments, Says Colored Coins Founder

July 1, 2024 Bitcoin.com

bitcoin.com

Although many players in the blockchain industry prioritize maximizing throughput, Alex Mizrahi, co-founder of Chromaway, believes providing users with a transparent, secure, and decentralized computing environment is still equally important. So while blockchain projects aspire to satisfy the basic need to transact, Mizrahi emphasizes that establishing consensus among nodes should not be the sole goal. […]

Decentralization