ZK community aligned with the core Web3 mission: ZkDay Istanbul roundup

November 20, 2023 Coin Telegraph

The ZkDay Istanbul event offered exposure and networking opportunities to new and upcoming ZK-based projects and entrepreneurs.

As zero-knowledge (ZK) technology marches its way toward solving mainstream use cases, the community backing the disruptive tech continues to grow stronger. Over 1,200 ZK developers, community members and enthusiasts, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, attended the latest zkDay Istanbul event.

ZK meetups attract 1,500 to 4,000 attendees, and zkDay Istanbul — as a platform for knowledge sharing and collaboration — witnessed a significant increase in enthusiasm as well. The event was built on top of the success of zkDay Paris, which attracted early-stage ZK startups and market leaders.

ZK-focused projects from various stages built connections and interacted with top members of zkDay sponsor projects, such as Manta Network, co-hosted by Polyhedra Network and =nil; Foundation. Kenny Li, the chief operating officer and co-founder of the Manta Network, spoke to Cointelegraph about zkDay. He said:

“The interest and attendance for zkDay is a testament to the community’s interest in the space, and we are excited to see that interest continuing to grow from country to country.”

Additionally, zkDay Istanbul ran alongside Devconnect 2023, an event dedicated to Ethereum community, builders and researchers.

*Manta Network co-founder Kenny Li (left) and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin (right) at zkDay Istanbul 2023. Source: Cointelegraph*

The zkDay Pitch competition saw participation from numerous high-quality projects, many of which have previously topped competitive events such as ETHGlobal. Li anticipates future collaborations with zkDay Pitch sponsor ETHGlobal to provide greater exposure to promising upcoming projects.

Abner Jia, the CEO of Polyhedra Network, echoed Li’s optimism about the ZK community’s growth, highlighting the surge in interest in ZK technology:

“With more projects and enthusiasts joining the ZK ecosystem, it’s clear that the community is on a strong growth trajectory.”

Improving user experience remains a common goal across the ZK community as projects strive to onboard users into the next-generation consumer products. Li added:

“That’s why we are so focused on our universal circuits at Manta Pacific, where we can offer ZK-as-a-service so developers can hit the ground running, launching EVM [Ethereum Virtual Machine]-compatible decentralized applications that leverage ZK without having to figure out the cryptographic elements.”

Attendees of zkDay Istanbul highlighted the ZK community’s strong convergence to the core mission of developers, users and community in Web3 in general. Despite the surface-level differences in focus areas and priorities, such as privacy, scalability and real-world applications, the fundamental ethos of decentralization and innovation remains consistent between the two communities.

zkDay has become a tradition for @MantaNetwork and this time it took place in Istanbul.

Endless thanks to the 1000+ people who attended our event!✨@zkdayofficial Istanbul adventure started at the Registration Desk! pic.twitter.com/Ijg708Y15o
— zkDay ️ Istanbul (Devconnect) (@zkdayofficial) November 14, 2023

The year-over-year growth in the ZK dev community suggests that the future of ZK technology holds incredible promise. Jia believes that collaboration remains key for the ZK ecosystem to thrive. “We are all striving for a fair, decentralized future. Leveraging zk is just another step to get there!,” added Li.

Speaking about the future of ZK, Jia also revealed Polyhedra’s newly deployed distributed proof system on zkBridge, named deVirgo. “We are open for collaborations. Entrepreneurs looking to make a mark in this space should closely watch our progress and implementations. It’s essential to keep up with the latest developments in zk technology, as it’s a rapidly evolving field,” he concluded.

The budding ZK community is exploring use cases that can be directly applied to drive next-generation consumer products using intuitive EVM-compatible decentralized applications.

Cardano upgrade delays tied to ‘boring’ academic approach — CEO

November 8, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Cardano

Cardano Foundation CEO Frederik Gregaard told Cointelegraph that the pieces of research that the network has “spent years of doing and implementing” are already being used by some of the fast-moving blockchain platforms.

Cardano has come under fire from critics for delays in the rollout of features and network upgrades. This slower-paced cadence, however, appears to be a badge of honor to Cardano Foundation CEO Frederick Gregaard, who said that the network is “boring,” considering the platform’s academic approach.

“Cardano is boring. We are boring because we are based on academic peer-reviewed papers, [and] we are sharing that across the globe,” Gregaard told Cointelegraph on the sidelines of the recent Cardano Summit in Dubai.

*Cardano Foundation CEO Frederik Gregaard (right) with Cointelegraph Arabic reporter Hermi De Ramos (left) at the Cardano Summit in Dubai. Source: Cointelegraph*

The executive pointed out that the pieces of research that Cardano has “spent years of doing and implementing” are already being used by some of the fast-moving blockchain platforms, which he feels “incredibly proud” of:

“If they take some of the core principles we’ve researched and invented, this is good for the earth… [and] humanity at large because this makes more resilient, more adaptable blockchains around the world.”

Gregaard added that the trend is also important with the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) that would require the industry to have computable data. He added:

“I say, ‘Sorry, we are boring.’ But we are one of the oldest projects. We are very big… We are the one who has the most changes on GitHub, and we have not been down for over 2000 days… Boring sometimes is good.”

Cardano’s recent significant updates, including the layer-2 scalability solution Hydra in May and the stake-based multisignature protocol Mithril in July, resulted in network upticks following their launch. More recently, in the third quarter of 2023, while Cardano’s decentralized finance (DeFi) activity remained flat, its total value locked (TVL) was up 198% year-to-date, data from blockchain analytics firm Messari shows. The network’s TVL, which ranked 34th at the beginning of the year, now sits at 15th among all the networks reviewed.

As the ecosystem prepares for the upcoming Voltaire, the final era of the Cardano roadmap that focuses on decentralized governance, Gregaard said the ecosystem’s aspiration levels on on-chain governance “is way higher than other projects,” but they try to take the learnings from other networks, including MakerDAO. He said:

“This is about capturing the essence of the vision and mission and the culture of Cardano. I think the discussion about how much you can push on-chain and off-chain is probably even more relevant.”

The executive added that Cardano will continue conducting workshops next year, where the community will be able to “verify, validate and contribute to a constitutional document.”

The workshop details, as shown above, are aligned with the Cardano Improvement Proposal 1694 (CIP-1694).

Tribalism in crypto

The Cardano ecosystem has been known in the space for having a strong community. However, similar to other projects in the decentralized realm, it has not been spared from controversies surrounding crypto tribalism — a phenomenon that has fragmented the industry.

Gregaard sees it as a strength, saying that a public, permissionless blockchain needs a large community across all the infrastructure, including the value capture layer. He added that they continue to add to this community, claiming they have recorded over 200,000 new noncustodial wallets in a bear market.

The executive also said that the “best work” in the space happened in second and third-generation blockchains founded by known figures, suggesting that people follow projects due to the “legacy” behind them.

Ethereum co-founders Charles Hoskinson and Gavin Wood, for instance, left the second-generation blockchain and started their own platforms, namely Cardano and Polkadot, respectively.

“Some of it is also nearly emotions and politics, but that’s when it’s good to have somebody like Cardano Foundation because we are nonprofit. We are not directed by any founders,” Gregaard explained.

“What a lot of people don’t realize is that this tribalism is sort of watering out a little bit, as we more and more see the scope and the impact and, more importantly, the importance of what blockchain can bring to the world order and society at large,” he added.

What lies ahead

According to Gregaard, Cardano will continue following its current path toward becoming a stable network, which will involve a series of hard forks and the enactment of CIP-1694.

“We will change the core governance principles or the execution of the governance while still staying true to the vision. I think you will see multi-party computation, ZK-rollups and a lot of other things.”

The executive added that he expects many nation-states to use Cardano not just in financial markets but also in international trade industry and voting, among other things. He also anticipates the maturity of the application landscape of the network.

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Elon Musk told to dump Satoshi ‘X’ account: crypto community

October 3, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin Community

The crypto community has asked Elon Musk to remove the X account under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto claiming it is in breach of the platform’s terms of use.

Members of the crypto community have rallied behind a post on X calling for Elon Musk to remove the profile on the platform that has been claiming to be the fabled creator of Bitcoin (BTC) Satoshi Nakamoto.

On Oct. 3 the X profile Pledditor posted saying both the account claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto and the account with the handle “Bitcoin” should be removed as they are breaching the platform’s terms of service for using "misleading and deceptive" identities.

Hey @ElonMusk, the @Bitcoin and @Satoshi accounts are in breach of your terms of service for using "misleading and deceptive" identities.

Please remove the checkmarks. pic.twitter.com/BCwFMSOfQJ
— Pledditor (@Pledditor) October 2, 2023

Pledditor continued to highlight the areas of the terms and conditions in which they believed the accounts to be violating.

“You can't misappropriate someone else's identity without disclosing you are a parody account. It's no different than making a fake 'Tesla' or 'Elon Musk' account.”

The terms and conditions of the X platform have a specific policy for misleading or deceptive identities, in which it says, “[users] may not misappropriate the identity of individuals, groups, or organizations or use a fake identity to deceive others.”

It defined this as impersonation of someone who already exists, and also deceptive identities which it defines as misleading the public with an identity that isn’t real.

Aside from the ongoing controversy over the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, which has been a subject of discussion in the Bitcoin and crypto community for years, the account has been claimed to be run by an X user named Andy Rowe back in 2018.

On July 2, 2018 Rowe posted saying he curates “quotes” for the Satoshi account.

I curate quotes from Satoshi Nakamoto at @satoshi. AMA!
— Andy Rowe (@andyrowe) July 2, 2018

The account has been quiet since Oct. 31, 2018. However, on Oct. 2 of this year, the account made a new post saying “Bitcoin is a predicate machine” and then going on to explain how it will “explore different aspects of the whitepaper” over the coming months.

Bitcoin is a predicate machine. Over the following months, we shall explore different aspects that were not explicitly contained within the white paper. These aspects are all parts of bitcoin, and are important. Some of these ideas were touched upon in the early years; now is…
— Satoshi Nakamoto (@satoshi) October 2, 2023

Members of the crypto community rallied behind Pledditor’s post calling the account “embarrassing” and that this “needs to happen now.” One user said he previously tried to reach out to administrators about those accounts but was ignored.

Another user called for the accounts to be disabled and likened them to what X did with the account with the handle “@internet.”

Both accounts should be disabled imo, just like they did with @internet.
— . (@m__btc) October 3, 2023

Satoshi’s true identity remains a mystery, with many takers over the years. The most prominent claim of Satoshi’s identity is from Craig Wright.

On July 21, a court in the United Kingdom granted Wright an appeal in the Bitcoin rights lawsuit, in which he claimed copyright to the Bitcoin white paper and database.

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EU Parliament research recommends non-EU nations tighten crypto regulation

September 22, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Potential implications around financial stability, lower market appeal and mainstream use of stablecoins were the main concerns highlighted by the author of the report.

The European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) highlighted the need for tighter oversight from non-European Union regulators to ensure greater stability and development in the global cryptocurrency market.

*MiCA implementation timeline. Source: esma.europa.eu*

As the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) Act continues on the road to implementation by December 2024, an EPRS report cited the need for establishing a tighter regulatory framework in non-EU jurisdictions:

“There are yet several channels through which the EU's financial system and autonomy is still at risk as it remains dependent on non-EU countries’ policy actions in the context where the MiCA is applicable.”

Potential implications around financial stability, lower market appeal and mainstream use of stablecoins were the main concerns highlighted by the report’s authors.

*Overview of crypto-asset regulations in EU, the United Kingdom and the United States. Source: europarl.europa.eu*

According to the report, the U.S. has a fragmented regulatory landscape, which involves a variety of state-level and federal stakeholders, indirectly impacting legal clarity and regulatory certainty.

*Global stablecoin regulation overview. Source: europarl.europa.eu*

The report also highlighted the U.K.’s Financial Services and Markets Act and a study conducted for the European Parliament, which expects a significant divergence “over the coming years between the UK and the EU in terms of how crypto-assets are identified.”

On Sept. 18, The Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) began a public consultation over changes in its crypto regulations to better align with the upcoming MiCA regulations.

As Cointelegraph previously reported, the revised rulebook proposes changes to the rules for exchanges, custodians and portfolio managers to align with the EU’s MiCA regulations.

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G20 moves forward with international crypto framework

September 9, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The upcoming framework will affect users in several countries by automatically exchanging information about crypto transactions between jurisdictions on an annual basis.

Leaders of the 20 biggest economies in the world — collectively known as G20 — are pushing for a speedy implementation of a cross-border framework for crypto assets.

According to local reports in New Delhi — where the group members are attending for a two-day summit — the framework will facilitate information exchange between countries beginning in 2027.

“We call for the swift implementation of the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) and amendments to the CRS [Common Reporting Standard]. We ask the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes to identify an appropriate and coordinated timeline to commence exchanges by relevant jurisdictions,” noted a consensus declaration signed by G20 leaders.

Several countries would be affected by the upcoming framework, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the European Union. Two-thirds of the world's population lives in a G20 country.

At the One Family Session of the G20 Summit, elaborated on how to collectively think about empowering fellow humans and making our planet more inclusive as well as sustainable.

Gave the example of how technology has been leveraged to bring a positive difference in the lives of… pic.twitter.com/SqT9OjStps
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 9, 2023

The Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework was first introduced in October 2022 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The document was designed to give tax authorities greater visibility into crypto transactions, as well as the individuals behind them.

Under the proposed framework, countries would automatically exchange information on crypto transactions between jurisdictions annually, covering transactions on unregulated crypto exchanges and wallet providers.

Crypto transactions are already subject to new disclosure standards in many countries. In May, the European Union approved updated rules to adhere to the CARF, setting procedures for automatic information sharing between European governments for tax purposes. As per the new rules, transfer of digital assets should be accompanied by the name of the beneficiary, the beneficiary's distributed ledger address, as well as the beneficiary's account number.

The group also endorsed recommendations from the Financial Stability Board (FSB) for the "regulation, supervision and oversight of crypto-assets activities and markets and of global stablecoin arrangements," according to the announcement. Published in July, the recommendations set similar standards for stablecoins as commercial banks, and urge regulators to prohibit any activities hindering the identification of involved participants, among other recommendations.

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India G20 confirms ‘active discussions’ around global crypto framework

September 6, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Sitharaman said crypto was a “threat as well as an opportunity” while confirming that the G20 members are working toward this vision of establishing a global crypto framework.

Under India's G20 presidency, active discussions around establishing a global framework for cryptocurrencies are underway, India’s minister of finance Nirmala Sitharaman has said.

On Aug. 28, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pushed for global collaboration on formulating crypto regulations among G20 (Group of 20) member states, which include 19 countries and the European Union. Modi believes that emerging technologies — like cryptocurrencies — that have global impact should be accompanied by regulations and framework that is adhered to globally.

Sitharaman confirmed that the G20 members are working toward this vision of establishing global crypto framework during the Global Fintech Fest on Sept 5.

*Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on establishing global crypto regulations. Source: Global Fintech Fest*

During the summit, Sitharaman said crypto was a “threat as well as an opportunity.” She highlighted the need for global co-operation to build a responsible financial ecosystem that can effectively help regulate cryptocurrencies worldwide. “Global co-operation is absolutely critical,” she added.

“In an inter-connected world, financial technology transcends broders, therefore, making cross-border partnerships absolutely crucial.”

Ever since India took over the G20 presidency in Q4 2022, the country consistently highlighted the need for global collaboration when it comes to financial security and stability. However, the finance minister confirmed that G20 members are together working on the the highly anticipated crypto regulations.

“India’s (G20) presidency has laid out issues related to regulating or understanding that there should be a framework for handling issues related to crypto assets. Active discussions are happening, content-rich papers from institutions like IMF, FSB, OECD are all being discussed on various issues.”

Sitharaman also confirmed that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Financial Stability Board (FSB) have submitted their synthesis papers on cryptocurrency.

India’s rising interest in blockchain and crypto becomes more evident after the National Payments Corporation Of India’s (NPCI) recent job posting. NPCI, an initiative led by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and 247 Indian banking companies, is looking to hire a head of blockchain.

*NPCI’s job posting for a head of blockchain. Source: LinkedIn*

The ideal candidate will be a seasoned technologist with at least six years of experience in developing and implementing blockchain, who will be primarily tasked with identifying “avenues wherever blockchain-driven solutions can be used.”

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Prime Trust bankruptcy spotted by crypto community months ahead

August 15, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bankruptcy

Months before Prime Trust filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, online sleuths in the crypto community were on the case and continue to follow the money.

Crypto custodian Prime Trust filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States state of Delaware on Aug. 14 after reporting shortfalls in customer funds. Prime Trust said it’s working with 25,000 to 50,000 creditors and has liabilities of up to $500 million.

Although the news of the company’s financial instability broke mid-way through August, members of the crypto community months had already flagged the company’s shaky position weeks before the filing.

On June 27, the business regulator in the state of Nevada issued a cease and desist order to Prime Trust after it alleged the custodian had a shortfall of customer funds and couldn’t honor customer withdrawals.

Cryptocurrency exchanges BitGo and CoinMetro posted on X (formerly Twitter) about service disruptions at the hands of Prime Trust during that time period.

Members of the crypto community immediately responded to these updates, with one user claiming Prime Trust was “going bust” on June 22.

Looks like a bunch more people are going to be getting in line in bankruptcy court.

Prime Trust is going Prime Bust. The real question is how long has the money been missing, and where did it go?

The best way to run a Ponzi scheme is to create thousands of smaller Ponzi schemes… pic.twitter.com/eUdVLMyZHE
— Things Sam is Freaking Out About (@Bitfinexed) June 22, 2023

Although recent events suggest that community members’ concerns were correct, on June 22, the founder and CEO of CoinMetro, Kevin Murcko, said in direct response to the posts that he wouldn’t count on “insolvency” for Prime Trust just yet.

I wouldn't jump the gun on assuming insolvencyfor prime trust. On our side we will make sure clients are protected. Just a bump in the road.

Seems bitgo was or is interested in buying PT as well.
— Kevin Murcko (@KevinMurcko) June 22, 2023

Others responded to the conversation and called Prime Trust a “Ponzi scheme” or mocked the idea of the halt on withdrawals being “temporary.”

And, following reports that the crypto custodian had filed for bankruptcy, one user resurrected another community member’s post that had signaled Prime Trust’s difficulties almost two months ahead of the news in June:

G spot on as usualhttps://t.co/InAyBUpzU0
— BoJack (@BoJackCapital) August 15, 2023

After the official news of Prime Trust’s bankruptcy broke, the internet crypto community began to voice new suspicions.

On Aug. 14, one user called out the financial service provider Fold — which issues Bitcoin (BTC) rewards debit cards and operates a Bitcoin-backed shopping app — for its choice to switch to the custodian Fortress back in June when Prime Trust began to show signs of instability.

Fold asked users to agree to “Fortress Account” terms in its notice of switching custodians. The user pointed out that Fortress Trust was created by the same person who set up Prime Trust.

WTF @fold_app? The same scammer who ran Prime Trust into bankruptcy started and is running Fortress. ⚠️ pic.twitter.com/PPc7Utwkm7
— §tack-O-§ats⚡️ (@SnarkyAlien) August 14, 2023

Prime Trust was founded in 2016 by the entrepreneur Scott Purcell, who left the company in 2021. That same year, Purcell created Fortress Trust, with rumors surfacing that he no longer held any equity in Prime.

At the time of Prime Trust’s initial troubles in June, prior to the bankruptcy, Purcell commented that Fortress had no exposure to his former company.

Aside from Fold, Fortress also acts as a custodian for the fiat on-ramp Coast and the automated investment app Soon — among others.

Over the last year, the crypto space has been plagued with bankruptcies. The list of troubled companies includes FTX and Celsius, as well as Prime Trust and its payment subsidiary Banq, which also filed for bankruptcy on June 14.

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Arkham on-chain ‘Intel Exchange’ labeled ‘snitch-to-earn’ by Crypto Twitter

July 10, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Users who shared links to a waitlist for the Arkham service had their email addresses exposed on Twitter due to how the references were encoded.

Arkham, a “blockchain intelligence company,” announced what it’s calling the “world’s first on-chain intelligence exchange” on July 10 alongside the launch of a new coin, ARKM, through Binance’s Launchpad service.

Crypto Twitter has had a predictably split response to the announcement, with negative sentiment surrounding Arkham’s purported mission to “deanonymize the blockchain” causing some ire. Chief among the complaints, many of which describe the company’s Intel Exchange as a “snitch-to-earn” or “snitching-as-a-service” program, involves Arkham's perceived role as a centralized intelligence agency.

Fuck this.

It's not even the snitch-to-earn component that I'm entirely against (it is useful as a decentralized whistleblowing dapp for public good).

The submissions end up on Arkham + Arkham Fnd is the central arbiter.

Someone should fork the contracts and decentralize this. https://t.co/hnfehiukd9
— Hudson Jameson (@hudsonjameson) July 10, 2023

As Arkham stated in its announcement thread, there are numerous positive use cases for the utilization of blockchain sleuths as information brokers. However, some experts are concerned about the potential for misuse that the exchange’s proposed business model appears to follow.

According to Arkham, users will be able to anonymously post and accept bounties for information concerning transactions on the blockchain. Once a bounty is completed, whatever entity paid out the bounty will have exclusive access to the data for a period of 90 days. Once the initial exclusivity period ends, Arkham says it will release the data to the public.

hey isn't the most profitable use of this just to put a bounty on whale wallets and then kidnap people?

like

did that come up in any meetings?
— farp (@farp_farp) July 10, 2023

Other commenters wondered what considerations Arkham had given to the notion that a bounty marketplace could put a target on the backs of whales.

Alongside the announcements, Arkham’s been accused of leaking the email addresses of users who signed up for the company’s waitlist and then shared the link on social media.

ABSOLUTE LMAO. ALL #ARKHAM REFERRAL LINKS SHARED ON TWITTER IS DOXXING EVERYONE BECAUSE THE EMAIL IS IN THE REFERRAL URL. @inversebrah https://t.co/HM6veJOmNp -> bkatmis012@gmail.com https://t.co/1INvtXLEva pic.twitter.com/m38VnNMS8k
— m4gicpotato ⟁ (@m4gicpotato) July 10, 2023

Evidently, the web form encodes the user’s email address in simple BASE64. This makes it a trivial matter for someone to associate an email address with the Twitter account sharing the link, prompting at least some speculation that the encoding wasn’t an oversight.

One Twitter user declared that the supposed "doxing” was intentional, adding that Arkham’s “whole goal is to dox (assuming the big players), and what easier way [than] making it easy to decode via ref link."

Definitely. I’m just saying it has to be intentional. Their whole goal is to dox (assuming the big players), and what easier way then making it easy to decode via ref link. It just wasn’t supposed to be exposed this early though. I might just be giving them too much credit tho
— slizzle (@zlizzle) July 10, 2023

BTC Prague 2023: ‘Anyone can produce value in the Bitcoin ecosystem’

June 12, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin Community

Wolf von Laer, the CEO of Students for Liberty, spoke with Cointelegraph about the nature of the Bitcoin community and the need for more openness.

Throughout recent years, the world of crypto has been subject to as much scrutiny and volatility as it has innovation and growth.

A significant component of the industry’s resilience has been the community that supports the technology and its utility to transform digital finance. One of the most prominent crypto communities in the space surrounds Bitcoin (BTC), with millions of users in Reddit groups and conferences across the globe.

At the Bitcoin Prague 2023 conference, Students for Liberty CEO Wolf Von Laer spoke with Cointelegraph about the nature of the Bitcoin community and how there is a place for anyone.

*Cointelegraph reporter Joe Hall with panelists at Bitcoin Prague 2023. Source: Cointelegraph*

Von Laer says the Bitcoin community might not be “as welcoming,” as people at events can often come off too technical or even “hardcore.”

“I’ve seen people walk away and say, oh, this doesn’t seem like my tribe.”

“We need to be more self-reflective and mature,” he said. “If somebody wants to create a community, we need to be careful and ask do we know people that know Bitcoin? Can they explain Bitcoin well?”

Instead, von Laer stressed how everyone has the ability to contribute to the ecosystem and that the “openness of the network” is reflected in the opportunities for people to join the network.

“It’s a marvelous thing to realize how everyone actually can produce value within the Bitcoin ecosystem. Anyone can make a contribution.”

Others in the broader crypto industry have also spoken out on the importance of community within the space, especially in times of volatility or uncertainty.

Recently the new vice president of marketing at Binance spoke with Cointelegraph saying crypto needs to “double down” on community support.

During its fifth anniversary celebration, the team behind the EOS network used the moment to also highlight the importance of its community in light of its recent challenges.

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Reddit crypto community goes offline — Here’s why

June 12, 2023 Coin Telegraph

API

Reddit communities unanimously decided to go private or in read-only modes from June 12 to 14, protesting against an upcoming change that would prevent users from freely accessing APIs and tools.

Numerous sub-communities on Reddit, including popular crypto subreddits, unanimously decided to go private for 48 hours to protest against new company policies that prevent the use of third-party applications.

In April, Reddit announced plans to modify how users interact with the Reddit Data application programming interface (API) — a seven-year-old application enabling developers to create tools and utilities for moderation and other activities.

Most subreddits reacted to the move, as Reddit’s intention to build native moderator tools directly impacts the community’s ability to create and use third-party tools predominantly used for moderating content and interactions. As a result, communities decided to go private or in read-only modes between June 12 and 14, protesting the upcoming change.

*Subreddit r/Bitcoin went private. Source: Reddit*

The list includes major crypto communities, which have been instrumental for millions of investors worldwide to discuss various aspects of the ecosystem.

*Subreddit r/CryptoCurrency participated in the Reddit blackout. Source: Reddit*

Some popular subreddits dedicated to discussing Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrencies protesting against the change include r/Bitcoin, r/CryptoCurrency and r/cardano. Reddit has also received backlash for introducing paid access to its data API.

*A screenshot showing the upcoming changes shared by Reddit. Source: Reddit*

While nearly 3,500 subreddits were estimated to become inaccessible, the numbers could increase if other communities join the revolt. On the other hand, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman backed the social media platform’s decision by revealing the need for being “a self-sustaining business.” He said:

“We respect when you and your communities take action to highlight the things you need, including, at times, going private.”

Moreover, to eradicate the extensive use of third-party moderator tools, Reddit plans to launch mobile moderator tools for Reddit’s iOS and Android apps in the coming months.

Contrary to the ongoing community retaliation, Reddit is close to achieving a new milestone in terms of collectible avatar holders on the platform.

Reddit managed to amass 10 million holders of its collectible avatars within a year of launching Reddit NFTs.

*Reddit’s collectible avatar banner. Source: Reddit*

Reddit’s collectible avatar marketplace was launched on the Ethereum layer-2 scaling network Polygon in July 2022, which allows independent artists and Redditors to design customizable nonfungible token collections.

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global crypto community