Ethereum is almost single-handedly responsible for the popularity and availability of so-called smart contracts. A smart contract is simple in concept: a set of instructions are followed automatically whenever certain conditions are met. The conditions and the instructions that follow are limited mostly by the imagination of the smart contract programmer.
For smart contract programming on Ethereum, the clear favorite is Solidity. Most smart contracts are written in Solidity, and every major resource for Ethereum smart contract programming covers Solidity.
Ethereum (ETH) has launched Kiln, the final testnet its development community will use prior to the blockchain network's long-awaited transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Now that Kiln has gone live, it should be more or less only a matter of time before Ethereum will complete its ‘merge’ with the PoS beacon chain, which is due in Q2 2022.
Bitcoin dropped $2,000 from $47,500 to $45,500 in four hours after news broke that the EU is set to cripple innovation in the blockchain space. Today, the European Parliament voted in favor of outlawing ‘unhosted wallets’ within the European Union.
On March 31, the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) approved provisions to Europe’s Transfer of Funds Regulation that restricts Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) from transacting with unhosted wallets without verifying their owners’ identities beforehand.
Making secure cross-chain bridges is not easy work, as Axie Infinity’s developers Sky Mavis found out. The leading GameFi protocol runs on the Ronin blockchain, which is optimized for gaming. On March 23rd, the Ethereum side of the Ronin bridge was hacked, for the loss of 173,600 ETH and 25.2 million USDC (~$545 million total at time of exploit, over $620 million when discovered). Miraculously, this cataclysmic exploit went totally unnoticed until 6 days later, on March 29th, when a whale tried to withdraw 5,000 ETH from the bridge and could not.
Traditional financial markets are only open during business hours, closed on the weekends, and take off for holidays. In contrast, crypto never sleeps. The blockchain never takes a day off (unless it’s Cardano). Handling this deluge of information is impossible for a single person to handle, and trying to ingest it all manually is inefficient.
But what if you can’t code bots to watch the chain for you? Fear not! I’ve written this quick guide on how to monitor smart contracts automatically, using simple, free tools.
The BIS began operating in 1930 as a way to promote cooperation for WWI war reparations imposed on Germany. It is owned by 63 other central banks that make up over 95% of global GDP, and serves as an intermediary for those central banks. In a way, they provide services to the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank like JP Morgan provides services to their clients.
Every day crypto continues to grow larger and larger, self-custody become much more important.
Bitcoin and Ethereum offer you a better way to deal with money. They make you the sole owner of your assets, and provide more capabilities, but only if you own the “private keys”. Meaning that you are the only one who can sign the transaction to spend or send your crypto. The private keys are like the password for access to the funds.
On March 30, 6s Capital, a commercial lender powered by MakerDAO, closed a real estate financing deal worth $7.8M for Tesla, the world’s leading electric vehicle company and the second-largest publicly-traded Bitcoin holder.
A fragment of an NFT by Kvi Kvi. Source: metahistory.gallery
NFTs news
Ukraine’s recently opened "NFT museum" - Meta History: Museum of War - has already sold 1,282 artworks, raising ETH 190 (USD 653,000), on the first day of the sales, per data from the Ministry of Digital Transformation. They are raising funds to rebuild the museums, theaters, and other cultural institutions destroyed by Russian occupiers. Moreover, the NFT-Museum team is preparing "a world auction, which will include the first 4 artworks of Ukrainian artists and the artworks of the winners of the international competition PROSPECT100." Only owners of NFT from the Meta History Museum collection can take part in the auction, according to the ministry.
