Andrew Throuvalas

Polygon is a proof-of-stake blockchain network. Image: Shutterstock.

Swiss Fintech Taurus Taps Polygon in New Tokenization Push

Taurus—a Swiss crypto platform for tokenizing assets—announced its integration with Polygon on Friday, allowing banks to “issue, book, and service,” tokenized assets on the speedy, proof-of-stake network. The partnership creates another link between the crypto industry and the European banking segment, helping reimagine old-school financial instruments on a modern, relatively decentralized foundation. “Building on Polygon [...] is a natural step for Taurus,” said Taurus CMO Victor Busson, in a p

AI Developers Evoke Satoshi Nakamoto With ‘Talk2Satoshi’ Chatbot

If you missed your chance to talk with Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto back in 2010, there’s now a chatbot for that. On Wednesday, developers Pierre Corbin and Hugo Ferrer announced an artificial intelligence bot that answers questions about Bitcoin as if they came straight from the protocol’s anonymous creator. “We call it “Talk2Satoshi,” said Corbin when revealing the tool over Twitter. “We provide you with the tool for free. We only ask you to contribute to help us cover some of the API co

Coinbase Pauses Ethereum Staking Reward Withdrawals for Up to Three Days

Coinbase – the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States – temporarily paused payouts of ETH staking rewards on Tuesday, citing a “minor technical issue.” While the exchange promised that user rewards are “still being earned and will be paid out,” the company said the issue might take up to three days to fully resolve. We’ve temporarily paused ETH staking reward payouts to address a minor technical issue. Rest assured, ETH staking is not impacted and rewards are still being earned a

Coinbase is now a publicly traded company. Image: Shutterstock

COIN Pumps 14% After Coinbase Posts Bullish Q1 Earnings Report

Shares in Coinbase, America’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, surged over 13% on Friday after its Q1 earnings numbers showed signs of recovery from its dismal figures in 2022. The company reeled in $736 million in revenue in the first three months of the year—a 22% boost from the previous quarter—while also decreasing operating expenses by 24% within that time. This was in line with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong’s decision in early January to cut the exchange’s headcount by 950 people. The va

Paxful CEO Says Users Can Withdraw Funds—But They Say Otherwise

Ray Youssef—ex-CEO of the now-shuttered peer-to-peer Bitcoin marketplace Paxful—triumphantly announced yesterday that withdrawals are now unfrozen for the vast majority of users. "Sleepless night with no engineers or compliance folks but we did it," Youssef wrote. "This is my final act as CEO of Paxful." According to a tweet from the former executive, 88% of frozen Paxful user accounts are now eligible for withdrawals. Or are they? Despite Youssef explicitly inviting his followers to post a re

Chia was created by BitTorrent founder Bram Cohen. Image: Shutterstock

XCH Token Soars 12% After Chia Signals Interest in Going Public

Chia (XCH)—a layer-1 blockchain developed by BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen—is soaring after the Chia Network signaled its intention to become a publicly listed company. “Chia Network, Inc. today announced that it has confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the 'SEC') relating to the proposed initial public offering of its common stock,” said the company in a press release on Friday. Chia Network, Inc. is the company beh

ChatGPT Picks Gold Over Bitcoin, Says Crypto Critic Peter Schiff

The ChatGPT artificial intelligence tool appears to have picked a side in the long-running debate over the respective worth of gold versus Bitcoin as a sound investment. Financial commentator Peter Schiff has praised the prominent generative text engine for reportedly favoring gold. “AI is pretty intelligent after all,” he tweeted on Wednesday. “It didn't recommend any allocation to Bitcoin.” The investor referenced a report from last week covering ChatGPT’s idea of a “recession-proof” portfoli

Bitcoin and the environment. Image: Shutterstock

Report Blasts Bitcoin Mining for Pollution—But Bitcoiners Aren’t Buying It

Bitcoin OGs are skeptical of a report published by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) on Wednesday, detailing how Bitcoin miners are “polluting” communities across the United States. Working through six case studies, the non-profit group says it has documented how the mining industry is interfering with the day-to-day life of Americans through air, water, and noise pollution. “The incessant din created by mining operations continues 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and is driving nearby res

‘Bitcoin Stamps’ NFTs Are Gaining On Ordinals

There’s another wave of NFTs starting to flood the Bitcoin blockchain—and they’re not in the form of Ordinals. The emergent STAMPS (Secure Tradeable Art Maintained Securely) protocol is proposing a different method of embedding image data into the OG blockchain, making different tradeoffs compared to the inscription technology that exploded in popularity earlier this year. Rather than storing image data within prunable transaction witness data, “Bitcoin Stamps” store it directly within spendable

Paxful is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency marketplace. Image: Shutterstock

Paxful Vows to Refund Celsius Earn Bankruptcy Victims

As customers of Celsius wait for the crypto lender’s bankruptcy proceedings to play out, one crypto exec has stepped up to make its lenders whole. Ray Youssef, CEO of the peer-to-peer Bitcoin marketplace Paxful, has agreed to refund all affected users of its Paxful Earn product, which let users earn a yield on their Bitcoin in partnership with Celsius. “Paxful, like many others, were paralyzed to act as we could not retrieve funds held by Celsius,” wrote Youssef in a public statement on Wednes

ARK Invest's Cathie Wood. Image: ARK Invest

Cathie Wood Buys the Dip on Coinbase Stock Two Days After Dumping

Cathie Wood’s tech-focused investment firm, ARK Invest, bought nearly $18 million worth of Coinbase (COIN) shares shortly after the exchange was threatened with enforcement action from regulators on Wednesday. The crypto exchange, which has been targeted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for allegedly violating federal securities laws, traded from over $84 to less than $62 on Wednesday. Wood scooped up 268,928 shares in the company the following day, at which time COIN close

Machankura Boosts African Bitcoin Adoption Without the Internet

How have nearly 3,000 Africans adopted Bitcoin—often called “the internet of money”—without actually having access to the internet? The answer lies with Machankura, a tool built by software developer Kgothatso Ngako for using Bitcoin with nothing but a feature phone. No computer, smartphone, or internet service is required. “I had set up a raspberry pi running both a Bitcoin and Lightning node and was trying to figure out what I could build on top of it,” Ngako told Decrypt via direct message.

Chipper Cash Payments Firm Clarifies SVB Exposure, Denies Sales Talks

African Fintech company Chipper Cash, which was doubly backed by collapsed financial giants FTX and Silicon Valley Bank, may be experiencing some financial troubles. Or is it? Chipper Cash CEO Ham Serunjogi put out a statement on Sunday claiming that the recent failings of both Silicon Valley Bank and Silvergate Bank, while chaotic, had an “insignificant” effect on the payments company. “We had a very limited amount of money (only about $1M) held in our SVB account at the time the bank was taken

Images: Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

CFTC Chair Says Ethereum Is a Commodity—Despite Gensler’s ‘Bitcoin Only’ Position

The chairman of the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has taken a firm stance against the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s subtle power creep over the digital asset market. Rostin Behnam told the Senate Agriculture Committee on Wednesday that Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency next to Bitcoin, is a commodity. “It’s been listed on CFTC exchanges for quite some time, and for that reason,” said Behnam, who argued that it creates a “direct jurisdictional hook” for t

Bitcoin Twitter Taunts Paul Krugman Over TradFi Troubles

Famed economist Paul Krugman was never a crypto fan, but personal issues with a traditional financial company left him with some frustration to vent on Wednesday. “I've been using Venmo for years, but now it won't allow me to make payments,” he tweeted. “I spent a long time in chat with representatives, and they told me that they can't explain why—or fix it. The software has taken control.” The irony wasn’t lost on Bitcoiners, whose responses could be summed up in an oft-used three-word phrase:

What Is a Sovereign Rollup? Rollkit Pitches Second Layer for Bitcoin

Just a few months after the very first NFT was inscribed into Bitcoin, developers are trying to imbue the age-old blockchain with another new-age technology: rollups. At least that’s what Rollkit—a self-described “modular framework for rollups”—claimed over Twitter on Sunday, revealing a research integration that would allow “sovereign rollups” on Bitcoin. According to Rollkit, its new rollup solution lets users produce rollups by retrieving and storing data on the Bitcoin blockchain. It was in

Ethereum Gas Fees Are Slowly Climbing as NFT Market Rebounds

Ethereum’s fee market is slowly returning to form amid a recent resurgence in NFT trading activity across the network. According to on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, the median price for gas powering Ethereum transactions cost roughly 10 to 20 gwei over the past 9 months. This month, that cost had risen to 38 gwei—higher than during key bear market events including FTX’s collapse in November (36 gwei) and Binance’s “bank run” in December (24 gwei). “The incremental nature of the gas demand su

March Mathieu is the co-founder of Salesforce's Web3 studio. (Photo by Francesca Conti for Decrypt)

'The Wallet Is the New Cookie': Salesforce Web3 Lead

Salesforce, the cloud-based CRM software giant, is breaking into Web3 to help future-proof its clients and connect with a new generation of customers. “It’s a new kind of relationship with a new generation of customers, with–at its heart–a new set of data,” the co-founder of Salesforce's Web3 studio Marc Mathieu said in an interview with Decrypt at NFT Paris on Friday. With industry hype and inflated digital asset valuations currently on “pause,” the company sees now as a great time for custom

Optimism Pumps 16% Amid Coinbase Layer-2 Launch

Optimism–a scaling solution built on Ethereum–has seen the price of its native token soar amid Coinbase’s announcement of its own layer-2 network on Thursday. The token, OP, is up 16% on the day according to CoinGecko, and peaked just above $3 before retracing to around $2.90 at press time. By comparison, most major cryptocurrencies have been relatively stagnant over the last 24 hours, with none rising by more than 1%. Coinbase said that its new project, called “Base,” will be powered by Optim

Canadian Regulators Say No to Algorithmic Stablecoins

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA)—made up of securities regulators from each of the 10 provinces and 3 territories in Canada—have published a long list of new requirements for crypto companies wishing to stay legally compliant, and stablecoin platforms are clearly in the agency's crosshairs. Crypto asset trading platforms within the country will now be prohibited from allowing customers to buy or deposit stablecoins, or other "Value Referenced Crypto Assets" (VRCAs), without the CSA’

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