Infinite Block, a Korean virtual asset service provider, has announced its participation as a validator in the XRP Ledger (XRPL) blockchain. This move is expected to bolster the XRPL ecosystem within Korea’s unique regulatory environment. Infinite Block aims to provide XRPL and XRP services to corporations while adhering to domestic and international regulatory compliance. The […]
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Japanese Crypto Platform SBI VC Trade Begins Validator Node Operations on XRP Ledger
SBI VC Trade Co., Ltd., a Japanese crypto-asset trading platform, has announced the commencement of its operation as a validator node on the XRP Ledger blockchain. This move aims to earn recognition for reliable performance from the XRP Ledger community and to be selected in the Unique Node List (UNL) of trusted validators recommended by […]
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Paris Saint-Germain Becomes Trailblazing Validator On Chiliz Blockchain, Fueling 9% Rally In CHZ
In a notable development that signifies the growing adoption of blockchain technology in the sports industry, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) has announced its deepening partnership with Chiliz (CHZ), the Malta-based FinTech provider.
PSG, one of the world’s most renowned football clubs, is set to become the first sports club to act as an official blockchain validator on the Chiliz Chain, a significant milestone for both organizations.
Chiliz Billion SportFi Ecosystem Attracts PSG
According to Thursday’s announcement, the latest collaboration will see PSG play an important role in ensuring the security, accuracy, and reliability of the Chiliz chain. In particular, validators are essential to maintaining the integrity and operation of a blockchain network.
Since its partnership with Chiliz in 2018, which led to the launch of the PSG Fan Token – the club’s official digital asset – PSG has become increasingly involved in adopting Web3 in sports. The club’s approach to Web3 innovation is further highlighted by the appointment of Pär Helgosson as the Head of Web3, a position dedicated to driving the club’s digital transformation.
Per the announcement, the choice of Chiliz as the platform for this initiative is attributed to its robust billion SportFi ecosystem, which attracts a large community of crypto-native sports fans.
Chiliz’s infrastructure and support for decentralized applications (dApps) have made it a preferred platform for over 50 web3 projects, showcasing its capacity to attract large Web3 products and services.
Web3 Adoption In Sports
To support the Chiliz Chain’s continued growth, PSG has pledged to use 100% of its accrued revenue as a validator to conduct regular buybacks of the PSG Fan Token from the public marketplace.
According to the announcement, these automated buybacks, executed through smart contracts or decentralized exchanges (DEXs) on the Chiliz chain, are expected to strengthen the club’s digital economy and regularly replenish its Fan Token reserves.
In addition to its role as a validator, PSG and Chiliz will co-host their first-ever blockchain hackathon at the Parc Des Princes stadium in Paris, France, in the summer of 2024.
Alex Dreyfus, CEO of Chiliz and Socios.com, expressed his excitement about PSG’s involvement as an official validator, stating:
This evolution marks a significant milestone in the adoption of web3 by fans, clubs, and leagues. PSG’s active role as an official validator will undoubtedly propel our SportFi ecosystem to new areas, furthering our long-standing partnership with the club.
Pär Helgosson, Head of Web3 at Paris Saint-Germain, emphasized the club’s commitment to designing and shaping the future of web3 sports, stating:
Our commitment is to build a more empowered and sustainable web3 ecosystem, leveraging the solid foundation of our existing relationship with Socios and Chiliz. PSG is committed to fostering innovation, and the club will continue to develop opportunities with other partners in this space.
CHZ Skyrockets To .13 Billion Market Cap
Following the announcement on Thursday, the Chiliz native token CHZ, originally launched as an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token, has experienced a significant surge in its trading price, reaching .1283 and achieving a market capitalization of .13 billion.
Since the beginning of Thursday, the token has continued its upward trend, witnessing a 9% price increase. This growth adds to the token’s sustained positive performance over longer periods, aligning with the overall market trend.
Over the past seven and fourteen days, CHZ has demonstrated notable price increases of 19.5% and 25%, respectively. Moreover, within the last thirty days, it has experienced a remarkable surge of 32%, allowing the token to bridge the year-to-date gap. Despite a decline of approximately 6% over this timeframe, the recent surge has significantly mitigated the overall loss.
Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com
Metamask Launches Ethereum Validator Staking Services
Metamask, the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) wallet, has announced the launch of its validator staking services for Ethereum. The feature will allow users who want to stake their ether to do it simply from the Metamask portfolio interface, without managing hardware equipment, while maintaining custody of the cryptocurrency staked.
Metamask Introduces Validator Staking for Ethereum
Metamask, the Ethereum and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) wallet, has introduced its validator staking services. The new feature allows users with 32 ETH to stake them directly from the interface of Metamask Portfolio.
The service backend is run by Consensys Staking, which manages over 4% of the total ETH staked, with over 33,000 validators having 99.99% uptime. Also, Metamask states that Consensys has not been slashed, a kind of penalty that Ethereum validators face when registering “dishonest behaviors” by the network.
Metamask stresses this addition simplifies the processes for users who want to stake ether. In an article presenting these services, Metamask remarked on the pros of staking ETH using this new functionality, explaining that it “removes the technical barriers needed to secure the network, democratizes participation in Ethereum staking for those unable or unwilling to solo stake, and offers you easy monitoring of your deposit and rewards.”
The wallet also declared it offers one of the highest rewards percentages – over 7% of the network average – giving users the benefit of maintaining self-custody and control of their staked tokens without having to hassle with hardware issues.
Metamask has been slowly including new features to complement its wallet use case. In January 2022, the wallet included the possibility of staking ETH via liquid staking services like Lido or Rocket Pool. In September, it announced that users from certain states of the U.S., the U.K., and parts of Europe would be able to sell their cryptos and cash out to U.S. dollars (USD), British pounds (GBP), and euros (EUR) directly from the wallet interface.
What do you think about Metamask’s validator staking services? Tell us in the comments section below.
Distributed Validator Technology More Primed to Overcome the Ethereum Validator Overload Challenge – Alon Muroch
While the Ethereum network’s migration to a proof of stake (PoS) consensus mechanism has seen the protocol become less energy-intensive, Alon Muroch, the founder of the SSV Network core team, said if the number of validators is not contained this can lead to a network overload.
The Promise Offered by Distributed Validator Technology
Muroch said many stakeholders including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin are already working on potential solutions which can stop the network from becoming overloaded. As the data from Staking Rewards has shown, the Ethereum network is on course to see a 100% staking of ether by December 2024. If this happens, the network runs the risk of not having any ETH left for transaction purposes, the founder of the SSV Network core team argued.
While the idea of capping the number of validators is seen as a more practical solution, Muroch said he believes Distributed Validator Technology (DVT) to be the ideal solution to the problem. He argued that besides helping to remove single points of failure, DVT increases client diversity and overall reduces systemic risk.
In his written answers sent to Bitcoin.com News, Muroch urged the staking community to make DVT the “gold standard” for staking infrastructure.” When this is widely adopted, DVT not only helps to reduce the systemic risk on Ethereum but also enables more robust staking services. Below are Muroch’s answers to all the questions sent.
Bitcoin.com News (BCN): According to Staking Rewards, there are more than 894,000 validators on the Ethereum network, and the number is expected to go up soon. Though it helps with decentralization, do you believe that the sheer number of validator nodes puts great strain on the network?
Alon Muroch (AM): The growing number of validators on the Ethereum network is a concern that’s being actively discussed amongst core devs/communities and projects like SSV Network. In a recent discussion thread, Vitalik [Buterin] addressed some ways to mitigate this issue, one of the solutions is to use DVT.
DVT can enable “grouping” many validators under a single cluster, in a distributed way, reducing the load on the beacon chain.
BCN: Validator weaknesses, especially the key management and downtime risks, are not fully understood by the ETH community. Can you share a few details of what you with our readers?
AM: Running validators at scale is a complicated task, especially in a competitive market like ethereum. In recent weeks, several compromised operators and client developers affected Ethereum’s performance, which could have been avoided with a fault-tolerant protocol like DVT.
BCN: What is Distributed Validator Technology and how does it work?
AM: Distributed-Validator-Tech (DVT) is a protocol that enables the distributed operations of an ethereum validator between independent operators. SSV built a whole DVT network which enables anyone to run a distributed validator in seconds, and for developers to build entire applications.
DVT was initially designed, by the Ethereum Foundation, as a way to distribute ethereum and make it more robust. It helps with removing single points of failure, increasing client diversity and overall reducing systemic risk.
DVT uses a consensus protocol and threshold signatures as its core components (alongside P2P publish/subscribe networking). No single operator within a DVT cluster can compromise the validator.
BCN: With the growing number of Ethereum validators, how does SSV Network’s ETH staking infrastructure ensure seamless utilization of DVT at scale?
AM: DVT at scale is a hard challenge that we’ve been working on for 3 years. It requires a lot of design work, optimization and developer tooling. SSV is built as a network so every tool/ optimization/ research can easily propagate to the entire network.
SSV Just launched to fully permissionless mainnet and already manages 70K ETH stake with better than benchmark performance. We expect the DVT market share to be 10-20X what it is today.
BCN: Just like other protocols, your network claims to be an open-source, decentralized, and permissionless network. While a decentralized platform is always better for Web3, you are also aware that a lot of the decentralized projects have an element of centralization at their core. How do you assure developers and stakers that SSV Network is what you say it is?
AM: From inception, SSV set as a goal the independence of its DAO. That means the DAO has an independent ability to control and progress the protocol. Regardless of any specific team/ person.
To that end, grants are granted to different teams to develop different components of the protocol. The DAO controls the protocol contracts and any updates to them. All of that means that token holders vote to decide how SSV will look in the future.
BCN: Given the benefits of DVT, in your view, what initiatives should the staking industry take or encourage to make DVT as accessible and easy to use as possible for developers?
AM: I believe the staking community needs to adopt DVT as the gold standard for staking infrastructure and make sure we move from a single point of failure setup (the current tech stack most use) to a distributed validator future.
It will reduce the systemic risk on Ethereum and make better and more robust staking services. DVT is to staking what L2s are for transaction processing, a decentralized alternative, which is superior.
What are your thoughts about this interview? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
Terra Classic Validator Presents ‘Legally Absolved Route’ To Burn 800 Million USTC
Back in August 2023, the Terra Classic community passed a proposal that would see 800 million USTC incinerated. This move came about as the community worked to help the token recover and be re-pegged back to the US dollar. Naturally, the proposal passed and the community prepared for the massive burn. That is until the plan hit a snag.
Terra Classic Validators Worried About Code Changes
The 800 million USTC mentioned in the proposal to be burned are the tokens held in the community treasury and managed by Risk Harbor. After the proposal was passed, the community turned toward carrying out the burn, until validators raised an issue with the plan.
According to Risk Harbor, they no longer had the keys to the wallet which happens to be a multi-sig wallet. So by default, these USTC coins are no longer accessible. But to burn the token, validators would be required to update the codes on their nodes and the legalities around this move have been questioned.
As a result of this, validators have begun to vote no to carrying out the burn, citing these legal issues. This is derailing the massive burn which is expected to reduce the token supply by around 8% in a single go.
In response to this, a Terra Classic validator known as Lunanauts has proposed what they say is a “legally absolved route” to completing the burn. Basically, Lunanauts has devised a way in which validators would not have to update the codes on their nodes and thus, avoid any legal issues.
Legal Way To Burn 800 Million USTC
In a proposal made on the Terra Classic community forum titled “Burn of 800m USTC Funds – legally absolved route,” Lunanauts suggests using a smart contract to actually burn the tokens. The objective of the proposal, Lunanauts explained, is to still carry out the burn but eliminate legal repercussions for validators.
The process would involve creating a smart contract carrying a “sole MsgSend to transfer all holdings to Anxu.” Once this is done, the multis contract can then be transferred via governance to the code id create. So there is no need for any code changes by validators. As Lunanauts explains, “The proposed method achieves the same effect as (proposal 11913) without requiring validator installations.”
Lunanauts’s ‘solution’ comes hot on the heels of Proposal 11832 which has taken another route to address validators’ legal concerns. The proposal wants to blacklist the multisig wallet holding the 800 million USTC instead, making it impossible to transfer tokens from that wallet.
The two proposals are currently going head to head. As always, token holders are able to vote on the proposal they want to support. Once voting ends, whatever proposal passes will determine what happens to the 800 million USTC in the community wallet.
Nevertheless, all of this is being done with the endgame of re-pegging USTC to the US dollar. The token is still trading about 96% below its peg with a 9.78 billion total supply.
Animoca Brands Now the Largest Validator on TON Network
Animoca Brands is now TON blockchain’s largest validator and will henceforth “provide funding, research, and an analytics platform.” The software company said Animoca’s collaboration with TON further reinforces its commitment to the latter’s ecosystem. The Animoca Brands chairman said the investment in TON underscores his organization’s desire to help onboard the next million Web3 users.
TON Scalability
Animoca Brands, the Hong Kong-based game software company, is now the largest validator of The Open Network (TON) blockchain and “will provide funding, research, and an analytics platform.” In a statement, Animoca said this new collaboration further reinforces its commitment to the TON ecosystem.
As noted in the statement, Animoca initially conducted extensive research before committing to invest in TON’s ecosystem. In one of the two research papers it developed, Animoca said it saw the user-friendly decentralized applications (dapps) on TON and the protocol’s scalability as key elements to the TON community’s growth.
Commenting on Animoca’s renewed commitment to the protocol, Justin Hyun, the director of growth at TON Foundation, described the investment as the next important step in blockchain-based gaming. He added:
Its new analytics platform and in-depth research reports represent alignment with TON Foundation’s mission. Together, we will infuse Web3 seamlessly into the daily experiences of Telegram users, particularly in gaming, for a global audience to enjoy.
Yat Siu, the co-founder and executive chairman at Animoca Brands, said the investment represents his organization’s goal of helping onboard the next million Web3 users. He added that Animoca’s participation in the TON network’s validation also demonstrates faith in the “vision behind the TON project.”
According to the statement, TON Play is one gaming infrastructure project which is expected to receive Animoca’s support. Besides providing the needed infrastructure and solutions for gaming projects to launch directly onto Telegram, TON Pay also gives developers an opportunity to harness the social app’s 800 million active users.
What are your thoughts on this story? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
Dwallet Labs Says It Uncovered Infstones Validator Vulnerabilities Which Left $1 Billion in Staked Assets ‘Compromised’
Cyber security firm Dwallet Labs said on Nov. 21 that vulnerabilities it found on several Infstones (a validator company) validators a few months ago “meant over B of staked assets were compromised.” Infstones has acknowledged the existence of the vulnerabilities but says it “disagrees with the severity of the potential impact.”
Traditional Web2 Threats
According to the cyber security firm Dwallet Labs, a security research study initially showed that one validator belonging to Infstones had “a potential vulnerable entry point.” The security firm argued that the vulnerability, which was uncovered more than four months ago, highlights the still significant risks posed to validators by traditional Web2 threats.
1/ Web3 security usually focuses on native Web3 primitives like smart contract. However Web3 runs on servers, and those are susceptible to traditional Web2 threats. This vulnerability highlights that traditional attack vectors are at least as important, if not more so.
— Omer Sadika (@omersadika) November 21, 2023
To prove such a vulnerability could be used to launch a devastating attack, Dwallet Labs said it created its own node on Infstones “to run our own nodes and attack them.” This step enabled the security firm to gain “full control and extract keys.” By repeating this type of attack, Dwallet Labs uncovered more vulnerabilities. The security firm was subsequently able to affect over 1,000 Infstones servers and “to get full control, including extracting validator keys that are stored locally on the server.”
Vulnerabilities a Threat to Staked Assets
In a Medium post which details the findings of the security research, Elad Enerst, a security researcher at Dwallet Labs, explained that the research had “focused on attacking blockchain networks from a more traditional angle.” The plan, he said, was to treat validators as normal cloud servers and to attack them using what he described as classic techniques.
4/7
However, InfStones disagrees with the severity of the potential impact. They responded saying that the vulnerability could only affect a small fraction of the live nodes it has launched.
— CRYPTOTAG (@CRYPTO_TAG) November 21, 2023
Meanwhile, in a social media post discussing the potential consequences if a bad actor were able to gain such control, Omer Sadika, the CEO at Dwallet Labs, said:
“The impact of the affected servers meant over B of staked assets were compromised, with validator keys that could be stolen for over 1.2% of the stake of Ethereum and 3.9% of Lido. Attackers could exploit vulnerabilities like these in many validator providers to extract keys until they get enough power to take over and/or censor networks.”
For Sadika and his team, uncovering the vulnerability demonstrates that despite having an air-tight smart contract, the infrastructure used to run such a smart contract or code can potentially create an “attack vector that allows for completely taking over the network.”
Infstones Says Appropriate Steps Already Taken
While Infstones has acknowledged the existence of a vulnerability uncovered by Dwallet Labs, the former reportedly disputes the latter’s assessment of “the severity of the potential impact.” According to a post shared by Cryptotag on X (formerly Twitter), Infstones believes the vulnerability found in 237 instances accounts for less than 0.1% of the live nodes it has launched to date.
Still, the social media post said Infstones has already resolved some of the issues raised by Dwallet Labs in its lengthy report.
However, in a later post following reports that Infstones had taken appropriate steps to resolve the issues highlighted by his firm, Sadika seemingly bemoaned Infstones’ attempt to downplay the problem.
“The worst way to handle a cybersecurity vulnerability is not taking responsibility and lying. We were super open and transparent with the goal of eliminating the risk to Web3. My take: it’s not about whether you are fully secure or not, because no one is, it’s about how you handle it and maintain the trust with your partners and customers,” Sadika stated.
What are your thoughts on this story? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
Terra Validator Opposes USTC Burning, Pushes Alternative Plan To Regain Dollar Peg
A Terra Classic community member with the X handle Rexyz has kicked against burning USTC tokens to enable the stablecoin to recover its dollar peg.
According to the X post made on September 18, Rexyz outlines an alternative solution that may lead to USTC being re-valued as well as push Terra Classic (LUNC) price to reach the price mark.
Since the collapse of the Terra ecosystem in 2022, the USTC stablecoin has lost its dollar peg and now trades at 98.8% below the mark.
Following this catastrophic event, members of the Terra Class community have continued to submit various proposals to burn more USTC contains as a deflationary mechanism that could result in the stablecoin recovering its dollar peg.
Currently, the Terra Classic community is voting on a proposal that aims to direct the Binance exchange to start burning 50% of USTC every month. It is believed that if the world’s biggest exchange aids in reducing the circulating supply of USTC, it could significantly boost the token’s rise to .
A Reverse Split Is More Efficient Than Buring Tokens, Community Member Says
According to Rexyx, burning USTC tokens may not be the best way of regaining the stablecoin’s dollar peg. The Terra Classic community member explains that there are currently 9.8 billion USTC tokens in circulation, and users will need to burn massive amounts of USTC to record any significant rise in value.
LUNC to reach ?
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Its a long post, but this 'could' rescue #TerraClassic, $LUNC and $USTC at speed.
Why I think burning $USTC is maybe not the best use of your money.
Currently there is nearly 9.8bn $USTC minted, to make a real difference to the price you need to…
— Rexyz (@RexYellerBelly) September 18, 2023
Alternatively, Rexyz proposes that the Terra community implements a reverse split of the USTC token, which leads to a revaluation of the stablecoin, albeit at some investment cost.
In this proposal, Rexyz gives an example, stating that if 100 USTC is the current equivalent of , a 100/1 reverse split would convert 100 USTC to just one USTC token, which will now be valued at . Through this mechanism, USTC holders retain their holdings’ current value, and there is no need to burn more tokens.
However, Rexyz notes that a reverse split would erase all existing network debt. This means that USTC investors will have to forfeit whatever losses incurred during the collapse of the Terra ecosystem.
Could A USTC Reverse Split Rescue The Terra Classic Ecosystem?
Interestingly, Rexyz also stated that the revaluation of the USTC token could initiate a recovery of the Terra Classic network. The community member explained that once USTC regains its dollar peg and the LUNC-USTC swap mechanism is tested with the implementation of improved capital controls, investors can start burning trillions of LUNC.
Related Reading: USTC Surprises With Nearly 60% Rally – What’s Going On?
Rexyx believes this will lead to a massive rise in LUNC’s value, and the altcoin may even record new all-time highs. Rexyz advises the Terra community to implement the reverse split of USTC and “pin” their hopes of recovering past losses by investing in LUNC, which also lost 99.9% of its market value in 2022.
However, the Terra classic community member states this initiative should executed upon research and approval by the relevant experts.
Ethereum Core Devs Weigh Pros and Cons of Raising Validator Threshold From 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH
Ethereum’s core developers are engaged in discussions about raising the validator threshold from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH. This proposal, put forward by Michael Neuder, a researcher from the Ethereum Foundation, aims to address concerns related to decentralization, inflation, and the size of the validator set. Neuder acknowledges that the existing threshold promotes decentralization, but he also highlights the drawbacks of inflation and the substantial number of validators that it entails.
Ethereum Developers Want to Raise the Validator Threshold
During the latest Ethereum core developer consensus meeting, a gathering of ETH software engineers and researchers, an intriguing notion emerged for elevating the validator threshold from 32 ether to 2,048 ether. As it stands, aspiring validators must possess roughly 32 ETH to commence the validation process, but this proposed adjustment would amplify the threshold by 64-fold.
The individual behind this idea is Michael Neuder, a researcher from the Ethereum Foundation, who presented his proposal titled “Increase the Max_Effective_Balance.” In addition to this proposition, Neuder delved into the realm of auto-compounding validator rewards, stimulating further contemplation and dialogue among the attendees.
“Without a validator set contraction, single-slot finality is not feasible using the current designs,” Neuder’s proposal details. “Without single-slot finality, we believe that enshrined PBS is also not viable. Additionally, the current p2p layer is heavily burdened by the artificially large and rapidly growing validator set (see this thread from Potuz outlining what happened during the May 12 non-finality event). We see a validator set contraction as a must-have for a sustainable and upgradable Ethereum consensus layer.”
According to the researcher, implementing this increase would not only enhance Ethereum’s overall efficiency but also alleviate the rapid expansion of the validator set. He insists the proposal holds the potential to address the finality issues that plagued the Beacon chain in May 2023. Subsequently, numerous individuals took to the ethresear.ch web portal to voice their thoughts on the proposed escalation of the validator threshold.
The Move Could Potentially Marginalize Home Stakers
The divergent opinions expressed on this matter underscore the existing divide among Ethereum advocates and researchers, revealing a compelling discourse within the community.
“This would significantly decrease ‘real’ decentralization by effectively raising the 32 ETH solo staking floor to whatever the new EB value would be,” the Cookie Lab stated in response to Neuder’s proposal. “Sure while one can still spin up a validator with 32 ETH, its influence would be one of a second-class citizen when compared to one with ‘maxed out’ EB.” Others favored the concept of auto-compounding rewards.
“The benefit of compounding rewards for solo stakers is pretty large, and their chance of proposing doesn’t fall due to a change in Max EB, only an increase of ETH being staked by others,” another person wrote.
Neuder’s proposal is anticipated to spark prolonged debates among the core developers, as they have chosen to delve deeper into this concept on Discord. A notable faction contends that embracing the idea may inadvertently foster centralization within the Ethereum network, exacerbating the preexisting challenges faced by the validator set.
Amidst the varied opinions, one individual expressed affinity for the proposal but raised a pertinent concern, emphasizing, “[My] main concern with the proposal as currently written is that it seems to degrade the UX for home stakers.” This consequential move could potentially marginalize home stakers, resulting in a landscape where corporate entities and affluent individuals dominate the network, leaving behind an altered power dynamic.
What are your thoughts on the proposed increase in Ethereum’s validator threshold? Share your views and opinions about this subject in the comments section below.