Headlines

Vitalik reveals some regrets about Ethereum's initial design

Last week at the ETHBerlin event, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin described some of his regrets about Ethereum's initial design. Vitalik said there were a series of things he could have done differently. These things include developing the Ethereum virtual machine, smart contracts, and the PoS consensus mechanism. He also said that even as Ethereum becomes more and more mainstream, it is still misunderstood. "The narrative of Bitcoin is simple, it's digital gold. But when it comes to Ethereum, it's like, 'Wow, what the hell is Ethereum?' "ETHBerlin organizer Afri Schoeden asked: "Based on everything you know and have learned in the past 10 years, if you could start from scratch today, how would you build Ethereum differently?" Vitalik said that Ethereum's original EVM design chose 256-bit processing instead of 64 or 32 bits. The original design was too complex for 256 bits, which is very inefficient and can generate a lot of redundant data on the blockchain even when performing simple tasks. In addition, Vitalik said that Ethereum's switch from the PoW consensus mechanism to the PoS mechanism in 2022 should have been done earlier. "We ended up wasting a lot of time trying to make proof of stake perfect. If we had a simpler PoS mechanism as early as 2018, we could have saved a lot of trees." Vitalik also mentioned: "The automatic log of Ethereum transfers should have existed from the beginning. It only took us 30 minutes to complete the coding, but it became an EIP." EIP-7708, submitted by Vitalik on May 17, will make this precise change. Vitalik said that if he chose again, he would use SHA-2 to encrypt Ethereum instead of the Keccak encryption algorithm currently used. Despite a series of small design mistakes, Vitalik said that any project is bound to encounter such a situation. He said: "I'm really happy. I feel that our core developers and their execution capabilities seem to be improving every year. We now have the ability to effectively and safely correct some of these errors." (DL News)

BlackRock may buy $10 million in ETH to fund its Ethereum ETF

BlackRock, one of the world’s largest asset managers with $9 trillion in assets under custody, is said to be buying $10 million worth of ETH to fund its Ethereum ETF. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), BlackRock said, “On May 21, 2024, Seed Capital Investors, an affiliate of the Sponsor, purchased a seed creation basket of 400,000 shares at $25 per share, subject to conditions, and the Trust received gross proceeds from the sale of the seed creation basket of $10,000,000. The Trust intends to use the proceeds from the seed creation basket to purchase ETH at some point, and may not have made any purchases at this time.” (trustnodes)

Six US Ethereum ETF applicants may choose Coinbase as custodian

After the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the spot Ethereum ETF, it was reported that Coinbase would become the custodian of at least six of the nine companies planning to launch Ethereum ETFs. Coinbase is already the second largest Ethereum validator. Experts expressed concerns about centralization issues and warned that these centralization and concentration risks could pose "serious security risks." (decrypt)

Industry News

Robinhood launches cryptocurrency trading API to US users

Robinhood announced the launch of its crypto trading application programming interface (API) to US users. The cryptocurrency trading API allows US traders to set up automated trading strategies, which will allow users to react to market movements and get ahead of market trends. In addition, users can also use the API to trade cryptocurrencies directly without opening the Robinhood application. With the API, users can also write programs that interact with real-time crypto markets. Robinhood said they can use algorithms and strategies to execute trades. (Cointelegraph)

Vitalik Donates 30 ETH to Juicebox: Free Alexey Roman

Arkham data shows that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin's address vitalik.eth donated 30 ETH, about $113,000, to Juicebox: Free Alexey Roman. Currently, Juicebox: Free Alexey Roman has raised 589 ETH, and the funds will be used for the legal defense fund to support Tornado Cash developers Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm.

Robinhood to settle lawsuits with investors over GameStop and other meme stocks

Trading platform Robinhood is working to reach a settlement with investors after they sued Robinhood for stopping trading in certain meme stocks, including GameStop, in 2021. Robinhood's lawyers said in a filing in Miami federal court on May 28 that the company is "finalizing a settlement agreement" with investors and expects to reach a settlement within the next two weeks. Details of the settlement were not included in the filing. Robinhood, its lawyers and lawyers for the investor group did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Investors, including lead plaintiff Blue Laine-Beveridge, are understood to have accused Robinhood of "illegally manipulating market prices" and "wiping out tens of billions of dollars in investor equity" by "selecting" stocks that users could buy between January 28 and February 4, 2021. Investors claim they hold shares of GameStop, AMC, Bed Bath Beyond, BlackBerry, Nokia, trivago, Koss, Express Inc., and Tootsie Roll that were affected by Robinhood’s actions. The lawsuit focuses on Robinhood’s alleged securities violations as part of a broader lawsuit filed in multiple U.S. jurisdictions against the company for its Meme stock-related practices. (Cointelegraph)

Project News

New KYC rules for Wallet on Telegram: From June 3, all functions except withdrawals will require updated account details

Wallet, a third-party cryptocurrency wallet bot on Telegram, notified users of several updates to its KYC system. From June 3, all default functions except withdrawals will require updated account details (name, phone number, and date of birth) to use these functions. Wallet on Telegram also announced that from May 30, 2024, wallet services will be provided by WOT Global Solution. After the change, all user data will be transferred to WOT Global Solution. The announcement stated that the collected data includes name, address, phone number, transaction data, and any other user data that the wallet may have. (Cointelegraph)

Polyhedra responds to conflict with zkSync: will use ZKJ transaction code

Polyhedra Network, the developer of the zero-knowledge interoperability protocol zkBridge, said it will trade under the ticker symbol ZKJ when it is listed on cryptocurrency exchange HashKey Global on Friday, in response to a week-long conflict with zkSync over its old ticker symbol "ZK". (TheBlock)

LayerZero announces its launch on Solana

LayerZero Labs announced on X Platform that LayerZero has launched on Solana. The LayerZero Endpoint on Solana was released in "Mainnet Beta" and supports full chain messaging across 8 chains: Solana, Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, BNB Chain, Avalanche, and Polygon. After the fourth and final round of audits are completed, the "Mainnet Beta" name will be removed from LayerZero documents and all 70 chains will be connected to Solana.

Character*Voice

Vitalik: In the crypto space, DAO means "project" and official means "scam"

Vitalik Buterin wrote in Warpcast: “An important part of cultural awareness is to understand that the same words have different meanings in different cultural contexts. For example, in most European languages, ‘actual’ means ‘current’ and ‘concurrency’ means ‘competition’. In the field of cryptocurrency, ‘DAO’ means ‘project’ and ‘official’ means ‘scam’.”

ZachXBT: American rapper Lil Pump deleted the post after promoting Meme coin, claiming his account was hacked

Chain detective ZachXBT posted on the X platform that American rapper Lil Pump tried to claim that his social account was "hacked", even though he had promoted multiple scams before. The screenshots he disclosed showed that Lil Pump had previously posted a post promoting the Meme coin lilpump, but the relevant post had been deleted. ZachXBT also said that Lil Pump was involved in promoting cryptocurrency scams as early as 2022.

Cathie Wood: Ethereum spot ETF approval is related to cryptocurrency becoming an election issue

ARK Invest CEO and Chief Investment Officer Cathie Wood said at the 2024 Consensus Conference that the Ethereum spot ETF application was approved because cryptocurrency was an election issue. She said in an interview: "The interpretation at the time was that it would not be approved, absolutely not approved. If it was approved in the usual way, we would be questioned by the US SEC. But before that, no one received such inquiries." Wood also said that the mood in the House of Representatives around the "21st Century Financial Innovation and Technology Act" (FIT 21) is constantly changing. The bill was passed last week with bipartisan support, indicating that this may be an election year issue. In addition, she said that ARK Invest will allocate a certain percentage of private equity fund revenue to support Bitcoin developers to ensure that they receive continued support regardless of the profitability of the ETF. Wood added that while the Solana ETF may be approved, funds focusing on Meme coins are unlikely to be approved because large brokerage institutions and investment advisory firms will not accept funds outside of "the majors." (CoinDesk)

Investment and Financing

Babylon completes new round of financing of US$70 million, led by Paradigm

Bitcoin staking project Babylon announced a new $70 million funding round led by Paradigm, with participation from Polychain Capital, the venture capital arm of cryptocurrency exchange Bullish (also CoinDesk’s parent company), HashKey Capital, Mantle, HackVC, ViaBTC Capital, Amber, imToken, Breyer Capital, IOSG, HTX Venture and LD Capital. The latest round follows an $18 million round raised in December last year. (Coindesk)

Decentralized social network tool Neynar completes $11 million Series A financing, with participation from a16z and others

Neynar, which provides developers with tools to build decentralized social networks, announced the completion of a $11 million Series A financing round, led by Haun Ventures, with participation from a16z, CSX, Coinbase Ventures, and Union Square Ventures. Currently, most developers using Neynar services are developing social applications on Farcaster, which plays a "quite critical" role in this journey because it minimizes the contact points between users who are tired of encryption and the underlying blockchain, creating an experience similar to Web2 applications such as Instagram or X. (fortune)

ARPA Network Completes $6 Million Strategic Round of Financing, with Animoca Ventures and Others Participating

According to official news, the decentralized secure computing project ARPA Network has completed a $6 million strategic round of financing, with participation from Nomura's Laser Digital and DeFiance Capital, Animoca Ventures, Metrics Ventures, ArkStream Capital and Trinito. ARPA Network has also previously received a multi-million dollar strategic investment from DWF Labs to promote the development of decentralized computing solutions.