Ethereum turns 10 as corporate treasury firms and Wall Street entities increase their Ether holdings, signaling growing institutional adoption. Corporations and Wall Street entities are starting to recognize Ether as the next emerging treasury asset as the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency and blockchain network celebrates its 10th anniversary on Wednesday. Ethereum went live on July 30, 2015, introducing smart contract functionality and laying the foundation for the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. The network has maintained 10 years of uninterrupted uptime. To mark the milestone, Cointelegraph reviewed the five largest corporate Ether (ETH) holders, underscoring Ether’s rising status as a strategic reserve asset among public companies. Read more
From the ICO craze and CryptoKitties to the Merge and spot ETFs, Ethereum’s first decade is a reflection of crypto’s most chaotic and innovative moments. Ethereum celebrated its 10-year anniversary on Wednesday, with renewed institutional momentum fueling hopes that Ether (ETH) could challenge its all-time high that was set in November 2021. Over the past decade, Ethereum has become the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) blockchain, with nearly $85 billion in total value locked (TVL) at the time of writing. Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder, circulated an early version of the white paper in 2013. The project raised $18.3 million in its initial coin offering (ICO) and officially launched in 2015 as a blockchain for smart contracts. Its cryptocurrency, Ether, now ranks as the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization after Bitcoin (BTC). Read more
The company plans to offer the most popular US stocks as ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum network, enabling 24/5 trading and DeFi integration. Trading and investing platform eToro has announced plans to launch tokenized US stocks as ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. The upcoming rollout will include the 100 most popular US-listed stocks and ETFs, tradable 24/5 as blockchain-based assets, the company said on Tuesday. According to eToro, users will eventually be able to transfer tokenized stocks off the platform into self-custody or DeFi protocols. “Yes—that is 100% the objective here,” a spokesperson told Cointelegraph. Read more
Declan Fox, global product lead for Linea, said there is no exact date for the token generation event yet, but details will be shared a week before. The Consensys-developed Linea network says it will become one of the first Ethereum layer-2 networks to commit to burning Ether as part of its network design, as it shared new details of its upcoming token generation event and airdrop. Linea announced new staking and burning mechanisms for its upcoming token launch in an effort to become more aligned with the layer-1 blockchain, which it hopes will make the network the “home for ETH capital,” according to a statement sent to Cointelegraph. The move comes amid growing concern that layer-2 networks have been leeching chain activity and fee income from the Ethereum mainnet. Read more
Arbitrageurs who exploit price discrepancies between centralized and decentralized crypto exchanges are harming network decentralization, new research finds. Maximal-extractable value (MEV) on the Ethereum network is becoming increasingly centralized, with arbitrageurs tightening their grip on transaction ordering. According to a recent research paper, these arbitrageurs, called “searchers” in the paper, are increasingly in-house or have exclusive contracts with maximal extractable value builders, who are responsible for block construction on the Ethereum network. MEV refers to the profit that blockchain validators or other participants can earn by reordering transactions within a block before it’s finalized. On Ethereum, MEV often involves strategies like arbitrage, front-running, or sandwich attacks, where traders exploit price differences to maximize gains. Read more
After about two weeks of hearing from US government witnesses, Roman Storm’s legal team called Preston Van Loon to the stand to kick off its defense case. Prosecutors in the criminal trial of Tornado Cash co-founder and developer Roman Storm rested their case on Thursday, opening the door for defense counsel to call an Ethereum core developer as its first witness. According to reporting by Inner City Press on Thursday from the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Ethereum core developer Preston Van Loon testified in Storm’s defense case, which is expected to last about a week. The developer reportedly described Tornado Cash as a “privacy tool for Ethereum” and said he had used the mixing service four times to send a combined 43 Ether (ETH) in 2019 or 2020, citing safety concerns. “If [hackers] know the scope of my assets I can become a target,” said Van Loon, according to reporting from the courtroom. Read more