Latest news with #Consensys
Crypto Insight
11 hours ago
- Business
- Crypto Insight
OKX brings DEX aggregator to MetaMask with Consensys partnership
OKX has partnered with Ethereum software firm Consensys to launch its decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator on MetaMask, offering users faster trade execution and reduced slippage. The collaboration integrates OKX's DEX API with MetaMask, giving the wallet's user base access to liquidity from over 500 DEXs across 25 blockchains, the exchange said in a news release shared with Cointelegraph. 'MetaMask's ambitious multichain strategy toward becoming a universal wallet for the Web3 ecosystem aligns with the connected blockchain ecosystem we're helping to build,' said Jeff Ren, founder of OKX Ventures. Ren added that the OKX DEX aggregator connects MetaMask users to over 500 liquidity sources with execution speeds under 100 milliseconds. 'We share a vision of a more accessible blockchain ecosystem where technical barriers disappear.' OKX Wallet adopts MEV protection As part of the deal, OKX Wallet has also adopted Consensys' SERVO, a solution designed to defend users against maximum extractable value (MEV) attacks. The integration is the first time Consensys has partnered externally to embed SERVO into a third-party wallet. 'MEV remains a complex challenge,' said Jason Linehan, chief strategy officer at Consensys. 'OKX's integration of Consensys SERVO reflects a strong commitment to user safety and protocol-aligned innovation.' The partnership comes at a time when onchain trading is reaching execution parity in price and speed with centralized exchanges, Ren said. He added that DEX to CEX volume ratios continue to climb, indicating increased interest in decentralized trading avenues. Looking forward, Ren said the future of trading will rely on a diverse ecosystem where DEX aggregators, specialized decentralized exchanges, and centralized platforms coexist to support seamless asset movement and reduce liquidity concentration. OKX adds new safeguards after DEX misuse In March, OKX temporarily suspended its DEX aggregator after detecting an attempted misuse by North Korea's Lazarus Group. The suspension came amid reports that EU regulators were investigating OKX Web3 and its wallet services for allegedly facilitating money laundering from the $1.5 billion Bybit hack. In response, the firm has rolled out new safeguards, including real-time blocking of suspicious addresses and warning alerts for potentially dangerous transactions, Ren said. Audits from CertiK, Hacken and SlowMist, plus an ongoing bug bounty program, backed these measures. Source:
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Ethereum critics say it has failed—but boosters say cryptocurrency has become ‘digital oil'
Ethereum is dead. Ethereum will be fine. The social media takes are flying on the state of the world's second most valuable blockchain. Conceived in 2013, Ethereum has experienced a series of dramatic ups and downs, including an existential hack in 2016 and a remarkable technological upgrade in 2022. But this year has brought unprecedented scrutiny of the current and future direction of the project. A big part of this is due to the price of Ethereum, which is badly lagging Bitcoin. The world's most valuable cryptocurrency has notched a series of all-time highs and a flurry of interest from Wall Street investors. Meanwhile, as of Tuesday, Ethereum was trading around $2,500, about 50% lower than its all-time high, according to data from crypto exchange Binance. Ether's lackluster price movement has prompted some to proclaim Ethereum's end. 'Ethereum died,' wrote Max Keiser, a prominent Bitcoin booster, on X. 'It just hasn't been buried yet.' This is an overstatement. But questions remain on whether Ethereum's price slump reflects a temporary stumble, or whether the blockchain—long hailed by boosters as the computer of the future—will never grow into its promise. 'Bitcoin has died many times… Ethereum has died several times,' Joseph Lubin, CEO of the blockchain technology firm Consensys and cofounder of Ethereum, told Fortune. 'When there are challenges, we learn from them.' Those challenges have been present since 2013, when a wiry 19-year-old from Canada named Vitalik Buterin had an idea for a new type of computer. Fearing that Big Tech firms had an unhealthy monopoly over cloud computing that could stifle developers, Buterin looked to blockchains instead. He and others came up with Ethereum—a decentralized blockchain-based computing platform where programmers' code was immune to the whims of corporate behemoths. Developers soon flocked to Ethereum, but the increase in activity brought a rise in 'gas fees.' Every time users send one another assets on Ethereum, they need to pay with cryptocurrency—in the same way Amazon requires users to pay dollars to use its cloud computing network. The only difference is that Ethereum's gas fees are distributed to the decentralized cohort of computers supporting the blockchain, instead of one corporate entity. In 2021, sending a few dollars of cryptocurrency to other users on Ethereum resulted in charges of sometimes hundreds of dollars, and developers looked for a solution. This embedded content is not available in your region. That solution is what Ethereum's critics say has sapped the network of some of its financial value. Instead of immediately working to speed up Ethereum's core network, developers fostered a system of layer 2 blockchains, or L2s, built on top of Ethereum. These L2s—including Arbitrum, Optmism, and Polygon—package user data into one bundle and post that onto Ethereum, rather than ask the blockchain to process each transaction individually. If gas fees are any indication, that strategy has worked. Since a peak in mid-2020, transaction costs have plummeted more than 99% on Ethereum, according to data from Glassnode. But Kyle Samani, managing partner at crypto investment firm Multicoin Capital, believes this approach has made the core network of Ethereum less valuable. 'It's my fundamental view that a network is not sustainable or valuable without direct user activity,' he told Fortune. Users have moved to L2s and drained Ethereum of some of the activity that propped up its cryptocurrency's price, Samani, a noted supporter of the competing Solana blockchain, argued. However, Paul Brody, chairman of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, an advocacy group for the blockchain, said fixation on the price of Ether in the short term is missing the point. 'Ethereum is the amazing world computer,' he told Fortune. 'I don't think it can or should try to be all things, all people, and, especially, I don't think Ethereum should also try to be the best, most deflationary cryptocurrency.' Ethereum's upgrades, not any explicit work to buoy Ether's price, should prompt a rise in demand for the cryptocurrency, said Brody. And that's what developers are working on, said Danny Ryan and Vivek Raman, cofounders of the Ethereum advocacy group Ethrealize—one of many wings of a robust technical and cultural community based around the blockchain that convenes at large annual get-togethers like ETHDenver in Colorado. Programmers are now optimizing the speed of the layer 1 network, not just its ecosystem of layer 2 chains, say Ryan and Raman. Plus, the duo believe that the flood of Wall Street and Big Tech firms exploring blockchain technology will spur a rush to buy the cryptocurrency. 'I don't think that we should pretend like the asset doesn't need to be valuable,' added Danny Ryan. His cofounder Raman even equated Ethereum to 'digital oil.' 'When you ask institutions, when we go have our meetings and say, 'Which is a civilizational infrastructure, which is the global, neutral infrastructure that you can actually deploy real assets with real trust?'' Raman added. 'Ethereum is the obvious choice.' But whether Wall Street titans decide to go with Ethereum, rather than competitors like Solana, remains to be seen. Still, proponents are hopeful. 'If we do our job, and we become the first place for everybody to do business,' said Brody, 'then the asset price is just something that takes care of itself.' This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
Bloomberg
13-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Ethereum Treasury Firm SharpLink Plunges 69% on Routine Filing
Shares of SharpLink Gaming Inc. plunged 69% on Friday following the registration of shares for a group of investors, a move the company's chairman defended as standard procedure. The firm, which is becoming an Ether treasury company, announced a $425 million private investment in public equity last month that would see investors led by Consensys Software Inc. buying 69.1 million shares of SharpLink or their equivalent, according to a statement at the time.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The company that owns MetaMask just acquired wallet infrastructure Web3Auth
Consensys, an Ethereum-focused crypto infrastructure company, announced on Monday that it has closed a deal to acquire Web3Auth, a security management company. The acquisition is particularly important for Consensys' most popular product, a crypto wallet called Metamask. Web3Auth is part of a larger effort to make the wallet more accessible to non-crypto native users, and allow them access without the onerous and often perilous process of remembering their passwords. 'This integration enhances MetaMask's capabilities significantly, embodying our belief that the best web3 wallets will seamlessly integrate an infrastructure that supports a wide range of empowering features,' Joseph Lubin, Founder & CEO of Consensys, said in a statement. Dan Finlay, co-founder of MetaMask, added that the acquisition is 'really about smoothing that adoption ramp and providing a more familiar backup experience to people.' This latest acquisition comes 10 months after Consensys acquired Wallet Guard, a browser extension that alerts users to malicious transactions on MetaMask. With more than 100 million users, MetaMask has become one of the leading self-custody wallets since it launched in 2016. Self-custody refers to a type of crypto wallet where investors maintain total control over their holdings, rather than handing over their crypto to an exchange like Coinbase. The benefits of this include avoiding third party risks and restrictions, like limits on the size of transactions. But in order to provide these upsides, self-custody wallet users are required to maintain their own private key—an alphanumeric code that unlocks their wallet. And unlike traditional bank accounts, there is no 'forgot your password' option. That has led to incidents of people who theoretically have access to vast wealth, but have forgotten their codes. That may be contributing to why there are 1.8 million Bitcoins—about 9% of the token's total supply in circulation—held in wallets that have been totally inactive for a decade or more, according to a 2024 survey conducted by Fortune in collaboration with crypto data analytics firm Chainalysis. Finlay says these passwords create a barrier to entry for new crypto users who don't trust themselves to hold onto their private key, but also don't want to engage with large crypto exchanges—especially after the FTX collapse. 'Don't share this with anyone, but also don't lose it is a very difficult needle to thread,' he said. Consensys and Metamask are trying to solve for this with the Web3Auth acquisition; that company, founded in 2019 and formerly known as Torus, has developed software that allows users to create and log into their self-custody wallet through their social media accounts like Google, X, or Discord, rather than remembering their passwords. Web3Auth also offers services that increase security, like multi-factor authentication. Most of the Web3Auth team will be joining Consensys, according to a spokesperson for Consensys. Consensys declined to disclose the size of the deal or whether it was made in all cash, stock or both. This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Consensys Acquires Web3Auth to Reinvent MetaMask Onboarding
Consensys, the Ethereum infrastructure company behind the popular MetaMask wallet, said it has acquired Web3Auth, a provider of wallet infrastructure, in a move aimed at improving usability and developer accessibility across its platforms. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition is designed to modernize MetaMask's onboarding experience and tackle one of the most persistent challenges facing self-custodial crypto wallets: seed phrase management. According to Consensys, internal data indicates that 35% of MetaMask users fail to back up their seed phrases — a key vulnerability that can result in permanent loss of funds. Web3Auth's technology, already integrated across some 8,200 decentralized applications, offers login and recovery tools that mirror Web2-style user flows. With this integration, MetaMask users will have the option to access wallets without relying solely on seed phrases, aligning with a broader industry push toward "account abstraction" — the idea that crypto wallets should offer the same ease of use and safety nets found in traditional apps. 'This integration enhances MetaMask's capabilities significantly, embodying our belief that the best Web3 wallets will seamlessly integrate infrastructure that supports a wide range of empowering features,' said Joseph Lubin, chief executive of Consensys and a co-founder of Ethereum. 'These include frictionless onboarding, customizable interfaces, extensive ecosystem connectivity reminiscent of a mycelium network, configurable security for varying needs, and maximal protections in high-security contexts.' The acquisition also targets developers building within the MetaMask ecosystem. By incorporating Web3Auth's embedded software development kits (SDKs), Consensys said it aims to simplify the developer experience and offer more flexible tools for integrating blockchain into consumer-facing applications. 'The future of using web3 is going to be full of embedded wallets that enable blockchain integrations to be nearly invisible, and minimize user interactions to the meaningful ones,' said Dan Finlay, the co-founder of MetaMask, in the press release. 'Together, we think we can help build the best of both worlds: a decentralized web that is invisible as much as it can be, but can show up when a user is ready to tap into its power.' Read more: Ethereum Upgrade Could Make It Harder to Lose All Your CryptoError in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
