The next Ethereum update arrives, Bitcoin is awarded a Guinness World Record and Jack Dorsey unveils his new social network
Ethereum never stops updating! A little over a month after the activation of The Merge, the next update: Shanghai is coming on the Ethereum testnet. Shanghai will be instrumental in setting up the new Ethereum 2.0 set-up. From the largest Proof-of-Stake network, we move to the largest Proof-of-Work network. Bitcoin has entered the Guinness Book of World Records with three different records, and the record committee is not the only one who has paid tribute to BTC. A few days ago Kanye West was spotted wearing a hat with the inscription ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’.
Some pointed out that this fashion choice comes just after the rapper was forced to withdraw money from his JPMorgan bank account. The photo of West and his baseball cap sent social media into a frenzy. Speaking of social media, the latest Young Monday news reveals the latest details on Bluesky, Jack Dorsey‘s new decentralised social network.
The next Ethereum update: Shanghai is coming!
News about Ethereum is back, in particular about updates to its blockchain. As of the 14th of October 2022, the testnet dedicated to the next Shanghai update went live. The testnet is called Shandong and should remain active until September 2023. At that point, Shanghai should be activated on the main network. It is the follow-up update to Ethereum’s Merge, which was successfully activated on the 15th September 2022, changing the consensus algorithm of the blockchain created by Vitalik Buterin. From Proof-of-Work, the network successfully shifted to Proof-of-Stake.
The main new feature to be introduced with the Shanghai update is the possibility of staking ETHs at any time (but with certain limitations). Staking has become the mechanism behind the operation of Ethereum 2.0. Since it was implemented on the Beacon Chain, more than 13.4 million ETHs have been blocked on the network. That is almost 18 billion USD which corresponds to 11% of the total ETH supply in circulation. After Shanghai, users will be able to unlock their staked cryptocurrencies for a maximum of 43,200 ETH per day. This limit was imposed to avoid mass withdrawals that would make Ethereum’s network vulnerable.
Shanghai will also introduce a beta version of a rollup mechanism to process transactions on Layer 2s, which some say could lower Ethereum’s gas fees.
Bitcoin enters the Guinness Book of World Records
Bitcoin has entered the Guinness Book of World Records, and was awarded three different records! The first prize BTC won is for the ‘first ever decentralised cryptocurrency‘. Bitcoin did not win the record for the first crypto ever, but only the record for the first decentralised crypto, because digital currencies had already been created by a number of companies in the 1990s. These included Bit God, Wei Dai and Hash Cash.
Bitcoin was also reported as the ‘oldest cryptocurrency’, created on the 3rd of January 2009, and the ‘cryptocurrency with the largest value’. At the time the prize was awarded, Bitcoin was worth around $43,000, and its market cap was over $800 billion. These prizes were awarded in March 2022, and will now be included in the 2023 Guiness World Record volume in the ‘cryptomania’ section. Here you can also find the record for the most expensive NFT (the CryptoPunks #5822 sold for $23.7 million in February 2022) and the ‘most valuable fan token’ (i.e. CITY, the Manchester City fan token with a market cap of $25 million).
Jack Dorsey talks about his new idea for social networking
Jack Dorsey, co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, announced on the 18th of October 2022 that his new social network, Bluesky Social, is in beta stage for some users and will soon be launched. In 2019, Dorsey had already expressed his desire to create a new ‘decentralised’ social network to enhance the user experience, to allow for more personalisation and to manage their own data.
Furthermore, Bluesky wants to be open to developers who want to build and innovate in complete freedom. The vision of the former Twitter CEO is certainly very ambitious and if it is realised, it will lay the foundations for a new class of social network. So far what we know is that Bluesky will be interoperable with other social platforms and that it will be based on the decentralised AT Protocol.
