Buffett calls Bitcoin a ‘gambling token,’ Shapella upgrade goes live, FTX reopening talks

ETH price remains stable as Ethereum Shapella upgrade goes live

Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade went live Wednesday, marking a new era for the network and the largest upgrade since last year’s The Merge.

Shapella implements proposal EIP-4895, which allows validators and users to finally withdraw staked ether after a multi-year lock period.

Limits have been placed on the amounts that can be withdrawn by users, and some commentators expressed worry that the sudden ability to withdraw may cause volatility in ETH’s price.

At press time, no issues with the upgrade had been reported, and the price of ETH remains relatively stable.

NOW READ: Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade to unlock $34bn in staked ETH

zkSync Era surpasses $218m in deposits, beating out Polygon’s zkEVM

By securing $218 million in deposits, zkSync Era has taken the lead over contender Polygon’s zkEVM that has only secured $3.6 million.

The two zero-knowledge rollup scaling solutions were released for Ethereum in the past few weeks.

The community has viewed both projects as potential Arbitrum-killers, with zero-knowledge proof technology touted as a better alternative to existing so-called optimistic rollup technology used by Arbitrum and others.

Analysts are saying that an upcoming airdrop is fueling zkSync Era’s 60-fold lead over zkEVM, following a highly lucrative airdrop by Arbitrum in March.

NOW READ: Arbitrum DeFi protocol Sentiment loses $1m to a hacker, sets 10% recovery bounty

FTX lawyers hint at reopening in 2024,

FTX lawyers hinted at a possible resurrection of the collapsed exchange in court on Wednesday, when they outlined a plan to reorganise — and potentially reopen — the troubled firm as early as next year.

The price of the exchange’s native FTT token jumped from $1.32 to over $3 following the news.

At the same time the news circulated, ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was denied a request to use a $10 million company insurance policy to cover his legal costs.

NOW READ: BIS sees tokenisation benefits in trillion-dollar bond market ‘even if gains per trade are small’

Crypto insurance firm Nexus wants claim money back after Euler Exploiter returns funds

Crypto insurance company Nexus Mutual is demanding clients who received claims due to the Euler Finance exploit pay back funds after much of the stolen asset have been recovered.

Euler suffered a $197 million exploit in March, but a protracted — and highly publicised — round of negotiations with the hacker saw most of the money returned.

Nexus Mutual paid $2.4 million in claims to insured Euler users, of which only $380,000 has been returned.

NOW READ: Recovering scammed assets should be easier with blockchain data but it’s not

Warren Buffett calls Bitcoin ‘a gambling token’

American billionaire Warren Buffett called Bitcoin “a gambling token” in a televised interview Wednesday.

Buffett is a longtime crypto-sceptic, and has claimed Bitcoin and other tokens have no intrinsic value.

Despite Buffett’s bearishness on the asset, the cryptocurrency’s 80% climb on the year has investors’ attention once again.

NOW READ: Ukraine’s crypto dream derailed by currency controls

More web3 news from around the web...

Bitcoin’s resurgence spurs fresh push to launch leveraged ETFs — Bloomberg

Sushi plans to reimburse victims of $3.4m exploit — The Defiant

Blockchain financial services firm Paxos sets withdrawal from Canada — CoinDesk