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forklog.media NEAR Co-Founder: Bitcoin’s Level of Security Isn’t Necessary for Most Blockchain Use Cases

Now a world-class developer living in Silicon Valley, NEAR co-founder Alexander Skidanov went a long way from a young programming-inclined student from Izhevsk, Russia. In an exclusive interview with ForkLog, Alexander explained why he moved to the U.S. and how he got to Silicon Valley, shared the story of getting funded by Andreesen Horowitz, and told about the ideas and people behind NEAR, one of the hot PoS blockchains out there. Genesis: Move to the U.S. and the Inception of NEAR ForkLog: Let’s start with the basics. Tell us about yourself and your way into the industry? I believe you currently live in the U.S. but were born in Russia. Why did you move to the States? Alexander Skidanov: I was born in Izhevsk. After graduating from school I went to Izhevsk State Technical University. It’s no Moscow State Uni where you’d find the best students from all around the country, but I got there at a unique moment. During my first year, there were two very clever guys there who participated in programming competitions and got to the ICPC World Finals right at that time. To me, what they’ve accomplished looked like some kind of magic. Those guys stayed at the university to prepare the next team for the championship and I was one of the members. In 2008, we took third place. This allowed me to land a job at Microsoft and I left the country. At Microsoft, I was working on Bing and got involved with machine learning. I didn’t stay there for too long, it was between 2009 and 2011. Things were too slow there and I left for Silicon Valley where I joined my friend’s startup company MemSQL.I was the first engineer there. We were living and working in a 2-room apartment together with a dog. If you’ve watched the Silicon Valley TV-series, you’d find it somewhat similar. At MemSQL we were making fast sharded databases that could be deployed on a large cluster. Between 2011 and 2016, I was working on sharding in particular. Now, MemSQL is used by many Fortune 500 companies. In 2016, I met Illia [Illia Polosukhin, NEAR co-founder]. He had previous experience with contests and I knew him indirectly thanks to our mutual acquaintance in Kharkiv. Back then, Illia worked on TensorFlow at Google We got involved in machine learning together and wanted to create code that would write programs using formal specifications without human intervention. In 2015, machine learning was growing very quickly. It seemed that the very next year we’d reach something along the lines of technological singularity. Yet by mid-2016, the trend fizzled out and our forecasts turned out to be wrong. Sure, there were some breakthroughs, but they were still slow. These days, the code is written before formal specifications. We decided to do it in reverse, but after investigating the matter, we found out that it was impossible at the time. We began to move away from this idea, but along the way, we’ve talked to many developers, some of which were involved in the blockchain industry. That’s when we’ve learned that half of the decentralized apps can’t be deployed because everything is slow, expensive, and complicated. Solidity isn’t a trivial language. Sure, you can print “Hello world” by the end of day one, but creating stable code that won’t crash, can’t be fooled, and accounts for everything is hard. Therefore, the entry threshold is very high. FL: People criticize Solidity as a language for smart contracts. The argument is that it is too complicated and something less pretentious would do the job. Do you agree with this opinion? Alexander: It’s hard to say. There are multiple reasons to criticize Solidity but for me, the biggest problem is the high entry threshold for engineers. Before 2017, I didn’t know a thing about blockchain, aside from the fact that it exists. On the surface, there were just scammy projects and useless whitepapers. But looking a bit harder you could find potentially interesting ideas. The main question was why nobody tried to implement these ideas. Initially, we thought that the problem is the speed just like everybody else did, but it was a weak argument. Think about it. How many users do you need for 14 transactions per second to be insufficient? There’s a startup mantra: hack together a product, release it to the market, and see what happens. On Ethereum, it would be quite an easy thing to do if speed was the only problem. Developers would make slow solutions and then work on the speed. We haven’t seen any slow solutions. I started talking to stakeholders and figured that there are two main problems. The first one is the high entry threshold for engineers. To learn Solidity you have to be sure that the return will be high. Objective-C is even worse, but you have to learn it if you want to develop for iOS and earn big. If you want people to come and kickstart a technology, the threshold has to be low. The second problem is the unfriendly interface. A regular user simply can’t use blockchain apps. If I want to buy a cryptokitty, I have to install MetaMask, create a key, write down the seed, go to Coinbase, give them my passport, and then wait for five days until I can buy ETH. All that just to play a game. Nobody would go for that. Just so you can understand the atmosphere of late 2017, the hottest scaling solutions were Spacemesh, Algorand, Thunder, Stellar, and to some extent Avalanche. Back then, Polkadot remained out of our sight. We looked at those solutions: some could work in the wild, but none could scale up indefinitely. They were able to solve the problem in the short term. Some projects, such as Hedera Hashgraph, used different tricks to overstate the number of transactions they can process. They counted 10,000 Tps without state root support. But if you have no state root, you have to trust the nodes. At the recent Devcon, Emin Gün [Sirer] said that Avalanche processes 3,000 Tps, but without state root. When they added the state root update, they got only 200 Tps. FL: Is NEAR the first and only project of yours in the blockchain industry? Alexander: Yes. FL: You started in late 2017, correct? Alexander: Yes, that’s correct. Back then, scammers started getting fewer as people started to understand that most whitepapers were made to take their money. After us, Libra and Flow were the only layer-one projects announced. FL: By the way, researchers have found that whitepaper page count correlated with the amount of funding received over an ICO: projects with longer whitepapers were getting more money. Did you avoid a public token sale because the concept is discredited?  Alexander: Not exactly. Rather because in the U.S. it is very difficult to do legally. We are an American company and an ICO can be qualified as a securities offering. FL: Is your company for-profit? Alexander: There’s a U.S. company NEAR Inc. Its goal is to create the protocol. We are nominally registered as a for-profit, but in fact, the company is unlikely to have revenue. There’s also NEAR Foundation [Zurich, Switzerland], a non-profit whose task is to promote the protocol. The first money was raised by NEAR Inc. We offered investors SAFT contracts so they can receive tokens after the protocol launches. In the last round, funds were raised by NEAR Foundation, which has no obligation to work with NEAR Inc. Telegram Open Network Lessons FL: The litigation between the SEC and Pavel Durov shows that an entire investment scheme from SAFT sale to the secondary market launch can constitute an investment contract, not just SAFT. Are you worried about following the same path? Alexander: I don’t get too deep into the legal matters but I know that our lawyers analyzed the TON case and studied the caveats. To me, it isn’t at all obvious why TON couldn’t launch. What can the SEC do against a decentralized protocol? I don’t understand why couldn’t they deploy a network with investors written in the genesis block. It goes over my head, but I think Durov knew what he was doing. Let’s assume that the SEC comes to us and closes NEAR Inc. It isn’t that bad. The code is stored on GitHub and validators can deploy it. The SEC could force validators to cease, but then there’s definitely something we’ve done wrong. FL: Do you agree with Durov that it isn’t entirely fair for the SEC to have extraterritorial jurisdiction? Investors outside the U.S., especially in Russia, were disgruntled with the fact. Why should an American regulator decide whether they are allowed to get tokens? Alexander: I can agree with him, but I can’t do anything about it. I don’t agree with the decision not to launch, but he obviously had good reasons for that, probably personal responsibility. For NEAR Inc., it is probably beneficial to have one competitor less. But we stick to the anarcho-maximalist views. It isn’t the victory of NEAR that’s important, it’s the victory of a good decentralized protocol in general. My goal is to create an internet where all the apps are decentralized and governed by the community, where nobody is being surveilled. Blockchain is an important component of it, but not the most important. The most important thing is to have decentralization and appropriate values. I am largely upset that TON didn’t launch. I think Durov should have launched, although I don’t know the entire picture. He could’ve had no choice. What Is Open Web, the Internet of the Future FL: You’ve mentioned the internet of the future. That’s Web 3.0. What’s this concept about? When will we be able to say “yes, we’re there, this is Web 3.0 now,” in your opinion? Alexander: We also call it Open Web, because Web 3.0 is largely associated with Polkadot, which is promoting its own protocol rather than the general idea. I think that most Open Web services will still be operated in a centralized manner since it’s cheaper. In the Open Web, everything has to be transparent. I shouldn’t get 20 megabytes of front-end sporting 200 trackers I can’t even detect without special tools. Imagine creating a Google Document a day before Google decides to change the UI or kill the service entirely. In the Open Web, there has to be a clear separation between my data and the tools I use to create them. I shouldn’t lose this Google Document in any scenario. Back in the time of ICQ, there was a single protocol and different clients: I used Miranda, others used QIP or ICQ. Now, there’s no such thing. If I have a friend who uses Telegram and I use [Facebook] Messenger, I have to use both. If Messenger decides to have 200 functions and a particular input field, that’s the way I’m using it and there’s no other choice. If Messenger dies tomorrow, my messaging history is gone forever. Such things should not have a place in the Open Web. The way it should be is that I have data, chats, conversations, documents, etc., they are all mine and I can’t lose access to them. The tools shouldn’t disappear as well. You can achieve it by making the back-end open and storing the state somewhere on a decentralized cloud. Not necessarily blockchain or NEAR. Such a solution wouldn’t require that high of a complexity level. In the Open Web, if the service operator is gone, me or anyone else can take their place. We can launch separately. There can be 200 operators so I can choose whichever I like. All in all, everything comes down to the following: users have to have access to their data, they have to know which data have been shared with third parties, and the third parties shouldn’t store these data in a centralized manner. If the protocol is changed tomorrow, in the Open Web, we don’t have to take it. We have to have the choice, and we had it in the past. We aren’t inventing something new, but just rolling the internet back into the past. FL: Just let the interface stay! Alexander: Yes, let emoji stay. FL: Going back to the beginning of the question, do you think that Polkadot monopolized the name “Web 3.0?” Alexander: We are friends with Polkadot so I don’t want to criticize anybody. I think that the name of the project can’t be the name of the movement and they have the Web3 Foundation. We don’t try to tie the Open Web to NEAR. We want the Open Web to be the movement for the free internet. It isn’t crucial whether NEAR is in there. We make NEAR for the people, but if people decide that Polkadot, TON, or Ethereum 2.0 is a better fit, it’s their choice. All-Star Team FL: You said NEAR Inc won’t have revenue. You are working on the protocol every day, it’s your creation, but the final result is a decentralized network that lives on its own. You are the creator, but there’s no profit. Do you consider yourself an entrepreneur, or is it something different? Alexander: Although NEAR can have no revenue, each employee, myself included, has a small number of tokens. Thus, we are all motivated to build a successful protocol. Both employees and investors receive tokens with years-long delays so everybody has an incentive to aim at long-term success. FL: Did you decide how many tokens you should have? Alexander: Yes, we were deciding how many tokens each employee gets. To build a protocol as complex you need a strong team. Projects like Algorand, NEAR, and Cosmos need very strong developers who know what they are doing. Such people are expensive. You can’t do it like anarchists. Looking at Ethereum clients, you’d notice that many teams behind them are smaller and weaker than Algorand, Dfinity, or NEAR. They are noticeably slower. FL: Dfinity is indeed in some kind of stealth mode. There’s not much at all to hear about them. Alexander: It puzzles me as well. They have a very strong team, even legendary. They are very isolationist. Only once was I able to talk to their CTO and it was just for an hour. He said that they were writing everything in Haskell but then decided to switch. I don’t know what they are using right now. I guess it’s Rust or Go. [On June 30th, Dfinity allowed third-party developers to access their decentralized Internet Computer.] FL: Let’s get back to the entrepreneurship question. Assuming that the launch took place, tokens are traded somewhere, and you have a profit. Does it mean that you consider yourself an entrepreneur? Alexander: Yes. Many protocols sold up to 80% of their tokens. We’ve picked a different approach. We wanted to sell as few as possible. Together with Illia, we started from scratch. First employees were taking serious risks. Now, we have an incredibly strong team. Two guys on our team have each won the ICPC World Finals twice. You can’t compete in that event more than twice in a lifetime. To win it twice you have to not lose a single time. There are just 9 people who achieved that. One of them is Nikolai Durov. We got two: Mikhail Kever and Evgeny Kapun. FL: And all of them are from the CIS?  Alexander: Moreover, almost all are from Saint Petersburg. Two came out of Saint Petersburg State University, four out of Saint Petersburg ITMO University, and the last three are from Moscow State University. FL: You said that specialists like that cost a lot. How much a year? Alexander: I won’t disclose the actual salaries at NEAR but I can describe typical cases for Silicon Valley. Here, a good engineer from Google or Facebook can’t have less than $300,000 with bonuses and shares. At least I can’t imagine it. So it is north of $300,000 and there’s no upper limit. For a startup, the typical pay would be between $120,000 and $250,000. Of course, outside the Valley the prices are different. We have 40 people on our team so money burns fast. Another big part of the costs is compliance and everything that has to do with the legal side of things. Marketing is less expensive. Life and Investment In Silicon Valley FL: Do you think that the price of living in the Valley is justified? Many people leave the place because of the pandemic. Do you think about leaving? Alexander: I’m potentially going to leave, it’s been almost 10 years since I moved here. We only live once, so there should be some diversity. I think the Valley didn’t make much sense before the pandemic. Now, even less so. The exodus is very noticeable. Our employees have all moved somewhere else and are working remotely. Some are in Seattle, some in the central U.S., some left the country entirely. I stayed because everybody [in the IT community] is here. Life is unreasonably expensive here, even given that in our family both me and my spouse work. When we started NEAR, we’ve assembled a team of nine and everybody was here in the Valley. You can’t find specialists at this level in one place anywhere else. The same goes for investment. In our first round, some of our investors were within walking distance, while others were about 30 minutes of driving away. FL: Is it objectively easier to raise money in the Valley if you are physically located there? Alexander: Of course it is, and by far. Those who want to attract venture capital come here for two weeks and have each day full of meetings. Then they leave if they aren’t based here. FL: Mark Andreessen isn’t just waiting for startups to come to him, he also looks for “diamonds in the rough,” to offer his money. And when he does, he helps projects with everything he can. Is it true that they assist portfolio projects in all aspects? How does it feel to get funding from the living legend? Alexander: Finding a fund in the Valley is easy. Their task is to spot the next unicorn. They will never decline a meeting if there’s the slightest chance that you succeed. With Andreesen Horowitz, the entry threshold is higher but we never had a problem reaching out to any investor. I believe it’s the same for everybody else. If there’s something showing that your company is reliable, they will go for the meeting. In our case, my and Illia’s expertise played a crucial role. For them, it’s merely an hour that can potentially bring a lot of money. It is true that Andreesen Horowitz is different in that they really try to win you over. When they have decided to invest in you, and even if they haven’t yet but are already thinking about the next step, they organize a meeting for 20 people who help the projects with everything. In our case, the meeting lasted for over two hours and each of them was telling us how they will help with examples and presentations. That was very nice. FL: So it’s not just money but also the help? Alexander: Yes. I’d say that 80% of the investors who promised you help won’t actually help [laughs], but the other 20% will. And then there’s also 5% who will do everything they can for you. Andreesen Horowitz is just like that, as well as Electric Capital and Amplify, which we worked with before blockchain. Yet it wasn’t easy to win Andreesen Horowitz. They are demanding. They have a strong team that analyzes you. I was very glad when we finally won them. Before that, we passed through Y Combinator, which was also an achievement. FL: How did you win them over? Was it by describing how you would defeat the competing protocols like Polkadot and Cosmos? Alexander: No, that wasn’t our approach. And they are smart enough to cut off nonsense like that immediately. I don’t think that NEAR will necessarily win. Polkadot is a very strong product and I think they will keep the dominant role in the long run. We were proving that the blockchain space is much bigger than is seen today if made accessible to people. Big enough for everyone. NEAR can coexist in this space with several other protocols. FL: The goal of any VC is clear: exit at a price higher than the entry. Let’s assume that a project X sold Andreesen Horowitz a SAFT contract for a certain number of tokens. VC’s task is to have the protocol launched, wait until the tokens hit the exchanges, and sell them, at least that’s what would seem logical. This is where our project X faces problems with the SEC since such motivation for investors confirms that SAFT and the subsequent operations constitute securities in the U.S. What do you think about it? Alexander: This is exactly the reason we spend a lot of money on compliance, just like Andreesen Horowitz does. The goal is not to find a loophole but to do everything legally to the letter. I can’t say how our contracts are different from TON’s. I can just say that our contracts grant rights not only to the tokens but also to a share in NEAR Inc, as far as the first round. I can’t say anything about the second round [the one with Andreesen Horowitz]. FL: If NEAR Inc. isn’t profitable, what’s the value in the shares? Alexander: At the initial stages, investors aren’t sure if you manage to launch the protocol, given the failures of others. But NEAR Inc. has a strong team that, in case of a failure, can switch to some other project and then go for an IPO. For investors, this is insurance. Sexism and Racism In the Corporate Sector FL: The Bitcoin industry is often criticized for having high entry barriers for women. In your opinion, is this critique appropriate?  Alexander: It is true that the IT industry isn’t very diverse, it has fewer women, fewer Afro-Americans. On NEAR’s engineering team there are just 2 women out of 20 employees. In fact, I think the situation with blockchain development is actually better than with other development communities. FL: But is it natural or there is some kind of an artificial barrier and they aren’t allowed to get in? Alexander: I definitely don’t think that women are being deliberately excluded. I believe that most companies won’t write a candidate off just because of gender. There is an interview and you either pass it or you don’t. On the other hand, I can easily see how some people can have subconscious barriers that make them inadvertently downplay people’s skills based on their gender. First and foremost, the problem lies in the cultural background that’s instilled from a young age. It is especially apparent in Russia but can be observed across the entire world. It creates biases that pertain not only to interviewers but to women themselves who doubt if they can handle a technical profession because their culture forces other goals upon them. It is also very hard to eradicate. FL: In 2020 racial/gender balance plays a crucial role in forming a board of directors or hiring employees. This approach may hinder picking the best person for the job every time. In your opinion, is it normal to follow such trends or picking people by professional merit is better? Alexander: This is solving the symptom, not the cause of the problem. Culture dictated this skewed distribution and they offered to solve it artificially. Nobody is better off this way, especially your own company. I oppose such an approach. Firstly, it wouldn’t be pleasant for a person to learn that they’ve been hired just because of some quotas. Secondly, it’s unfair to all the people who didn’t land a job despite being a better fit for the role. Ultimately, it’s unfair to the company that didn’t get the best employees. If 5% of people in the labor market are women and 95% are men, you will unsurprisingly see the same distribution in your workforce. Everyone in NEAR got their job because they were the best in their trade. FL: Did the BLM protests affect operations of your U.S. team? Do you think such a reaction from society is adequate? Alexander: It didn’t have much impact on our work directly. Although, for many people on our team it is important. They were taking short vacations to attend the protests. They are involved and I do watch the events closely as well. I don’t think this is a reaction to a single incident. The incident was a catalyst. That many people wouldn’t go to the streets if there was no problem. Protocol 0 FL: Bitcoin maximalists believe that Ethereum and other protocols are useless, to put it mildly. They are confident that Bitcoin should be the TCP/IP of the blockchain industry, the single base protocol. In your opinion, is it a form of chauvinism?  Alexander: It is a multi-faceted question. Surely, Bitcoin is very different from NEAR. If NEAR loses two-thirds of the stake, the protocol will stall. Bitcoin will work for as long as there is at least one guy with a Raspberry Pi. I think that for Bitcoin, 7 Tps is an advantage and not the other way around. It allows anyone without much capacity to go and check the entire ledger. To check the entire ledger in NEAR you would need enormous resources. If you have 100 shards processing 200 Tps each, you would have to check 20,000 transactions for each second from the launch to this day to check the validity of the current state. The properties and use cases are very different. If you need to send $1 billion, you should do it with Bitcoin and wait for two weeks until it is confirmed. NEAR solves an entirely different problem. The level of security should be adequately proportional to the use case. Bitcoin’s level of security isn’t necessary for most blockchain use cases. If I want to buy a cryptokitty for ten cents, I don’t need Bitcoin’s level of security. If I want to exchange 100,000 DAI for 500 ETH, I wouldn’t need such security either, because validators aren’t interested in reverting the chain because of $100,000. I think Bitcoin will remain in the first place for quite a while and Ethereum will remain in the second. NEAR doesn’t have a goal of dethroning them. I think Polkadot and other projects aren’t aiming there as well. Different protocols have different goals. On the other hand, Bitcoin maximalists overstate the security of the first crypto, as well as its decentralization. In the end, there are just three mining pools. They can just go and roll the network back. Of course, users could take back their capacities but it takes time and the pools would be able to roll back 10 blocks. In Bitcoin and Ethereum, decentralization and security are questionable. What’s a single day of secure operations for Ethereum? It’s 2 ETH per 15 seconds, which is very cheap. In certain conditions, rolling back one day’s worth of Bitcoin transactions is much cheaper than doing the same in a BFT chain like Cosmos or NEAR. Not in absolute values, though, as Bitcoin is quite expensive. FL: So there’s no need for a base protocol like TCP/IP? Alexander: I think it would be great to have a global first layer that would provide core security for all networks. Yet I don’t think that Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other protocol available fits this description. This protocol should be incredibly simple so anyone can go and check how it works. Today, only Bitcoin boasts such a property. FL: What about the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol by Cosmos? Alexander: IBC has another problem that, in my opinion, won’t let it become the base protocol. Protocols that communicate via the [Cosmos] Hub have to follow a certain criterion like implementing Tendermint. The base protocol shouldn’t be associated with a centralized enterprise and shouldn’t be supported by venture capitalists. It should be along the lines of something made by two [cypher]punks. This protocol should make building bridges easy. Ethereum won’t do because it is too complicated. We are making a bridge to Ethereum, through which it will be communicating with NEAR. There are no adequate specifications, you have to go to Geth sources, the protocol is catastrophically complicated. You’d need a week to figure out how to make a confirmation. It shouldn’t be like that. Moreover, the security of Ethereum is proven only by the fact that it’s five years old. You assume that in five years someone would find something. This is the only guarantee you have. FL: Is that bridge located on a separate shard? Alexander: No, it’s a simple smart contract. We are also making a Bitcoin bridge. It’s like tBTC but much simpler. I don’t like complexity, I think that the Bitcoin bridge should be simple. Complexity breeds bugs. NEAR and Real-World Use Cases FL: Tell us about NEAR token distribution. Do you agree that staking leads to centralization where a few large players vote to decide what’s next? Alexander: The team has less than 5%, including us and future employees. Investors, I believe, have a bit more than 15%. FL: The rest will come as airdrops? Alexander: We are discussing a lot of ideas. Some tokens will be held by Near Foundation, but it won’t be able to stake them. They will need funds for further protocol development. We are considering airdrops and public sales as well. It is less decentralized than I would like but much more decentralized compared to other PoS protocols. Speaking of centralization in PoS, In NEAR, you can probably theoretically acquire a stake of 10%. There are 40 people on the team, but we are all friends to the outside world, so we all count as a single stake. That’s not exactly how we achieve security. There are three pools in Bitcoin. NEAR has a potential number of people who can do something bad. Yet if it’s less than a third, they won’t be able to do anything. In the worst-case scenario, if a third minus one person act maliciously and two other participants are offline, you can’t make a block. If a third acts maliciously, there’s a theoretical opportunity to make a fork but it’s still very hard to do in practice. FL: Regular users buy tokens and stake them without voting. It is hard to get them involved in the development of the network. How are you going to approach it? Alexander: We aren’t making on-chain governance yet. Users will be delegating their tokens. Meanwhile, if the person you’ve delegated tokens to acted maliciously, your tokens aren’t going to burn. FL: Do you use DPoS? Alexander: Yes, but at the smart contract level. At the protocol level, there’s no DPoS. This gives us more flexibility but there’s no difference to the end-user. If I’m a staker like Bison Trails, I can deploy a smart contract with my account and people will be able to delegate tokens via this contract, which will automatically stake the money. The contract can state that I am responsible for any malicious activity and only my 20%+ of the stake will burn, while the rest of the tokens will be returned to their owners. If the consensus won’t work, NEAR’s value will rapidly decline and validators will lose lots of money. They are economically motivated not to create a fork. FL: Is the number of validators limited? Alexander: Any number can go for it, but in reality, there are 100 validators in each epoch, that’s with the largest delegation. FL: As far as I understand, NEAR, Polkadot, and other new-generation protocols are aimed at DApp deployment. What real-world use cases can be implemented in DApps? Cryptokitties doesn’t count. The majority points at DeFi. Are there use cases apart from DeFi? Alexander: I think in the nearest future, a year or two, it’s just games and DeFi. Maybe digital assets as well, but they often boil down to games, such as putting me in control of my Counter-Strike items and not Valve. Or books in iBooks. We’ve analyzed about a hundred use cases that involved cutting out the middleman, such as a decentralized Spotify that would allow musicians to get rewards directly from the audience. There are similar solutions for visual art. Digital identification should also move to blockchain because now it’s Facebook and Google, which is a terrible status quo. Aside from that, blockchain should become the final arbiter of everything that goes on in the Open Web. For blockchain-based apps to be usable the entry threshold should be lowered. Applications on NEAR will be used via a browser, users will be able to restore keys in usual ways, we’ve accounted for convenient centralized gateways. A centralized gateway is used only to enter the ecosystem and is implemented in such a way that at any given moment you can generate a new key pair locally and terminate gateway’s access. As long as you have a kitten for 20 cents, you don’t care if it’s controlled by a centralized service. It is important that you can go and take your kitten at any time leaving the service with no control. Yes/No FL: Let’s move on to the last series of questions. Your answers should be yes or no. The first question: is privacy a basic human right? Alexander: Yes. FL: On-chain analysis tools like Chainalysis were made for deanonymization, Does it mean they violate the basic human right? Alexander: No. [Over the course of the discussion, we’ve concluded that Chainalysis has the right to create such a product and a user has the right to ensure their privacy. Moreover, the creators of the protocol and the community should do whatever they can to inform end-users about this opportunity.] FL: Adam Back compared Ethereum to the controversial startup Theranos and Buterin to its founder. Back claims that Ethereum didn’t deliver on the promise made at the early stages of the project. Do you agree with this comparison? Alexander: No. FL: Recently, Buterin told ForkLog that decentralization is an experiment and Ethereum succeeds in it. It was the answer to the question about the emergency hardforks and manual control by the developers. He said that the developers can’t force their will upon the community. Do you agree that they succeed with this experiment? Alexander: No. Conclusion FL: In your opinion, is Ethereum 2.0 at its final stage? Alexander: I think the developers know very well what they want to do. But going back to the question about their decision-making process, I can say that it’s quite bad. They spent a year on the ProgPow solution, which the end-user doesn’t care about. The move to ETH 2.0 requires the current chain to respect tokens minted on Beacon Chain. This decision will take a lot of time to make. But I don’t think they have some principal issues left unsolved in terms of development. It’s just very slow. It’s being made by different teams, some of which have something like five people. New specifications emerge and sometimes they have to roll back. Beacon Chain took them a year to make. That’s the easy part. In NEAR, we’ve done something similar probably in a month. They still have shard chains and runtime environment to go, that’s where the hard part lies. Therefore, I think we won’t see ETH 2.0 in a year unless the teams become stronger or something changes drastically. I think they will launch Beacon Chain without shard chains to test staking. FL: You said that the industry has enough room for several PoS protocols. What if you are mistaken? Alexander: I think it is advantageous to solve emerging problems together and share expertise. If it turns out that there’s not enough space, we will fight and may the strongest win. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook and join our Telegram channel to know what’s up with crypto and why it’s important.

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news.bitcoin.com MCP in 2026: 97 Million Downloads and Growing Crypto Infrastructure From Bitgo to Coingecko

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) has recorded approximately 97 million monthly SDK downloads as of March 2026, confirming the open standard’s position as the primary infrastructure layer for agentic artificial intelligence (AI) applications. AI Tool Integration Just Got Standardized — MCP Downloads Cross 97 Million in March 2026 Anthropic open-sourced MCP on Nov. 25, 2024, […]

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bitcoinist.com Bitcoin Miners Are Bleeding: This Is Why You Should Be Paying Attention

Bitcoin is testing $67,000. Days of attempting to push above $71,000 have produced nothing conclusive. And yet, beneath the price action, the miners are sending a signal that has historically mattered more than the short-term chart. Related Reading: XRP Leverage Collapses 78% On Binance – The Crowded Trade Has Been Cleared An XWIN Research Japan […]

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cryptobriefing.com Ripple CEO warns against another weaponized Gensler moment if SEC-CFTC rules aren’t codified into law

Codifying SEC-CFTC rules into law could prevent politically motivated crackdowns, fostering innovation and enhancing US crypto competitiveness. The post Ripple CEO warns against another weaponized Gensler moment if SEC-CFTC rules aren’t codified into law appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

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cryptopotato.com Bitcoin Price Analysis: How Low Can BTC Fall After Losing $66K?

Bitcoin has entered a delicate phase. It is testing the lower boundaries of its recent consolidation after a significant retracement from late-2025 highs. Market structure now suggests a potential accumulation zone is forming, with short-term swings contained within a widening channel. However, volatility remains elevated, and the coming sessions can be crucial for determining whether […]

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blockonomi.com DeepSnitch AI Is Selling Out Fast Ahead of March 31st: Last Chance to Buy Into Daily Trading AI  with the Potential to Deliver 100x Gains within a Short Period

The United States government is now paving the way for everyday retirement accounts to hold digital assets. The White House recently completed a critical review that could allow standard 401(k) plans to include decentralized investments. But investors who want to make good profits in this current market cycle are joining the DeepSnitch AI presale before the [...] The post DeepSnitch AI Is Selling Out Fast Ahead of March 31st: Last Chance to Buy Into Daily Trading AI  with the Potential to Deliver 100x Gains within a Short Period appeared first on Blockonomi.

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blockmanity.com Crypto’s Collared Shirt Era: A16z Partner Reveals Wall Street Boom and AI-Powered Future

Crypto’s : A16z Partner Reveals Wall Street Boom and AI-Powered Future Crypto has come a long way from its wild early days. No longer just for tech enthusiasts in basements, it’s stepping into what experts call the . This means […] The post Crypto’s Collared Shirt Era: A16z Partner Reveals Wall Street Boom and AI-Powered Future appeared first on Blockmanity.

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news.bitcoin.com Bitcoin Erases March Gains as Q1 Losses Top 25% Amid Geopolitical Friction

Bitcoin’s early March rally has reversed, with the price sliding below $66,000 and hitting a multi‑week low amid geopolitical tensions and U.S. market weakness. Crypto and Wall Street Diverge From Global Indices After kicking off March with a bullish surge, bitcoin now appears destined for a round trip back to its opening levels. The top […]

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news.bitcoin.com ‘Going Great’: Trump Touts Iran Operation While Ceasefire Falls Apart and Oil Climbs Past $108

Iran formally rejected a U.S.-brokered 15-point ceasefire proposal this week, pushing Brent crude above $108 per barrel and triggering a broad selloff across global equity markets. Hormuz Crisis Deepens: Iran Rejects Peace Plan, Crude Oil Climbs Tehran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, dismissed the plan as “one-sided” and “maximalist,” calling U.S. claims of productive negotiations “fake […]

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blockonomi.com XRP Price Prediction in 2026: MARA Sells $1.1B in BTC While Pepeto Targets 100x Over Coins Like XRP and DOT

Mortgage rates at 7% are trapping American families in $2,300 monthly payments for 30 years, and the XRP forecast pointing toward 16% annual growth is not going to change that math for anyone. MARA just sold 15,133 Bitcoin for $1.1 billion to cut its debt by 30%, and that tells the reader everything about what [...] The post XRP Price Prediction in 2026: MARA Sells $1.1B in BTC While Pepeto Targets 100x Over Coins Like XRP and DOT appeared first on Blockonomi.

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bitcoinist.com Survey Shows Institutions Want Solana Over XRP And Dogecoin, Here Are The Figures

A recent survey by Coinbase and EY-Parthenon shows that institutional investors are more allocated to Solana over XRP and Dogecoin. This contrasts with the current trend in spot crypto ETFs, where XRP ETFs boast more net assets than SOL and DOGE ETFs.  Institutions Are More Invested In Solana Than XRP And Dogecoin The survey shows […]

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news.bitcoin.com Altcoins Tumble as Total Market Capitalization Falls Below $1 Trillion Mark

The altcoin market suffered a sharp sell-off on Friday, with total capitalization dropping below $1 trillion for the first time in weeks. ETH and SOL Spearhead the Retreat The altcoin market endured a brutal session on Friday, March 27, as investors aggressively unwound positions in a frantic flight to liquidity. The safe haven narrative, which […]

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blockonomi.com DraftKings vs ZunaBet: Comparing Welcome Bonuses

The welcome bonus is where a gambling platform puts its money where its mouth is. Every operator talks about valuing players. The bonus is where that claim either holds up or falls apart. DraftKings, one of the largest and most visible gambling brands in America, approaches its welcome offer with the measured confidence of a [...] The post DraftKings vs ZunaBet: Comparing Welcome Bonuses appeared first on Blockonomi.

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blockmanity.com Crypto’s Collared Shirt Era: a16z Partner Reveals Wall Street Surge and AI-Driven Future

Crypto’s Era: a16z Partner Reveals Wall Street Surge and AI-Driven Future Blockchain and crypto have come a long way from their wild early days. No longer just for tech enthusiasts in basements, the industry is stepping into a more mature […] The post Crypto’s Collared Shirt Era: a16z Partner Reveals Wall Street Surge and AI-Driven Future appeared first on Blockmanity.

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blockonomi.com 3 Reasons DeepSnitch AI’s Utility Could Matter More Than Hype Before March 31, as It Offers a 100x Limited Chance for Investors

MARA Holdings just liquidated over $1 billion of Bitcoin to repurchase convertible debt and expand into artificial intelligence infrastructure. But within the current market, DeepSnitch AI dominates the financial conversation, securing over $2.6 million in presale funding at a fixed $0.04669 entry price. When evaluating long-term crypto projects, active defense mechanisms easily outshine speculative assets. Applying strict fundamental [...] The post 3 Reasons DeepSnitch AI’s Utility Could Matter More Than Hype Before March 31, as It Offers a 100x Limited Chance for Investors appeared first on Blockonomi.

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news.bitcoin.com California Governor Bars Policymakers From Insider Betting on Prediction Markets

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order Friday barring gubernatorial appointees from using insider information to place bets on prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi. California Bans Gubernatorial Appointees From Betting on Prediction Markets With Non-Public Information The order takes effect immediately. It extends California’s existing conflict-of-interest statutes directly to prediction markets, which […]

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news.bitcoin.com MiCA Decoded: 174 Registered CASPs, but Only 14 Can Operate a Centralized Crypto Exchange (CEX)?

If the EU has already issued 174 MiCA licenses, why are there only 14 actual crypto exchanges on the list? To demystify this, we need to decode what the public registers are really telling us about how crypto businesses are setting up in Europe. MiCA Decoded is a 12-article weekly series for Bitcoin.com News, co-authored […]

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blockonomi.com BlockDAG Staking Returns Rival Early Solana Before Launch Date as XRP and Pudgy Penguins Price Send Mixed Signals

Markets are sending mixed signals. Some assets are building real cases for attention, others are fading quietly. XRP price today reflects exactly that tension. Exchange inflows climbed while prices rose, showing demand absorbing additional supply rather than cracking under it. Pudgy Penguins price jumped 6.76% near $0.00746 after the Visa-powered Pengu Card launched globally, giving [...] The post BlockDAG Staking Returns Rival Early Solana Before Launch Date as XRP and Pudgy Penguins Price Send Mixed Signals appeared first on Blockonomi.

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btcmanager.com BlockDAG at $0.0005 enters final window as urgency builds while Dogecoin and Solana face market uncertainty

Dogecoin and Solana draw forecasts as investors eye early-stage entry opportunities like BlockDAG. Dogecoin price prediction continues to draw attention due to the coin’s history of sharp price swings and community-driven momentum. Solana price prediction 2026 remains a focus for…

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news.bitcoin.com How ChangeNOW’s Crypto Swap API Helped Bitcoin.com Drive a 25% Increase in User Activity

This content is provided by a sponsor. Expanding crypto swap infrastructure within a live, high- volume product is one of the more technically demanding decisions a crypto platform can make. For Bitcoin.com – a platform with over a decade of history in the crypto industry, offering a wallet, swap, news, and educational resources to millions […]

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blockmanity.com Prediction Markets Surge to $21 Billion Monthly Volume in 2026: Key Drivers and Future Outlook

Prediction Markets Surge to $21 Billion Monthly Volume in 2026: Key Drivers and Future Outlook Prediction markets have exploded in popularity. These platforms let people bet on future events like elections, sports games, and global news. Traders buy and sell […] The post Prediction Markets Surge to $21 Billion Monthly Volume in 2026: Key Drivers and Future Outlook appeared first on Blockmanity.

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blockonomi.com Crypto News Today: Pepeto’s 100x Rally Leads as Morgan Stanley MSBT Nears Launch While Solana and XRP Face Resistance

The average American graduate is carrying $37,000 in student loans, and a 15% annual return on Solana is not going to erase that number in any timeline that matters. Morgan Stanley’s MSBT Bitcoin ETF listing is “imminent” while the broader market holds its breath through the biggest crash of 2026. Pepeto has raised more than [...] The post Crypto News Today: Pepeto’s 100x Rally Leads as Morgan Stanley MSBT Nears Launch While Solana and XRP Face Resistance appeared first on Blockonomi.

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bitcoinist.com No Bitcoin Sell-Off At GameStop, 4,710 BTC Still On Books

Two months of speculation ended Tuesday when GameStop confirmed it never sold its Bitcoin. The company pledged 4,709 of its coins to Coinbase Credit as collateral for a covered-call options strategy, according to its annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Related Reading: Bitcoin Now Less Volatile Than Tesla, Nvidia — Schwab Data […]

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bitcoinmagazine.com Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index Hits Extreme Fear at 13 Out of 100

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index Hits Extreme Fear at 13 Out of 100 The current Bitcoin Fear and Greed index suggests high investor anxiety with potential buying opportunities. This post Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index Hits Extreme Fear at 13 Out of 100 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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blockonomi.com Top 3 Magnificent 7 Stocks for 2025: Alphabet (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Amazon (AMZN) Stand Out

Alphabet (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Amazon (AMZN) lead the Magnificent 7 stocks for 2025 with superior AI exposure, growth, and attractive valuations. The post Top 3 Magnificent 7 Stocks for 2025: Alphabet (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Amazon (AMZN) Stand Out appeared first on Blockonomi.

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news.bitcoin.com Vietnam Authorities Launch Probe Into Multi-Billion Dollar Crypto Fraud

Vietnamese authorities dismantled a massive cryptocurrency fraud scheme following coordinated raids across multiple provinces, resulting in more than 140 interrogations and the seizure of extensive electronic evidence. Rapid Response and Formal Charges Authorities in Vietnam have launched a sweeping investigation into one of the country’s largest cryptocurrency fraud cases to date, detaining several high-profile figures […]

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blockonomi.com Crypto Movers You Can’t Miss: POL and TAO Gain, BlockDAG Unlocks Early Access for Just $0.0005

The crypto market has been full of sudden climbs, sharp drops, and surprises this quarter. Amid this chaos, Polygon (POL) is showing signs of steady growth, with a Polygon price prediction for 2026 pointing toward $0.28 as adoption rises across NFTs, fast transactions, and scalable blockchain solutions. Likewise, the Bittensor TAO price surge is making [...] The post Crypto Movers You Can’t Miss: POL and TAO Gain, BlockDAG Unlocks Early Access for Just $0.0005 appeared first on Blockonomi.

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blockonomi.com Next Crypto to Explode: DeepSnitch AI Surges on Live AI Utility With 100x Post-Launch Potential While Pi Network Turns Cautious and Monad Faces Selling Pressure

DeepSnitch AI ($DSNT) is earmarked as the next crypto to explode by investors seeking projects with real utility and massive upside. Constantly delivering results, many believe it’s 2026’s best bet. Now in its eighth stage, the presale is priced at $0.04668. Having raised $2.6 million, it’s seeing an influx of investors who believe it’s poised to be [...] The post Next Crypto to Explode: DeepSnitch AI Surges on Live AI Utility With 100x Post-Launch Potential While Pi Network Turns Cautious and Monad Faces Selling Pressure appeared first on Blockonomi.

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blockmanity.com Bitcoin Price Rebound: Trump’s Iran Strike Pause Extension Halts BTC Downtrend Amid Global Tensions

Bitcoin Finds footing After Geopolitical Jolt Bitcoin (BTC) has shown resilience today, trimming its earlier losses and climbing back toward $69,000. This recovery comes hot on the heels of U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement to extend a pause on potential […] The post Bitcoin Price Rebound: Trump’s Iran Strike Pause Extension Halts BTC Downtrend Amid Global Tensions appeared first on Blockmanity.

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forklog.media Monthly Trading Volumes on Prediction Platforms Surpass $20 Billion

Since the beginning of the year, monthly turnover on prediction markets has surged to a record $20 billion, with the number of unique wallets tripling to 840,000. These figures were shared by analysts at TRM Labs. Source: TRM Labs. From Cryptocurrencies to Geopolitics The bulk of trading activity is driven by geopolitical events, macroeconomic indicators, and the political agenda in the United States. These have displaced cryptocurrency-focused bets, which previously dominated prediction platforms. This shift occurred amid a downturn in the digital asset sector. On Polymarket, volumes have shifted towards tariffs (116 active markets), ceasefire scenarios in Ukraine, and tensions between China and Taiwan. A contract on a US strike on Iran attracted $73 million—a record for the platform's geopolitical markets. On February 28, Polymarket set a daily record of $425 million, surpassing the peak of the 2024 US presidential election. The record was driven by the resolution of Iranian markets. The volume of bets on the Khamenei departure contract soared from $23,000 to $29.6 million in a day—a 1,275-fold increase, the largest daily jump in history. Market Structure Analysts identified four defining features of Polymarket's structure: Geopolitics dominates, but not in a single theme. Volume is fragmented among overlapping issues: leadership outcomes (Khamenei, Xi, Netanyahu), conflict scenarios (Iran, Ukraine, Venezuela), and political events (US shutdowns). US politics remains the second most significant pillar. Contracts tied to domestic political events. The market does not separate "serious" and "non-serious" events. Alongside wars, elections, and macroeconomic issues, bets in the entertainment and culture category are also in demand. Platforms do not separate contracts by instrumental classification, creating a "super app" experience where users trade various instruments on a single platform. At all levels, markets related to international relations and macroeconomics occupy the top positions. Cryptocurrencies hold a small share. Profitability and Strategies The 10 most successful wallets on Polymarket at the beginning of 2026 demonstrated three behavioral models: macro conviction — several addresses focused on decisions by the Fed, earning $3.26 million; algorithmic market-making — a user earned $3.35 million on over a million small trades on markets related to the Oscar premium; event opportunism — a trader created a wallet, played on Ethereum price fluctuations, earned $709,000, and exited. The top address earned $6.2 million across various markets, including Fed meetings, the World Cup, and the 2028 US presidential election. Six out of ten wallets traded every day for 80 days from January 1 to March 22. Source: TRM Labs. New Investments On March 27, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) announced an investment in Polymarket. The amount was $600 million—part of previously agreed funding, under which the company will invest $2 billion in the platform. ICE also announced the possibility of purchasing Polymarket securities from existing holders for up to $40 million—this will allow increasing the stake as the current fundraising stage progresses. Terms are undisclosed, with a promise to reveal them later. Kalshi raised over $1 billion in a new funding round, increasing its valuation to $22 billion. The deal was led by Coatue Management.

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blockmanity.com The Future of Technical Hiring Starts with Swiftcruit

Hiring great engineers has never been harder. Companies invest enormous time screening resumes, conducting technical interviews, and reviewing coding tests  yet hiring outcomes remain unpredictable. Traditional coding assessments often fail to reflect how engineers actually work in modern environments where […] The post The Future of Technical Hiring Starts with Swiftcruit appeared first on Blockmanity.

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bitcoinmagazine.com ICE Announces $600 Million Strategic Investment in Polymarket

Bitcoin Magazine ICE Announces $600 Million Strategic Investment in Polymarket Intercontinental Exchange has completed a $600 million direct cash investment in prediction market platform Polymarket. This post ICE Announces $600 Million Strategic Investment in Polymarket first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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bitcoinist.com Bitcoin Miners Are Under Heavy Profit Pressure, CoinShares Finds

Bitcoin miners are coming under acute financial strain as weaker bitcoin prices, compressed hashprice and elevated network competition push much of the sector toward breakeven or below, according to CoinShares’ Q1 2026 mining report. For public miners in particular, the pressure is no longer just cyclical. It is increasingly shaping business models, treasury policy and […]

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blockonomi.com Ripple CEO Reveals Major Banks Explore Stablecoins

TLDR Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said major global banks are actively exploring launching their own stablecoins. Garlinghouse shared the update during a panel discussion at FII Priority Miami 2026. He stated that internal discussions are taking place at senior levels within large banking institutions. Garlinghouse questioned whether the market needs a large number of similar [...] The post Ripple CEO Reveals Major Banks Explore Stablecoins appeared first on Blockonomi.

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blockonomi.com Cardano Price Could Reach $2 Within Days, Trader Says

TLDR A veteran trader says Cardano could reach $2 within days if it posts consecutive 40% to 50% daily gains. Cardano currently trades at $0.2516 and would need about a 695% increase to hit the $2 target. The trader based his projection on past market cycles where ADA delivered rapid price rallies. In 2021, Cardano [...] The post Cardano Price Could Reach $2 Within Days, Trader Says appeared first on Blockonomi.

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news.bitcoin.com XRP Breaks Lower as Liquidations Deepen and Macro Risks Intensify Across Crypto Markets

XRP slides toward key support as bearish momentum intensifies under macro pressure and heavy liquidations, leaving the asset vulnerable to further downside while struggling to stabilize near the lower end of its trading range. XRP Downtrend Deepens as Key Support Faces Pressure At 9:11 a.m., XRP is trading at $1.33247, extending its recent decline as […]

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blockonomi.com Cardano Midnight (NIGHT) Lists on Australia’s CoinSpot

TLDR Cardano Midnight has launched on the Australia-based crypto exchange CoinSpot for active trading. CoinSpot confirmed that users can now buy sell, and trade the NIGHT token on its platform. The exchange introduced a social media giveaway campaign to promote Midnight trading. Midnight connects to the Cardano network through zero-knowledge proof technology. The token was [...] The post Cardano Midnight (NIGHT) Lists on Australia’s CoinSpot appeared first on Blockonomi.

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