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Crypto & Blockchain
The most popular blog posts about crypto & blockchain on Hacker News. 850 posts.
EFF and Bitcoin
EFF's position on Bitcoin donations in 2011. For an update, see https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/eff-will-accept-bitcoins-support-digital-liberty and https://www.eff.org/pages/other-ways-give-and-donor-support.
Resources for understanding cryptocurrency and blockchain technology
If you are interested in learning more about cryptocurrencies, crypto networks, and blockchain technology, here's a short collection of some of our pieces.
What Is a Bitcoin, Really?
When I first started learning about Bitcoin, I found plenty of information, but nothing that directly answered the most burning question: When you buy bitcoins… what is it …
First Lightning mainnet release
Today, we at Lightning Labs are announcing the release of lnd 0.4-beta ! This release marks the 4th major release of lnd and the first Lightning mainnet beta, an important milestone. With this release, lnd has gained a considerable feature set, deeper cross-implementation compatibility, a new specialized wallet seed…
Interview with Vitalik Buterin on ETH2, Scaling Plans, NFTs, etc.
Please enjoy this transcript of my conversation with Vitalik Buterin and Naval Ravikant. Vitalik Buterin (@VitalikButerin) is the creator of Ethereum. He first discovered blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies through Bitcoin in 2011 and was immediately excited by the technology and its potential. He co-founded…
The user experience problems of quadratic voting
In their seminal book, "Radical Markets," Eric Posner and Glen Weyl introduce quadratic voting to improve (or radicalize) democratic preference voting. They argue that by allowing voters to
A quiet change to RSA
Over the course of years, RSA implementations gradually replaced Euler's totient function with Carmichael's totient function.
Bitcoin mining the hard way: the algorithms, protocols, and bytes
This article explains Bitcoin mining in details, right down to the hex data and network traffic. If you've ever wondered what really happe...
But, aren't you folks web2?
And if you are, then why don't you convert to web3?
Bitcoin study: Period of exclusivity encourages early adopters
Bitcoin experiment at MIT, conducted by MIT Sloan School of Management professors Christian Catalini and Catherine Tucker, shows delaying access for tech-savvy early adopters, effectively stripping them of their exclusive status, can stifle the spread of new products.
Why Did Satoshi Decide to Use Secp256k1 Instead of Secp256r1?
Secp256k1 and secp256r1 are two commonly used curves. Hyperledger / Fabric developed by IBM is using secp256r1 while Bitcoin is using secp256k1. What is the difference between these two and why did Satoshi decide to use secp256k1 which is considered as a surprising choice at the time?
FTX – The fraud was in the code
The jury got a taste of code review as they examined a falsified "insurance fund" and the infamous FTX → Alameda Research "backdoor".
Cryptography behind the top cryptocurrencies
This table is based on research at Nash for work expanding our MPC protocol to secure wallets on new blockchains. We took a snapshot of rankings by market cap in early February 2021. In summary, 74 coins use ECDSA and the secp256k1 curve, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and 48 ERC20 tokens. 10 coins use EdDSA and…
Cloudflare's Ethereum Gateway
Today, we are excited to announce Cloudflare's Ethereum Gateway, where you can interact with the Ethereum network without installing any software on your computer.
Who and what is Coinhive?
Multiple security firms recently identified cryptocurrency mining service Coinhive as the top malicious threat to Web users, thanks to the tendency for Coinhive’s computer code to be used on hacked Web sites to steal the processing power of its visitors’ devices. This post looks at how Coinhive vaulted to the top of…
Blockchains Considered Harmful: Is Brute-Force Processing Replacing Good Design?
Emerging cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum have reached market capitalizations in the billions of U.S. dollars and transactions volumes in the hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars per …
An introduction to zero-knowledge machine learning
Zero-Knowledge machine learning (ZKML) is a field of research and development that has been making waves in cryptography circles recently. But what is it and why is it useful? First, let's break down the term into its two constituents and explain what they are.
Zero-knowledge proofs, Zcash, and Ethereum
Part 3 of a series on “Privacy on the Blockchain”.