The Ronin team said that a more performant blockchain and Ethereum’s Wall Street appeal drove the decision to return to the ecosystem. Ronin, a purpose-built blockchain for gaming, said it will migrate back to the Ethereum ecosystem as a layer-2 network, making Ronin a general-purpose chain for applications beyond gaming. The blockchain originally spun off from the Ethereum mainnet in 2021 in search of better network speeds and cheaper transaction fees for Axie Infinity, a non-fungible token (NFT) blockchain video game. The Ronin team wrote: The team set a Q2 2026 target for the full migration from being a standalone layer-1 blockchain to an Ethereum layer-2 network. Read more
The most popular US stocks in South Korea are Ethereum treasuries and crypto companies, Ant Group denies Yuan stablecoin plan. Asia Express. South Korean retail investors are selling off their big tech shares such as Tesla and Alphabet in favor of Ethereum-related stocks, The Korea Economic Daily reported, citing data from the Korea Securities Depository. Tesla has long been a fixture in the top net-buy rankings for Korean retail investors, but it was sold off in the past month with around 1 trillion won ($721.6 million) in net sales. Alphabet and Apple were also heavily sold, with net sales of about 230 billion won ($166 million) and 300 billion won ($216 million), respectively. These retail investors are locally called seohak ants. Seohak translates to Western learning, but in domestic finance lingo, it refers to foreign stock investors. Ants is a local nickname for retail investors, alluding to their small size but large numbers compared to institutional whales. Read more
The most popular US stocks in South Korea are Ethereum treasuries and crypto companies, Ant Group denies Yuan stablecoin plan. Asia Express. South Korean retail investors are selling off their big tech shares such as Tesla and Alphabet in favor of Ethereum-related stocks, The Korea Economic Daily reported, citing data from the Korea Securities Depository. Tesla has long been a fixture in the top net-buy rankings for Korean retail investors, but it was sold off in the past month with around 1 trillion won ($721.6 million) in net sales. Alphabet and Apple were also heavily sold, with net sales of about 230 billion won ($166 million) and 300 billion won ($216 million), respectively. These retail investors are locally called seohak ants. Seohak translates to Western learning, but in domestic finance lingo, it refers to foreign stock investors. Ants is a local nickname for retail investors, alluding to their small size but large numbers compared to institutional whales. Read more
Ethereum's $1 trillion security initiative aims to attract institutional capital, but the chain’s transparent mempool enables $1.8 billion in malicious MEV extraction. Opinion by: Loring Harkness, Head of Commercial at brainbot GmbH and Shutter Earlier this year, the Ethereum Foundation launched a $1 trillion security initiative, a development in its wider campaign to tailor the chain’s image for its new audience of non-crypto retail investors, Wall Street and traditional financial institutions. On paper, the initiative is nothing but a good thing. Ethereum, recognizing its shortcomings, is refreshing. The proposed approach also offers a clear path to being “far greater” regarding security — a direction that will provide the industry we hope to attract to crypto with peace of mind. For Ethereum’s security problem, however, too much transparency is fundamentally the problem. Read more
A viral run on Zora pushed Base ahead of Pump.fun and LetsBonk, but Solana still leads in users, transactions and overall activity. Base is testing Solana’s dominance in token launches, with a recent burst of SocialFi activity pushing the Ethereum layer-2 network to the top of the industry’s leaderboard. In recent years, Solana has been the go-to chain for new tokens. Its low fees and high throughput are drawing traders away from Ethereum. It’s become a hub for memecoins, with launchpads like Pump.fun spawning tens of thousands of tokens daily. The surge on Coinbase’s Base is coming from a different kind of token economy, built on social media posts, viral moments and a new wave of creator tools. Coinbase recently introduced the Base App by rebranding its wallet, sparking a surge in SocialFi activity on applications like Zora. Read more
Ethereum core dev Zak Cole lost funds after a malicious Cursor extension stole his private key, highlighting increasing wallet drainer attacks on builders. A core Ethereum developer said he was hit by a cryptocurrency wallet drainer linked to a rogue code assistant, underscoring how even seasoned builders can be caught by increasingly polished scams. Core Ethereum developer Zak Cole fell victim to a malicious artificial intelligence extension from Cursor AI, which enabled the attacker to access his hot wallet for three days before draining the funds, he said in a Tuesday X post. The developer installed the “contractshark.solidity-lang” that appeared legitimate with a professional icon, descriptive copy and more than 54,000 downloads, but it silently exfiltrated his private key. The plugin “read my .env file” and sent the key to an attacker’s server, giving access to a hot wallet for three days before funds were drained on Sunday, he said. Read more
Federico Carrone, an Ethereum core developer, pledged $500,000 to the Tornado Cash co-founder’s legal fund after being detained in Turkey over alleged links to a privacy protocol. Ethereum core developer Federico Carrone said that he would contribute $500,000 to Roman Storm’s legal fund amid the Tornado Cash co-founder facing a potential retrial in New York. In a Monday X post, Carrone said his experience in Turkey led to the decision to increase his donation to Storm from $50,000 to $500,000. The developer reported that he had been detained by Turkish authorities for about 24 hours over alleged links to an Ethereum privacy protocol. “[A]fter what happened to me, I need to take a clear position,” said Carrone, adding: “I understand that the [Ethereum Foundation] will be matching donations up to another $500K for Roman Storm’s defense, which means our contribution can have double the impact. Our team is currently moving money to execute the transaction.” Read more
Cointelegraph presents “The Fight for Ethereum’s Soul,” a documentary on the future of the smart contract blockchain protocol. Ethereum went live 10 years ago, bringing programmability and composability to a technological innovation sparked by the advent of Bitcoin in 2009. But what does the future of Ethereum hold? It’s a loaded question that is incredibly difficult to answer given the complexity and decentralized nature of the world’s pioneering smart-contract blockchain protocol. Cointelegraph recently traveled to EthCC in Cannes to speak to the brightest minds in the Ethereum community about its current state and the future of the protocol amid the rise of highly competitive next-generation layer-1 blockchains. These conversations formed the backbone of Cointelegraph’s latest mini-documentary: “The Fight for Ethereum’s Soul.” Read more