News desk · Updated Sep 28, 2026
Current crypto briefings plus a sourced historical archive covering Bitcoin, Ethereum, DeFi, policy, scaling and security.
Ethereum · Published Sep 28, 2026
Ethereum’s next major upgrade is still in planning. The network roadmap currently points to Q2 2027, while developers continue to shape which proposals make the release.
Read the briefing →
Policy · Published Sep 28, 2026
The SEC’s Corporation Finance staff posted crypto-asset FAQs on September 25, while explicitly saying the material is staff guidance—not a Commission-approved rule or binding law.
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Exchanges & Security · Published Sep 28, 2026
Bitget’s September 26 notice outlines a staged withdrawal rollout after a security incident. The dates are the exchange’s published plan; users should verify live availability in the app.
Read the briefing →The long view · 151 sourced retrospectives
Each entry distinguishes the year of the documented event or proposal from the date this retrospective was published.
The year groups below refer to the historical event or proposal. Each retrospective shows its real publication date on its article page.
Security · Historical retrospective · 2025
In February 2025 Bybit reported a major theft from an Ethereum cold wallet; the FBI later attributed the operation to North Korean actors.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2024
After Dencun, rollups could publish data using blobs with a dedicated fee market rather than paying only calldata prices.
Read the briefing →Security · Historical retrospective · 2024
Bridge designs range from canonical rollup contracts to external validator committees, each with different verification and recovery assumptions.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2024
The March 2024 Dencun upgrade introduced EIP-4844 blob-carrying transactions, creating a separate data-availability lane for rollups.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2024
EIP-4844 introduced blob-carrying transactions that make rollup data available under a separate fee market and retention model.
Read the briefing →Stablecoins · Historical retrospective · 2024
The EU Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation introduced authorization and reserve-related requirements for issuers of asset-referenced and e-money tokens, with stablecoin rules applying before the regulation’s broader provisions.
Read the briefing →NFTs · Historical retrospective · 2024
Runes uses Bitcoin transaction and UTXO concepts to define fungible token issuance and transfer data, offering an alternative to inscription-heavy conventions.
Read the briefing →Policy · Historical retrospective · 2024
On January 10, 2024, the SEC approved exchange rule changes allowing several spot Bitcoin exchange-traded products to list and trade.
Read the briefing →Policy · Historical retrospective · 2024
In May 2024 the SEC approved exchange rule changes related to listing spot Ether exchange-traded products, following a rapid sequence of filings and amendments.
Read the briefing →Policy · Historical retrospective · 2024
The House passed the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act in 2024, proposing a framework to divide oversight roles for digital assets.
Read the briefing →Security · Historical retrospective · 2023
In December 2023 a malicious Ledger Connect Kit package affected some decentralized application interfaces and redirected users toward fraudulent transaction flows.
Read the briefing →Security · Historical retrospective · 2023
In July 2023 a bug affecting specific Vyper compiler versions was linked to reentrancy vulnerabilities in several Curve pools and other contracts.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2023
Base launched its public mainnet in 2023 as an Ethereum layer-two network built using Optimism’s OP Stack.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2023
Optimism’s Bedrock upgrade changed its rollup architecture to improve modularity, reduce costs and better align with Ethereum execution concepts.
Read the briefing →NFTs · Historical retrospective · 2023
The BRC-20 experiment used Ordinals inscriptions to encode simple token deployment, mint and transfer instructions outside Bitcoin’s native token model.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2023
Celestia’s design separates data availability from execution, allowing rollups and other systems to use a dedicated network for publishing transaction data.
Read the briefing →NFTs · Historical retrospective · 2023
EIP-6909 defines an alternative multi-token interface intended to simplify token accounting and support efficient transfers across many token IDs.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2023
Shapella enabled validators to withdraw staked ETH and rewards after the initial Beacon Chain launch had accepted deposits without withdrawal functionality.
Read the briefing →Policy · Historical retrospective · 2023
In February 2023 the SEC announced that Kraken agreed to discontinue its U.S. staking-as-a-service program and pay a civil penalty to settle the Commission’s charges.
Read the briefing →NFTs · Historical retrospective · 2023
The Ordinals system assigns satoshi-level ordering and allows arbitrary witness data to be associated with individual satoshis as inscriptions.
Read the briefing →Stablecoins · Historical retrospective · 2023
PayPal announced PYUSD in 2023 as a dollar-denominated stablecoin issued through Paxos and made available within its payment ecosystem.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2023
Polygon launched its zkEVM mainnet beta in 2023, using validity proofs and an EVM-oriented development environment.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2023
The April 2023 Shanghai-Capella upgrade added withdrawal functionality for validators and stakers after the Beacon Chain transition.
Read the briefing →Stablecoins · Historical retrospective · 2023
Payment firms and fintechs explored stablecoins for transfers and settlement, leveraging blockchain rails while retaining issuer-managed units of account.
Read the briefing →Policy · Historical retrospective · 2023
In August 2023 the D.C. Circuit vacated the SEC’s order denying Grayscale’s proposed conversion, finding the agency had not adequately explained its different treatment of similar products.
Read the briefing →Policy · Historical retrospective · 2023
Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 created common rules for crypto-asset issuers and service providers across the European Union, with staged application dates.
Read the briefing →Security · Historical retrospective · 2023
In March 2023 Euler Finance reported an exploit; the attacker later returned most of the funds after negotiations and a public response.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2023
Optimism’s OP Stack is a collection of software components for building Ethereum-compatible rollups, with the Superchain vision linking multiple chains.
Read the briefing →Policy · Historical retrospective · 2023
In June 2023 the SEC filed charges against Binance entities and founder Changpeng Zhao, alleging securities-law violations; the release describes the agency’s claims.
Read the briefing →Policy · Historical retrospective · 2023
On June 6, 2023, the SEC announced charges alleging Coinbase operated as an unregistered exchange, broker and clearing agency and offered an unregistered staking service.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2023
UniswapX introduced an intent-oriented swap flow in which external fillers compete to execute user orders under specified terms.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2023
zkSync Era opened a public network for smart contracts using validity proofs and a system designed for Ethereum-like development.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2022
Aave v3 shipped a set of features including efficiency modes, isolation modes and deployments across multiple networks.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2022
BIP 352 describes a scheme for publishing a static address-like code while deriving unique on-chain outputs for incoming payments.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2022
Bridges coordinate representations or messages across networks, often using validators, multisignatures, light clients or canonical rollup contracts.
Read the briefing →NFTs · Historical retrospective · 2022
EIP-6551 proposes token-bound accounts that let an NFT control a smart-contract account and associated assets.
Read the briefing →Security · Historical retrospective · 2022
Major incidents across the industry highlighted how exchanges segregate assets, restrict signing and monitor withdrawals.
Read the briefing →Security · Historical retrospective · 2022
In August 2022 an initialization error in Nomad’s bridge verification logic enabled many users to copy a transaction pattern and drain assets.
Read the briefing →NFTs · Historical retrospective · 2022
EIP-5192 and related proposals explored ways to make some NFTs non-transferable, enabling credentials or identity-linked badges rather than market assets.
Read the briefing →Stablecoins · Historical retrospective · 2022
The 2022 market turmoil demonstrated that a stablecoin’s exchange price can move away from its target when redemptions, liquidity or confidence are impaired.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2022
Starknet uses validity proofs to attest that batches of transactions follow its execution rules, with Ethereum contracts verifying commitments.
Read the briefing →Stablecoins · Historical retrospective · 2022
UST lost its dollar peg in May 2022, causing severe disruption across the Terra ecosystem and wider crypto markets.
Read the briefing →Policy · Historical retrospective · 2022
Following FTX’s 2022 failure, U.S. prosecutors brought criminal charges against founder Sam Bankman-Fried; the DOJ later announced a jury conviction and sentence.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2022
On September 15, 2022, Ethereum’s execution history joined the Beacon Chain and block production moved to proof-of-stake validators.
Read the briefing →Security · Historical retrospective · 2022
Sky Mavis disclosed that attackers compromised validator keys used by the Ronin bridge, enabling unauthorized withdrawals that went undetected for days.
Read the briefing →Security · Historical retrospective · 2022
In February 2022 Wormhole disclosed a vulnerability that allowed unauthorized minting of wrapped assets; the incident was addressed after intervention by the project and supporters.
Read the briefing →Policy · Historical retrospective · 2022
In August 2022 the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Tornado Cash-related addresses, prompting litigation and scrutiny of how sanctions law applies to decentralized software.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2021
Altair activated on the proof-of-stake Beacon Chain in October 2021, updating consensus rules and validator accounting before the Merge.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2021
Arbitrum One launched as an Ethereum scaling network using optimistic execution and a dispute process for posted state transitions.
Read the briefing →Security · Historical retrospective · 2021
Audits can identify classes of implementation risk, but they are point-in-time reviews of a defined code version and scope.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2021
Berlin activated in April 2021 and included changes that adjusted gas costs and introduced an optional access-list transaction type.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2021
BIP 327 defines a multi-signature protocol that combines participant keys and signatures into a single Schnorr signature under specified assumptions.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2021
BIP 86 proposes a standard path for single-key Taproot accounts derived from a hierarchical wallet seed.
Read the briefing →Policy · Historical retrospective · 2021
El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly approved a law in 2021 that gave Bitcoin legal-tender status alongside the U.S. dollar, under the law’s specified terms.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2021
The August 2021 London upgrade introduced a base fee that adjusts with block demand, alongside an optional priority fee for users seeking faster inclusion.
Read the briefing →NFTs · Historical retrospective · 2021
As NFT trading expanded, marketplaces differed on whether creator royalties should be mandatory, optional or enforced through contract design.
Read the briefing →NFTs · Historical retrospective · 2021
NFT contracts commonly point to metadata that may live outside the blockchain, including on web servers or content-addressed storage systems.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2021
Optimism’s early mainnet era brought EVM-compatible optimistic rollup execution to applications seeking lower costs than Ethereum mainnet.
Read the briefing →Stablecoins · Historical retrospective · 2021
As stablecoins grew into major trading and settlement instruments, questions about reserve composition, custody and verification became more prominent.
Read the briefing →Security · Historical retrospective · 2021
In August 2021 Poly Network reported an exploit affecting assets across multiple chains, with the incident centered on how cross-chain messages and privileged keys were validated.
Read the briefing →Policy · Historical retrospective · 2021
A 2021 President’s Working Group report discussed stablecoin arrangements and recommended congressional action on issuer oversight and systemic risks.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2021
Uniswap v3 introduced concentrated liquidity, allowing providers to allocate capital within selected price ranges instead of across the full curve.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2021
Concentrated-liquidity positions in Uniswap v3 use non-fungible tokens to encode a provider’s chosen price range and liquidity parameters.
Read the briefing →NFTs · Historical retrospective · 2021
Common token interfaces such as ERC-721 allowed wallets and marketplaces to discover ownership and support transfers across many collections.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2020
Aave flash loans let a smart contract borrow assets without upfront collateral if the loan is returned with its fee within the same transaction.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2020
BIP 340 defines Schnorr signatures over the secp256k1 curve, including encoding and verification rules for Bitcoin’s Taproot upgrade.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2020
BIP 341 defines SegWit version 1 outputs that commit to a public key and optionally a Merkle root of script conditions.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2020
BIP 342 introduces Tapscript, adapting Bitcoin Script validation to Taproot’s version-1 witness rules and Schnorr signatures.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2020
BIP 350 specifies Bech32m, an updated checksum variant for witness address versions beyond version 0.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2020
BIP 85 specifies deterministic derivation of entropy values that applications can turn into their own secrets or mnemonic phrases.
Read the briefing →Stablecoins · Historical retrospective · 2020
Maker governance added USDC as collateral during 2020, showing how a decentralized stablecoin system could rely partly on centrally issued assets.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2020
Compound’s COMP governance token enabled holders to propose and vote on protocol changes under defined governance rules.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2020
Curve’s StableSwap design combines constant-sum behavior near balance with a constant-product curve farther away, aiming to reduce slippage for similarly priced assets.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2020
Many DeFi systems use delegated voting so token holders can assign governance power to representatives who participate in proposal decisions.
Read the briefing →NFTs · Historical retrospective · 2020
EIP-2981 defines a way for NFT contracts to signal royalty recipient and amount information to marketplaces.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2020
Ethereum’s scaling strategy evolved toward supporting many rollups that execute transactions while using Ethereum as a settlement and data layer.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2020
Lido’s stETH represented a claim associated with ETH deposited into its staking system, allowing holders to use a liquid token while validator operations ran separately.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2020
DeFi contracts often rely on external price feeds because blockchains cannot independently observe off-chain market prices.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2020
During 2020, lending, trading and liquidity protocols increasingly used one another’s tokens and contracts as inputs to new applications.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2020
Ethereum launched the Beacon Chain on December 1, 2020 as a separate proof-of-stake network running alongside the proof-of-work mainnet.
Read the briefing →Policy · Historical retrospective · 2020
In October 2020, the CFTC announced charges against BitMEX entities and executives concerning alleged operation of an unregistered trading platform and related controls.
Read the briefing →Policy · Historical retrospective · 2020
On December 22, 2020, the SEC filed a complaint alleging that Ripple and two executives conducted an unregistered securities offering involving XRP.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2020
Uniswap v2 added direct token pairs, oracle improvements and flash swaps that let contracts receive assets and repay within one transaction.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2020
Yearn’s vault model pooled deposits and delegated strategy execution to contracts and governance-approved operators.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2020
A ZK rollup submits compressed transaction data and a cryptographic proof that the state transition followed specified rules.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2019
BIP 119 describes OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY, a proposal to let outputs constrain future transactions to a committed template.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2019
BIP 324 specifies an encrypted P2P transport protocol designed to make Bitcoin network traffic less easily classified and tampered with in transit.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2019
BIP 84 documents a derivation-path convention for native SegWit P2WPKH accounts.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2019
Constantinople activated in February 2019, changing gas costs and EVM behavior while reducing the block reward and postponing the difficulty bomb.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2019
A rollup must make enough transaction data available for users or independent parties to reconstruct state and challenge invalid behavior.
Read the briefing →Stablecoins · Historical retrospective · 2019
Facebook announced Libra in 2019 as a proposed global payment network using a reserve-backed digital currency design.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2019
The December 2019 Istanbul fork included EIPs affecting gas pricing, calldata cost and compatibility for smart contracts.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2019
Maker’s Multi-Collateral Dai launch allowed additional collateral types to support Dai issuance beyond the original single-collateral design.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2019
Optimistic rollups post state claims that are treated as valid unless someone submits a successful fraud proof during a challenge window.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2019
Synthetix’s protocol design used collateral and debt accounting to support synthetic assets whose values referenced external markets.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2018
BIP 118 proposes SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT and related modes that could let a signature commit to a transaction without binding to a specific previous output in the usual way.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2018
BIP 157 describes how full nodes can serve compact filters that let light clients find relevant transactions without downloading every block.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2018
BIP 158 defines the Golomb-coded set format used for compact block filters, including the filter parameters and elements.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2018
BIP 322 describes a way to prove control of a Bitcoin output by signing a message using a transaction-like construction.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2018
BIP 331 proposes package relay rules that consider a child transaction together with its unconfirmed ancestors for fee evaluation.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2018
Compound’s early protocol contracts let users supply assets to shared markets and borrow against posted collateral, with rates adjusting algorithmically.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2018
EIP-1014 introduced CREATE2, allowing a contract address to be computed from a deployer, salt and init-code hash before deployment.
Read the briefing →NFTs · Historical retrospective · 2018
EIP-2309 specifies a consecutive-transfer event that can represent a range of NFT token identifiers in one log.
Read the briefing →NFTs · Historical retrospective · 2018
EIP-1155 defines a multi-token contract interface that can manage fungible, non-fungible and semi-fungible token types in one contract.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2018
EIP-721 specifies ownership and transfer methods for distinct, individually tracked tokens, creating a shared interface for NFTs.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2018
Lightning uses off-chain payment channels that can settle to Bitcoin, aiming to support faster payments without recording each transfer on the base chain.
Read the briefing →Security · Historical retrospective · 2018
Japan’s Financial Services Agency responded to the January 2018 Coincheck theft with inspection and business-improvement orders for crypto exchanges.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2018
Uniswap v1 introduced a simple automated market-maker model in which traders exchanged tokens against liquidity pools governed by smart contracts.
Read the briefing →Stablecoins · Historical retrospective · 2018
Circle and Coinbase launched USDC as a dollar-linked token with issuer redemption and reserve disclosures as part of its model.
Read the briefing →Security · Historical retrospective · 2017
In November 2017 a library initialization mistake in Parity’s multisignature wallet software led to a contract being destroyed, making dependent wallets inaccessible.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2017
BIP 173 specifies a checksummed, human-friendly address format used by native SegWit outputs.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2017
BIP 174 defines a data structure for passing an unsigned or partially signed transaction between wallets and signing devices.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2017
BIP 91 documented a miner-signaling mechanism that could coordinate enforcement of SegWit-related rules during a contentious upgrade period.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2017
Byzantium activated in October 2017 and introduced several EVM and protocol changes, including new opcodes and updates to block rewards.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2017
Maker’s collateralized-debt design requires vaults to maintain risk thresholds; if collateral value falls below configured limits, liquidation processes can repay debt.
Read the briefing →DeFi · Historical retrospective · 2017
Maker’s Dai system introduced on-chain collateralized borrowing: users lock approved assets in vaults and generate Dai under protocol rules.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2017
Plasma designs move transaction execution to child chains while using Ethereum contracts for commitments and dispute resolution.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2017
State-channel designs let participants exchange signed state updates off-chain and use the blockchain mainly to open, close or resolve disputes.
Read the briefing →Layer 2 · Historical retrospective · 2017
The Lightning Network’s foundational paper described routed payment channels that can settle balances on Bitcoin without recording every transfer on-chain.
Read the briefing →Policy · Historical retrospective · 2017
The SEC’s 2017 Munchee order concerned a token offering and described the Commission’s view that the facts involved an unregistered securities offering.
Read the briefing →Policy · Historical retrospective · 2017
In 2017 the SEC published a report concluding that DAO tokens at issue were securities under the facts and circumstances described in the document.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2016
BIP 143 specifies a new signature-hash algorithm for version-0 witness program spends, including more efficient commitment to transaction data.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2016
SegWit’s activation in 2017 followed a prolonged period of proposals, signaling and competing approaches to Bitcoin’s scaling roadmap.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2016
EIP-137 defines a registry and resolver framework for mapping human-readable names to associated resources, including Ethereum addresses.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2016
EIP-155 altered the transaction-signing scheme to include a chain identifier, helping prevent transactions signed for one chain from being replayed on another.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2016
EIP-55 describes a checksum encoding that uses address capitalization to catch some errors when users copy or inspect hexadecimal addresses.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2016
Homestead activated at block 1,150,000 in March 2016 and included protocol and networking changes that prepared the chain for further upgrades.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2016
The November 2016 upgrade included measures addressing denial-of-service pressure and cleaning up problematic account state.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2016
The October 2016 fork changed gas costs for certain operations after network load exposed a mismatch between resource use and fees.
Read the briefing →Security · Historical retrospective · 2016
The U.S. Department of Justice says a 2016 intrusion led to approximately 120,000 bitcoin being stolen from Bitfinex; funds were later traced and seized in part.
Read the briefing →Security · Historical retrospective · 2016
In 2016 a vulnerability in The DAO’s contract logic enabled an attacker to divert funds into a child DAO structure, triggering an intense community response.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2016
After an exploit drained funds from The DAO contract, the Ethereum community debated how to respond; a fork created the chain that retained the Ethereum name.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2015
BIP 125 describes rules under which an unconfirmed transaction can signal that a higher-fee replacement may supersede it.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2015
BIP 141 defines SegWit’s witness-data structure and a block-weight limit that accounts for signature data differently from the traditional block-size measure.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2015
BIP 65 redefined the OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY opcode so scripts could require a transaction to wait until a specified block height or time.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2015
BIP 68 gives transaction input sequence numbers a relative-locktime meaning, measured from the confirmation of the referenced output.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2015
EIP-165 defines a way for a contract to report which interfaces it supports through interface identifiers.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2015
EIP-20 defines common token methods and events, allowing wallets, exchanges and contracts to interact with many assets in a consistent way.
Read the briefing →Ethereum · Historical retrospective · 2015
Frontier was Ethereum’s initial mainnet phase, enabling developers to deploy contracts and interact with the network while the ecosystem was still experimental.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2014
BIP 44 defines a derivation-path convention that organizes keys by purpose, coin type, account, change and address index.
Read the briefing →Stablecoins · Historical retrospective · 2014
Tether’s history traces its first USDT token issuance to 2014, when the project aimed to represent fiat-linked value on a blockchain.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2013
BIP 39 defines how a random value can be encoded as a human-readable word sequence and converted into a wallet seed.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2013
BIP 70 proposed a payment protocol for exchanging invoices, payment details and acknowledgements beyond a bare Bitcoin address.
Read the briefing →Policy · Historical retrospective · 2013
FinCEN’s 2013 guidance discussed how existing money-services-business rules could apply to administrators, exchangers and users of virtual currency.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2012
BIP 21 specifies a URI format for bitcoin payment links, including an address and optional amount or label fields.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2012
BIP 32 describes deriving many public and private keys from a master seed through a structured hierarchy.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2012
The 2012 block-subsidy reduction was the first live test of Bitcoin’s rule that new issuance declines at fixed block intervals.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2012
At block 210,000, Bitcoin’s block subsidy fell from 50 BTC to 25 BTC under the protocol’s programmed issuance schedule.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2010
In May 2010, BitcoinTalk forum user Laszlo Hanyecz offered 10,000 BTC for two pizzas, an early documented exchange of bitcoin for a physical good.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2009
The first Bitcoin block, created in January 2009, established the initial ledger history and introduced the system’s block subsidy.
Read the briefing →Bitcoin · Historical retrospective · 2008
Satoshi Nakamoto’s 2008 paper described peer-to-peer electronic cash that could prevent double spending without a central payment operator.
Read the briefing →