Crypto Journalist

Anas Hassan

Crypto Journalist

Anas Hassan

About Author

Anas is a crypto native journalist and SEO writer with over five years of writing experience covering blockchain, crypto, DeFi, and emerging tech.

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Last updated: 

September 14, 2025

The Ethereum Foundation’s Privacy & Scaling Explorations team rebranded as Privacy Stewards for Ethereum (PSE), unveiling an ambitious roadmap to make privacy the default rather than exception across Ethereum’s technical stack.

The transformation shifts focus from cryptography exploration to problem-first solutions addressing Ethereum’s surveillance vulnerabilities.

PSE’s new mission centers on three core tracks: private writes to make on-chain actions as cheap and seamless as public ones, private reads enabling surveillance-free blockchain queries, and private proving for accessible data verification.

The initiative follows Vitalik Buterin’s April advocacy for privacy as essential to Ethereum’s survival as a global settlement infrastructure.

The roadmap warns that without robust privacy protections, Ethereum risks becoming “the backbone of global surveillance rather than global freedom.”

PSE emphasizes that institutions and users will migrate elsewhere if private transactions, identity, and data remain compromised by public blockchain transparency.

From Cryptography Lab to Privacy Stewardship Mission

PSE abandoned its previous approach of pursuing “cool tech” for concrete problem-solving focused on ecosystem outcomes rather than internal projects.

The rebrand includes website updates to pse.dev and restructured team goals with particular emphasis on subtraction by default and problem-driven resource allocation.

The strategy involves continuous problem mapping, execution decisions across lead-support-monitor engagement levels, and public communication through newsletters, community calls, and working groups.

PSE draws inspiration from Protocol and EcoDev announcement simplicity while addressing feedback from Vitalik Buterin, Silviculture Society, and EF management.

Key initiatives include PlasmaFold development for private transfers using PCD and folding, targeting proof-of-concept by Devconnect.

The team continues to develop the Kohaku privacy wallet, focusing on zk account recovery frameworks and keystore implementation for stealth addresses.

Private governance efforts focus on a “State of private voting 2025” report while collaborating with Aragon on protocol integrations.

The Institutional Privacy Task Force launches with the EF EcoDev Enterprise team to unblock adoption through privacy specifications and proof-of-concepts.

Another key aspect of this new direct is PSE’s data portability. It tracks advances in TLSNotary development for production-ready zkTLS protocols, while building SDKs that enable seamless integration across mobile, server, and browser platforms.

Additionally, network privacy initiatives include Private RPC working groups, ORAM solution integration for privacy-preserving state reads, and sphinx mixing protocol implementation for broadcast privacy.

The team has stated that it will methodically study ORAM and PIR state-of-the-art techniques while translating research into practical wallet and browser experiences.

Industry Experts Warn Public Ledgers Threaten Mass Adoption

The privacy push addresses growing concerns from industry veterans about Ethereum’s transparency model.

In an interview with Cryptonews in August, British Gold Trust’s Petro Golovko argues public blockchains expose salaries, business deals, and balance sheets, making crypto “unusable for regular people and impossible for institutions.“

Golovko compares current blockchain transparency to the pre-SSL internet, when users refused to enter credit card numbers due to a lack of encryption.

He maintains that crypto remains stuck in this vulnerable phase, preventing the scaling that transformed e-commerce into a $6 trillion industry.

Institutional adoption concerns center on the exposure of trade secrets and the competitive disadvantage resulting from visible treasury movements.

Golovko warns that no board will approve systems exposing supply chains or financial operations globally, limiting crypto to speculation rather than serious commerce.

Vitalik Buterin’s April privacy advocacy stemmed from similar concerns about AI-driven surveillance and data misuse eroding personal autonomy.

His roadmap outlined four areas for enhancing privacy: anonymous payments, application-level privacy, secure data access, and network obfuscation.

The Ethereum co-founder advocated for wallets to integrate tools like Railgun and Privacy Pools, creating “shielded balances” that enable private-by-default transactions.

He emphasized that separate addresses per dApp would eliminate traceable links between applications while maintaining usability.

European regulatory pressure adds urgency to the development of privacy.

Community member Eugenio Reggianini outlined GDPR compliance practices that require personal data to remain off-chain, with blockchain nodes relaying only encrypted references or proofs, rather than identifiable information.

Looking forward, the team aims to accelerate ecosystem adoption through community initiatives with privacy and robust security at the center of its decentralized identity systems.

Microsoft’s recent $17.4 billion investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure has captured global attention and underscored how demand for high-performance computing is reshaping the digital economy. While Bitcoin consolidates near record levels, institutional investors are shifting focus toward platforms that combine ​AI-driven efficiency with sustainable blockchain mining​.

In this context, ​RI Mining​, a UK-registered cloud mining company operating across more than 190 countries, today announced the launch of its ​next-generation mining contracts​. The new model integrates ​AI-optimized hashrate scheduling and renewable energy infrastructure​, enabling users to secure daily digital income with greater consistency and transparency.

RI Mining Cloud Mining: AI and Blockchain Convergence

Analysts note that both AI and crypto mining now compete for the same energy-intensive infrastructure, while also driving each other’s growth. Microsoft’s bold bet on AI highlights the need for scalable, efficient computing resources—a shift that aligns with RI Mining’s platform upgrades.

“Artificial intelligence is transforming global infrastructure,” said ​Robert Chen​, spokesperson for RI Mining. “Our next-gen contracts are built to reflect this reality. By combining automation, compliance, and renewable energy, we give users—from Bitcoin and Ethereum investors to XRP and Dogecoin holders—an accessible path to stable returns without hardware or technical barriers”.

Highlights of RI Mining New Contract

• ​AI Smart Scheduling​: Contracts use automated algorithms to reallocate hashrate when network difficulty or energy costs shift, ensuring more stable output.
• ​Real-Time Settlement Engine​: Income is distributed every 24 hours, with a verified ledger that users can audit directly in their dashboards.
• ​Flexible Contract Design​: Options range from short-term “experience” plans to longer strategic packages, allowing both beginners and advanced users to tailor participation.
• ​Integrated Risk Controls​: Multi-layer wallet isolation and transparent on-chain reporting help protect user funds while enhancing trust.
• ​Cross-Asset Coverage​: Contracts extend beyond Bitcoin to include Ethereum, Dogecoin, XRP, and USDT, giving users diversified exposure in a single platform.

How to Join RI Mining

1. Sign Up — It only takes seconds, just an email address, and you’ll get $15.
2. Deposit — Add funds in BTC, ETH, SOL, DOGE, XRP, or USDT.
3. Choose a Contract — Select from short trials or long-term AI-optimized plans.
4. Start Mining — Earnings are settled daily and shown in your dashboard.
5. Withdraw or Reinvest — Transfer profits to your wallet or compound returns.

About RI Mining

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in London, RI Mining has grown from a niche company specializing in mining services to one of the most recognizable brands in digital infrastructure. The platform operates a distributed network of data centers across Europe, North America, and Asia, all powered by renewable energy to reduce operating costs and meet increasingly stringent ESG standards.

RI Mining’s new AI-powered contracts are designed to be easily accessible—requiring no hardware or technical barriers—and offer automatic daily settlement.

Looking forward, RI Mining plans to expand its presence in emerging markets and deepen the application of its AI-driven optimization, positioning itself at the intersection of sustainable energy and blockchain innovation. The company’s long-term goal is to provide everyday investors and institutions with a reliable framework for transforming digital assets into a stable source of passive income.

Visit the website for more information or download the mobile app.

Crypto analyst Borovik has unveiled his 2026 bullish predictions for the XRP price, Dogecoin, and Solana. This comes as these three altcoins stand out in the ongoing crypto market rally, recording notable gains. 

Analyst Reveals 2026 Prediction For XRP, Dogecoin, and Solana

In an X post, Borovik predicted that the XRP price will rally to $23, Dogecoin to $2, and Solana to $1,800 in 2026. He also made predictions for other major coins like Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB, and TRX. The analyst expects BTC to rally to $896,503, ETH to $35,000, BNB to $7,000, and TRX to $2.7. 

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However, the analyst didn’t provide any basis for why the XRP price, Dogecoin, Solana, and these other coins could rally to these ambitious targets. Notably, these coins are currently the top 9 largest cryptos by market cap, excluding stablecoins USDT and USDC. These coins are also currently recording notable gains amid the recent crypto market rally. 

The XRP price has reclaimed the psychological $3 level and now looks set to retest higher resistance levels and possibly flip them into support. Dogecoin has also reached its most recent local high of $0.28 and is now looking to hit the $0.30 level. Solana surpassed $240 yesterday, reaching this level for the first time since January. 

Fundamentals have played a role in driving this rally for the XRP price, Dogecoin, and Solana. REX-Osprey is launching the first XRP and DOGE ETFs next week, under the 40 Act. These funds will still provide spot exposure to both altcoins, although they differ from the conventional spot crypto ETFs. REX-Osprey’s funds will help inject new capital into the XRP and DOGE ecosystem, which could serve as a catalyst for higher prices. 

Meanwhile, Solana just saw the launch of a $1.65 billion SOL treasury firm, Forward Industries. The firm completed the private placement earlier this week and immediately began buying SOL through Galaxy Digital, which was one of the investors in the private placement. This has added significant buying pressure on the crypto. 

More Gains Ahead For These Altcoins

The XRP price, Dogecoin, and Solana are still expected to record major gains ahead amid this crypto market rally. Crypto analyst CasiTrades suggested that the consolidation period is over for XRP and that it is set to rally to a new all-time high (ATH). Her accompanying chart showed that the altcoin could rally above $4.60. 

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Crypto analyst Ali Martinez stated that Dogecoin is still in the buy zone and that the bullish breakout will melt faces. His accompanying chart showed that DOGE could rally to as high as $4 if it touches the middle channel of an ascending channel. In a separate analysis, the analyst noted that $1,300 is the primary target for SOL after breaking out of a cup and handle pattern. 

Featured image from Getty Images, chart from Tradingview.com

What you need to know

• OnePlus launches AI PlayLab for user-driven feature testing and feedback
• New AI features YumSee and Party Up enhance user experience with translations and animated photos
• Early testers gain exclusive access to upcoming features and influence OnePlus’s AI development

OnePlus has been making some power moves lately that is making some heads turn. From ditching its long term camera partner, to now opening up its AI space to users.

In a recent community post, the company says that it’s now launching its first ever OnePlus AI PlayLab, that essentially allows people to ” test, explore, and shape the future of AI features” in the OnePlus ecosystem.

Which means if you can come up with a fun AI feature that could help users at large do things quicker or with ease, “from generating summaries of articles and audio to creating unique social media content, the possibilities are vast, and your feedback will directly guide what comes next,” OnePlus added.

It doesn’t just end there, OnePlus users who sign up by filling out quick questionnaire also get dibs on checking out new features ahead of launch. Additionally “Early testers” can also give feedback to help OnePlus fine tune or even change certain AI features to help it function better.

New AI features on the way!

Additionally, OnePlus also showed a preview of two new AI features that is currently being tested: YumSee and Party Up. Yumsee is a text translation AI feature that translates menus on the go. Imagine you’re on vacation and are having trouble understanding the cuisine.

YumSee comes into play. All you have to do is upload or take a photo of the menu, then select your preferred language and currency. YumSee uses its AI to clean and translate the text, and basically recreate the restaurant’s menu in the language you understand. Pretty cool, eh?

As of Party Up, it basically brings still photos to life, turning them into “live party-themed” videos. OnePlus adds that Party Up uses AI to animate static photos, to “gain movement, music, and magical effects.” Instead of manually editing, you can use one of its templates to turn images into short-form videos.

“We built tasteful, vibe-driven templates based on the most common celebration moments,” the post stated.

Begin by choosing an image, select the template that matches your vibe, such as “Party Dance,” “Party Cheers,” or “Birthday Party.” The AI will then detect subjects, apply natural motion, and layer in effects to create a video, which can be shared on different platforms. Users can give both these features a go via OnePlus’ AI PlayLab.

August 20th Bitfinex Securities Market Inclusion Report unveils challenges and opportunities for Latam Capital Market

San Salvador, El Salvador – August 20, 2025 – Bitfinex Securities El Salvador Sa de CV has announced the release of its first Latin American Market Inclusion Report, highlighting the tokenization as a transformative socioeconomic opportunity in Latin America.

Building on expert interviews and regional analysis, this study identifies systematic barriers to Latin American capital markets, ranging from relatively high fees and complex bureaucratic hurdles to deep and low market financial literacy. These barriers are seen to contribute to the difficulties entrepreneurs and investors have experienced from accessing the region’s fair and efficient capital markets.

This report identifies the phenomenon of “liquidity delay” in the region. This refers to the current obstacles and inefficiencies of the traditional Ratum capital market that slowed capital flows and hindered investment. Factors contributing to this include high fees, complex regulations and limited market participation. Structural issues such as working hours, technology barriers, high start-up costs, and bureaucratic and regulatory hurdles have also been identified as pose challenges to business and investment growth in the region.

The Bitfinex Securities Market Inclusion report includes analysis, findings and experts from eight different Latin American countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama and Peru.

Tokenization is presented as providing a solution to the “liquidity latency” problem identified in Latin America. Tokenized assets digitize the ownership of bonds, stocks or funds by issuing tokens on a blockchain in which each token corresponds to the fund’s share or unit. This structure allows for decentralized ownership and management, with several other benefits, including accessibility, transparency, and efficiency.

By increasing issuance costs to just 2-4%, reducing listing times to 60-90 days, and enabling fractional ownership, blockchain-based securities can make investments dramatically more comprehensive and efficient.

“Tokenization represents the first true opportunity for a generation to rethink finance,” said Jesse Knutson, Head of Operations at Bitfinex Securities. “It reduces costs, accelerates access and creates more direct connections between issuers and investors.”

With regulatory advances in countries such as El Salvador, Argentina and Brazil, the report suggests that Latin America is being put into place on its own to accept tokenized markets. For example, in 2021, El Salvador became the first country to recognize Bitcoin as fiat currency, and despite recent changes to the law, digital asset technology has firmly established itself in the country’s economy. In 2023, El Salvador passed the Digital Asset Issuance Act (Lead) to create a fully regulated framework for tokenization of assets.

Bitfinex Securities calls this not only economic change, but broader socioeconomic opportunities for the region to overcome historic barriers and promote growth.

As shown in the report, tokenization technologies could improve accessibility for both capital and investors by reducing the costs of capital investment and capital raising, accelerating the pace of listings, providing investment efficiency, accessibility, democratization, and expanding financial inclusion. Tokenization may open up brighter opportunities in the region, and the report highlights and dives these possibilities.

To access the report, click here: (go.bitfinex.com/market-inclusion-report)

About Bitfinex Securities

Founded in 2021, Bitfinex Securities seeks to apply the technological benefits of the digital asset industry to the global capital market. Through real-time settlements, 24/7 trading, access to global liquidity, and the ability to independent assets, Bitfinex Securities allows for more efficient, cheaper and easier interactions between investors and issuers.

Bitfinex Securities Media Contact Information

Email: (Protected Email)

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitfinex-securities-market-inclusion-report-unveils-challenges-and-opportunities-for-latam-capital-market/feed/ 0 54230 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/ripple-cto-unveils-exciting-network-possibility-for-xrp-ledger/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/ripple-cto-unveils-exciting-network-possibility-for-xrp-ledger/#respond Sun, 17 Aug 2025 14:14:59 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/ripple-cto-unveils-exciting-network-possibility-for-xrp-ledger/

A few weeks ago, Ripple CTO David Schwartz revealed plans to launch a hub that will be used to understand XRP network behavior and performance based on data gathered from it.

Now that the hub is in operation, Schwartz observed his first “bit of weird data” from the hub as reported yesterday by U.Today. The Ripple CTO revealed corrective measures for the anomaly, which have achieved results.

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According to the Ripple CTO, the past 24 hours of the hub’s performance looked solid, although a tiny glitch was recorded at 12:58 a.m., which might be due to the monitoring system.

At the time of Schwartz’s X post, the hub was handling 11,000 requests per second from 173 peers with a response time of about 0.006 seconds from the average request coming in to the reply going out.

Schwartz shared an image alongside his post that illustrated this. The X post caught the attention of the XRP community with XRP enthusiast WrathofKahneman inquiring about what the “abuse” category in the  “disconnections” side of the image meant.

Schwartz stated that this referred to servers that had been disconnected from the hub due to the belief that they were placing excessive load on it. He suspects that 100% of these are false positives due to some defects in the XRPL code, and that working on this is one of the reasons he chose to run the hub.

Exciting network possibility for XRPL

Schwartz revisited one of his concepts for XRP Ledger, which he designed eight years ago: the peer link policing system aimed to protect users against malicious peers. While the design, cryptography and rules of XRPL effectively safeguard against malicious peers misleading users, it could impose load on them.

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To handle this, a peer receives “charge” for messages it sends, and “credits” are also given over time. If a peer’s “charges” exceed their “credits,” they risk being disconnected.

Schwartz stated that the schedule of fees and credits he picked almost a decade ago worked, but because the network has grown much since then and the hardware has changed, he may need to revisit it.

Going forward, Schwartz noted he wants to further understand how well the charge/credit scheme is working on the live network and, if needed, make some adjustments to it. One possibility is to take latency into account, granting peers with low latency a higher credit limit, given that an attacker cannot forge low latency.

Clients at the brokerage giant Charles Schwab believe the next three months will be bullish for the stock market.

In the firm’s Q3 2025 Trader Client Sentiment Report, Charles Schwab reveals that 57% of its clients are bullish in the stock market for this quarter, with only 29% having a bearish bias.

The survey also shows that 53% of respondents plan to invest in individual stocks this quarter, as 42% say they intend to add more funds to their portfolio. Only 19% plan to take money out of their investment account.

As Charles Schwab traders express their market sentiment over the next few months, 62% say they are most bullish on artificial intelligence (AI) stocks, 56% say growth stocks are their top pick and 55% say they see the most upside potential in domestic stocks.

Meanwhile, 55% say they are bullish on the equities market in general.

The survey results come as banking giant Goldman Sachs unveils a trade it says could spark an investor stampede driven by fear of missing out (FOMO). In a new podcast episode, Kunal Shah, the co-CEO of Goldman Sachs International, says that a Fed rate cut will negatively impact the value of the US dollar and trigger rallies in European stocks, fueled by cheap dollars and a rising euro.

4:50 “I think from here. One of the key drivers beyond the long-term capital allocation theme is really just relative monetary policy. We’re at the point now where the ECB (European Central Bank) may be done [cutting rates], at least for now. But there is pressure on the Fed to cut. 

Now you need to figure out when they are getting a green light from a data perspective, but there is definitely room there for further easing in the front end of the US curve, and that can catalyze another move higher in the euro.

And when the euro is rallying, it is the ultimate FOMO trade that I think people now are going to have to re-risk into.”

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Generated Image: Midjourney

Justin Drake, a prominent researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, has unveiled his vision for the next decade.

His vision of “lean Ethereum” will aspire to achieve “extreme performance” with minimum complexity without compromising security or decentralization. 

The quantum threat 

In his lengthy social media post, Drake has pointed to such key advantages of Ethereum as 100% uptime and unmatched client diversity. The second-largest blockchain network boasts a whopping $130 billion worth of economic security. Drake expects Ethereum to top $1 trillion in the future since he is convinced that the chain will function as the “bedrock” of the internet of value.

Drake has noted that Ethereum will have to survive a potential threat posed by quantum computers that could break cryptography. 

Since he views Ethereum as a global public good, it should remain online no matter what. 

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Draker has proposed replacing older cryptographic primitives (like BLS or KZG) with hash-based alternatives. According to the developer, hash-based cryptography offers a “compelling” response to such megatrends as the rise of SNARKs and the growing threat of quantum computing. 

Aggressive scaling 

Drake does not believe that Ethereum has to choose between scaling and decentralization. The “beast mode” is meant to combine the best of both worlds. 

The ambitious scaling strategy includes real-time zkVMs for faster smart contracts and data availability sampling (DAS) for seamlessly verifying massive amounts of data. 

The network is expected to see “low-hanging fruit” performance boosts in the near future. In the long term, layer-1 is expected to reach 10,000 transactions per second. Meanwhile, layer-2 solutions could potentially achieve 1 million TPS.