Author: Michael Johnson
Local law allows payment for taxes, tickets, and permits. City partners with banks to convert crypto to fiat. Panama bypasses national legislation through local ordinance. Panama City is set to become one of the first Latin American capitals to formally integrate crypto payments into its municipal system, allowing residents to pay for public services in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and stablecoins. This move, driven by the city’s administration and not national legislation, marks a notable shift in how governments are embracing digital assets. Panama City Mayor Mayer Mizrachi confirmed the development via a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday. He stated…
Bitcoin’s market share rose to 59.1% despite falling 11.8%. Ethereum’s 2024 gains wiped out in Q1 2025. DeFi TVL fell 27.5% across multichain platforms. The global cryptocurrency market started 2025 with optimism, fuelled by expectations of favourable policy shifts under Donald Trump’s presidency and a strong rally across meme coins. But those hopes have since been dashed. According to CoinGecko’s latest quarterly report, crypto’s total market capitalisation fell 18.6% in Q1 2025, wiping out $633.5 billion in value. Trading volumes also took a hit. The report shows that average daily trading volume fell 27.3% compared to the previous quarter. Spot…
Fear remains the key emotion in the cryptocurrency space; an aspect that has been weighing on most majors and meme coins. For instance, coupled with its internal challenges, the risk-off mood has Ethereum price still trading below the short and medium-term MAs. However, steady investor confidence has benefited Bitcoin and Solana. At the same time, savvy investors are looking for opportunities in new crypto projects. As the first Bitcoin meme ICO, Bitcoin Pepe is one of the new entrants that have captured investors’ attention. It seeks to bring the meme culture home to the stable Bitcoin network; assuring meme lovers…
TL;DR: We are excited to announce that the applications are now open for the sixth cohort of the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (EPF6). The EPF provides a pathway for aspiring protocol developers to make meaningful contributions to Ethereum. In each cohort, a diverse group is assembled to work toward advancing Ethereum’s roadmap during the fellowship. This includes the development of client implementations, testing and specifications, and participating in the latest core protocol research. With an overarching goal to find eventual placement for fellows in R&D teams working on core protocol development, EPF provides fellows with a unique opportunity to collaborate with…
TL;DR: The EPF successfully concluded the fifth cohort, Study Group 2025 and is preparing for cohort six (EPF6). Applications will be announced soon, keep an eye on the EF blog! In the meantime, get ready by enhancing your Ethereum protocol knowledge at EPF.wiki and sign up for the newsletter to get notified about announcements. The Ethereum Protocol Fellowship completed its fifth cohort, culminating with EPF Day at Devcon in Bangkok. Its completion marked 5 months of immersive learning, research and contribution to the Ethereum core ecosystem from a group of talented and dedicated fellows. Client devs and researchers welcomed new…
Ethereum’s weekly All Core Developer calls are a lot to keep up with, so this “Checkpoint” series aims for brief high-level updates with a target cadence of every 4-5 calls, depending on what’s happening in core development. See the initial update here. All subsequent updates will be hosted here on the Ethereum Foundation blog. The past month of calls have been focused on Pectra’s testnet upgrades in anticipation of the Pectra mainnet fork with development of the following fork, Fusaka, pushing forward in parallel. Pectra Both major testnets, Holešky and Sepolia, underwent the Pectra fork and both saw configuration issues…
The Pectra testnet activation revealed issues in clients with deposit contract configurations changes on Ethereum testnets. While Sepolia’s recovery was straightforward and the network has since fully recovered, Holesky experienced extensive inactivity leaks as part of its recovery mechanism. The Holesky network has since then finalized, but the exited validators would take approximately one year to fully be removed from the validator set (¹). While stakers can test deposits, consolidations and all other Pectra features, the size of the exit queue prevents Holesky from being used to test the full validator lifecycle within a reasonable timeframe. To address this, a…
Ethereum (ETH) consolidates below $2k, testing a 5-year trendline. PepeX emerges as a fairer investment alternative with its upcoming presale and AI-powered meme coin launchpad. Investors are shifting their focus to the upcoming PepeX presale amid Ethereum uncertainty. As Ethereum (ETH) lingers in a precarious consolidation phase below the $2,000 mark, investors are increasingly turning their attention to alternative opportunities in the crypto space. The broader market remains jittery, plagued by macroeconomic uncertainty, trade war fears, and erratic US policy decisions under President Trump. However, amid this turbulence, a new contender, PepeX, is emerging as a beacon for those seeking…
Ether dropped 9%, XRP fell 2%, and Dogecoin lost over 8% in 24 hours Investors react to Trump’s comments about a possible recession The US stock market lost more than $1.7 trillion in value Crypto prices have fallen across the board, with Bitcoin dropping below $77,000 as investors continued to react to US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies and the Bitcoin reserve plan. Bitcoin’s price at $76,000. Source: CoinMarketCap In the early hours of Tuesday, March 11, Bitcoin fell to $76,000, a figure not seen since last September. In a post on X, crypto trader Ali said: “If #Bitcoin $BTC…
BBVA customers in Spain will soon be able to trade Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). The bank will roll out the crypto trading services in phases. First, the bank will allow a select group of customers to test the services before expanding it to retail customers. Spain’s Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), the country’s second-largest bank, has received regulatory approval from the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV) to offer Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) trading services. Following the approval by the securities regulator, BBVA announced that its clients will soon be able to buy, sell, and manage BTC…