Christian’s journey with the written word began long before the age of Bitcoin. In the hallowed halls of academia, he honed his craft as a feature writer for his college paper. This early love for storytelling paved the way for a successful stint as an editor at a data engineering firm, where his first-month essay win funded a months-long supply of doggie and kitty treats – a testament to his dedication to his furry companions (more on that later).

Christian then roamed the world of journalism, working at newspapers in Canada and even South Korea. He finally settled down at a local news giant in his hometown in the Philippines for a decade, becoming a total news junkie. But then, something new caught his eye: cryptocurrency. It was like a treasure hunt mixed with storytelling – right up his alley!

So, he landed a killer gig at NewsBTC, where he’s one of the go-to guys for all things crypto. He breaks down this confusing stuff into bite-sized pieces, making it easy for anyone to understand (he salutes his management team for teaching him this skill).

Think Christian’s all work and no play? Not a chance! When he’s not at his computer, you’ll find him indulging his passion for motorbikes. A true gearhead, Christian loves tinkering with his bike and savoring the joy of the open road on his 320-cc Yamaha R3. Once a speed demon who hit 120mph (a feat he vowed never to repeat), he now prefers leisurely rides along the coast, enjoying the wind in his thinning hair.

Speaking of chill, Christian’s got a crew of furry friends waiting for him at home. Two cats and a dog. He swears cats are way smarter than dogs (sorry, Grizzly), but he adores them all anyway. Apparently, watching his pets just chillin’ helps him analyze and write meticulously formatted articles even better.

Here’s the thing about this guy: He works a lot, but he keeps himself fueled by enough coffee to make it through the day – and some seriously delicious (Filipino) food. He says a delectable meal is the secret ingredient to a killer article. And after a long day of crypto crusading, he unwinds with some rum (mixed with milk) while watching slapstick movies.

Looking ahead, Christian sees a bright future with NewsBTC. He says he sees himself privileged to be part of an awesome organization, sharing his expertise and passion with a community he values, and fellow editors – and bosses – he deeply respects.

So, the next time you tread into the world of cryptocurrency, remember the man behind the words – the crypto crusader, the grease monkey, and the feline philosopher, all rolled into one.

Crypto ETF issuer and asset manager BlackRock announced on Wednesday the expansion of its USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) to include five new blockchain ecosystems: Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, and Polygon. 

Initially launched on the Ethereum network in March 2024, BUIDL rapidly gained traction among investors, becoming the largest tokenized fund globally regarding assets under management (AUM) within just 40 days.

BNY Mellon To Custody BUIDL

The expansion will allow BUIDL to interact with more blockchain-based financial products and infrastructures. BlackRock aims to enhance accessibility for investors, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and digital asset firms, enabling them to leverage BUIDL within the ecosystems of their choice.

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Carlos Domingo, CEO and co-founder of Securitize, the firm responsible for tokenizing BUIDL, emphasized the importance of this multi-chain approach in Wednesday’s press release by saying: 

Real-world asset tokenization is scaling, and we’re excited to have these blockchains added to increase the potential of the BUIDL ecosystem. With these new chains we’ll start to see more investors looking to leverage the underlying technology to increase efficiencies on all the things that until now have been hard to do.

With the addition of these blockchains, BlackRock aims to provide increased options and access for investors, allowing developers to build applications that integrate seamlessly with the BUIDL fund.

BNY Mellon, which recently received a Bitcoin and crypto custody license for institutional services, will play a key role in this initiative as the fund administrator and custodian for BUIDL. 

BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Achieves Unprecedented Growth

On the crypto ETF front, BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, has reached a remarkable milestone, surpassing the $40 billion mark in assets under management (AUM) just two weeks after hitting $30 billion. 

This achievement comes in a record 211 days, shattering the previous record of 1,253 days held by the iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG). 

IBIT is now positioned in the top 1% of all ETFs by assets and at just 10 months old, it has outperformed all 2,800 ETFs launched in the past decade, according to ETF expert Eric Balchunas.

Balchunas further highlighted that Bitcoin ETFs collectively have crossed the $90 billion asset threshold, following a significant $6 billion surge in the past few days. 

This increase comprises $1 billion in new inflows and $5 billion in market appreciation. The growing popularity of Bitcoin ETFs indicates that they are now 72% of the way toward surpassing gold ETFs in total assets.

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The rise in Bitcoin ETF assets has coincided with a surge in investor confidence, particularly following Donald Trump’s recent victory over Kamala Harris in the presidential elections. 

This political shift has positively influenced market sentiment, contributing to a broader uptick in cryptocurrency prices. Bitcoin, in particular, has experienced a substantial rally, climbing over 24% to reach a record high of $93,000 in the past week alone.

Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com 

In a significant development for the Ethereum (ETH) ecosystem, researchers propose redesigning the network’s consensus layer, aiming to enhance scalability, decentralization, and security. 

During a presentation at DevCon in Bangkok on Tuesday, Justin Drake, an Ethereum Foundation researcher, introduced the concept of “Beam Chain,” a new consensus layer intended to replace the existing Beacon Chain.

The Beam Chain Proposal

Drake explained that the Beacon Chain, which has been operational for five years, has become somewhat outdated. “In those five years, so much has happened,” he remarked, highlighting the rapid advancements in blockchain technology and research. 

The redesign will reportedly focus exclusively on the consensus layer, leaving the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and the binary large object (blob) data layer untouched. 

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In addition, the Beam Chain aims to revamp several critical aspects of Ethereum’s staking mechanism, block production system, and cryptographic architecture. One of the central proposals is to reduce the validator bond from 32 ETH to just 1 ETH, a move intended to foster greater decentralization within the network. 

Drake noted that the current issuance model for Proof of Stake (PoS) is perceived as flawed, presenting an opportunity for improvement that could benefit Ethereum’s long-term health.

To enhance censorship resistance, the proposal includes mechanisms for attestor-proposer separation, which would further secure the block production process. Additionally, the Beam Chain is designed to improve throughput by accelerating block time slots, ultimately leading to faster transaction confirmations.

Plans To Transform Ethereum Future

A hallmark of the Beam Chain initiative is its incorporation of zero-knowledge (ZK) consensus, which leverages Succinct Non-interactive Argument of Knowledge (SNARK) proofs. 

These cryptographic tools will serve dual purposes: enabling consensus clients to compile high-level languages into bytecode and creating a “hash-based post-quantum infinitely-aggregatable scheme” that can condense thousands of hashes into a single proof. 

Recent advancements suggest that users can prove over 2 million hashes per second, indicating that the “SNARKification” of the consensus layer is feasible even on consumer-grade hardware.

Drake outlined that if the community supports the proposal, the next steps would involve specification in 2025, development in 2026, and testing in 2027. 

The researcher described this strategy as “ossification accelerationism,” aiming to achieve stability and maturity for Ethereum sooner rather than later. “We want Ethereum to go into ‘maintenance mode’ as soon as possible,” he stated.

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The proposal has generated considerable interest within the Ethereum community, with Drake emphasizing the importance of community participation in shaping the future of the consensus layer. He referred to the Beam Chain as his “most ambitious initiative to date,” highlighting the need for collaboration to realize this vision.

In an exclusive interview with NewsBTC, Professor Christian Cachin from the University of Bern commended the Beam Chain proposal for its potential to solidify Ethereum’s consensus roadmap. 

Cachin noted that while the planned upgrades involve sophisticated and non-backwards-compatible technologies, they are crucial for advancing Ethereum’s scalability and overall capabilities: 

As far as I see so far, the proposal makes the existing Ethereum consensus roadmap concrete, it takes the next steps toward more powerful and more scalable consensus of Ethereum.

At the time of writing, ETH was trading at $3,227, up 22% for the week.

Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com