To understand sequencers it’s first important to revisit the topic of what a layer 2 network is vs a layer 1. Taking Ethereum as an example layer 1, there’s a block (referred to as a slot) every 12 seconds which can fit up to 30million gas worth of transaction related…

Treasuries are pools of cryptoassets which are used to fund public goods, or services for a specific blockchain-based project or protocol. They effectively operate as a ‘budget’ to further develop the offering and can be made up of a mix of the project’s own tokens, stablecoins and other cryptoassets. These…

A few weeks ago I wrote a long read about the Lightning Network, a layer 2 scaling solution for Bitcoin which allows users to make off-chain payments with near-instant settlement and near-zero fees. You can read the full piece here: https://tara-annison.medium.com/a-comprehensive-guide-to-the-lightning-network-aa2f7f9c6c31 One of the key concepts of the Lightning Network…

So far this year there’s been over $410m stolen from dApp exploits and bridge attacks alone ( https://web3isgoinggreat.com/) and the running total stands at more than $3billion. This represents dastardly hackers taking advantage at the protocol level and finding backdoors, unexpected contract behaviours and using tricks such as flash loan…

This weekend Bitcoin’s layer 2 scaling solution, the Lightning Network, hit a record-high capacity of 5,630 BTC — a 42% increase in the last 12 months. …

As long as DeFi dApps are exploited, scammers scam, and exchanges get hacked there will be a need for crypto criminals to launder the proceeds of crime so that they can eventually convert it into fiat. After all, cash is still king when it comes to crime. The go to…

A crypto giveaway scam is where the bad actor will offer you some free cryptoassets or promise a multiplied return for some cryptoassets you send them — but then will swipe anything you send them or give them access to. Similarly, airdrop scams will offer to send you some free…

I’ve previously written (in my Crime in the Metaverse Report for Elliptic: https://www.elliptic.co/resources/crime-in-the-metaverse) about how scammers were using Google ads to try to dupe unsuspecting victims to enter a fake Decentraland, connect their metamask and then inevitably drain their account. …

An Overview of MEV In the cryptoverse, Maximal Extractable Value (MEV), is the practice of eeking out value by understanding what transactions are in the mempool and inserting/re-ordering them to squeeze some extra value based on this information. Mempool Article: https://tara-annison.medium.com/what-is-a-mempool-f6a403d4871e It was previously known as Miner Extractable Value however with Ethereum’s transition from…