Derivatives — particularly perpetual futures (“perps”) — are undoubtedly the largest vertical in crypto, comprising the bulk of total crypto trading volume. Virtually all perps trading occurs on centralized exchanges. The irony that most retail and institutional traders alike trade decentralized assets on centralized servers is not lost to many…

A look into parallel execution — Current blockchains have challenges Today’s major blockchains offer a range of applications, including DeFi, NFTs, social media, and even gaming. However, the quality and capability of these applications are limited by a fundamental challenge: blockchains struggle to process transactions concurrently. In decentralized applications, parallel execution is vital because it allows smart contract platforms to…

War Room Games, a capture the flag (CTF) event hosted by Tenderly and Furucombo, recently made its way to Taipei at the ETHTaipei 2023 conference and hackathon. Our team was thrilled to participate in this cyberpunk-themed hacking competition. With a primary focus on finding exploits and vulnerabilities in smart contracts…

Amber Group’s security team participated in the NumenCTF and secured third place by solving 13 out of 16 challenges.

Overview of Decentralized Social Networks — Earlier this year, Twitter axed third-party apps without warning. A few weeks later, it removed free API access — its cheapest package now costs $42k per month. Most users are attuned to this reality by now. Our most important social media apps, from Facebook and TikTok to WeChat and Grab…

Introduction Ethereum will complete the final stage of its transition to proof of stake in a month. After the upcoming “Shapella” upgrade (a portmanteau of “Shanghai” and “Capella”), over 16 million ETH of staked Ether can be withdrawn from the Beacon Chain. This headline figure alone has created confusion and some…

Introduction About a decade ago, the world saw a rise in the growth of mobile smartphones. At the time, some large companies thought they could revolutionize smartphones by introducing modular architectures. In 2013, Google announced Project Ara, a new smartphone with a modular design. Unlike today’s “monolithic” phones, made of sealed-off…

Smart contracts aren’t that smart When someone purchases a digital asset stored on a blockchain, it may seem like moving it to a different blockchain is a safe and easy process. After all, in the world of traditional finance, moving money or assets from one database to another is a generally straightforward, even trivial process…

We must continue to evolve When someone first decides to plunge into decentralized finance, NFTs, or any other type of on-chain activity, they are hit with the realization that they first need to acquire a wallet. Unfortunately, the experience of using an on-chain wallet is much different than the user experience most people are accustomed…