Sam Kessler

Sam Kessler

Sam is CoinDesk's deputy managing editor for tech and protocols. His reporting is focused on decentralized technology, infrastructure and governance. Sam holds a computer science degree from Harvard University and he led the Harvard Political Review. He has a background in the technology industry and owns some ETH and BTC.

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Airdrop
Arbitrum Shows Just How Messy (and Tricky) Crypto Airdrops Can Be
Bugs, server crashes and scammers continue to plague crypto airdrops. Will regulatory pressures be next?
Airdrop
Arbitrum
Twitter Briefly Suspends Official Arbitrum Account
Twitter restored the account and said it was "flagged as spam by mistake."
Arbitrum
Arbitrum will airdrop its ARB token on Thursday, Mar. 23 (Dall-e/CoinDesk)
Arbitrum to Airdrop New Token and Transition to DAO
The long-awaited ARB token will grant holders the ability to vote on changes to the leading Ethereum layer 2 network.
Arbitrum will airdrop its ARB token on Thursday, Mar. 23 (Dall-e/CoinDesk)
New York Attorney General Letitia James (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
What Happens if Ether Is a Security?
A recent suit filed by the New York Attorney General could have far-ranging complications for crypto exchanges that list ether.
New York Attorney General Letitia James (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(Melody Wang/CoinDesk)
Gitcoin’s Owocki Says Crypto Can Regenerate the World. Just Don’t Call Him Starry-Eyed
A programmer by training, Kevin Owocki's view of securities law is not based in any formal legal training but crypto optimism, evolutionary science, economics and legal theory, with a focus on the principal-agent problem.
(Melody Wang/CoinDesk)
David Hoffman
Lido’s LDO Token Sinks 10% Following Rumors Crypto Staking Service Received SEC Notice
Crypto podcaster David Hoffman spread (and then retracted) a rumor that the SEC had delivered a Wells Notice to the decentralized staking service. A spokesperson for Lido declined to comment.
David Hoffman
CDCROP: Bridge hand grasp fog future (Aleksandr Barsukov/Unsplash)
Axelar Introduces Virtual Machine for Developers Building Cross-Chain Crypto Apps
Axelar describes its new VM as Kubernetes for Web3.
CDCROP: Bridge hand grasp fog future (Aleksandr Barsukov/Unsplash)
(Kenny Eliason/Unsplash)
Crypto Wallet Firm Dfns Says ‘Magic Links’ Have Critical Vulnerability
Affected services say they were given barely any notice before Dfns published its blog post detailing the so-called zero day.
(Kenny Eliason/Unsplash)
Chaos
Polygon Blockchain Nodes Briefly Went Out of Sync, Affecting Explorer, Sowing Confusion
A cascade of problems on the Ethereum sidechain caused issues for PolygonScan, an application used to track transactions – causing the appearance of an outage.
Chaos
blockchain war of words
War of Words Over zkEVMs Might Portend Long Struggle to Tech Maturity
As Polygon and Matter Labs race to bring their zkEVMs to market, both will need to make compromises in the name of security.
blockchain war of words