Category: Cryptocurrency News

XRP’s fully diluted valuation (FDV) has surpassed Ether (ETH), according to March 14 data from CoinGecko. The FDV flip signifies a reversal of fortune for both layer-1 (L1) blockchain networks behind the tokens, as XRP Ledger’s decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem gains traction and Ethereum grapples with competition from rival L1s, such as Solana.As of March 14, XRP’s FDV stood at nearly $235 billion, more than $1 billion higher than Ether’s, according to CoinGecko. Ether’s market capitalization still leads at $233 billion versus XRP’s $136 billion, the data shows. FDV measures the cumulative value of all existing tokens, whereas market capitalization only counts tokens already in circulation. XRP’s developer, Ripple Labs, holds a multibillion-dollar allocation of its chain’s native token. Cryptocurrencies by FDV. Source: CoinGeckoRelated: XRP Ledger unveils institutional DeFi roadmapChanging fortunesXRP’s price has risen by more than 300%, to around $2.3 per token, since President Donald Trump prevailed in the US elections on Nov. 5. Trump said he wants America to become the “world’s crypto capital” and has appointed industry-friendly leadership to key regulators. The thawing US regulatory environment is especially beneficial for XRP, which prioritizes enterprise users and unveiled an institutional DeFi roadmap in February.As of January, XRP’s native decentralized exchange (DEX) has handled more than $1 billion in swap transactions since launching in 2024.The XRP token saw further support when Trump said he planned to include XRP in a proposed US Digital Asset Stockpile alongside other cryptocurrencies, such as Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA). The stockpile will only comprise assets acquired by law enforcement and other legal proceedings and will not buy crypto. The US Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly “in the process of wrapping up” an enforcement action against Ripple that has beleaguered the XRP developer since 2020. The regulator has already dropped actions against crypto firms such as Coinbase, Kraken and Uniswap.Meanwhile, Ether’s spot price has struggled since March 2024, when the network’s Dencun upgrade cut transaction fees by approximately 95%. As of March, trading volume on Solana, which prioritizes fast transaction execution and was central to 2024’s memecoin frenzy, rivals that of Ethereum and all of its layer-2 scaling chains combined. Magazine: ‘Hong Kong’s FTX’ victims win lawsuit, bankers bash stablecoins: Asia Express

XRP’s fully diluted valuation (FDV) has surpassed Ether (ETH), according to March 14 data from CoinGecko. The FDV flip signifies a reversal of fortune for both layer-1 (L1) blockchain networks behind the tokens, as XRP Ledger’s decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem gains traction and Ethereum grapples with competition from rival L1s, such as Solana.As of March 14, XRP’s FDV stood at nearly $235 billion, more than $1 billion higher than Ether’s, according to CoinGecko. Ether’s market capitalization still leads at $233 billion versus XRP’s $136 billion, the data shows. FDV measures the cumulative value of all existing tokens, whereas market capitalization only counts tokens already in circulation. XRP’s developer, Ripple Labs, holds a multibillion-dollar allocation of its chain’s native token. Cryptocurrencies by FDV. Source: CoinGeckoRelated: XRP Ledger unveils institutional DeFi roadmapChanging fortunesXRP’s price has risen by more than 300%, to around $2.3 per token, since President Donald Trump prevailed in the US elections on Nov. 5. Trump said he wants America to become the “world’s crypto capital” and has appointed industry-friendly leadership to key regulators. The thawing US regulatory environment is especially beneficial for XRP, which prioritizes enterprise users and unveiled an institutional DeFi roadmap in February.As of January, XRP’s native decentralized exchange (DEX) has handled more than $1 billion in swap transactions since launching in 2024.The XRP token saw further support when Trump said he planned to include XRP in a proposed US Digital Asset Stockpile alongside other cryptocurrencies, such as Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA). The stockpile will only comprise assets acquired by law enforcement and other legal proceedings and will not buy crypto. The US Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly “in the process of wrapping up” an enforcement action against Ripple that has beleaguered the XRP developer since 2020. The regulator has already dropped actions against crypto firms such as Coinbase, Kraken and Uniswap.Meanwhile, Ether’s spot price has struggled since March 2024, when the network’s Dencun upgrade cut transaction fees by approximately 95%. As of March, trading volume on Solana, which prioritizes fast transaction execution and was central to 2024’s memecoin frenzy, rivals that of Ethereum and all of its layer-2 scaling chains combined. Magazine: ‘Hong Kong’s FTX’ victims win lawsuit, bankers bash stablecoins: Asia Express

XRP’s fully diluted valuation (FDV) has surpassed Ether (ETH), according to March 14 data from CoinGecko. The FDV flip signifies a reversal of fortune for both layer-1 (L1) blockchain networks behind the tokens, as XRP Ledger’s decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem gains traction and Ethereum grapples with competition from rival L1s, such as Solana.As of March 14, XRP’s FDV stood at nearly $235 billion, more than $1 billion higher than Ether’s, according to CoinGecko. Ether’s market capitalization still leads at $233 billion versus XRP’s $136 billion, the data shows. FDV measures the cumulative value of all existing tokens, whereas market capitalization only counts tokens already in circulation. XRP’s developer, Ripple Labs, holds a multibillion-dollar allocation of its chain’s native token. Cryptocurrencies by FDV. Source: CoinGeckoRelated: XRP Ledger unveils institutional DeFi roadmapChanging fortunesXRP’s price has risen by more than 300%, to around $2.3 per token, since President Donald Trump prevailed in the US elections on Nov. 5. Trump said he wants America to become the “world’s crypto capital” and has appointed industry-friendly leadership to key regulators. The thawing US regulatory environment is especially beneficial for XRP, which prioritizes enterprise users and unveiled an institutional DeFi roadmap in February.As of January, XRP’s native decentralized exchange (DEX) has handled more than $1 billion in swap transactions since launching in 2024.The XRP token saw further support when Trump said he planned to include XRP in a proposed US Digital Asset Stockpile alongside other cryptocurrencies, such as Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA). The stockpile will only comprise assets acquired by law enforcement and other legal proceedings and will not buy crypto. The US Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly “in the process of wrapping up” an enforcement action against Ripple that has beleaguered the XRP developer since 2020. The regulator has already dropped actions against crypto firms such as Coinbase, Kraken and Uniswap.Meanwhile, Ether’s spot price has struggled since March 2024, when the network’s Dencun upgrade cut transaction fees by approximately 95%. As of March, trading volume on Solana, which prioritizes fast transaction execution and was central to 2024’s memecoin frenzy, rivals that of Ethereum and all of its layer-2 scaling chains combined. Magazine: ‘Hong Kong’s FTX’ victims win lawsuit, bankers bash stablecoins: Asia Express

After 15 years of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) is ready for commercialization in the Web3 industry, according to Muriel Médard, an MIT professor and founder of blockchain infrastructure developer Optimum.Optimum emerged from stealth on Feb. 28 as a decentralized memory infrastructure that can be utilized by any blockchain seeking to bring scalability to Web3. It utilizes the RLNC technology that was first formulated by Professor Médard. RLNC is a breakthrough in coding that is already used in the 5G, satellite telecommunications and Internet of Things (IoT) industries. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Professor Médard said RLNC is equivalent to “breaking a puzzle into small pieces, mixing those pieces together into equations, and sending them to your friends.”“Even if a few pieces get lost, your friends can still put the whole puzzle together from the pieces they receive. Rather than look for specific pieces, you look for just enough pieces,” she said.RLNC technology can help blockchains overcome “critical bottlenecks in scalability” by “encoding data into mathematical equations, enabling faster transmission, reduced bandwidth usage, lower barriers to entry for flexnodes and more reliable delivery,” said Médard.Médard founded Optimum with the help of Nancy Lynch, an adviser and co-inventor of the Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus, after “several years of witnessing the rise and maturation of Web3,” she said.“[The] vision is to bring the efficiency of traditional computer memory (RAM) to decentralized networks, laying the foundation for a breakthrough in Web3 infrastructure.”Related: The future of Ethereum scaling lies in hardware, not software“Scale or Fail”RLNC’s potential use case in Web3 has attracted notable backers, several of whom invested in Optimum as angel investors. They include Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, Wormhole co-founder Robinson Burkey, Polychain chief technology officer Abhijeet Mahagaonkar, Bitget CEO Gracy Chen and Arthur Cheong, the founder and CEO of DeFiance Capital.Professor Médard told Cointelegraph that scalability breakthroughs in Web3 are needed, especially as blockchain adoption continues to grow for the “purposes of payments, financial instruments and even diversification of national government strategies.”“We believe this trend will continue, and as usage and demand increase, blockchains will need to scale or they will fail,” she said. Scalability remains one of the industry’s biggest bottlenecks, having plagued the development of both Bitcoin and Ethereum at various points over their history. Competing networks have vowed to fix scalability issues stemming from mass consumer adoption, though their track record has been far from perfect. Against this backdrop, the crypto payments landscape has evolved significantly in recent years, shifting from tokens to stablecoins that are much faster and cheaper. Stablecoins have emerged as one of blockchain’s most popular use cases, especially for payments and cross-border remittances. Source: DefiLlamaAn August report by wealth manager Bernstein said Solana is a leading network for stablecoin adoption, but even it struggles to scale with growing payment and remittance demand.Although Solana has piloted stablecoin payments with Visa and Shopify, it’s unclear whether the blockchain can facilitate mainstream adoption without a massive boost in capacity, Bernstein said. Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025

After 15 years of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) is ready for commercialization in the Web3 industry, according to Muriel Médard, an MIT professor and founder of blockchain infrastructure developer Optimum.Optimum emerged from stealth on Feb. 28 as a decentralized memory infrastructure that can be utilized by any blockchain seeking to bring scalability to Web3. It utilizes the RLNC technology that was first formulated by Professor Médard. RLNC is a breakthrough in coding that is already used in the 5G, satellite telecommunications and Internet of Things (IoT) industries. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Professor Médard said RLNC is equivalent to “breaking a puzzle into small pieces, mixing those pieces together into equations, and sending them to your friends.”“Even if a few pieces get lost, your friends can still put the whole puzzle together from the pieces they receive. Rather than look for specific pieces, you look for just enough pieces,” she said.RLNC technology can help blockchains overcome “critical bottlenecks in scalability” by “encoding data into mathematical equations, enabling faster transmission, reduced bandwidth usage, lower barriers to entry for flexnodes and more reliable delivery,” said Médard.Médard founded Optimum with the help of Nancy Lynch, an adviser and co-inventor of the Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus, after “several years of witnessing the rise and maturation of Web3,” she said.“[The] vision is to bring the efficiency of traditional computer memory (RAM) to decentralized networks, laying the foundation for a breakthrough in Web3 infrastructure.”Related: The future of Ethereum scaling lies in hardware, not software“Scale or Fail”RLNC’s potential use case in Web3 has attracted notable backers, several of whom invested in Optimum as angel investors. They include Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, Wormhole co-founder Robinson Burkey, Polychain chief technology officer Abhijeet Mahagaonkar, Bitget CEO Gracy Chen and Arthur Cheong, the founder and CEO of DeFiance Capital.Professor Médard told Cointelegraph that scalability breakthroughs in Web3 are needed, especially as blockchain adoption continues to grow for the “purposes of payments, financial instruments and even diversification of national government strategies.”“We believe this trend will continue, and as usage and demand increase, blockchains will need to scale or they will fail,” she said. Scalability remains one of the industry’s biggest bottlenecks, having plagued the development of both Bitcoin and Ethereum at various points over their history. Competing networks have vowed to fix scalability issues stemming from mass consumer adoption, though their track record has been far from perfect. Against this backdrop, the crypto payments landscape has evolved significantly in recent years, shifting from tokens to stablecoins that are much faster and cheaper. Stablecoins have emerged as one of blockchain’s most popular use cases, especially for payments and cross-border remittances. Source: DefiLlamaAn August report by wealth manager Bernstein said Solana is a leading network for stablecoin adoption, but even it struggles to scale with growing payment and remittance demand.Although Solana has piloted stablecoin payments with Visa and Shopify, it’s unclear whether the blockchain can facilitate mainstream adoption without a massive boost in capacity, Bernstein said. Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025

After 15 years of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) is ready for commercialization in the Web3 industry, according to Muriel Médard, an MIT professor and founder of blockchain infrastructure developer Optimum.Optimum emerged from stealth on Feb. 28 as a decentralized memory infrastructure that can be utilized by any blockchain seeking to bring scalability to Web3. It utilizes the RLNC technology that was first formulated by Professor Médard. RLNC is a breakthrough in coding that is already used in the 5G, satellite telecommunications and Internet of Things (IoT) industries. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Professor Médard said RLNC is equivalent to “breaking a puzzle into small pieces, mixing those pieces together into equations, and sending them to your friends.”“Even if a few pieces get lost, your friends can still put the whole puzzle together from the pieces they receive. Rather than look for specific pieces, you look for just enough pieces,” she said.RLNC technology can help blockchains overcome “critical bottlenecks in scalability” by “encoding data into mathematical equations, enabling faster transmission, reduced bandwidth usage, lower barriers to entry for flexnodes and more reliable delivery,” said Médard.Médard founded Optimum with the help of Nancy Lynch, an adviser and co-inventor of the Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus, after “several years of witnessing the rise and maturation of Web3,” she said.“[The] vision is to bring the efficiency of traditional computer memory (RAM) to decentralized networks, laying the foundation for a breakthrough in Web3 infrastructure.”Related: The future of Ethereum scaling lies in hardware, not software“Scale or Fail”RLNC’s potential use case in Web3 has attracted notable backers, several of whom invested in Optimum as angel investors. They include Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, Wormhole co-founder Robinson Burkey, Polychain chief technology officer Abhijeet Mahagaonkar, Bitget CEO Gracy Chen and Arthur Cheong, the founder and CEO of DeFiance Capital.Professor Médard told Cointelegraph that scalability breakthroughs in Web3 are needed, especially as blockchain adoption continues to grow for the “purposes of payments, financial instruments and even diversification of national government strategies.”“We believe this trend will continue, and as usage and demand increase, blockchains will need to scale or they will fail,” she said. Scalability remains one of the industry’s biggest bottlenecks, having plagued the development of both Bitcoin and Ethereum at various points over their history. Competing networks have vowed to fix scalability issues stemming from mass consumer adoption, though their track record has been far from perfect. Against this backdrop, the crypto payments landscape has evolved significantly in recent years, shifting from tokens to stablecoins that are much faster and cheaper. Stablecoins have emerged as one of blockchain’s most popular use cases, especially for payments and cross-border remittances. Source: DefiLlamaAn August report by wealth manager Bernstein said Solana is a leading network for stablecoin adoption, but even it struggles to scale with growing payment and remittance demand.Although Solana has piloted stablecoin payments with Visa and Shopify, it’s unclear whether the blockchain can facilitate mainstream adoption without a massive boost in capacity, Bernstein said. Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025

After 15 years of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) is ready for commercialization in the Web3 industry, according to Muriel Médard, an MIT professor and founder of blockchain infrastructure developer Optimum.Optimum emerged from stealth on Feb. 28 as a decentralized memory infrastructure that can be utilized by any blockchain seeking to bring scalability to Web3. It utilizes the RLNC technology that was first formulated by Professor Médard. RLNC is a breakthrough in coding that is already used in the 5G, satellite telecommunications and Internet of Things (IoT) industries. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Professor Médard said RLNC is equivalent to “breaking a puzzle into small pieces, mixing those pieces together into equations, and sending them to your friends.”“Even if a few pieces get lost, your friends can still put the whole puzzle together from the pieces they receive. Rather than look for specific pieces, you look for just enough pieces,” she said.RLNC technology can help blockchains overcome “critical bottlenecks in scalability” by “encoding data into mathematical equations, enabling faster transmission, reduced bandwidth usage, lower barriers to entry for flexnodes and more reliable delivery,” said Médard.Médard co-founded Optimum with Nancy Lynch, an adviser and co-inventor of the Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus, after “several years of witnessing the rise and maturation of Web3,” she said.“[The] vision is to bring the efficiency of traditional computer memory (RAM) to decentralized networks, laying the foundation for a breakthrough in Web3 infrastructure.”Related: The future of Ethereum scaling lies in hardware, not software“Scale or Fail”RLNC’s potential use case in Web3 has attracted notable backers, several of whom invested in Optimum as angel investors. They include Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, Wormhole co-founder Robinson Burkey, Polychain chief technology officer Abhijeet Mahagaonkar, Bitget CEO Gracy Chen and Arthur Cheong, the founder and CEO of DeFiance Capital.Professor Médard told Cointelegraph that scalability breakthroughs in Web3 are needed, especially as blockchain adoption continues to grow for the “purposes of payments, financial instruments and even diversification of national government strategies.”“We believe this trend will continue, and as usage and demand increase, blockchains will need to scale or they will fail,” she said. Scalability remains one of the industry’s biggest bottlenecks, having plagued the development of both Bitcoin and Ethereum at various points over their history. Competing networks have vowed to fix scalability issues stemming from mass consumer adoption, though their track record has been far from perfect. Against this backdrop, the crypto payments landscape has evolved significantly in recent years, shifting from tokens to stablecoins that are much faster and cheaper. Stablecoins have emerged as one of blockchain’s most popular use cases, especially for payments and cross-border remittances. Source: DefiLlamaAn August report by wealth manager Bernstein said Solana is a leading network for stablecoin adoption, but even it struggles to scale with growing payment and remittance demand.Although Solana has piloted stablecoin payments with Visa and Shopify, it’s unclear whether the blockchain can facilitate mainstream adoption without a massive boost in capacity, Bernstein said. Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025

After 15 years of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) is ready for commercialization in the Web3 industry, according to Muriel Médard, an MIT professor and founder of blockchain infrastructure developer Optimum.Optimum emerged from stealth on Feb. 28 as a decentralized memory infrastructure that can be utilized by any blockchain seeking to bring scalability to Web3. It utilizes the RLNC technology that was first formulated by Professor Médard. RLNC is a breakthrough in coding that is already used in the 5G, satellite telecommunications and Internet of Things (IoT) industries. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Professor Médard said RLNC is equivalent to “breaking a puzzle into small pieces, mixing those pieces together into equations, and sending them to your friends.”“Even if a few pieces get lost, your friends can still put the whole puzzle together from the pieces they receive. Rather than look for specific pieces, you look for just enough pieces,” she said.RLNC technology can help blockchains overcome “critical bottlenecks in scalability” by “encoding data into mathematical equations, enabling faster transmission, reduced bandwidth usage, lower barriers to entry for flexnodes and more reliable delivery,” said Médard.Médard co-founded Optimum with Nancy Lynch, an adviser and co-inventor of the Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus, after “several years of witnessing the rise and maturation of Web3,” she said.“[The] vision is to bring the efficiency of traditional computer memory (RAM) to decentralized networks, laying the foundation for a breakthrough in Web3 infrastructure.”Related: The future of Ethereum scaling lies in hardware, not software“Scale or Fail”RLNC’s potential use case in Web3 has attracted notable backers, several of whom invested in Optimum as angel investors. They include Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, Wormhole co-founder Robinson Burkey, Polychain chief technology officer Abhijeet Mahagaonkar, Bitget CEO Gracy Chen and Arthur Cheong, the founder and CEO of DeFiance Capital.Professor Médard told Cointelegraph that scalability breakthroughs in Web3 are needed, especially as blockchain adoption continues to grow for the “purposes of payments, financial instruments and even diversification of national government strategies.”“We believe this trend will continue, and as usage and demand increase, blockchains will need to scale or they will fail,” she said. Scalability remains one of the industry’s biggest bottlenecks, having plagued the development of both Bitcoin and Ethereum at various points over their history. Competing networks have vowed to fix scalability issues stemming from mass consumer adoption, though their track record has been far from perfect. Against this backdrop, the crypto payments landscape has evolved significantly in recent years, shifting from tokens to stablecoins that are much faster and cheaper. Stablecoins have emerged as one of blockchain’s most popular use cases, especially for payments and cross-border remittances. Source: DefiLlamaAn August report by wealth manager Bernstein said Solana is a leading network for stablecoin adoption, but even it struggles to scale with growing payment and remittance demand.Although Solana has piloted stablecoin payments with Visa and Shopify, it’s unclear whether the blockchain can facilitate mainstream adoption without a massive boost in capacity, Bernstein said. Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025

After 15 years of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) is ready for commercialization in the Web3 industry, according to Muriel Médard, an MIT professor and founder of blockchain infrastructure developer Optimum.Optimum emerged from stealth on Feb. 28 as a decentralized memory infrastructure that can be utilized by any blockchain seeking to bring scalability to Web3. It utilizes the RLNC technology that was first formulated by Professor Médard. RLNC is a breakthrough in coding that is already used in the 5G, satellite telecommunications and Internet of Things (IoT) industries. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Professor Médard said RLNC is equivalent to “breaking a puzzle into small pieces, mixing those pieces together into equations, and sending them to your friends.”“Even if a few pieces get lost, your friends can still put the whole puzzle together from the pieces they receive. Rather than look for specific pieces, you look for just enough pieces,” she said.RLNC technology can help blockchains overcome “critical bottlenecks in scalability” by “encoding data into mathematical equations, enabling faster transmission, reduced bandwidth usage, lower barriers to entry for flexnodes and more reliable delivery,” said Médard.Médard founded Optimum with the help of Nancy Lynch, an adviser and co-inventor of the Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus, after “several years of witnessing the rise and maturation of Web3,” she said.“[The] vision is to bring the efficiency of traditional computer memory (RAM) to decentralized networks, laying the foundation for a breakthrough in Web3 infrastructure.”Related: The future of Ethereum scaling lies in hardware, not software“Scale or Fail”RLNC’s potential use case in Web3 has attracted notable backers, several of whom invested in Optimum as angel investors. They include Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, Wormhole co-founder Robinson Burkey, Polychain chief technology officer Abhijeet Mahagaonkar, Bitget CEO Gracy Chen and Arthur Cheong, the founder and CEO of DeFiance Capital.Professor Médard told Cointelegraph that scalability breakthroughs in Web3 are needed, especially as blockchain adoption continues to grow for the “purposes of payments, financial instruments and even diversification of national government strategies.”“We believe this trend will continue, and as usage and demand increase, blockchains will need to scale or they will fail,” she said. Scalability remains one of the industry’s biggest bottlenecks, having plagued the development of both Bitcoin and Ethereum at various points over their history. Competing networks have vowed to fix scalability issues stemming from mass consumer adoption, though their track record has been far from perfect. Against this backdrop, the crypto payments landscape has evolved significantly in recent years, shifting from tokens to stablecoins that are much faster and cheaper. Stablecoins have emerged as one of blockchain’s most popular use cases, especially for payments and cross-border remittances. Source: DefiLlamaAn August report by wealth manager Bernstein said Solana is a leading network for stablecoin adoption, but even it struggles to scale with growing payment and remittance demand.Although Solana has piloted stablecoin payments with Visa and Shopify, it’s unclear whether the blockchain can facilitate mainstream adoption without a massive boost in capacity, Bernstein said. Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025

After 15 years of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) is ready for commercialization in the Web3 industry, according to Muriel Médard, an MIT professor and founder of blockchain infrastructure developer Optimum.Optimum emerged from stealth on Feb. 28 as a decentralized memory infrastructure that can be utilized by any blockchain seeking to bring scalability to Web3. It utilizes the RLNC technology that was first formulated by Professor Médard. RLNC is a breakthrough in coding that is already used in the 5G, satellite telecommunications and Internet of Things (IoT) industries. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Professor Médard said RLNC is equivalent to “breaking a puzzle into small pieces, mixing those pieces together into equations, and sending them to your friends.”“Even if a few pieces get lost, your friends can still put the whole puzzle together from the pieces they receive. Rather than look for specific pieces, you look for just enough pieces,” she said.RLNC technology can help blockchains overcome “critical bottlenecks in scalability” by “encoding data into mathematical equations, enabling faster transmission, reduced bandwidth usage, lower barriers to entry for flexnodes and more reliable delivery,” said Médard.Médard founded Optimum with the help of Nancy Lynch, an adviser and co-inventor of the Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus, after “several years of witnessing the rise and maturation of Web3,” she said.“[The] vision is to bring the efficiency of traditional computer memory (RAM) to decentralized networks, laying the foundation for a breakthrough in Web3 infrastructure.”Related: The future of Ethereum scaling lies in hardware, not software“Scale or Fail”RLNC’s potential use case in Web3 has attracted notable backers, several of whom invested in Optimum as angel investors. They include Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, Wormhole co-founder Robinson Burkey, Polychain chief technology officer Abhijeet Mahagaonkar, Bitget CEO Gracy Chen and Arthur Cheong, the founder and CEO of DeFiance Capital.Professor Médard told Cointelegraph that scalability breakthroughs in Web3 are needed, especially as blockchain adoption continues to grow for the “purposes of payments, financial instruments and even diversification of national government strategies.”“We believe this trend will continue, and as usage and demand increase, blockchains will need to scale or they will fail,” she said. Scalability remains one of the industry’s biggest bottlenecks, having plagued the development of both Bitcoin and Ethereum at various points over their history. Competing networks have vowed to fix scalability issues stemming from mass consumer adoption, though their track record has been far from perfect. Against this backdrop, the crypto payments landscape has evolved significantly in recent years, shifting from tokens to stablecoins that are much faster and cheaper. Stablecoins have emerged as one of blockchain’s most popular use cases, especially for payments and cross-border remittances. Source: DefiLlamaAn August report by wealth manager Bernstein said Solana is a leading network for stablecoin adoption, but even it struggles to scale with growing payment and remittance demand.Although Solana has piloted stablecoin payments with Visa and Shopify, it’s unclear whether the blockchain can facilitate mainstream adoption without a massive boost in capacity, Bernstein said. Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025