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, where he led the Harvard Political Review. He has a background in the technology industry and owns some ETH and BTC. Sam was part of the team that won a 2023 Gerald Loeb Award for CoinDesk's coverage of Sam Bankman-Fried and the FTX collapse.

Sam Kessler

Latest from Sam Kessler


Tech

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)

Tech

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.

U.S. election chaos in November might spill over into crypto markets.

Tech

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.

(DALL-E/CoinDesk)

Finance

Jump Crypto Is Unnamed Firm That Made $1.28B From Do Kwon’s Doomed Terra Ecosystem: Sources

A complaint by the SEC against Do Kwon and Terraform Labs revealed an unnamed trading firm helped Kwon restore UST’s $1 peg in 2021 in exchange for discounted LUNA tokens.

El presidente de Jump Crypto, Kanav Kariya. (Danny Nelson)

Tech

Matter Labs Says zkSync 2.0 Entering New ‘Era’ With Re-Brand and Developer Rollout

Matter Labs has renamed zkSync 2.0, its zero-knowledge rollup platform, to “zkSync Era” and is making its code open-source.

Now is the time to consider more cash-like privacy-focused CBDC solutions, John Kiff, research director at the Sovereign Official Digital Association and Dr. Jonas Gross, chairman of the Digital Euro Association, write. (israel palacio, Unsplash)

Tech

Arbitrum Surges Ahead as Ethereum’s Layer 2 Landscape Takes Shape

Layer 2 rollups now see more transaction volume than Ethereum’s main network.

(DALL-E/CoinDesk)

Tech

How the SEC Could Reshape Ethereum’s Staking Landscape for the Better

By shutting down Kraken’s staking service, the SEC could shift power over Ethereum toward solo stakers and decentralized alternatives.

(Pornpak Khunatorn/Getty Images)

Tech

Uniswap Vote on BNB Deployment Ends With Silicon Valley’s A16Z on Losing Side

Uniswap’s community wants to bring the exchange to BNB Chain before copycats can launch identical competitors.

Uniswap unicorn balloon (Getty Images)

Tech

Contentious Uniswap Vote Highlights the Opaqueness of Decentralized Governance

A16z didn’t quash a proposal to launch Uniswap onto Binance’s BNB Chain, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have.

(Sanja Baljkas/Getty Images)

Tech

The =nil; Foundation Says Its New Software Is Rocket Fuel for Zero-Knowledge Developers

The firm has already raised $22 million to build a suite of zero-knowledge developer tools.

(Creative Commons)