Today in crypto, the Polygon Foundation said it has restored consensus and finality functions after a software bug knocked some nodes out of sync. US SEC Chair Paul Atkins weighed in on Project Crypto. Meanwhile, analysts argue the current bearish sentiment in digital asset markets may be short-lived.
Polygon fixes RPC node bug, consensus returns to normal
The Polygon Foundation, the organization that oversees development of the layer-2 scaling network in the Ethereum ecosystem, said on Wednesday that consensus and finality functions have been restored, following a software bug that caused some nodes to fall out of sync with the blockchain.
Polygon successfully executed a hard fork following the software bug that disrupted some remote procedure call (RPC) nodes, which are used to relay information between applications and the blockchain layer, the Polygon team said in Wednesday’s update.
The bug was caused by a “faulty” proposal from a validator, which pushed some of the Bor nodes, used for transaction ordering and block production, onto divergent network forks, according to Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal. Nailwal said:
“We rolled out fixes on both Heimdall v0.3.1 — a new version with a hard fork to delete the identified milestone — and Bor 2.2.11 beta2, purging the milestone from the database. With these fixes now live, nodes are not stuck, checkpoints and milestones are finalizing normally.”
Software bugs continue to cause blockchain outages. As cryptographic protocols become more complex by hosting smart contract functionality, file storage and cross-chain interoperability, bugs may become more frequent, disrupting the onchain user experience.
SEC chair says most tokens are not securities, backs “super-app” platforms
US SEC Chair Paul Atkins said that “most crypto tokens are not securities,” while outlining a sweeping plan to integrate crypto activities like trading, lending and staking under a unified regulatory framework.
“It is a new day at the SEC,” Atkins said during a keynote address at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Roundtable in Paris on Wednesday.
“Policy will no longer be set by ad hoc enforcement actions,” he added, contrasting the previous administration’s aggressive crackdown on crypto firms. “We will provide clear, predictable rules of the road so that innovators can thrive in the United States,” Atkins said.
Under the Project Crypto initiative, the SEC aims to modernize its securities regulations to accommodate blockchain-based financial markets. According to Atkins, the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets has already delivered a “bold blueprint” to support this mission.
The SEC’s updated strategy includes allowing platforms to operate as “super-apps” that can facilitate trading, lending and staking of digital assets under one regulatory umbrella. Atkins said that these platforms should also have the flexibility to offer multiple custody solutions.
Crypto traders’ current fear won’t last long, analysts say
Santiment said on Tuesday that crypto traders have swung into more negative sentiment and deeper fear, uncertainty, and doubt, but analysts tell Cointelegraph it’s likely only temporary.
Santiment said traders are “swinging more and more negative” as the price of Bitcoin (BTC) falls, but added markets often “move opposite to the crowd’s expectations,” so the last couple of weeks of fear “is an encouraging sign that this feared large retrace will never actually happen.”
Swyftx lead analyst Pav Hundal told Cointelegraph that all eyes are on the Fed’s meeting next week, with a cut of any kind possibly being “the next key catalyst for positivity.”
BTC Markets’ head of finance, Charlie Sherry, said trader sentiment tends to go to extremes in both directions. When traders lean heavily bearish, it can often mark the end of that move rather than the start.
Meanwhile, ZX Squared Capital co-founder and chief investment officer CK Zheng told Cointelegraph that September, on average, has historically been the “worst in terms of equity return. So people naturally tend to be more cautious.”
