BlackRock is planning to tokenize exchange-traded funds (ETFs) following its recent success with a Bitcoin fund. This initiative is part of a broader trend to leverage blockchain technology in traditional finance, aiming to enhance liquidity and accessibility for investors.

Arkham Intelligence has revealed that 127,426 BTC, valued at $3.5 billion, was stolen from the LuBian mining pool in December 2020, marking it as one of the largest crypto heists in history. The firm suggests that weak private key generation may have allowed the theft to occur and notes that the stolen funds have largely remained untouched, with LuBian attempting to recover them by sending messages to the hacker. The current value of the stolen Bitcoin has risen to approximately $14.5 billion due to price appreciation since the theft.

A Bitcoin developer has proposed a hard fork to transition BTC from legacy wallets to those secured by post-quantum cryptography, aiming to protect against potential quantum computing threats to current ECDSA signatures. The proposal includes a migration deadline for users to move their funds to more secure wallets, and it has sparked debate within the community about its feasibility and implications.

The article provides a detailed examination of how Bitcoin blocks are linked together in the blockchain, focusing on the specifics of block headers and the hashing process. It clarifies common misconceptions about the relationship between blocks and explains the importance of the Merkle tree root and proof of work in securing the blockchain.