Helen Partz
European lawmakers are moving forward with the introduction of a European Union-wide digital wallet by passing a plenary vote on moving the initiative to interinstitutional negotiations.
The European Parliament on March 15 voted in favor of negotiating a mandate for talks with the EU member states on the revision of the new European Digital Identity (eID) framework, according to an official announcement. The plenary vote resulted in 418 votes in favor and 103 votes against the initiative, with 24 parliament members abstaining from the vote.
Following the plenary’s endorsement, the EU council is now ready to start the discussions on the final form of the legislation immediately, the lawmakers said. Parliament’s position during the negotiations will be based on the amendments adopted in the Industry, Research and Energy Committee (ITRE) in February, the announcement notes.
As previously reported, ITRE included the standard of zero-knowledge proofs in its eID amendments, intending to allow EU citizens to fully control their identity data.
“The scheme would allow citizens to identify and authenticate themselves online — via a European digital identity wallet — without having to resort to commercial providers, as is the case today — a practice that has raised trust, security and privacy concerns,” the European Parliament said.
Introduced in June 2021, the eID legislative proposal aims to create a “European Digital Identity” and a dedicated digital wallet for citizens and businesses in the EU. The “European Digital Identity Wallet,” also known as EDIW, aims to allow people and companies in the EU to store identity data like names and addresses as well as digitized documents, including data on bank accounts, birth certificates, diplomas and other documents for cross-border use.
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Brayden Lindrea
The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO)-operated golf startup, LinksDAO is primed to become the new owner of the Spey Bay Golf Club in Scotland after successfully winning a bid to buy the course initially listed for just over $900,000.
After winning the bid, the DAO has entered into an exclusivity agreement with the vendor and will look to formally close the deal in early April.
In the meantime, the DAO is undergoing its “due diligence” phase before it officially puts pen to paper, CEO Jim Daily said in a Twitter Spaces eveon March 16.
While the initial listing was a tick over $900,000, a report from Golf Digest suggested the final sale price is expected to be higher. Links CEO Daily said that they’re not planning on revealing the purchase price until the contract is signed.
LinksDAO put in the highest offer over “several other potential buyers,” the report added.
LinksDAO — self-described as a “global group of golf enthusiasts” that is on a mission to build the “world’s greatest golf community” — put in the bid following a community vote that saw 88.6% of 4,300 LinksDAO members vote in favor of putting in an offer.
If the deal closes, it would be the DAO’s first golf course purchase.
The DAO is still “working through the details” of the course membership structure and hasn’t confirmed what benefits would be provided to LinksDAO token holders who wish to access the golf course.
As for the state of the golf course right now, Besvinick described it as “playable.”
“It’s good, it’s going to be getting a lot better soon and we think it’s going to be great by this time or springtime next year.”
If the deal is closed, Besvinick said that the DAO would keep the course open until it starts renovations.
Links is seeking advice from several architects to remodel the golf course, because it has “suffered from weather and erosion issues over recent decades,” head of strategy Adam Besvinick explained in the Twitter Spaces.
“Improved maintenance will elevate this site significantly,” he added.
Daily and Besvinick explained in its community proposal to purchase the course that the high ceiling to low price ratio of the Scottish course made it “too special to ignore.”
“Even a price triple the ‘guide price’ would be cheaper than most mediocre courses we have assessed thus far in the U.S.”
Cointelegraph reached out to Links for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
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Ana Paula Pereira
The target date for the highly anticipated Shanghai hard fork on Ethereum has now been set: April 12. Ethereum core developers approved the target deadline during the All Core Developers Execution Layer #157 call on March 16.
The Shanghai mainnet upgrade features five Ethereum Improvement Proposals, including EIP-4985, which will enable staked Ether withdrawals on the Beacon Chain, completing Ethereum’s transition from proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus.
The target date — April 12 at 10:27:35 pm UTC, epoch 620,9536 — will now be confirmed by developers on GitHub. The fork was initially forecasted for March, but developers later pushed it back to early April.
Validators will receive rewards payments automatically at periodic intervals in withdrawal addresses. Additionally, stakers can exit positions entirely, reclaiming their full balance.
According to Etherscan, the Ethereum PoS smart contract has attracted over 17.6 million ETH, worth nearly $29.4 billion at publication time. Analysts predict that the upgrade could trigger a sell-off in the short term, as Cointelegraph reported.
The transition to PoS officially started on Sept. 15, 2022 with the Merge, a significant milestone for Ethereum that replaced miners with validators and introduced ETH staking as a key component of the network. Ethereum’s roadmap has several updates coming after Shanghai, including the “Surge,” “Verge,” “Purge” and “Splurge.”
The switch to a PoS consensus could have regulatory implications for ETH and the crypto space. In September 2022, United States Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler suggested that the blockchain’s transition might have brought ETH under the regulators’ radar.
After a recent crackdown on crypto firms providing staking services in the U.S., Gensler again suggested on March 15 that proof-of-stake coins might be securities:
“Whatever they’re promoting and putting into a protocol, and locking up their tokens in a protocol, a protocol that’s often a small group of entrepreneurs and developers are developing, I would just suggest that each of these token operators [...] seek to come into compliance, and the same with the intermediaries."
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This Daily Dose was brought to you by Cointelegraph.
