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

UST Stablecoin Veers Wildly From Dollar Peg. Here's the Latest

By tapping into its bitcoin reserves, UST’s salvation may have exacerbated a bitcoin sell-off that brought BTC to its lowest price since July 2021.

CoinDesk placeholder image

Finance

UST Stablecoin Loses Dollar Peg for Second Time in 48 Hours, LUNA Market Cap Falls Below UST's

The development comes after the Luna Foundation Guard announced that its massive bitcoin reserves will be used to defend UST’s dollar peg.

dollar bill

Finance

Compound’s Enterprise Arm Receives S&P Credit Rating in DeFi First

The iffy B- grade applies to Compound Treasury, a platform promising 4% yield for USDC-denominated business accounts.

S&P (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Finance

UST Stablecoin Briefly Loses Peg, Luna Drops 10%

The Saturday event led to questions about whether Terra’s bitcoin reserves will soon face their first test

(Emilio Takas/Unsplash)

Tech

Typo Moves $36M in Seized JUNO Tokens to Wrong Wallet

Validators, developers and token holders grapple with who is to blame for the copy-paste error that moved the tokens to an address no one can access.

(Jeremy Bezanger/Unsplash)

Finance

Arweave-Based Bundlr Raises $5.2M to Boost Decentralized Storage

Bundlr aims to scale Arweave by allowing for near-instant transaction finality.

(benjamin lehman/Unsplash)

Layer 2

The Yuga Labs Catastrophe Could Have Been Prevented

Conspiracy theorists say Yuga Labs clogged up Ethereum to justify the launch of its own chain, but maybe the Bored Ape creators just screwed up.

(Zach Vessels/Unsplash)

Finance

DeFi Lender Rari Capital/Fei Loses $80M in Hack

Fei Protocol, which late last year merged with Rari, announced a $10 million bounty should the funds be returned.

Inverse Finance developers paused borrowing functions for users and said they were investigating the incident. (Shutterstock)

Layer 2

Juno Blockchain Community Officially Votes to Revoke Whale’s Tokens

Takumi Asano says he may pursue legal action against the Cosmos-based chain’s validators unless the confiscated funds are returned to his investors.

"Realm of Juno" (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Finance

DeFi Trading Platform Hashflow Introduces Bridgeless Cross-Chain Swaps

The platform will enable native-to-native swaps, without slippage or pesky cross-chain bridges.

The Open Intents Framework is a new initiative created by Ethereum ecosystem leaders to simplify and standardize cross-chain token transfers.  (Akinori UEMURA/Unsplash)