Sam Kessler

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.

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Arbitrum booth at ETHDenver (Danny Nelson/CoinDesk)
Twitter Briefly Suspends Official Arbitrum Account
Twitter restored the account and said it was "flagged as spam by mistake."
Arbitrum booth at ETHDenver (Danny Nelson/CoinDesk)
(DALL-E/CoinDesk)
Arbitrum to Airdrop New Token and Transition to DAO
The long-awaited ARB token will grant holders the ability to vote on changes to the leading Ethereum layer 2 network.
(DALL-E/CoinDesk)
New York Attorney General Letitia James (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
What Happens if Ether Is a Security?
A recent suit filed by the New York Attorney General could have far-ranging complications for crypto exchanges that list ether.
New York Attorney General Letitia James (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Kevin Owocki (Melody Wang/CoinDesk)
Gitcoin’s Owocki Says Crypto Can Regenerate the World. Just Don’t Call Him Starry-Eyed
A programmer by training, Kevin Owocki's view of securities law is not based in any formal legal training but crypto optimism, evolutionary science, economics and legal theory...
Kevin Owocki (Melody Wang/CoinDesk)
"Bankless" co-host David Hoffman (Danny Nelson/CoinDesk)
Lido’s LDO Token Sinks 10% Following Rumors Crypto Staking Service Received SEC Notice
Crypto podcaster David Hoffman spread (and then retracted) a rumor that the SEC had delivered a Wells Notice to the decentralized staking service. A spokesperson for Lido decl...
"Bankless" co-host David Hoffman (Danny Nelson/CoinDesk)
(Aleksandr Barsukov/Unsplash)
Axelar Introduces Virtual Machine for Developers Building Cross-Chain Crypto Apps
Axelar describes its new VM as Kubernetes for Web3.
(Aleksandr Barsukov/Unsplash)
(Kenny Eliason/Unsplash)
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)
Confusion reigned (Metropolitan Museum of Art, modified by CoinDesk)
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.
Confusion reigned (Metropolitan Museum of Art, modified by CoinDesk)
(DALL-E/CoinDesk)
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)
Jump Crypto President Kanav Kariya (Danny Nelson/CoinDesk)
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.
Jump Crypto President Kanav Kariya (Danny Nelson/CoinDesk)