Ethereum
Blockchain Crypto

Omni Network and Ether.Fi close a $600 million merger.

To improve the security of EigenLayer and the Omni Network, Omni Network has negotiated a $600 million Ether contract with restaking protocol Ether.Fi.Omni Network stated in an X post from March 4 that the $600 million will aid in securing both the Omni testnet and mainnet. “Omni is proud to announce a commitment of $600M of staked ETH from @ether_fi to secure the Omni Network. This first-of-its-kind deal positions us at the forefront of the growing restaking ecosystem.” The goal of Omni Network, a layer-1 interoperability blockchain, is to reduce latency and enhance ecosystem fragmentation by securely connecting Ethereum rollups through restaking.About 33 percent of Ether is represented by the $600 million worth of Ether.The $1.88 billion total value locked (TVL) of Fi.Ether.DefiLlama statistics shows that Fi is currently the largest liquid restaking protocol in the world, with its TVL rising over 163% in the last month. With over $10.3 billion in TVL, EigenLayer is now the largest Ethereum restaking protocol. The $600 million worth of Ether will be restaked on this platform. The announcement of a $100 million fundraising round for EigenLayer by venture capital company Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) was almost two weeks prior to the announcement of the new strategic alliance.In March, Blockchain Capital led a $50 million investment round for the protocol. EigenLayer was established in 2021 and allows stakers and validators to restake derivative tokens that are designed for liquid staking, such as Lido Staked Ether and RocketPool’s rETH, in order to validate and secure other networks.To increase yield, these assets can potentially be used in other decentralized finance protocols.With a total TVL of $54.7 billion, liquid staking is now the largest protocol category on DefiLlama. Restaking protocols are ranked sixth with a TVL of $10.305 billion.Only EigenLayer’s TVL makes up 99.96% of the $10.305 billion total TVL that is locked in restaking protocols. After the protocol temporarily lifted its staking cap on February 5 in an effort to encourage organic growth, investor interest in EigenLayer began to soar.EigenLayer’s TVL increased by more than 181% during this restaking time, from just $2.15 billion on February 5 to $6.05 billion on February 10.Although a new staking cap was implemented, the project intends to eventually eliminate this cap permanently.

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Crypto Ethereum

The cryptocurrency business is gaining unstoppable pace. Joe Lubin, a co-founder of Ethereum

Though not by technical definition, most participants at ETHDenver would concur that it certainly feels like the cryptocurrency industry is in a bull market. Even Consensys CEO Joe Lubin, a co-founder of Ethereum, thinks that the best is still to come for the cryptocurrency industry and feels that things are improving.The current “super cycle,” whether or not a spot BTC and ETH ETF is beneficial for retail investors, the more developer-focused community, and the growing need for decentralization in various industries were among the topics Lubin discussed during his February 29 fireside chat, which was moderated by Axios reporter Crystal Kim. When asked what will trigger the next super cycle, which is a protracted period of economic growth usually brought on by a sharp increase in consumer demand, Lubin responded, “We are in this 4th turning, and we are ready for a new system of the world. The other way of thinking about it is that it’s a monetary super cycle, where the monetary systems of the world reach and end of life essentially, basically because of interest, and there’s too much

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Blockchain

$10M will be Dedicated to Tokenization and Trade Startups by IOTA’s Ecosystem Foundation

According to a press release, IOTA’s recently established Ecosystem Foundation will make its first round of investments, giving $10 million to early-stage companies that are centered on digital trade and the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs). Over the next few weeks, the investments—which will include the recently established tradetech ventures—will be made public. Startups utilizing

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Blockchain

Telegram’s advertising platform will debut on the TON blockchain.

The Open Network (TON) blockchain technology was used to build the advertising platform for the online messaging service Telegram, which has announced its launch.After the ad platform opens to all marketers in March, Telegram channel owners in more than 100 countries will be able to begin earning money for their labor.The creator and CEO of Telegram, Pavel Durov, said on February 28 that channel owners would begin to receive 50% of the total advertising revenue that the platform generates from showing adverts in their channels.Payments on the Telegram Ad Platform will only be made over the TON blockchain, the release states. “Similar to our approach with Telegram usernames on Fragment, we will sell ads and share revenue with channel owners in Toncoin. This will create a virtuous circle, in which content creators will be able to either cash out their Toncoins — or reinvest them in promoting and upgrading their channels,” Durov said. Toncoin (TON), which is part of the TON blockchain, increased 13.86% in the 24 hours before it traded at $2.49 at 12:40 PM UTC.In the last week, the token has increased by more than 14%.According to CoinMarketCap, TON is the 15th-largest cryptocurrency with a market valuation of $8.6 billion.Over one trillion views are generated by Telegram broadcast channels each month, yet only about 10% of these views are made possible by Telegram Ads, a privacy-focused advertising solution.The most widely used online messaging app globally is called Telegram; it ranks fourth behind Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and WhatsApp.Based on data from Bankmycell, Telegram has over 196 million daily active users and 800 million monthly active users. The TON blockchain is becoming more and more popular.

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Crypto Ethereum

Data Indicates U.S. Investors Are Driving Ether Demand

The buying pressure in the United States drove Ether’s 11% increase over the last week, according to statistics from CryptoQuant, a platform that monitors exchange activity locally.The “Coinbase premium,” a measure of the difference between Coinbase’s ETH/USDT pair and Binance’s ETH/USDT pair, indicates that a surge in demand from the regulated exchange Coinbase (COIN), which is most well-known in the United States, came before a spike in ether (ETH) prices. “The recent Ethereum price action was driven by the US demand,” CryptoQuant’s head of marketing, Ho Chan Chung, said in a Telegram message. “We can clearly see that the Coinbase has triggered the upward movement with the premium index.” The indicator is beginning to increase once more, pointing to further price increases in the upcoming weeks.Although Binance, which originated in China, is one of the most well-liked exchanges among traders in Asia, Coinbase is more well-liked by traders in the United States and Europe.There might have been a spike in demand for the asset in the area to purchase spot ether ETFs due to expectations of approval for a potential ETF in the United States.In January, seasoned and successful traders began increasing their exposure to ETH. Even while there has been a noticeable increase in interest in ether bets, some traders believe that an ETF could lead to steady growth for the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value rather than rapid development.Applications for an ether ETF had been submitted as of Tuesday by Hashdex, BlackRock, Fidelity, Ark and 21Shares, Grayscale, VanEck, Invesco and Galaxy, and Franklin Templeton.Over the last day, ETH has increased 6.5%, but the CD20 index of the overall market has increased 8.1%.

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Blockchain Crypto

User Deposits May Be at Risk Due to a Reported Backend Exploit on Tornado Cash

An article by community member Gas404 on Medium claims that malicious code has been inserted into the protocol’s back end, putting user deposits on token mixer Tornado Cash at risk. A two-month-old governance proposal submitted on January 1st by a claimed Tornado Cash engineer contained malicious JavaScript code, as explained in the post.The accused developer’s public server is the destination of deposit data that is redirected by the code.In addition to allowing for deposit theft, the exploit’s primary purpose is to reveal Tornado Cash deposit information.Gas404 claims that out of the batch visible on etherscan, one deposit was taken. Following Tornado Cash’s sanction by the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Treasury Department in August 2022, trade volume plummeted by over 90%.According to Gas404, Tornado Cash ought to go back to the IPFS ContextHash deployment from an earlier iteration of TornadoCash.

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Blockchain

Avail, a Data Network for Ethereum that Rivals Celestia, Secures a $27 million Seed Round

Among the few new “data availability” blockchain initiatives, Avail was created to manage transaction data generated by the networks’ increasing expansion. On Monday, the venture capital firms Founders Fund and Dragonfly spearheaded the $27 million funding campaign for Avail.Funds from the seed round will be used by Avail, which was spun off of Polygon in March 2023 and is headed by Anurag Arjun, a Polygon co-founder, to develop its three main products: its data availability solution (DA), Nexus, and Fusion, which are together referred to as the “Trinity.” The first essential component, Avail DA, provides data space information for auxiliary “layer-2 networks” or “rollups” that are intended to process transactions more quickly and affordably than on Ethereum-based foundation blockchains.It is anticipated that the new DA project will launch early in 2024’s second quarter.The rise of these data availability solutions has been one of the most talked-about developments in the cryptocurrency space because it may contribute to the development of a more “modular” architecture for blockchain systems, where essential tasks like data processing and transaction execution might be handled independently. With initiatives like EigenDA, which is presently under development, and Celestia, which went live in October of last year, they gained attention.The latter project is being worked on by EigenLabs, the company that created the restaking protocol EigenLayer. In order to continue developing its products, EigenLabs raised $100 million from the venture capital firm a16z last week. Avail Nexus is a “zero-knowledge, proof-based coordination rollup on Avail DA,” which means, according to a press release reviewed by CoinDesk, that it would function as an infrastructure layer that links other rollups through the Avail ecosystem to communicate with one another.“Serving as the verification hub that unifies a broad range of rollups both inside and outside the Avail ecosystem, using Avail DA as the root of trust,” is how it will be described.By utilizing cryptocurrency assets like ether (ETH) and bitcoin (BTC), the project’s “Fusion Security” will enhance the security of the Avail ecosystem.The company states that Fusion Security will be available in 2025 and that Nexus’ initial version is anticipated to launch in 2024. The rollups space on Ethereum is fragmented, with major teams competing for many of the same users. Arjun, the Avail co-founder, argues that there is a need to work together with these rollups in order to make the user experience more unified. “You really need a credible third party like Avail

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Blockchain

privacy-oriented Aleo users are alarmed by the leak of KYC documents.

On February 25, the decentralized blockchain network Aleo made certain user data public, according to X (previously Twitter) sources.The platform leverages a third-party protocol for Know Your Customer (KYC) and focuses on zero-knowledge (zk) cryptography.Aleo submitted KYC documents to his email by mistake, according to a user going under the alias @0xemirsoyturk.He became concerned about the protection of his personal information after seeing selfies and images from another person’s ID card in these documents.The story was corroborated by another user, @Selim_jpeg, who said he received the KYC paperwork of another individual in his inbox. In compliance with Aleo’s internal regulations, users must successfully complete KYC/AML and pass the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) screening in order to be eligible for a reward on the platform.This procedure must be finished in order for people to register for HackerOne, a third-party protocol that gathers users’ unencrypted KYC information. The goal of zero-knowledge layer-1 blockchain systems is to give users more security and anonymity.They ensure anonymity by enabling transactions without disclosing precise details through the use of zero-knowledge proof cryptography techniques.This privacy-centric strategy gives users more control over their data by making it difficult for outside parties to track down or access critical information.By improving privacy, these platforms hope to increase participant security and confidentiality in blockchain transactions. The creator of layer-1 blockchain infrastructure Galactica, Mike Sarvodaya, told Cointelegraph that such a protocol should never, in theory, permit access to user data.He declared: “It’s ironic that a protocol for programmable privacy uses a third party to collect users’ unencrypted KYC data after that leaks to the public. Apparently, when your zk stack is so advanced, you might just forget how to practice basic opsec.” Sarvodaya claims that the Aleo case paradoxically emphasizes how important it is to develop zero knowledge or fully homomorphic encryption (FHE)-based storage and proof systems for sensitive data, such as Personally Identifiable Information (PII).Protocol guidelines in these systems need to guarantee that data is not disclosed by a single party.Aleo Foundation executive director Alex Pruden told The Block that the Aleo mainnet, which will provide privacy to cryptocurrency transactions, will launch in the coming weeks after a few last bugs are fixed.

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Blockchain

Blockchain cybercrimes prompt China’s national prosecutor to take legal action.

The Fourth Procuratorate of the SPP’s Zhang Xiaojin allegedly alerted the public and users of digital assets to investment frauds in the region’s cryptocurrency market. The Chinese Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP), the nation’s top prosecuting body, is pursuing offenders who use blockchain and metaverse initiatives for illicit purposes in an effort to combat the rise

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Blockchain

Texas Blockchain Council and Riot defeat US energy officials with ease.

The temporary restraining order was obtained in order to “preserve the status quo,” according to the court document, and it will expire before March 25. A US District Judge has ruled in favour of the Texas Blockchain Council (TBC) and Bitcoin mining company Riot Platforms in their legal battle against multiple US energy agencies. According

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Blockchain Crypto

For Nearly Two Hours, Avalanche Cannot Produce Block Due to Outagef

Layer-1 networkAvalanche’s status page indicates that it hasn’t produced a block in almost two hours.According to Kevin Sekniqi, co-founder of Ava Labs, the problem “seems to be related to a new inscription wave.”Without using smart contracts, arbitrary data can be recorded on the blockchain using inscriptions.They first became popular on Bitcoin because it made it possible for users to mint NFTs on the network. “Developers across the community are currently investigating a stall in block finalization that is preventing blocks from being accepted on the Primary Network,” a notice on Avalanche’s website states. TradingView reports that the network’s native token (AVAX) has decreased by 1.5% since the last block was generated. rival blockchainEarlier this month, Solana experienced a five-hour outage due to severe congestion.

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Blockchain

Paris Saint-Germain becomes the first football team to validate a blockchain

The massive French football team Paris Saint-Germain said that it will use the money it makes to regularly purchase back its PSG fan tokens by acting as a network validator for the Chiliz Chain blockchain, which houses them. While sports teams have dabbled in cryptocurrency over the years with fan tokens that can be exchanged

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Blockchain Technology

AMD hardware accelerators to facilitate compatibility with blockchain

In order to enable blockchain interoperability, semiconductor manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is introducing enterprise-grade hardware accelerators into the Web3 domain.Wormhole, a platform for interoperability that powers large-scale bridges and multichain applications, announced on February 21 that it is partnering with AMD to integrate its FPGA hardware accelerators into the Wormhole ecosystem.Through the collaboration, AMD will also leverage its experience in hardware acceleration and technical ecosystem support to aid in the scalability and speed of multichain applications developed using Wormhole.Furthermore, Wormhole and AMD developers intend to provide mainnet deployments of different zero-knowledge light clients in the months that follow.This will facilitate the transfer of messages between blockchains, such as Ethereum, Near, Solana, Aptos, Sui, and Cosmos, without the need for trust. New developments in zero-knowledge cryptography combined with increased processing power allow for safer blockchain transactions and less dependence on outside parties to build security and trust. Adoption of zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), according to Wormhole, will assist in lowering its dependency on centralized node operators in favor of a trustless system.The Adaptive and Embedded Computing Group head of product management at AMD, Hamid Salehi, stated that the business is “excited” to contribute to the acceleration of “decentralized computing in the blockchain industry.”The AMD collaboration will move the ecosystem “one step closer” to low-latency, trustless, multichain messaging, according to Rehul Maganti, a contributor to the Wormhole ecosystem.According to him, “both in terms of speed and security,” the partnership’s multiple ZK-enabled corridors should improve user experience. The creation of semiconductor chips by AMD, which enable sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) applications, has made the company well-known.It faces off against industry titans like Intel and Microsoft.As both technologies offer complementary use cases to one another, many industry insiders in the Web3 sector believe that AI and blockchain will emerge as a power couple in the market over the coming year.

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Tech Tech Africa Technology

Nigerian tech company advocates integrating AI to improve security

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has promoted the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into Nigeria’s security framework as a means of improving the country’s digital efforts and international visibility.The National Institute for Security Studies (NISS) commandant, Alhaji A.S. Adeleke, was represented by deputy commandant D. E. Egbeji, and the agency’s director-general, Kashifu Inuwa, discussed this in a meeting that was shared with Cointelegraph behind closed doors.Inuwa highlighted the different approaches that the IT and security industries use in their work.He emphasized how the IT and security sectors can collaborate to leverage innovations in artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT) to advance the security space. Inuwa emphasized that collaboration in the IT and security domains is consistent with the NITDA Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan (SRAP 2.0) and that the organization is open to forming significant collaborations.This is especially pertinent to the pillar that highlights forming strategic alliances and working together. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), financial institutions, and the NITDA should work together, the NITDA argued in November 2023.The organization focused on utilizing cutting-edge technology, like artificial intelligence and data analytics, to enhance digital payments.Upon further investigation, Inuwa concluded that AI is a global force to be reckoned with.He responded quickly, provided solutions, cleared up any confusion, and stressed their importance in helping to make responsibilities more doable. NISS commandant Adeleke responded to the discussions by saying that the institute was eager to absorb knowledge from NITDA’s experiences.According to Adeleke, the NISS seeks to gather important information for an executive brief intended to support President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR in the formulation and execution of policies.He stated. “We are here to benefit from your experience and to gather all that we can from the beginning of the course. By the end, we aim to deliver an executive brief to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR that will facilitate policy formulation and implementation.” Through projects such as the establishment of the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR) and the National Artificial Intelligence Policy, the NITDA is promoting the growth of AI in Nigeria.Five million naira ($6,444) in funding for forty-five AI-focused firms and researchers were announced by the Nigerian government in October.Part of the recently launched Nigeria Artificial Intelligence Research Scheme, this program aims to make it easier for AI to be widely used to propel economic growth.

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Blockchain Technology

In the most recent deal, OpenAI’s worth reportedly jumps to $80 billion.

According to reports, OpenAI has inked a transaction that will raise the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence (AI) company’s valuation to at least $80 billion, virtually tripling it in less than a decade.  The company intends to sell its existing shares in a tender offer headed by Thrive Capital, according to a New York Times story.

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Blockchain Crypto

KuCoin and Animoca’s Mocaverse to simplify cross-platform identity gt

In order to facilitate user travel across several market areas, such as cryptocurrency trading, decentralized finance (DeFi), gaming, and SocialFi, Mocaverse, the membership network and metaverse initiative of Animoca Brands, cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin, and Web3 wallet Halo Wallet have teamed up. The collaboration will “redefine on-chain identity and facilitate growth” in the Web3 space by combining Mocaverse’s digital identity, Moca ID, KuCoin’s user accounts, and Halo’s Genesis membership pass, according to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on February 15. A KuCoin representative told Cointelegraph that Web3 sub-ecosystems including cryptocurrency trading, digital collectibles, DeFi, and the metaverse “operate somewhat independently.” They gave an explanation. “Users find it challenging to access benefits across these sub-ecosystems. For instance, active users on an exchange might not enjoy equivalent benefits in NFTs, the metaverse or DeFi ecosystems. This is a pain point for users in the Web3 world.” The spokesperson said that the initiative would attempt to solve this

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Blockchain

Food Company Mondelēz International Participates in Hedera Council’s DLT Experimentation

The American food and beverage business Mondelēz International (Nasdaq: MDLZ) and the Hedera Council, the group that created Hedera Hashgraph, have teamed together to cooperate on distributed ledger technology (DLT).As a recent addition to the Hedera Council, Mondelēz is concentrating on supply chain management and digital transformation projects as it works to create distributed ledger technology (DLT) based solutions on Hedera, according to a news statement. HederaHashgraph is a hashgraph consensus public distributed ledger.Because hashgraph consensus is used by Hedera, it claims to have a different structure from other chains.The company claims that Hashgraph is the only public DLT that makes use of this, noting that it can process over 10,000 transactions per second and reach low-latency finality in a matter of seconds. The brands Cadbury Dairy Milk, Oreo, Ritz, and Toblerone are owned by Mondelēz International, which has operations in more than 80 countries.In order to assist the company’s customer service program grow, Mondelēz previously partnered with SKUx, an early-stage fintech payments company.The consumer packaged products supply chain and digital payment-based offers will be monitored by Hedera. “We are excited to continue our commitment to digital transformation exploring distributed ledger technologies alongside Hedera,” said Xiang Xu, global COE leader of digital strategy and blockChain at Mondelēz International.

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Crypto Ethereum

EtherRock and BAYC dominate sales as Ethereum NFTs rise.

After rising NFT sales figures this week, Ethereum-native nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are beginning to make a comeback.NFT data aggregator CryptoSlam reports that Wrapped Ether Rock #46 sold for $496,658 on Monday, four days after Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) #1726 sold for $668,297.After the $1.53 million purchases of CryptoPunk #5363 on January 31, they are the second and third-largest sales of the month.Wrapped Ether Rock and BAYC NFTs aren’t simply NFTs; they’re a status symbol that gives the holder reputation in the NFT community, according to Anndy Lian, an intergovernmental blockchain specialist and the author of the book “NFT: From Zero to Hero”. “The crypto market is anticipated to be more bullish. This brings the degen narrative back to the scene where this is a way to show their social and cultural capital of the NFTs.”  The Nobody NFT collection saw a 25% rise in sales over the previous seven days, accounting for $159.5 million in NFT sales volume for Ethereum. This collection brought in $8.76 million in weekly sales for the network.NFT sales of bitcoin decreased by 25% to $47.5 million in the same time frame. Yehudah Petscher, an NFT strategist at CryptoSlam, claims that after a spike in interest in Solana-native NFTs and Bitcoin Ordinals inscriptions, NFT traders are returning to Ethereum. “We used to just have cycles between assets, like crypto, memecoins, NFT art, and NFT PFPs. Now, we have

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Blockchain

Blockchain is rejected by the Philippines for wholesale CBDC, expected to happen by 2026.

According to central bank governor Eli Remolona Jr., the Philippines is expected to release a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) in two years, but the country has no intention of utilising the blockchain or digital ledger technology that powers many virtual assets. According to Remolona, “Other central banks have tried blockchain, but it didn’t

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Blockchain

Authors suing OpenAI want their copycat cases dismissed in New York

The authors assert that OpenAI is requesting better terms in New York after their planned litigation timetable was denied by a Californian judge. In their case against the artificial intelligence (AI) startup OpenAI for copyright infringement, authors Michael Chabon, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Sarah Silverman have asked a Californian court to reject concurrent New York claims

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Tech Tech Africa Technology

Kenya is facing criticism over a new robotics and AI law.

Kenyan IT experts have pointed out a number of issues with the 2023 Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Society Bill and have encouraged the country’s government to reject it.Local media reported that the National Assembly’s Communication, Information, and Innovation Committee was informed by robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) stakeholders that they were not involved in any stage of the bill drafting process during a session held to commemorate International Safer Internet Day in 2024.If an entity has not registered their robotics and AI endeavors with the Robotics Society of Kenya (RSK), the bill defines them as unlicensed. If unlicensed firms operating robotic and AI businesses fail to register with the RSK, they may face penalties from the proposed legislation, which may include fines of up to one million Kenyan shillings ($6,269), a potential two-year prison sentence, or both. The RSK is intended to be a regulatory organization whose job it is to monitor and support the growth of the robotics and artificial intelligence industries.It seeks to work with other authorities to set policies and procedures that will guarantee corporate compliance.The RSK will also counsel the government on new developments in robotics and artificial intelligence.During the meeting, Alex Gakuru, the director of the Center for Law in Information Technology and the leader of the American Chamber of Commerce in Kenya, reportedly said that the bill should be withdrawn for further stakeholder consultation. He emphasized that if the bill is enacted in its current form, it will cause a national disaster. Gakuru claims that the law mainly focuses on regulating the robotics industry rather than sufficiently addressing AI-related issues.He warned that if the badly written bill wasn’t changed, it might be challenged in court.Kenya is the fifth-most prepared country in Africa to use AI to provide services to the general people.Kenya’s total score of 40.36% in the 2022 edition of Oxford Insights’ annual Government AI Readiness Index puts it below Egypt, South Africa, Tunisia, and Morocco.Kenya has invested an estimated 13 billion shillings ($81.5 million) in artificial intelligence over the past ten years, significantly less than South Africa’s $1 billion and Nigeria’s $378 million, according to Microsoft’s “Artificial Intelligence in the Middle East and Africa Outlook Report.”

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Blockchain

Blockchain Carbon Credits Exchange Gets BaFin Approval in Germany

Project for Tokenized Trading A blockchain-backed carbon credit market has been established by Neutral and DLT Finance, a German brokerage company. Carbon credits are financial instruments that corporations may use to offset their carbon impact; they represent forests and renewable energy sources.It is not the first effort to wager that blockchain technology can boost the multibillion-dollar carbon credit market—that is, the tokenized real-world asset (RWA) project.It is the first, nevertheless, to have obtained regulatory authority to run the exchange, notably from Germany’s financial regulator BaFin. “We didn’t see anyone building the market infrastructure that would allow for traditional traders to interact with these assets,” Neutral CEO Farouq Ghandour said in an interview. He said his company is the “tech provider,” and DLT Finance provides “the regulatory backbone.” The product takes the blockchain out of the hands-on experience for the user.It may be inferred that the ten commodity trading houses and brokers that Ghandour mentioned will not be required to consider tokenizing or decentralizing anything, nor will they require a MetaMask wallet. Rather than being like any other closed platform for commodities swaps, the exchange would focus on providing considerably better liquidity for large-scale deals than what is often found on decentralized exchanges (DEX), according to Ghandour. “There’s a lot of reluctance to work with DEXs,”

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Blockchain Crypto

The U.S. Treasury Token from Hashnote is Now Accessible Via Crypto Custodian Copper

Offering its yield-bearing USYC token through Copper, the cryptocurrency custody firm chaired by former UK Chancellor Philip Hammond, is Hashnote, a decentralized finance (DeFi) startup catering to compliance-conscious institutions. With Chicago-based trading firm Cumberland as a market maker, Hashnote is the first cryptocurrency startup to come out of Web3 incubator Cumberland Labs.Hashnote’s USYC is now available to the 300+ major institutions and cryptocurrency trading platforms that the custody service serves thanks to an interface with Copper. As the movement toward institution-friendly tokenization in the cryptocurrency space picks up steam, blockchain-based renditions of US Treasury bonds as well as products like yield-bearing tokens and stablecoins have gained popularity.But according to Hashnote CEO Leo Mizuhara, not every tokenized Treasury-type offering on the market is made equal. “People are treating these on-chain treasuries as if they were as safe as something you’d see in normal finance, like a money market account,” Mizuhara said in an interview. “But different structures matter a lot; it’s not the same as being in a money market fund when you are in an SPV

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Blockchain Crypto

Linking Domain Names With Crypto Wallets: GoDaddy, Ethereum Name Service, and Web Registry

Through a partnership with GoDaddy, the Ethereum Name Service (ENS), a domain name system built on top of Ethereum, will enable users to link internet domains to their ENS addresses at no cost.During the weak market, mainstream corporations’ adoption of Web3 decreased; however, the agreement between ENS and GoDaddy, the biggest internet domain registration, may indicate that interest in integrating blockchain technology with conventional platforms has resumed. “Beyonce owns Beyonce.xyz, and now she can set up a wallet just by going into the GoDaddy page and entering your address,” Nick Johnson, the founder of ENS, told CoinDesk as an example. “Now Beyonce.xyz is her wallet identifier for all intents and purposes.” Eventually, the goal will be to integrate more chains beyond

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Nft's

Judge awards $9 million after dismissing Ryder Ripps’ counterclaims against Yuga Labs.

Following the rejection of their counterclaims, Jeremy Cahen and Ryder Ripps were compelled to reimburse Yuga Labs for nearly $9 million in digital collectibles. In their action against Yuga Labs, the inventor of Bored Ape Yacht Club, artists Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen have had their counterclaims dismissed. An unfavourable ruling has been issued, compelling

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Blockchain

The Next Big Thing: Apple Vision Pro’s Blockchain-Based Metaverse Game Launches?

Future metaverse application from a blockchain-related business. Victoria VR is a crypto-meets-virtual-reality (VR) developer that hopes to enhance the cutting-edge technology of the Apple headset by providing an immersive metaverse experience with ultra-realistic graphics.The second quarter of this year is when the app is supposed to launch. According to a statement issued by the firm,

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Blockchain

The AI Act is advanced by EU member states endorsing a political accord

France and Germany withdrew their objections to the AI Act concurrently with the adoption on February 2. Member states have voted to accept the final language of the EU’s AI Act, advancing the legislative framework for artificial intelligence (AI) within the EU. Thierry Breton, EU Commissioner for Internal Markets, verified that all 27 member states

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Blockchain Crypto

Polygon Labs ‘Enhanced Performance’ requires a 19% staff reduction, or 60 roles.

The developer company Polygon Labs, which created the layer-2 rollup network Polygon, announced in a blog post on Thursday that it had eliminated 60 positions, or around 19% of its workforce.The downsizing is being done “for the sake of enhanced performance, rather than for financial reasons,” the announcement said.The company also disclosed that in the upcoming months, the Polygon ID team will split out from the corporation. Polygon announced that individuals who were spared the layoffs will receive a minimum of a 15% rise in their overall salary and that geo-pay models would be discontinued.The latest round of layoffs occurs less than a year after Polygon previously reduced 20% of its workforce in February 2023 as part of a reorganization. “The reality is that achieving our mission often demands challenging decisions, and while difficult, the founders and I agree that we must move forward in a thoughtful way that gives us the greatest chance to execute successfully,” Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, wrote in a post on X.

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Ethereum

Ethereum’s ‘Dencun’ Update Launches on the Second Testnet, With Just One Left

The second of three test networks saw the launch of the largest Ethereum blockchain upgrade since early 2023, which moved the much-anticipated “Dencun” project and its “proto-danksharding” feature closer to reality.By creating a new, divided area for data called “blobs,” proto-danksharding aims to lower the cost of transactions for layer-2 blockchains and lower the cost of data availability.The update is viewed as a crucial component of the ecosystem’s vision for facilitating the rapid creation of layer-2 chains on top of Ethereum. The Dencun update took place on Thursday at 22:51 UTC (5:51 PM ET) on the Sepolia testnet, and it was completed by 23:10 UTC.Three testnets are being run through a Dencun simulation, with Sepolia being the second.Dencun went up earlier this month on the Goerli testnet, but at first it was unable to complete. Dencun’s final Ethereum testnet, Holesky, will go live the following week on February 7.Developers will then sign a date to enable Dencun on the main blockchain after that.Testnets replicate a primary blockchain and facilitate low-risk modifications to the protocol or underlying decentralized applications by developers.Dencun, which was initially scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2023, will be the largest update for Ethereum since Shapella, which was released in March of last year and allowed for staked ether (ETH) withdrawals.

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Crypto Tech Tech Africa

Analysts call for an update of SEC norms, citing licensing barriers for Nigerian exchanges.

Rume Ophi, a Nigerian crypto analyst, believes that the virtual asset services providers (VASP) criteria should be reviewed by the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in order to make it easier for local crypto exchanges to obtain licenses to operate in the nation.In an interview with Cointelegraph, Ophi clarified that local cryptocurrency exchanges should have been given priority when creating the SEC’s current guidelines, which are meant to direct the registration of VASPs but do not support them.Exchanges have to meet the conditions for application processing, pay a registration fee, and pay any other necessary costs in order to receive a VASP license from the SEC. Ophi clarified that many local exchanges are unable to meet the 500 million naira ($556,620) minimum upfront capital requirement. As a result, he predicted that international exchanges will dominate the Nigerian exchange market rather than a stable balance. Nigerian Web3 lawyer Kue Barinor Paul, who backed Ophi’s position, stated in a recent conversation on X that Nigerian crypto exchanges and VASPs would probably need to combine in order to meet the SEC license criteria.According to Paul, the existing system for license registration by the Nigerian SEC has to be revised because it primarily benefits international exchanges. The Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission released a 54-page paper titled “New Rules on Issuance, Offering Platforms and Custody of Digital Assets” in May 2022.In addition to providing instructions on how Nigeria’s banks and financial institutions can deal with digital assets, the paper opens doors for bitcoin service providers operating in the nation.Ophi added, “To make sure that the SEC’s licensing requirements are in line with the current realities of the country’s economy, the Nigerian National Assembly needs to get involved.” Nigeria, the biggest economy in Africa, has the highest degree of cryptocurrency awareness globally, according to a global poll comprising participants from 15 countries.Out of 154 nations evaluated, Nigeria ranked second in terms of cryptocurrency adoption, according to Chainalysis’ “2023 Cryptocurrency Geography Report.”It was projected that the country’s high level of cryptocurrency acceptance will draw more foreign investment in the space.Ophi, however, blames the low investment rate on the recent lifting of the prohibition on banking institutions handling cryptocurrency exchanges.

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