Blockchain
Vitalik Buterin suggests making NFTs ‘soulbound’ like World of Warcraft items
In a blog post published Wednesday, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), expressed his wishes to make nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, soulbound as with the namesake item class in popular MMORPG World of Warcraft, or WoW. In outlining his reasons, Buterin explained that if someone shows they own an NFT that is obtainable by doing X, such as attending an auction, it is not possible to tell if the person attended the auction to obtained it or simply bought the NFT via the secondary market. An example of a soulbound item in WoW | Source: Blizzard Watch The soulbound feature in WoW prevents an item from being traded, mailed or sold at the in-game Auction House to other players. It was designed by developers to prevent “twinking” or passing down gear from high-level to low-lev...
Cardano network at record capacity due to SundaeSwap launch, but not all users hail it as a success
According to both Cardano Blockchain Insight and pool.pm, the Cardano (ADA) network has maintained record capacity for nearly two weeks due to the launch of decentralized exchange, or DEX, SundaeSwap, the first of its kind to go live on Cardano. At the same time, the total value locked for the ADA blockchain reached a record of approximately $80 million, despite the recent fall in the token’s price from the ongoing down market. The current average blockchain load of the network hovers at 93.19%, which means that 93.19% of its blocks are being filled. In context, the metric amounted to only 32.49% on New Year’s Eve. The number of ADA wallets is also on the verge of breaking the 3 million mark. Many ADA enthusiasts took to social media to celebrate the milestones. However, t...
Kanye West wants royalties from Paparazzi photos, with the help of NFTs
Kanye West expressed his frustration at the paparazzi after being filmed arriving at Miami International Airport on Monday, as seen in a video posted by ET Canada. Kanye can be heard saying to the cameraman: “It’s just really one-sided. You guys can follow us, you guys to stand from the hotel at any given time. You don’t give us any percentage of what you make off us, off our kids. And I’m going to change that.” Kanye in Miami | Source: ET Canada The cameraman argued that, “without candid photography, there wouldn’t be a [documented] history of celebrities.” However, it was clear that Kanye’s main interest involved the right to royalties from paparazzi photos, rather than issues with the perceived invasion of privacy. “You know, N...
Steve Angello Bets On Blockchain Marketplace to Revolutionize Music Rights Ownership
Steve Angello is placing a bet on the future of music rights and throwing his weight behind anotherblock, a Swedish startup dedicated to expanding public access to royalty investing by way of NFTs. Founders Sebastian Knutsson and Mattias Miksche both boast impressive pedigrees from different sectors of the technology industry. Knutsson is the founder of King, the publishing and development company behind Candy Crush, while Miksche’s company Stardoll has operated as an angel investor in AI-learning platform Sana Labs, among other successful early stage companies. According to a press release shared with EDM.com, the Swedish House Mafia star threw his hat in the ring during anotherblock’s latest pre-seed funding round, which raised $1.2 million. The platform will seek to tokenize...
Buyback-and-burn: What does it mean in crypto?
Miners can burn virtual currency tokens using the proof-of-burn (PoB) consensus mechanism. Proof-of-burn is one of several consensus mechanisms blockchain networks use to verify that all participating nodes agree on the blockchain network’s genuine and legitimate state. A consensus mechanism is a collection of protocols that use several validators to agree on the validity of a transaction. PoB is a proof-of-work mechanism that does not waste energy. Instead, it works on the idea of allowing miners to burn tokens of virtual currency. The right to write blocks (mine) is then awarded in proportion to the coins burned. Miners transmit the coins to a burner address to destroy them. This procedure uses few resources (aside from the energy necessary to mine the coins before burning them) an...
The life cycle of smart contracts in the blockchain ecosystem
The formation of a smart contract, freezing of the smart contract, execution of the smart contract and finalization of the smart contract are the four significant steps of a smart contract’s life cycle. It is different from the blockchain development life cycle, which begins with defining the issue you want to resolve with your blockchain product and ends with a minimum viable product. Create Iterative contract negotiation and an implementation phase make up the creation phase. First, the parties must agree on the contract’s overall content and goals. This is similar to traditional contract negotiations and can be done online or offline. On the underlying ledger platform, all participants must have a wallet. Its identifier is pseudonymous in most circumstances, and it is used t...
Blockchain meets activity tracking: Project rewards healthy habits with tokens
Blockchain use cases continue to grow as the world learns about the benefits that it brings. Apart from bringing financial innovations like the ability to do peer-to-peer transactions, blockchain now makes its way to the health industry. Health specialists created a method to track and store health data using blockchain technology. Rosanne Warmerdam, the CEO of Health Blocks, told Cointelegraph that her team had developed a way for users to generate and store patients’ health data without sacrificing their privacy and security. “We wanted to start with giving users ownership and control over their health data,” said Warmerdam. By building on top of the IoTeX blockchain, their platform Health Blocks collects lifestyle-related health data from wearables and other smart devices and conn...
Google ready to dip its feet in blockchain as it eyes more advancements
Google is looking into crypto as part of its financial services growth plans Google’s parent entity, Alphabet Inc., revealed yesterday it had hired former PayPal executive Arnold Goldberg to take charge of its payments division. The tech company is ramping up efforts towards expanding financial services, an endeavour that includes cryptocurrencies. “Crypto is something we pay a lot of attention to […] As user demand and merchant demand evolves, we’ll evolve with it,” Google’s president of commerce, Bill Ready, told Bloomberg. The company’s current payments platform, Google Pay, allows contactless transactions, in-app, and online purchases. The service is available on select user devices, including smartwatches, tablets, and Android mobile devices. Accord...
Stader Labs announce $12.5 million strategic raise, receives praise from Terra founder Do Kwon
On Thursday, Stader Labs, a crypto firm building decentralized finance, or DeFi, products for proof-of-stake blockchain networks, announced that it raised $12.5 million in a private sale. The funding round was led by Three Arrows Capital with additional participation from Blockchain.com, Accomplice, DACM, GoldenTree Asset Management, Accel, Amber, 4RC, Figment, and anger investors. This puts Staber Labs at a valuation of $450 million. Amitej Gajjala, CEO of Stader Labs, issued the following comment regarding the development: This capital will be strategically deployed to accelerate our cross-chain expansion, as well as to nurture our growing ecosystem of third-parties developing staking applications with decentralized Stader infrastructure. Stader Labs’ two core products are Stake Po...
Union Bank of the Philippines selects Metaco and IBM to facilitate digital asset custody operations
On Thursday, Metaco, an enterprise cryptocurrency platform for securing, trading, issuing, and managing digital assets, announced the addition of UnionBank as its latest client. Founded in 1982, UnionBank is one of the largest banks in the Philippines, with a collective $15 billion in assets under management. UnionBank will be also be deploying its digital asset management services on the IBM Cloud, which are fully integrated with Metaco’s solutions. Through the integration, UnionBank will be able to improve the insurability of assets with FIPS 140-2 Level 4 certified controls for managing and migrating keys. FIPS 140-2 is the highest level of U.S. government computer security standard. In addition to detecting and responding to all unauthorized attempts at physical access, the proto...
Union Bank of the Philippines selects Metaco and IBM to facilitate digital asset custody operations
On Thursday, Metaco, an enterprise cryptocurrency platform for securing, trading, issuing, and managing digital assets, announced the addition of UnionBank as its latest client. Founded in 1982, UnionBank is one of the largest banks in the Philippines, with a collective $15 billion in assets under management. UnionBank will be also be deploying its digital asset management services on the IBM Cloud, which are fully integrated with Metaco’s solutions. Through the integration, UnionBank will be able to improve the insurability of assets with FIPS 140-2 Level 4 certified controls for managing and migrating keys. FIPS 140-2 is the highest level of U.S. government computer security standard. In addition to detecting and responding to all unauthorized attempts at physical access, the proto...
FTX secures naming rights sponsorship of Australian Blockchain Week
FTX chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried is among the guests expected to present during the flagship blockchain event Bahamian-based crypto derivatives exchange FTX will be the naming rights sponsor of this year’s edition of the Australian Blockchain Week. The festival is scheduled to run from March 21st to 25th and will cover 75 online, in-person, and hybrid events. The major topics that will be covered include taxation, the Metaverse revolution, sovereign digital currencies, venture capital, Web3 & its privacy implications, and regulations. More than 200 speakers are set to attend, including blockchain entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried. No specifics on the partnership terms have been revealed as of press time. However, in his LinkedIn post announcing the arrangement, Steve Vallas, th...
