On Monday, Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) released a statement warning investors about the risks of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, which have soared in popularity in recent years. The regulatory body wrote: “As with other virtual assets, NFTs are exposed to heightened risks, including illiquid secondary markets, volatility, opaque pricing, hacking and fraud. Investors should be mindful of these risks, and if they cannot fully understand them and bear the potential losses, they should not invest in NFTs.” However, it appears that the SFC’s specific concern lies in the securitization of NFTs. “The majority of NFTs observed by the SFC are intended to represent a unique copy of an underlying asset such as a digital image, artwork, music or...
A blockchain reorganization attack refers to a chain split in which nodes receive blocks from a new chain while the old chain continues to exist. On May 25, the Ethereum Beacon chain suffered a seven-block reorg and was exposed to a high-level security risk called chain organization. Validators on the Eth2 (now consensus layer upgrade) Beacon Chain became out of sync after a client update elevated specific clients. However, during the process, validators on the blockchain network were confused and didn’t update their clients. Seven-block reorganization means that seven blocks of transactions were added to the eventually discarded fork before the network figured out it wasn’t the canonical chain. Therefore, blockchain reorganization happens if some node operators are faster than...
On Tuesday, the European Central Bank, or ECB, published the results of a new survey conducted in six eurozone areas; the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Belgium, France, and Germany. Together, approximately 10% of respondents from the surveyed countries said they own cryptocurrencies. Out of this group, only 6% of respondents said they own digital assets worth more than 30,000 euros. Meanwhile, 37% of respondents said they owned up to 999 euros in crypto. Across all of the countries surveyed, investors in the fifth income quintile (or the wealthiest 20% of the population) consistently had the highest proportion of cryptocurrency ownership relative to other income groups. The Consumer Expectation Survey asked adults aged 18 to 70 if they or anyone in their household owned financial assets in va...
Sorare is where fantasy soccer and cryptocurrency meet. For soccer fans, this is a way to be competitive off the field and invest heavily right away. Users can play the game online in their browser or download the Sorare app. In this article, you will read all about what exactly Sorare is and how it works. What is Sorare? Sorare is a blockchain-based fantasy soccer game adored by many soccer fans worldwide. The founders of the platform want to give fans the opportunity to develop and play the game, even when they can’t play it on the field. Users can buy, trade, sell and manage a virtual team with digital player cards. By competing against other users of this fantasy football game, you can earn points. It’s more than simply playing virtual tournaments because you need to build strategies a...
The Russian government has cracked down on foreign social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, banning them for extremist activists. For protestors, activists and local civilians, these actions have resulted in a significant barrier to communication with the outside world. Furthermore, they have also raised the question of just how easy of a target these apps are for state authorities. With citizens unable to access these platforms, they have little choice but to flee to the next-best still active platforms. However, it isn’t just Russian activists who have taken to alternatives. Consider, for example, Telegram, a cloud-based instant messaging service that has quickly become a place for sharing war footage and other content that may have otherwise been blocked on ...
India’s NSDL and CDSL will control maintenance nodes for the new decentralised network Elsewhere, a council responsible for indirect taxes in India is considering a 28% tax on crypto-related activity Celebrating its 25th anniversary at the end of last week, the National Securities Depository (NSDL), based in Mumbai, launched a blockchain-based or Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform for debenture covenant monitoring. The platform was created as a product of collaboration between the NSDL and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to enhance securities and covenant monitoring. In effect, it should help bring more clarity and discipline to the market. It will expand to involve other regulators The DLT platform will function by providing an immutable trail of transact...
As a suitable option for long-term crypto token holders, staking pools offer the promise of earning yields in addition to the capital gains earned through token value appreciation. One can invest in a stake pool with a fraction of the number of tokens required to become a validator on a PoS blockchain, while the staking pool rewards users on a daily, weekly or quarterly basis, depending on the cryptocurrency being staked. For example, investors can stake their ETH tokens in a staking pool on Coinbase for daily rewards and with no minimum balance requirement. Another popular blockchain to stake tokens is Cosmos, the second largest ecosystem in blockchain. Investors can also stake their tokens through various validators on many chains available in the Cosmos ecosystem. Choosing which staking...
Polkadot (DOT) price ticked higher in the past 24 hours on anticipations that its new cross-chain communications protocol would solve a long-standing problem in the blockchain sector. DOT price gains 12% on XCM launch Bulls pushed DOT’s price to $16.44 on May 5 from $14.72 a day before, gaining a little over 12% as they assessed the launch of XCM, a messaging system that allows parachains — individual blockchains that operate in parallel inside the Polkadot ecosystem — to communicate with each other. DOT/USD daily price chart. Source: TradingView As Cointelegraph reported, future updates in the XCM protocol would see parachains exchanging messages without relying on Polkadot’s central blockchain, the Relay Chain. That expects to eliminate bridge hacks that have cost the in...
3LAU‘s NFT marketplace Royal is on a mission to revolutionize the nostalgic pastime of collecting music. After launching in the second half of 2021, the platform quickly amassed a $55 million war chest in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Since then, Royal has facilitated attention-grabbing NFT collections, including offerings from Diplo and Nas. Last month, Darya Pourshasb, former Director of Premium Content Strategy at Spotify, made the leap to join Royal’s leadership team with an eagerness to continue growing the brand’s partnerships within the artist community. While the industry at-large appears to be lining up behind Royal, 3LAU remains laser-focused on illuminating the emotional and intrinsic value of music NFTs for consumers. Speaking on T...