web3
What is a Yat and why are people paying $425K for emojis?
Will emojis become the Web3 version of a username? That’s what Nashville-based tech startup Yat believes and with 160,000 sold worth a combined $20 million, it seems plenty of ordinary people agree. A Yat is a string of between one and five emojis that can be used as your digital username, website URL and as a payment address for your digital wallet. It’s sort of a cross between a nonfungible token (NFT) and domain address — though not all Yats are tokenized. “Yat lets you use emojis as your universal username and identity on the internet,” the company wrote in its Discord server. “Imagine being known as fire-snake or robot-ghost-crown instead of coffeequeen98 or jake2456@emailxyz.com. By owning a Yat — let’s say ocean-trident-palm tree — it’s yours forever. You are the ~only~ one on earth...
RSS3 aims to be the decentralized information processor of Web3
Really Simple Syndication (RSS), the first information distribution protocol that saw massive adoption across the internet, is all set to take on Web3 with a decentralized information processing protocol called RSS3. In a technical white paper released on Monday, RSS3 laid out plans for taking its popular internet feed update to Web3. RSS3 would offer every entity an RSS3 file that will act as source data and be updated continuously. The source data file then can be used as an aggregation of all the cyber activities, which can then be used to build out social media, content networks, games and other data-driven applications. The source data will have control over what information to broadcast and what to keep private. RSS is a feed file containing a summary of a website’s updates, usu...
HitPiece Wanted to Make an NFT for Every Song — Only Its Founders Forgot to Ask Artists First
Over the last couple days, a beta version of a new platform called HitPiece has sparked outrage and confusion throughout the music industry after artists and their teams began finding NFTs of their songs posted on the marketplace without their permission. The NFTs were listed as “available for auction” or as “live” auctions under individual song titles with corresponding album artwork, and while they were characterized as “music NFTs” they did not appear to contain audio. HitPiece’s mission, according to the company’s pitch deck, is to make a “1 of 1 NFT for every song,” allowing “USD and Crypto for payment.” The company launched in December, but it wasn’t until Tuesday that people began to really take notice that it was listing NFTs for artists ranging from XXXTentacion to John Lennon to ...
Decentralized technology will end the Web3 privacy conundrum
Although the modern internet connects us like never before, one thing that younger generations have never truly experienced is the feeling of genuine privacy. Even older generations have forgotten what life was like before our every thought and action were tracked. Web3 envisions an open, trustless, permissionless internet where users can interact with each other peer-to-peer without giving up ownership control, privacy or relying on intermediaries. Underlying that vision, blockchains are one of the most important tools. They eliminate the need for trusted third parties and help to create a direct relationship between users and service providers, recording the rules of engagement on immutable ledgers and even storing direct interactions between them. Blockchains also fundamentally reconfig...
YouTube CEO hints that NFTs could be added to creator platform
YouTube’s CEO, Susan Wojcicki, addressed YouTube’s priorities for 2022 in a letter published Tuesday on the company blog. Among those priorities is the possibility of adding nonfungible token, or NFT, features for the platform’s video creators. there’s *so much* to in 2022: @SusanWojcicki shares the future of YouTube → https://t.co/uL2WIbLwXK pic.twitter.com/JEW8yzqh7e — YouTube (@YouTube) January 25, 2022 What this could look like is yet to be determined, however. No additional details were provided in Wojcicki’s statement aside from the claim that the YouTube team will use developments in the Web3 space “as a source of inspiration.” “The past year in the world of crypto, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), and even decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) h...
$75M Blockchain Founders Fund II backs portfolio of P2E and Web3 projects
Singapore-based Blockchain Founders Fund has launched a new venture capital fund to support emerging projects in the cryptocurrency, metaverse and Web3 sectors, offering further evidence that investors are still keen to back major growth trends in the digital asset market. Blockchain Founders Fund II, also known as BFF II, has raised $75 million from various investors across the blockchain and crypto industry, including NEO Global Capital, Appworks, Baksh Capital, Octava and The Sandbox chief operating officer Sebastien Borget. BFF II has already deployed capital across 11 projects, including a layer-two derivatives exchange, several play-to-earn games and a DeFi protocol. BFF II is focused primarily on crypto, blockchain, Web3 and metaverse projects. The fund is also prepared to off...
Opera announces beta of its new Web3 focused ‘Crypto Browser’
Opera, the Norway-based company behind the popular internet browser, has released the beta version of its new Crypto Browser Project. This crypto browser aims to facilitate the user experience of browsing DApps, games and metaverse platforms by offering direct access to Web3 services for Windows, Mac and Android users. The current Opera browser boasts a no-login VPN, and native ad & tracker blocker that help to make it secure. According to a release shared with Cointelegraph, the new crypto browser will maintain these security features, while integrating direct access to decentralized exchanges, NFTs and gaming DApps, as well as Telegram and Twitter support. Jorgen Arnesen, EVP Mobile at Opera, stated that the main goal of the project is to help crypto and Web3 become more ...
MELVV On the Promise of NFTs: “Ownership Is Finally Returning to the Musicians”
You can roll your eyes and call “BS” on NFTs all you want, but their potential for musicians is undeniable. And no matter how many of those in the dark write them off as foolish without nary a Google search, independent artists will gladly continue to reap the rewards. Such is the case with MELVV, a popular electronic music producer and DJ who has performed at many of the nation’s most coveted music festivals, like Coachella, Electric Forest, and Lollapalooza. He, like many other artists, recently discovered a latent love of NFTs after a snakebitten lifecycle with a major record label. MELVV recently opened up about his experiences in a candid blog post on Mirror.xyz, a decentralized publishing platform. Due to sustained creative differences with his former label and the ...
Cointelegraph Consulting: Crypto events of 2021 in retrospect
The year 2021 is coming to a close, and if there’s one way to describe how the cryptocurrency industry fared in the past 12 months, it would be momentous growth. Major cryptocurrencies shattered previous records, adoption grew, new sectors sprouted and novel blockchain use cases made significant breakthroughs. The Market Insight’s latest edition recalls the events covered in past issues as well as deep-dive topics in Cointelegraph Research’s industry reports. DeFi and Altcoins Two of the top gainers of 2021 were Solana (SOL) and Terra (LUNA). SOL gained 9,500%, while LUNA gained 13,000%. Significant investments and ecosystem growth catalyzed the immense gains for the two tokens. One could also argue that the two being billed as potential “Ethereum killers” had a part in contributing ...
On heritage and NFT: Challenging the meaning of legacy itself
In his monthly crypto tech column, Israeli serial entrepreneur Ariel Shapira covers emerging technologies within the crypto, decentralized finance (DeFi) and blockchain space, as well as their roles in shaping the economy of the 21st century. When trying to examine the nonfungible token (NFT) economy as it has been shaping in recent months, two main trends can be discerned. On the one hand, a completely new market that allows various artists to join a new creator economy — the creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club, various types of pixel art creators and creative flickers such as the creator of long-necked women’s paintings, the sale of which brought the artist, only 12 years old, close to 1,394 Ether (ETH), equal at the time of writing $6 million. But the truth is that an NFT is much mor...
Crypto Biz: What’s up with Jack? Dec. 16–23
When you’re no longer at the helm of a publicly-traded company, you have more leeway to express controversial views. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey took to social media this week to express his discontent over venture capital’s role in Web 3.0. Some of his Twitter followers agreed with his views, others disagreed and some even blocked him entirely. Below is the concise version of the latest “Crypto Biz” newsletter, which is sent to your inbox every Thursday. For a comprehensive breakdown of business developments over the last week, register for the full newsletter below. “You don’t own Web 3.0,” says Dorsey Dorsey’s gripe with Web 3.0 — a broad term that refers to a more decentralized and interconnected version of the internet — stems from th...
Umbrella Network launches $15M oracle accelerator program
Decentralized oracle service Umbrella Network has launched a new accelerator program for projects looking to build data pipelines to the cryptocurrency market, a process that many within the industry believe is necessary to grow the emerging domains of blockchain gaming, DeFi and the Metaverse. The $15 million accelerator program intends to fund companies that are bringing new data solutions to the blockchain ecosystem, Umbrella Network announced Tuesday. Sam Kim, a partner at Umbrella Network, told Cointelegraph that his company is focused on funding projects within blockchain gaming, Metaverse, digital advertising, blockchain-based identity, sports and weather, among others. To date, projects in these and other fields have largely relied on centralized systems for running key compu...
