The Watr Foundation, in partnership with blockchain platform Algorand, recently launched a project to provide ESG scoring for different commodities with a special focus on climate change. While the project has a clear environmental focus, the platform will also include labeling for everything from how a company treats its workers to the number of people participating in an asset's ecosystem by gender. Watr Foundation council president Maryam Ayati said in a statement: “We believe this next iteration on resource models should be co-created in mutually-owned profit models. It is a privilege and comfort to be collaborating with the pioneers of …

Protocol upgrades are one of the biggest drivers of momentum because they show developers' dedication to fixing bugs, incorporating user requests and adding new features that make the protocol competitive and shore up the token's value. One project that has seen its token price rally to a new all-time high following the launch of a highly anticipated upgrade is Terra (LUNA), a blockchain protocol that uses fiat-pegged stablecoins like TerrUSD (UST) to create a global payments system. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $23.81 on Sept. 21, the price of LUNA surged …

One of the most important factors in the long-term success of a blockchain platform is having an active community of supporters and developers that work to showcase the capabilities of the network by creating new products and interacting with projects on the protocol. Zilliqa (ZIL) is one project that saw its price surge throughout August as developers built out its ecosystem and made improvements to the protocol. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $0.05 on July 20, the price of ZIL proceeded to rally 145% to a swing high at $0.1244 on …

A blockchain application platform has proudly unveiled a brand-new interoperability solution at an annual event held for developers. In total, eight roadmap objectives were unveiled by Lisk during the self-titled Lisk.js conference, which was held virtually and live-streamed from a stage in Berlin. One of the most significant of these is cross-chain update transactions, which ensure that information can be carried securely and quickly between networks. Details were also revealed about how sidechains will be introduced to the Lisk ecosystem — and the safeguards in place that ensure sidechains can be terminated if necessary. Support is also going to be …

A new ecosystem with a goal of bridging the centralized and decentralized worlds of digital finance is going to be home to a brand-new DeFi platform that allows consumers to become their own bank. Fusion says its vision is to deliver key infrastructure for value transfer — integrating the cryptocurrencies that exist today, as well as those that will emerge in the future. This blockchain is now being used by Chainge Finance, a project with the ambition of ensuring anyone can gain 100% control over their daily activities — empowering consumers with the ability to provide and get financial services …

A blockchain project has unveiled a raft of new features in its quest to make this technology accessible — live in a Cointelegraph ask-me-anything session. During the YouTube broadcast, ARK’s co-founder Travis Walker and senior brand manager Justin Renken said there are big challenges in ensuring blockchain is easy to use for the greatest number of people — and revealed upcoming products in their roadmap that could prove crucial in unlocking greater levels of mainstream adoption. One of the most intriguing platforms that will soon be released in public beta is MarketSquare — a social platform that’s designed to connect …

A blockchain application platform that aims to make this technology accessible for everyone has unveiled a high-level view of its cutting-edge solutions for interoperability. Lisk says its approach is based on the paradigm of cross-chain certification — with information submitted between networks utilizing a signed object known as a certificate. According to the platform, this approach delivers several crucial advantages compared with other methods in the market. It is scalable — meaning there are no limits on the number of sidechains that can be connected to the Lisk mainchain — as well as flexible because cross-chain update transactions can be …

In this hyperconnected world, where personal data is a precious commodity, privacy has become a hot-button topic. Now more than ever, many consumers are craving confidentiality — especially when it comes to the transactions they make and the digital trails they leave behind. And that’s what the anonymous team behind a peer-to-peer ecosystem called Utopia say they provide. The platform has been built out of “fundamental respect for, and protection of, individual freedom and liberty online” — and is designed to eliminate surveillance and censorship. Its goal is to ensure that financial transactions, user data and personal communications are kept …

A DeFi ecosystem is launching a token that delivers a new way of gaining exposure to this continually growing space. The rAAVE token is being launched by GrowthDeFi on Feb. 7 — and it has a target price of 1 AAVE. A rebasing mechanism provides adjustments on a daily basis. This means that the supply of rAAVE increases whenever its price exceeds 1 AAVE — and in such a positive scenario, token balances are adjusted accordingly, with 10% of newly minted tokens going to the project’s treasury. If rAAVE’s price falls below 1 AAVE, supply subsequently decreases. Proceeds generated by …

Several organizations have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. town of Torrey, New York for approving a plan to expand a Bitcoin (BTC) mining facility near one of the Finger Lakes. In court documents filed on Thursday in the State of New York Supreme Court, the Sierra Club, Seneca Lake Guardian, the Committee to Preserve the Finger Lakes and more than 20 local residents allege that the local government violated state laws by approving Greenidge Generation’s site plan to expand the operations for its existing Bitcoin mining facility. Allegations in the lawsuit state that Greenidge circumvented laws which require an …

EOS Ecosystem, a wallet app that attracts investors to deposit EOS with promised high returns, has reportedly shut down and possibly run away with close to $52 million, according to an April 20 report. $52M is gone and more is potentially missing The local media’s investigation of EOS block transactions found the balance of one of the EOS accounts associated with EOS Ecosystem had no more than 500 EOS tokens left. The account holder had removed about 890,000 EOS tokens on Monday morning. They dug a little further and tracked down a number of other accounts that also belong to …

A new digital assets ecosystem is offering decentralized crypto trading to businesses and individuals, delivering wallet-to-wallet transactions and “cutting-edge analytical tools” that enable users to make informed decisions about the cryptocurrencies they hold, buy and sell. Volentix’s “four pillars” will underpin the beginnings of its digital assets ecosystem — one of which is VDEX, or Volentix Decentralized Exchange, its flagship product. The project describes VDEX as a “next generation, extensible and customizable decentralized crypto exchange,” with an emphasis on ensuring that the assets and data of every user remain individual and secure. A suite of other decentralized applications (DApps) are …