Most of today’s internet landscape is controlled by a countable few tech oligarchs such as Facebook, Tencent and Alibaba, according to Hongfei Da, the founder of blockchain platform Neo. During the Unitize blockchain conference, Hongfei said that these companies have divided the internet into several fragments by creating their own data silos. He raised concerns about how such companies intentionally use these data silos to impede competition while also abusing user privacy for both commercial and political purposes. According to Hongfei, laying a new foundation for internet infrastructure that is more user-centric and decentralized is the best way forward for …

Dfinity announced the Tungsten release of its “Internet Computer” project on June 30, officially opening up the platform to third-party developers. To mark the occasion it demonstrated CanCan, an open alternative to TikTok built with under 1000 lines of code. So what is the Internet Computer? The Internet Computer is a decentralized and non-proprietary network to run the next generation of mega applications. It gives developers and entrepreneurs the chance to build and develop software on an open network that is purportedly free from platform risk. Dfinity founder and chief scientist Dominic Williams explained, “Currently, whether you are building on …

ConsenSys developer and Baseline Protocol co-founder, John Wolpert, has predicted that we may still be decades away from seeing wholesale mainstream adoption of crypto assets and distributed ledger technologies. “My personal point of view is that these things tend to run in 20-year cycles,” Wolpert told Cointelegraph. “Everybody who's running companies today needs to retire. And the new people need to show up. We saw that with mobile.” Crypto compared to pre-1980’s internet Wolpert compared the trajectory of cryptocurrency to the development of the internet from its conception in 1969, contradicting persistent analogies between Bitcoin and the internet of the …

The internet started its life over 30 years ago, and since then, it has penetrated almost every aspect of our lives. Today, it underpins virtually everything we do. In fact, it’s difficult to imagine our lives without it. The march of technology continues, and we have reached a crossroads. A different technology evolution that I predict is likely to have a similar impact on all our lives is blockchain, and if you haven’t seen its potential, you aren’t looking closely. Skeptics keep asking the same questions over and over again about blockchain: Why is no one using it? What will …

Decentralization is one of the most important benefits promised by blockchain, as the technology aims to distribute and disperse power away from central authorities. Bitcoin, for example, was designed as a decentralized alternative to government-backed money. However, many blockchain systems currently run on centralized cloud platforms. It’s been noted that over 60% of all Ethereum nodes rely on cloud-based services, with 25% running on Amazon Web Services, or AWS. As a result, these blockchain networks are vulnerable to policy changes and adjustments made from Amazon. This also leads to the question of whether these systems and their associated cryptocurrencies are …

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and owner of crypto pricing website CoinMarketCap, is getting closer to one of the most crypto-sceptical jurisdictions in the world, China. After leaving the country amid a nation-wide crypto ban in 2017, Binance has now officially registered a Chinese domain. Binance.cn, Binance’s new Chinese domain, has been registered with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). According to public data by the MIIT, the new domain was approved by the state authority in early April 2020. Binance.cn domain details on the MIIT. Source: MIIT “Let's focus on education and technology first” Specializing in …

“Cryptopia: Bitcoin, Blockchains and the Future of the Internet” is filmmaker Torsten Hoffmann’s follow up to his award-winning 2015 documentary “Bitcoin: The End of Money As We Know It.” His first film looked at the history (and failings) of money and the financial system, and how Bitcoin was poised to revolutionize and solve many of its problems. Now, Cryptopia brings us up to date with the current state of play in the world of cryptocurrency and blockchain. The documentary is split into three acts. Act I - Bitcoin First we get an introduction to the fundamentals of Bitcoin, recapping the …

Privacy-focused web browser Brave has integrated the Binance widget into the latest stable release across all of its desktop offerings. An announcement on April 30 notes that the widget is enabled by default, placing the Binance cryptocurrency exchange in front of all of the browser’s millions of desktop users. Previously the widget was only available for testing in Brave Nightly and Beta versions. Turn on, tune in, and trade out Any user opening a new tab or window in the browser is clearly presented with the new Binance widget along with the Brave rewards widget on the right side of …

Users of MyEtherWallet, an Ethereum wallet app, will soon be able to buy a .crypto domain from the wallet’s interface. Unstoppable Domains, a company that is hoping to spread awareness of the decentralized domain type, entered a partnership with the wallet provider. Announced on April 23, the integration with MyEtherWallet would allow the domain provider access the wallet’s 1 million monthly active users. Unstoppable Domains refers to the wallet company as a domain registrar, which are normally companies responsible for reselling domains. Unlike with traditional domain registration, custody of the domain is tied to the specific wallet and is not …

Open-source internet browser, Brave, tallied more than one million new users in March alone, a tweet from Brave’s head of marketing, Des Martin, detailed on April 1. Isolation has increased web traffic With much of the world limiting their exposure to the coronavirus through self-imposed quarantine, web usership has undoubtedly increased. As a result, various internet-based services have hosted significantly greater demand for activities such as web browsing, gaming, and shopping, a March 20 Bloomberg article stated. Brave sees increased attention Some of this attention has been funneled toward Brave, as evidenced by its spike in users. Brave, a browser …

Opera now enables users to access decentralized web pages through a partnership with Unstoppable Domains, a tech firm backed by prominent Bitcoin (BTC) advocate Tim Draper. The collaboration entails Opera’s integration of Unstoppable Domain’s .crypto domain extension, according to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on March 26. This will allow the browser’s users to surf decentralized websites, as well as make cryptocurrency payments. No more middleman As the announcement further explains, blockchain domains are stored by the owner instead of by registrar firms, and decentralized websites are stored on peer-to-peer networks, not cloud services. This makes it possible to conduct …

We live in an increasingly mobile world where I can order a vehicle driven by a complete stranger to take me anywhere, I can get food delivered in minutes, and I can conduct almost all my immediate banking needs — all via apps on my phone. We’re in a decade when firing up a computer to do these tasks would seem tedious compared to quickly swiping on a phone. Computers are no longer required, let alone optimal over mobile access, and this innovative trend has big implications for the future of Ethereum. Mobile applications are the future, and they’re increasingly …