As part of a new series of connect-to-consumer initiatives developed this year, Shopify will allow merchants to connect with fans and drive sales by creating exclusive merchandise for tokenholders. The initiative, dubbed "tokengate," is available in early-access beta mode. Tokengated Experiences Ready to give superpowers to your most loyal fans? Build even stronger communities around your brand and reward your people by unlocking exclusive shopping experiences. Think limited-edition merch drops, discounts, and much more (oh hey @doodles). pic.twitter.com/gyq5iu2GRH — Shopify (@Shopify) June 22, 2022 To get started, vendors can create a tokengate shop directly on the Shopify app or add …

Decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap announced the acquisition of the nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace aggregator Genie on Tuesday. Uniswap said this move is part of its mission to unlock universal ownership and exchange on its platform. Uniswap is now integrating NFTs into its product line, beginning with the Uniswap web application, and later integrations are said to include developer APIs and widgets. This isn’t the first time Uniswap has worked with NFTs. In the spring of 2019, it launched Unisocks, which offered NFT liquidity pools backed by real-world assets. Uniswap said in the announcement: “We’re excited to bring what we’ve learned …

In a new annual economic report published by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the financial institution revealed that approximately 90% of central banks worldwide are investigating the feasibility of adopting central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs. The BIS report highlighted the ability of current sovereign fiat money to provide (relative) price stability and public oversight while criticizing crypto's inability to perform "basic fundamental functions of money" and their opacity with regards to accountability to the general public. However, the report did highlight crypto's programmable nature as well as the borderless elements of decentralized finance (DeFi) as potential benefits that …

What is a play-to-earn crypto game? Distributed technologies including blockchain and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) enable game developers and gamers a more interactive, immersive and incentivized experience than ever before through the new game model advertised by tech enthusiasts and named the play-to-earn (P2E) crypto games model. P2E games, also known as blockchain-based or cryptocurrency games, gain significant attention from the gaming community and developers as they provide an opportunity to own data for in-game assets, fuel in-game economic systems and provide many other perks to facilitate the metaverse ecosystems. Related: My Neighbor Alice: A beginner’s guide to the play-to-earn crypto …

Crypto exchange Binance has courted controversy almost since its 2017 beginnings, and five years later, the dustups continue. On June 6, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission was reported to be investigating whether Binance Holdings broke United States securities rules in launching its digital tokens. Meanwhile, on the same day, Reuters published a scathing 4,700-word “special report” titled “How crypto giant Binance became a hub for hackers, fraudsters and drug traffickers.” Binance almost immediately retorted to Reuters with a blog post of its own, warning about “authors and pundits who cherry pick data, rely on conveniently unverifiable ‘leaks’ from …

On Friday, Bifrost, a Web 3.0 derivatives protocol that provides decentralized cross-chain liquidity for staked assets, launched the updated Slot Liquidity Auction Protocol dubbed "SALP 2.0." Projects such as Moonbeam, Unique network, OAK network, Polkadex, etc., held their parachain crowdloans on Kusama and Polkadot via the original SALP. A total of 177,690 vsKSM ($439 million) and 3,045,564 vsDOT ($21 million) was minted through the protocol. The SALP protocol works by releasing the liquidity of tokens staked during an auction; liquid derivatives such as vsDOT and vsKSM are issued on a 1:1 basis for the tokens staked. Both vsDOT and vsKSM …

On Thursday, ZachXBT, a cyber detective in the decentralized finance, or DeFi, realm, accused prominent Taiwanese musician and blockchain personality Jeff Huang, also known as Machi Big Brother, of misconduct in 10 different cryptocurrency projects. Machi Big Brother is known outside of Taiwan as an avid collector of Bored Ape Yacht Club nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and possessed a collection worth an estimated $8.26 million at the peak of the crypto bull market last year. This is misinformation. If he wasn’t anon I’d sue him for defamation. — Machi Big Brother (@machibigbrother) June 16, 2022 Though numerous, the main spearhead of …

Watchmaker TAG Heuer has partnered with the well-known nonfungible token (NFT) community surrounding Bored Ape Yacht Club and CLONE-X to create a smartwatch that displays NFTs and connects to crypto wallets such as MetaMask and Ledger Live. The company says that the functionality of the TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 will be straightforward, with NFTs being transferred to it via a paired smartphone. The device is set to support static and animated NFT artwork, and multiple NFTs can be transferred to the watch at a time. TAG Heuer stated that NFT artwork can be resized and placed within three available …

The internet continues to exist as the backbone of society at large. The only drawback is that the traditional internet model relies on all devices being connected to nodes that centralize information, redistributing it to form a flow. Consequently, centralization can lead to a lack of privacy and a single point of failure for all websites that rely on it. Blockchain changes this by creating a distributed network, where all devices store all the information on the web. Although the technology is still new, its aspirations are large and its computational needs are growing. Ethereum (ETH) has attempted to overcome …

Can a fully-functional oracle network ecosystem that anonymously collects and validates geospatial (location-specific) data exist? One blockchain firm seems to have gotten the gist of the idea. Founded in 2012, XY Labs and its namesake protocol XYO, which is built on the Ethereum blockchain, seek to reward participants for the genesis, interpretation, analysis and storage of data to be called upon for specific problems. There are currently over 4 million nodes worldwide on the XYO network. In a recent ask-me-anything (AMA) session with Cointelegraph Markets Pro, Arie Trouw, founder of XY Labs, explained that fundamental to the XYO system is …

One reason is that blockchain’s use of a decentralized ledger offers insight into the workings of AI systems and the provenance of the data these platforms may be using. As a result, transactions can be facilitated with a high level of trust while maintaining solid data integrity. Not only that, but the use of blockchain systems to store and distribute AI-centric operational models can help in the creation of an audit trail, which in turn allows for enhanced data security. Furthermore, the combination of AI and blockchain, at least on paper, seems to be extremely potent, one that is capable …

Ankr, one of the industry’s fastest RPC providers and web3 developer toolsets, has announced that it will become a remote procedure call provider for Optimism. Optimism is an open-source layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum that focuses on speed and efficient transactions across the network. It has caught the eyes of many in recent months, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. This is a great example of why I'm so proud of @optimismPBC for adding non-token governance (the Citizen House). Optimism explicitly has goals *other* than just "make OP go up", and the only way to do that long-term is with explicit …