Qatar Airways announced Tuesday that it had launched its first metaverse experience, QVerse. This virtual reality platform allows interested parties can virtually visit and navigate the Premium Check-in area at the International Airport of Hamad (HIA). According to the company’s statements to Cointelegraph, however, QVerse is merely the company’s first foray into the Metaverse. The company said that it intends to expand its virtual environment initiatives and believes that the metaverse is part of the future of human relations: “We believe that the future is virtual. The metaverse will empower human beings, expand their horizons and break their limits by …

Litecoin is one of the earliest alternative coins (altcoins) that came to light after Bitcoin (BTC). Created in October 2011, it is now the 20th most valuable cryptocurrency, boasting a market capitalization of over $4 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data. The MimbleWimble upgrade was first conceived more than two years ago as part of the Litecoin Improvement Proposal. That was in November 2019, as the network started planning on enhancing anonymity between senders and receivers of a transaction on its network. And now, the MWEB is finally out following approval from the majority of nodes. The upgrade was done at …

The crypto market is growing at a rapid pace, with governments and various regulatory bodies actively trying to study and keep up with the growth. While many policymakers around the globe have come to realize that banning the crypto market is not an option, many are yet to come up with a formidable framework to regulate the nascent market in their respective countries. Even some of the most crypto-friendly countries have only managed to regulate parts of the crypto market such as crypto trading while a significant chunk of crypto-related activities still remains a gray area. Thus, for a rapidly …

On Wednesday, self-custody crypto exchange Edge announced a no-Know Your Customer (KYC) debit Mastercard that can be funded with Bitcoin and other digital currencies. Without KYC verification, users would be able to spend their crypto at more than 10 million merchant terminals in the United States. Currently, one can fund the Edge Mastercard using Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Litecoin (LTC) and Dash (DASH) directly from the Edge app. In a statement to Cointelegraph, representatives at Edge say that the card is compliant with Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing regulations because of a $1,000 daily spending limit on …

“The Market Report” with Cointelegraph is live right now. On this week’s show, Cointelegraph’s resident experts give you the details about Ethereum 2.0, its main competitors, and how they differ from each other. To kick things off, we break down the latest news in the markets this week. Here’s what to expect in this week’s markets news breakdown: Bitcoin ‘Bart Simpson’ returns as BTC price dives 7% in hours: Bitcoin (BTC) price action failed to crack $32,000 and headed back to square one, sparking $60 million of long liquidations in the process. How much longer will we stay in the …

There is no shortage of visionary scenarios about how Web3 might unfold, but one of the latest, “Decentralized Society: Finding Web3’s Soul” — a paper published in mid-May by E. Glen Weyl, Puja Ohlhaver and Vitalik Buterin — is close to becoming one of the top 50 most downloaded papers on the SSRN scholarly research platform. The attention, one might suspect, has much to do with the participation of Buterin, blockchain’s wunderkind and the legendary co-founder of the Ethereum network. But it could also be a function of the paper’s ambition and scope, which includes asking questions like: What sort …

The burgeoning popularity of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) has led to issues like exorbitant transaction fees and congestion in the prevalent Ethereum-based ecosystem. The fee factor serves as a major deterrent to anyone wanting to execute transactions on the blockchain. A report published by Reuters revealed that the NFT sales volume was $24.9 billion in 2021, considerably more than the $94.9 million in 2020. The number of wallets trading in NFTs jumped to about 28.6 million, from a modest 545,000 in 2020. Recently, when Bored Ape minted its NFTs, the gas fee surged to $3300, showing a glimpse of how bad …

Crypto-focused companies have come a long way since their beginnings in terms of corporate structure, employee motivation, decision-making systems, compliance and other aspects of their operations. While the early 2010s saw startups founded by small groups of crypto enthusiasts, the space has since grown to become home to large institutional businesses. Still, crypto companies are engaged in business, and business is alien to anarchy. The rapid growth of the cryptocurrency industry in the 2010s transformed small, independent businesses into huge conglomerates with thousands of employees and offices worldwide. Investment funds and professional investors own shares of them, many have functioning …

In April, United States-based retirement plan provider Fidelity Investments moved to allow 401(k) retirement savings account holders to invest directly in Bitcoin (BTC), the flagship cryptocurrency, making crypto a potential part of one’s savings for the future. A 401(k) is a retirement savings plan offered by many U.S. employers that give the saver tax advantages and allow for several different investment options. Fidelity’s move will make it easier for Bitcoin to be among those options. In a typical 401(k) plan, employees agree to have a percentage of each paycheck paid directly into an investment account created for the plan, while …

In her monthly Expert Take column, Selva Ozelli, an international tax attorney and CPA, covers the intersection between emerging technologies and sustainability, and provides the latest developments around taxes, AML/CFT regulations and legal issues affecting crypto and blockchain. In 2021, nonfungible tokens became the biggest disrupter in art, with artists minting, exhibiting and auctioning them and investors buying, selling and trading them. But by May 2022, NFT sales had dropped 92% from the market peak. According to data aggregator Layoffs.fyi, more than 17,000 technology laborers lost their jobs in May. The recent downturn is similar to 2018, when leading cryptocurrencies …

Many businesses and big brands have already jumped on the nonfungible token (NFT) bandwagon, including Nike, the National Basketball Association, Pepsi and even Taco Bell. But are these just for the show, or are these NFTs creating value? Much like digital services have become essential for every business in and outside of the technology sector, I believe that tokens — and, specifically, NFTs — are likely to become equally crucial in the emerging Web3 economy for at least two reasons. First, my view is that NFTs tokenize ideas at the atomistic level, creating rivalry and exclusivity around goods or services. …

Most people who have dealt with cryptocurrencies in any capacity over the last couple of years are well aware that there are many projects out there offering eye-popping annual percentage yields (APY) these days. In fact, many decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols that have been built using the proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus protocol offer ridiculous returns to their investors in return for them staking their native tokens. However, like most deals that sound too good to be true, many of these offerings are out-and-out cash grab schemes — at least that’s what the vast majority of experts claim. For example, YieldZard, a …