Last year, cryptocurrencies reached a “tipping point,” according to Gemini’s 2022 Global State of Crypto report, “evolving from what many considered a niche investment into an established asset class.” According to the report, 41% of crypto owners surveyed globally purchased crypto for the first time in 2021, including more than half of crypto owners in Brazil at 51%, Hong Kong at 51% and India at 54%. The study, based on a survey of 30,000 adults in 20 countries over six continents, also made a strong case that inflation and currency devaluation are powerful drivers of crypto adoption, especially in emerging …

Bitcoin is becoming one of the biggest buzzwords in the world. Data from a July 2021 survey conducted by analysis firm Exploding Topics found that roughly 1,700 American adults, or 89% of participants, had heard of Bitcoin. A recent survey from the cryptocurrency platform Paxful also found that 95% of women out of 1,555 females polled in the United States were familiar with Bitcoin. While Bitcoin’s (BTC) presence is notable, there still seems to be a lack of understanding regarding BTC and cryptocurrency. For instance, Paxful’s survey discovered that 43% of women polled in the United States want to learn …

Metaverse events at ancient and historical sites could soon shape up to be an alternate future for tourism. Owners of physical castles and villas who have drafted up augmented reality blueprints of their properties think their ambitious plans to attract visitors in the metaverse will work, as virtual events can help them pay the hefty maintenance bills for their aging properties and also offer a chance to change historical narratives. The metaverse tourism model was expedited by downturns in tourism brought about by COVID-19, but the industry may have already been heading that way. Currently, major metaverse platforms are clunky, …

Whatever you prefer to call it — crypto, blockchain or Web3 — this new segment of the digital economy is booming across Africa. If you’ve been sleeping on the sector, now’s a good time to wake up. Why? Well for one, according to analytics firm Chainalysis, Africa’s crypto market increased in value by more than 1,200% between July 2020 and June 2021. Led by especially high adoption rates in Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Tanzania, Africa had the third-fastest growing cryptocurrency economy worldwide during that period. And that’s not all. Chainalysis also found that Africa leads the world in the …

Cointelegraph is following the development of an entirely new blockchain from inception to mainnet and beyond through its series, Inside the Blockchain Developer’s Mind, written by Andrew Levine of Koinos Group. In my previous article, I explained from first principles what was needed to build a truly free-to-use social decentralized application (DApp) and how Koinos is that solution. In that article, I explained that to deliver a truly free-to-use DApp, it must be possible for someone other than the end-user to provide the network resources (“mana” in the case of Koinos) required to run a given smart contract. Blockchain mana …

Incredible as it may seem, digital fashion has developed so much that it already needs its own fashion week with all that implies: from the shows and presentations of new collections to public talks and parties with true DJs. The first-ever digital fashion week took place March 23-27 in Decentraland, a decentralized virtual social platform on the Ethereum blockchain. Previously, Jonathan Simkhai presented his collection in Second Life right before New York Fashion Week. After the show, skins of evening outfits could be purchased at NFT to dress up users’ avatars in Second Life. Decentraland also held the first full-fledged …

The United Nations Climate Change Conference of November 2021, known as COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland urged the world to commit to curbing contributions to carbon emissions. Achieving a net-zero world in less than 30 years is causing many to turn to blockchain technology, buy carbon offsets, and spark renewed interest in carbon capture. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has identified transparency, clean energy, carbon markets and climate finance as areas where blockchain technology can accelerate climate action. At the 2017 Paris Summit, the UN Climate Change Secretariat joined a multi-stakeholder group of organizations to establish an open global initiative, …

Lawmakers in Australia want to regulate decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO). In this three-part series, Oleksii Konashevych discusses the risks of stifling the emerging phenomenon of DAOs and possible solutions. Regulating a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) as a company, first of all, means registration as a company. But who remembers why we need that registry in the first place? Will anyone question whether a blockchain-based DAO needs registration at all? Historically, the government took the role of that trusted third party that, through its public agency — i.e., a registry office — keeps records about a company: who is in charge, …

It is hard to resist the vision spun to us by Meta (formerly Facebook) and other virtual world platforms. A digital utopia that can transform lives in multiple ways — whether how we socialize, work or even stay healthy — is a hard one to refuse. This is especially true when considering that these platforms are being described as the biggest technological disruption to human life and a multi-trillion dollar opportunity for businesses. However, there is skepticism from some that this is all too good to be true — at least for now. The technological architecture that would allow this …

On Friday, cryptocurrency storage company Blockstream and Block Inc. (formerly Square) announced the construction of a solar-powered Bitcoin (BTC) mining facility in Texas. As told by Blockstream, the mining site will be outfitted with 3.8 megawatts (MW) of electrical capacity using Tesla's Solar photovoltaic cell array and 12 an MWh Megapack. Manufactured by Tesla Energy, Megapack is a powerful lithium-ion battery that provides energy storage and support. In context, one of the leading publicly listed Bitcoin mining companies, Hut 8 Mining, has about 209 MW in total contracted mining capacity. The purpose of the venture is to investigate the feasibility …

There is no denying the fact that the crypto adoption wave sweeping the globe right now has resulted in a growing list of defunct brands making their way into the digital asset market in recent months. Just two weeks ago, once popular music platform LimeWire announced that it is going to be making a comeback, albeit as a marketplace for nonfungible tokens (NFTs) rather than a file-sharing service. LimeWire’s return seems to largely be hinging on its once-held brand power backed by the company’s belief that its early 2000’s fame will allow it to make its way into the competitive …

South Africa has taken another step closer to implementing its central bank digital currency (CBDC) as the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) concludes a technical proof-of-concept for the project. The project, titled Project Khokha 2 (PK2), is the second phase of SARB’s Project Khokha (PK1), launched in 2018. It experimented with distributed ledger technology (DLT) for interbank payments' settlement, successfully replicating the banks’ “SAMOS” real-time gross settlement system. This second phase, PK2 was launched in February 2021 and tested DLT with clearing, trading and settlement within the proof-of-concept environment with industry participants Absa, FirstRand, JSE Limited, Nedbank and Standard Bank …