Over the last couple of years, the world has been grappling with the lack of semiconductors, which are the substances that conduct electricity between metals and isolates. The most famous semiconductor is silicon. If correlating this concept to electronic devices, then the key semiconductors are processors and other microcircuits that are present in almost all devices that people use every day, from smartphones to cars. In 2021, semiconductors hit a world record in terms of sales. Electronics production also boomed, with hundreds of millions of complex semiconductors being devoured by gaming consoles. The number of GPUs produced grew to unseen …

The billion-dollar music industry has shown recent interest in nonfungible tokens (NFTs) as musicians everywhere are beginning to understand the power of moving away from centralized business models. This concept is currently being demonstrated by early innovators like the popular rapper Snoop Dogg, who recently acquired Death Row Records with plans to transform the company into the first NFT recording label in the Metaverse. Country music icon Dolly Parton also recently launched her first NFT collection dubbed “Dollyverse,” which consists of tokenized artwork and music as part of a promo for her album Run, Rose, Run. NFTs: A topic of …

On Wednesday, centralized cryptocurrency exchange Binance launched its new TerraUSD (UST) staking program. Although Binance did not name the underlying decentralized finance protocol responsible for the staking rewards, Do Kwon — Terra Luna's (LUNA) co-founder — attributed the origins of the high yield to Terra's flagship Anchor protocol. Anchor rate is now available to 30M+ binance users The anchor yield of web3 is living up to its name. https://t.co/awubGdRJgP — Do Kwon (@stablekwon) April 6, 2022 Terra Luna's ecosystem consists of its algorithmic stablecoin UST and governance/equilibrium token LUNA. The Anchor protocol alleges that it operate as a "crypto savings …

The Swedish central bank’s digital currency project, a proposed CBDC known as the e-krona, has successfully finished its second phase of trials. According to Riksbank, the nation's central bank, the asset is now technically ready to be integrated into banking networks and to facilitate transactions. During the second phase of the e-krona pilot project — which began in February 2021 — the CBDC was investigated on the matter of its technical ability to function within the country’s existing digital banking infrastructure. Participating banks included Handelsbanken and Tietoevry. The report indicated that the e-krona could indeed be successfully exchanged for fiat …

According to a new industry report published by DappRadar, the number of users engaging in decentralized applications, or DApps, every day surged 396% year over year to 2.4 million. This is only 5.8% below the same user activity level witnessed in Q4 2021. The overall growth was impressive, considering that during the quarter, the cryptocurrency sector saw a short-lived bear market, as well as experiencing $1.19 billion in decentralized finance, or DeFi, hacks, and exploits. Two of the worst affected token bridge protocols were that of Ronin and Wormhole. Last month, Axie Infinity's Ronin bridge was breached for over $600 …

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) have generated mainstream interest over the last year. A yearly market report from NonFungible found that the total value of all NFT transactions worldwide surpassed more than $17 billion in 2021, up from $82.5 million in 2020. The report also pointed out that “NFT” was selected as Collins Dictionary’s word of the year for 2021. Given the increasing amount of interest NFTs create, a number of events dedicated entirely to nonfungible tokens are also taking place, attracting a mix of both crypto enthusiasts and non-crypto natives. This was recently seen during NFT LA, a four-day-long conference that …

The rise of Web3 has paved the way for new business models that could shape the next phase of the internet. For instance, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) will play a large part in the open metaverse as the underlying assets people interact with. Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are also coming to fruition to allow for community governance within virtual environments. The growth of Web3 has essentially allowed NFTs and DAOs to flourish. For example, recent data from DeepDAO — a DAO stats platform — shows that DAOs have experienced 130-times growth over the last year, reaching a market capitalization of $24.8 …

On Monday, semiconductor manufacturing titan Intel unveiled its new Bitcoin (BTC) mining chip, Blockscale. The application-specific integrated circuit, or ASIC, hardware is designed to operate on proof-of-work blockchains using SHA-256 encryption. As told by Intel, Blockscale will have a hash rate of up to 580 gigahash per second (or 0.58 terahash per second, TH/s), consuming between 4.8 to 22.7 watts of power, and having an energy efficiency of up to 26 joules per terahash (J/TH). Each chip can be combined and merged into a single mining unit, increasing its output with a maximum of 256 integrated circuits per chain. Blockscale …

Cryptocurrency investments in Indonesia have seen considerable growth between 2020-2022, with 4% of the country’s population having invested in crypto. In 2021, crypto transaction volumes surpassed $34 billion, according to Indonesia’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency. This growth has formed a new mindset toward crypto investment, especially in the mainstream media. One example of cryptocurrencies’ growing appeal in the mainstream is the participation of Indonesian celebrities and influencers. Crypto adoption among celebrities Celebrities and influencers in Indonesia seem to have become much more involved in Indonesia’s crypto investment industry since 2021. Many have become brand ambassadors for exchanges and crypto …

Power historically shifts from governments to people. Democracy is the product of revolution and disruptive innovation by those who abhor the elitism of aristocracy and monarchy, who fear the single-mindedness of theocracy, and who see the impracticability of communism. More than ever before, governments represent fairer and more trustless social contracts. How do we merge the rule of law with “code is law,” and can we have both? As we behold the unstoppable force of decentralization, we must acknowledge the following: mass communication, intercontinental travel, widespread literacy, internet proliferation, pro-democracy movement, and the emergence of gig economies. Liquid taxation: Individual …

Crypto is the next big thing in Indonesia. According to the Ministry of Trade, transactions for currencies like Bitcoin (BTC) grew over 14 times from a total of 60 trillion rupiahs ($4.1 billion) in 2020 to a total of 859 trillion rupiahs ($59.83 billion) in 2021. It’s getting to the point where crypto is becoming more popular than traditional stock. Vice Minister of Trade Jerry Sambuaga stated that more than 11 million Indonesians bought or sold crypto in 2021. In comparison, according to the Indonesian Central Securities Depository, the total number of portfolio investors — indicated by the number of …

The music sector hit record revenues at $25.9 billion in 2021, which amounts to an 18.5% growth from 2020, according to IFPI’s “Global Music Report.” Of these nearly $26 billion, streaming drove the bulk of the growth, with a 24.3% increase relative to 2020. These patterns constitute great news for the emerging class of NFT musicians and highlight the demand for audio and video content. Even if the way that streaming is done changes — moving from centralized platforms, like Spotify to decentralized NFT marketplaces — streaming is here to stay. The rise in streaming is part of a broader …