On Monday, Euroclear, a securities clearing firm that claims it has over 37.6 trillion euros in assets under custody, announced an investment into Fnality, a consortium of financial institutions focused on the regulated adoption of tokenized assets and marketplaces, for an undisclosed amount. Meanwhile, Euroclear is also focusing on developing its distributed ledger technology, or DLT, to settle digital securities against digital cash through the partnership. The solution aims to increase the speed and efficiency of post-trade operations in areas such as market issuance, collateral trades, and servicing interest payments. Founded in 2019, Fnality International said that to seeks to …

Terra, an open-source blockchain platform for algorithmic stablecoins, has been on fire over the last half-year or so. The value of its native crypto asset Terra (LUNA) has risen from $24 to over $100 during the last six months, placing it in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. And, even though LUNA has showcased minor corrections here and there, the currency and the Terra project, in general, have continued to grow from strength to strength. To this point, on March 4, LUNA flipped Ether (ETH) in terms of total staked value, with $29.5 billion worth of LUNA being locked …

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. We recently released the third and final version of the Koinos testnet, which is why I want to talk about something few projects like to talk about: Building blockchains is development hell. In this article, I’ll explain why and how other developers can avoid getting stuck in it. At first blush, building a blockchain doesn’t sound so hard. A blockchain is just a combination of well-established cryptographic primitives, which, …

South by Southwest — commonly referred to as “South By” or “SXSW” — has returned to Austin, Texas this year to showcase the latest trends in interactive media, music, art, film and technology. While SXSW runs through March 20, 2022, the entertainment and technology festival kicked off its first weekend with a large focus on Web3 and nonfungible tokens (NFTs). NFT activations and panels SXSW’s attendees’ interest in NFTs and the future of the internet was particularly evident at the venue hosted by Blockchain Creative Labs (BCL) — a business and creative unit formed by FOX Entertainment in 2021. On …

Content constitutes the essence of the internet and comes in many different forms that the current Web2 internet iteration supports — text, audio, video or a mix of all three. However, content is scarcely a free resource. It is content creators who are now becoming opinion leaders, influencers and the cornerstones of so many of the critical services businesses rely on, such as advertising, marketing and public relations management. The need for content and its strive for independence — embodied by thousands of bloggers and indie performers — has spawned an immense online economy that trades talent and often rakes …

The people of Ukraine require the world’s help more than ever before. As the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues to rage on, the world must rally behind the Ukrainian government to bring back peace and stability to the Eastern European nation. The crypto community has done just that with nonfungible token (NFT) companies, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and crypto users all over the world leading the effort to help aid Ukraine with donations of Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Polkadot’s DOT and even NFTs. It is impressive how fast the crypto community got behind the Ukrainian people. Two days after …

The world is becoming more connected as cryptocurrency, blockchain, nonfungible token projects, the Metaverse and other online communities gain popularity. However, we’re also seeing rates of depression and feelings of isolation and loneliness skyrocket. This development is certainly not causal, but it is something to consider as younger generations become more involved in virtual spaces. The global COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated a national mental health crisis. Mental Health America reported that 47.1 million people in the U.S. are living with a mental health condition. That’s one in five Americans, folks. Unsettling as those figures may be, progress is being made …

Described by many users and outsiders as the Wild West, Web3 is open-source and decentralized, and it has been prompting many to look for ways to profit from its features, especially with the growing Metaverse. While some companies and investors are sorting out where to place their best bets, popular rapper and nonfungible token collector Snoop Dogg seems to have found his rhythm and is beating many to the market. The cannabis and NFT connoisseur announced he had joined the digitally native lifestyle and gaming platform FaZe Clan on March 7, with the intention of strengthening the cultural connection between …

According to data compiled by Coin Metrics, the number of stablecoin wallet addresses with account balances over an equivalent $1 million USD has recently surpassed 12 million — up from 4 million one year ago. The stablecoins counted in the analysis include Tether ERC-20 (USDT), Tether TRC-20, Binance USD, DAI, GUSD, HUSD, PAX, and USD Coin (USDC). The vast majority of addresses holding more than $1 million came from Tether TRC-20 (approx. 8 million), followed by Tether ERC-20 (approx. 3.4 million), and USDC (approx. 1 million). Save for a sharp but brief decline last May, such addresses have increased regularly …

On Wednesday, Coinbase launched a new feature, dubbed "Coinbase Pay," that directly enables its clients to fund their Coinbase Wallets from a Chrome browser extension. According to its staff, Coinbase Pay intends to make it intuitive for anyone to participate in decentralized finance, or DeFi, swap tokens on decentralized exchanges, or DEXs, and purchase nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, in just a few clicks. Specifically, they wrote: "Before Coinbase Pay, users who wanted to add funds to their Coinbase Wallet from the browser extension needed to navigate to Coinbase.com, sign in to their account, copy-paste their wallet address, and manually transfer …

On Tuesday, Ethereum (ETH) developer Tim Beiko tweeted that Kiln successfully passed the Ethereum Merge, with validators producing post-merge blocks containing transactions. Kiln will be the last Merge testnet (formerly Ethereum 2.0) before existing public testnets are upgraded. "Merge" involves taking Ethereum's Execution Layer from the existing Proof of Work layer and merging it with the Consensus Layer from the Beacon chain, turning the blockchain into a proof-of-stake network. The Foundation writes: "This merge signals the culmination of six years of research and development in Ethereum and will result in a more secure network, predictable block times, and a 99.98%+ …

Securities and Exchange Commissioner Allison Herren Lee announced that she would be stepping down from her post at the end of her term in June. In a Tuesday announcement, Lee said that she will remain in the role until her successor has been confirmed. The SEC commissioner has spent less than three years at her current position, having been sworn in in 2019 to serve out the remainder of a five-year term expiring in June. With her departure, Lee, a Democrat who replaced former commissioner Kara Stein, will create a second vacancy at the SEC, with another left open by …