An interesting year has come to an end for the crypto industry in Germany. Although blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies have not yet found wide acceptance in the country, more and more domestic institutions and investors are becoming interested in the crypto world thanks to legal clarity. Here, we’ll look back at the most important developments in the German blockchain and cryptocurrency industries in 2021. Securities law reform to embrace blockchain In terms of legal challenges, German legislators have increasingly been taking a lead role and 2021 was no exception. Since June 2021, the Electronic Securities Act (Gesetz über elektronische Wertpapiere) …

The ongoing drama between two projects built on the Cardano (ADA) blockchain escalated across multiple social media platforms Monday, much to the dismay of the ADA community. The issues began in April when accelerator program CardStarter announced it would launch its own decentralized exchange or DEX. Shortly thereafter, its founders incentivized investors to provide liquidity for the project on Uniswap in exchange for native CSWAP tokens. The platform's developers landed an agreement with a third-party DEX called SundaeSwap sometime later, marketing the deal as a "merger" last June. As per the agreement, CardStarter would no longer develop its promised DEX, …

Coin Bureau, a popular information portal for cryptocurrency developments with over 600,000 followers on Twitter, experienced a security breach on its Youtube channel on Monday. Hackers allegedly uploaded a video with links to scam fiat/cryptocurrency addresses soliciting a token sale before being taken down by Youtube. According to Coin Bureau staff, they were baffled by the incident as its accounts were "secured with ultra-strong passwords and Google security keys." So our YouTube channel was just hacked. Have absolutely no idea how this happened. All accounts are secured with ultra strong passwords and Google security keys. @YouTubeCreators this is a serious …

Nonfungible tokens (NFT) may be disrupting the trillion-dollar fashion industry, but NFTs are just one piece of a much larger puzzle that is revolutionizing this sector. Rather, blockchain technology as a whole continues to be a game-changer for the fashion industry. While blockchain-based supply chains served as some of the earliest use cases of how the technology could help detect fraudulent items, digital wearables being built on blockchain networks are now coming to play. Megan Kaspar, co-founder and managing director of Magnetic — a privately held crypto and blockchain investment and incubation firm — told Cointelegraph that digital fashion is …

Without a doubt, the internet has transformed how the world could receive information, from reading news on Twitter, instead of picking up the daily paper to communicating with friends from around the world through instant messaging. As significant as the contributions of the internet have been, these developments have resulted in an entirely new concern, which one can define in three words — monopolization of power. Although the internet has low barriers to entry for anyone to begin participating in, fewer than a dozen megacorporations have dominated the digital space. Since social media platforms have so much authority, users willingly …

What are altcoins? The word “altcoin” is derived from “alternative” and “coin.” Altcoins refer to all alternatives to Bitcoin. Altcoins are cryptocurrencies that share characteristics with Bitcoin (BTC). For example, Bitcoin and altcoins have a similar basic framework. Altcoins also function like peer-to-peer (P2P) systems and share code, much like Bitcoin. Of course, there are also marked differences between Bitcoin and altcoins. One such difference is the consensus mechanism used by these altcoins to validate transactions or produce blocks. While Bitcoin uses the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism, altcoins typically use proof-of-stake (PoS). There are different altcoin categories, and they can …

The year 2022 is here, and banks and the traditional banking system remain alive despite decades of threatening predictions made by crypto enthusiasts. The only endgame that happened— a new Ethereum 2.0 roadmap that Vitalik Buterin posted at the end of last year. Even though with this roadmap the crypto industry would change for the better, 2021 showed us that crypto didn't destroy or damage the central banks just like traditional banking didn't kill crypto. Why? To be fair, the fight between the two was equivalently brutal on both sides. Many crypto enthusiasts were screaming about the coming apocalypse of …

Decentralized finance, known as DeFi, is a new use of blockchain technology that is growing rapidly, with over $237 billion in value locked up in DeFi projects as of January 2022. Regulators are aware of this phenomenon and are beginning to act to regulate it. In this article, we briefly review the fundamentals and risks of DeFi before presenting the regulatory context. The fundamentals of DeFi DeFi is a set of alternative financial systems based on the blockchain that allows for more advanced financial operations than the simple transfer of value, such as currency exchange, lending or borrowing, in a …

Though the likes of Bored Apes and Pudgy Penguins take the headlines, and the potential for decentralized finance (DeFi) and play-to-earn gaming is undeniably grand and exciting, the marketing potential for nonfungible tokens (NFTs) deserves equal attention. It boils down to this: With NFTs, virtually anything can be gamified to promote desired marketing outcomes. Gamification — defined by Gabe Zichermann, author of The Gamification Revolution, as a “process of using game thinking and game dynamics to engage audiences and solve problems” — is not new to sales and marketing. What is new are the mechanisms by which you can engage …

The Uniswap decentralized exchange (DEX) is the most popular DEX built on the Ethereum blockchain. For users wondering, "What is Uniswap?," this article provides an overview of what it is and how it works as well as several ways users can get started using the Uniswap DEX. With Uniswap, users can swap crypto tokens without having to rely on an intermediary. Not having to rely on a third party leads to next to no economic rents being collected. Instead, Uniswap relies on smart contracts to execute trades. Smart contracts are algorithms that self-execute once certain preset conditions are met. How …

On Friday, CasperLabs, a blockchain software firm, announced a partnership with China's Blockchain-based Service Network, or BSN. Through the agreement, which has been minted as a nonfungible token, or NFT, as a sign of commemoration, Casper Network will be added as the blockchain of choice to the Fuzhou City Chain for use in public and private crypto infrastructure developments in the region — dubbed "Fuzhou Chain powered by Casper." RockTree Capital, an investment company, based in New York, played a critical role in bridging the entente between Casper and Fuzhou City. As told by stakeholders, the partnership's main goal is …

On Thursday afternoon, Twitter announced that it would be rolling out iOS support for nonfungible token, or NFT, hexagonal avatars. As of now, only paid subscribers of Twitter Blue using iOS, which costs $2.99 per month, can access the feature. According to a tutorial video, users can connect their wallet, including Coinbase Wallet, Rainbow, MetaMask, Trust Wallet, Argent, or Ledger Live, and set it as their profile pic, with the process taking a few seconds. Users can also learn more about each other's NFT avatars, such as their owners, creators, description of the series, as well as verification of authenticity …