Celebrities had a shaky year promoting crypto firms and projects throughout 2022. Many found themselves named in lawsuits over their alleged promotion of since-failed projects, while others have been relentlessly mocked on social media for their involvement in the first place. From movie stars to television actors, sports stars to musicians, many celebrities may be regretting their endorsement deals last year, though that’s not to say that there haven’t been exceptions. Who got burned? In February last year, American comedian Larry David, who co-created the television series Seinfeld, appeared in a Super Bowl commercial for now-defunct crypto exchange FTX that …

South Korean tech giant LG Electronics announced that it has teamed up with Oorbit, a cloud-based technology platform and PIXELYNX, a company building an integrated music, gaming, and Web3 ecosystem, to bring the metaverse directly into the living rooms of viewers. Announced just in time for #CES2023, we’re excited to announce that we have partnered with @LGElectronics to bring interoperable gaming and social experiences directly to your LG Smart TVs. READ: https://t.co/nppJZe650B — Oorbit (@OorbitOnline) January 4, 2023 The collaboration is set to allow viewers to be able to explore interconnected virtual worlds, concerts, and AI multiplayer games through their …

Singapore-based decentralized finance (DeFi) services firm, Cake DeFi, has announced the release of its Proof of Reserves using the cryptographically-audited Merkle tree method. Developed by Ralph Merkle in 1979, the Merkle tree method is a way of proving that a certain piece of data is included in a set of data, without revealing the entire set of data. Under the proof of reserves method, a Merkle tree is used to prove that a cryptocurrency exchange has the reserves it claims to have, without revealing the exact amounts of each cryptocurrency that it holds, in order to protect the privacy of …

According to a blog post published on Jan. 4, Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange MEXC announced that it would allocate $20 million to support developments on Sei Network. A layer one blockchain designed for trading, Sei Network's stated features include native order matching, frontrunning protection, smart block propagation, and 600 milisecond on-chain trade settlement. Leo Zhao, investment manager of MEXC Ventures, commented: "AMM [Automated Market Makers] was the dominant market-making method in crypto for the past 2 years. The lack of a more efficient market-making strategy is in large part because of technology restrictions like low speed and smart-contract restrictions. We believe …

Social media has infiltrated the everyday lives of a huge chunk of the global population. With media giants like Facebook and Twitter taking up a significant percentage of people’s time and attention, issues are not scarce. The main pain point stems from the exclusively centralized character of all these mega companies. With the rise of blockchain technology and the advancement Web3 offers in the digital era, social media platforms are also bound to change. The times of centralized entities hogging all control over this sector of the online world are gone. As users seek more transparency and control over their …

Uniswap’s recently launched bug bounty program has led to the discovery of a now-fixed vulnerability of the protocol’s Universal Router smart contract. The automated market maker released two new smart contracts to its platform in November 2022. Permit2 allows token approvals to be shared and managed across different applications, while Universal Router unifies ERC-20 and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) swapping into a single swap router. Uniswap also advertised a lucrative bug bounty program to identify potential vulnerabilities in its smart contracts towards the end of 2022 as it looked to assure the safety and efficacy of its protocol. Smart contract security …

DNP3, a streamer and founder of several crypto projects like The charity-focused crypto CluCoin, The Goobers NFT and the metaverse platform Gridcraft Network has admitted to losing investor funds through gambling. In a tweet, the nonfungible token (NFT) project founder talked about his gambling addiction and issued a public apology. I’m sorry. Read: https://t.co/RKM1wYggnC — DNP3 (@DNPthree) January 3, 2023 The Twitch streamer said that he got "incredibly addicted" to gambling in the last year. Eventually, the Twitch streamer claimed that he lost everything. He wrote: “In addition to my own life savings, I also irresponsibly used investor funds to …

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) has formed an FTX Task Force to “trace and recover” missing customer funds, as well as handle investigations and prosecutions related to the exchange’s collapse. The announcement came via a statement from U.S. Attorney Damian Williams who is the federal prosecutor in the FTX case involving founder Sam Bankman-Fried. Charges from the Manhattan attorney’s office against Bankman-Fried include wire and securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, money laundering and violation of campaign finance laws. “The Southern District of New York is working around the …

Ripple's CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, shared in a Jan. 3 Twitter thread he's “cautiously optimistic” about the United States gaining "breakthrough" regulatory clarity for the cryptocurrency industry in 2023. To mark the first day of the 118th Congress, Garlinghouse shared his hopes of 2023 being the year the U.S. gained regulatory clarity for crypto and added support for regulation is “bipartisan & bicameral.” Today is the first day of the 118th Congress. While prior efforts at regulatory clarity for crypto in the US have stalled, I am cautiously optimistic that 2023 is the year we will (finally!) see a breakthrough. A …

It’s no secret that the crypto market was gripped by bearish pressure for the entirety of 2022. However, amid all the volatility and chaos, many positive news stories appeared as well — especially regarding the global adoption of digital assets and crypto-related technologies in general. Looking back at 2022, here are some key adoption-related events that helped drive the industry last year. Polygon accrues 200 million addresses despite challenging 2022 Even though an air of financial uncertainty has shrouded the crypto market since the end of 2021, Polygon — a layer-2 scaling solution running alongside the Ethereum blockchain, allowing for …

The company behind a crypto-satellite module launched in May has announced an additional piece of its blockchain-related infrastructure went into Earth orbit. According to a Jan. 3 announcement, one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch vehicles carried a “cryptographically-equipped” Cryptosat satellite — called Crypto2 — into orbit on Jan. 3. The addition of Crypto2 to the firm’s satellite constellation was part of efforts to make space a “new battleground in the quest for bulletproof cryptography” by expanding its computational power. “The launch of Crypto2 gives us more availability and more powerful spec to support the growing portfolio of use cases in …

According to an announcement on Jan.3, blockchain fintech firm GammaRey signed a merger agreement with financial e-commerce and consumer data analytics company GoLogiq. Both companies are based in the U.S., while GoLogiq focuses on customers in Southeast Asia. As stipulated by the terms, GoLogiq will issue $320 million in common stock to acquire 100% of GammaRey's outstanding shares. The transaction is anticipated to be completed within the next few weeks, subject to conditions. As told by the two parties, the merger aims to "focus on the high-growth market of wealth management for Generation Z and Millennials." Regarding the transaction, Brent …