On Jan. 30, the South China Morning Post reported that one of the largest Asian pharmaceutical companies, Zuellig, had launched a blockchain-based system to track the quality of COVID-19 vaccines. Called “eZTracker,” it allows any user to “instantly verify the provenance and authenticity” of vaccines by scanning the QR code on the package. Somewhat surprisingly, throughout the pandemic, there have not been many reports of blockchain-based products adopted by big pharma or global healthcare organizations to bolster the anti-COVID effort. Here is a rundown of the major cases of such adoption, along with possible reasons for the limited interest in …

Italian carmaker Alfa Romeo has unveiled its latest vehicle, the Tonale SUV. The firm claims that it is the first in the industry to connect each vehicle to its own blockchain-based token, which can keep track of the car's whole life cycle. One of the most distinctive features of this SUV is that each car is linked to an accompanying NFT. The Tonale NFT, according to Alfa Romeo, certifies a car upon purchase and then simply records and keeps data during the vehicle's lifespan. Francesco Calcara, Alfa’s head of global marketing and communication, said: "Upon customer's consent, the NFT will …

Last year was impressive for blockchain startups, as research from CB Insights found that venture capital funding reached new heights during every quarter of 2021. According to CB Insights’ “State Of Blockchain 2021” report, $25.2 billion worth of venture capital funding went to global blockchain startups last year, demonstrating a 713% increase from $3.1 billion in 2020. The report also found that the United States led the greatest amount of funding deals in Q4 of last year, generating $6.26 billion for 157 deals. The document notes that global growth was driven by increasing consumer and institutional demand for crypto-related products …

An uptick in trading volume is one of the key components of a digital asset’s healthy market outlook. It indicates both robust liquidity and a surge in fellow traders’ enthusiasm for the token. The relationship between the asset’s price and trading volume is a nuanced one: Volume spikes often trail strong rallies as more and more traders hop on the bandwagon in the hopes of a ride to the moon. Yet, in some cases, it is surging trading volume that leads to price appreciation. In such a scenario, getting alerted to anomalous trading activity around a token can help crypto …

Dune Analytics, a leading data analytics platform, has announced a capital raise of $69,420,000, in addition to a $1 billion-dollar valuation, the latter of which means that the company attained "unicorn" status, which describes privately-held startups that have attained a valuation of $1 billion or more. The Series B raise was led by New-York based private equity firm Coatue, with additional participation from previous investors Multicoin Capital and Dragonfly Capital, among others. The raise succeeds the company’s seed funding round of $2 million in September 2020 — of which Dragonfly Capital Partners was the lead investor — and its follow-up …

As the Department of the Treasury has announced its regulatory agenda for the fiscal year earlier today, many in the web3 space have likely experienced flashbacks to December 2020, when the agency had first proposed to impose know your customer, or KYC, rules on transactions that involve self-custodied crypto wallets. The Treasury’s semiannual agenda and regulatory plan, a document that is meant to inform the public of the department’s ongoing rulemaking activities includes and encourage public feedback, features a clause entitled “Requirements for certain transactions involving convertible virtual currency or digital assets.” Ascribed to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, …

The world continues to raise excitement for artificial intelligence, boosting demand for associated training datasets. With good training data, models learn quickly, in turn making accurate decisions. The only caveat is that good data is hard to get, with big tech companies hoarding any information they collect. Consequently, data becomes expensive to purchase, limiting the number of projects that can take advantage of AI use cases. Synesis One emerged as the solution for growing data concerns, taking an original stance on AI training. With Synesis One, users can create datasets that can be used for AI, pegging each to a …

Fear and volatility remain the theme of the week as Bitcoin (BTC) continues to face stiff resistance near the $42,000 price level and stock markets were also hard hit on Jan. 18. Investor fear over this year's proposed rate hikes continue to apply bearish pressure and at the closing bell the DOW was down 530 points, or 1.4%. Despite the downturn, altcoins managed to overcome the noise and several posted double-digit gains on Tuesday. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the biggest gainers over the past 24-hours were Elsastos (ELA), API3 (API3) and Prometheus (PROM). Elastos launches …

The Bitcoin-based genetic data tracking system Eggschain has announced a partnership with the Boston IVF chain of 30 fertility clinics in the United States. The new partnership will use blockchain technology provided by Eggschain to aid in the tracking of cryogenic preserved sperm to be used in IVF and other fertility and non-fertility treatment, as well as long-term storage of genetic data. A spokesperson for Eggschain said: “Using the blockchain to track biospecimens such as sperm and eggs empowers individuals facing reproductive issues. This pivotal partnership enables greater confidence through the transparency and immutability of the data.” Founded in 1986, …

Launched in 2019, Bifrost has been focusing on developing a parachain for liquidity’s staking. Tyrone Pan, Bifrost product manager, talked to Cointelegraph about liquidity release solutions and why they are important for efficient and secure staking. What’s staking liquidity and why did you decide to take your company in that direction? Nowadays, the proof-of-concept (PoC) consensus mechanism is dominating the blockchain world. Most proof-of-stake (PoS) public chains require validators or full nodes in the network to stake part of the token, ensuring that the blockchain can operate safely. According to the Staking Rewards data, the average staking rate of PoS …

The total combined value of treasuries, or assets under management (AUM) for the use of decentralized autonomous organizations, increased by around 40 times between January and September of 2021. According to data from DAO stats platform DeepDAO, the total AUM for DAO treasuries listed on the platform increased from around $380 million in January to a peak of roughly $16 billion in mid-September. Looking ahead at 2022: ✍️How far and how deep will DAOs go into the mainstream, and into which use cases? ✍️(When) will DAO treasuries exceed $100B? Lots of interesting questions, but together we can BUIDL this! pic.twitter.com/JDEC9JBuHC …

Enterprise blockchain has come a long way since its inception in 2017. Blockchain for enterprise use initially began as a technology built on private, permissioned networks, primarily used for supply chain management. As blockchain matured overtime, enterprises began to leverage public, permissionless networks like Ethereum to conduct business. Fast forward to 2021 — enterprises are now applying decentralized concepts to create more efficient workflows in the Metaverse. William Herkelrath, head of business development at Chainlink Labs — a decentralized oracle network — told Cointelegraph that while the Metaverse is hard to define, he believes that it’s a collection of ecosystems …