Decentralized oracle service Umbrella Network has launched a new accelerator program for projects looking to build data pipelines to the cryptocurrency market, a process that many within the industry believe is necessary to grow the emerging domains of blockchain gaming, DeFi and the Metaverse. The $15 million accelerator program intends to fund companies that are bringing new data solutions to the blockchain ecosystem, Umbrella Network announced Tuesday. Sam Kim, a partner at Umbrella Network, told Cointelegraph that his company is focused on funding projects within blockchain gaming, Metaverse, digital advertising, blockchain-based identity, sports and weather, among others. To date, projects …

Dear Lord Sugar Mountain, Attention: to my Facebook friend who is building a version of the metaverse that nobody wants as a starter. The last few years must certainly not have been easy. Your business model centered around polarization and, subsequently, outrage has ironically unified many of us against relying too much on your social media platform. Your government — whose sniper rifle accuracy you know all too well as they took out your ill-conceived stablecoin project shortly after your expensive global advertising campaign went live — has tuned in to the many whistleblowers exposing how your company captures and …

A network has vowed to become "the first truly decentralized and anonymous alternative to the regular internet." While the online world touches every aspect of our lives today, it's fraught with issues. Digital footprints have created lingering concerns about privacy — with high-profile data breaches exposing confidential information. There's also the threat of censorship, with some countries blocking sites and jamming communications. According to Unigrid, today's internet is centralized "and controlled by big businesses running huge data centers," putting the personal data of everyday users in their hands. Its network has been described as a "low-level backbone" for a truly …

The Graph Foundation has announced a $60 million eight-year funding grant to Semiotic AI in a bid to expand the start-up software firm's research and development capacity in sectors of cryptography and artificial intelligence. Specifically, the partnership will focus on building the architecture required for automated and verifiable indexing and querying on the Graph, in addition to developing micropayments functionalities utilizing zero-knowledge proofs such as ZK-SNARKs. Over the course of 2021, Semiotic AI have worked alongside the Graph to contribute to the growth of the ecosystem with a litany of initiatives, such as the construction of a beta query prediction …

Mnemonic has emerged from a period of six-month incubation to announce the upcoming launch of its nonfungible token (NFT) analytics platform designed to facilitate API and cross-chain aggregation functionalities which enable developers to build NFT-centric applications. Above this foundational layer, the platform also intents to provide on-chain quantitate data insights into popular collections in the emerging sector, commencing with Lazy Lions, World of Women, Gutter Cat Gang and Dystopunks, with plans to expand in the near future. The San Francisco-based firm was co-founded by four entrepreneurs with experience working as senior executives and lead engineers at blue-chip technology firms Google, …

The global hash rate of the Bitcoin network has returned to all-time high (ATH) levels just six months after it saw a major crash during the aftermath of the Chinese government’s mining ban. The global hash rate of the Bitcoin network tanked as low as 84 EH/s at the start of June following the Chinese government’s crackdown on the crypto mining sector. According to Blockchain.com, the global hash rate has increased by 108% since June, with the Bitcoin network performing at a rolling seven-day average of 175 exahashes per second (EH/s) as of Dec. 8. The figure is roughly 3% …

In his monthly crypto tech column, Israeli serial entrepreneur Ariel Shapira covers emerging technologies within the crypto, decentralized finance (DeFi) and blockchain space, as well as their roles in shaping the economy of the 21st century. Sometimes a project’s name tells you all you need to know about it, no matter how niche. Take Kryptomon, for example, the NFT game that recently completed a 24-hour sale in one second. You understand, based on its name, that some kinds of cutesy monstrosities evolving and fighting one another must be involved, and you know it must be blockchain-based. Clear, concise and to …

The endless cookie settings that pop up for every website feel a bit like prank compliance by an internet hell-bent on not changing. It is very annoying. And it feels a little bit like revenge on regulators by the data markets, giving the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) a bad name and so that it might seem like political bureaucrats have, once again, clumsily interfered with the otherwise smooth progress of innovation. The truth is, however, that the vision of privacy put forward by the GDPR would spur a far more exciting era of innovation than current-day sleaze-tech. As it …

Four blockchain-based Metaverse projects generated more than $100 million worth of virtual land NFT sales last week according to data from DappRadar. A Nov. 30 post from the decentralized application (DApp) analytics firm reported that between Nov. 22 and Nov. 28 activity was “booming” on The Sandbox, Decentraland, CryptoVoxels and Somnium Space with a combined $105.8 million worth of trading volume between them from more than 6,000 traders: “Undoubtedly, Metaverse land is the next big hit in the NFT space. Outputting record sales numbers and constantly increasing NFT prices, virtual worlds are the new top commodity in the crypto space.” …

What is Mimblewimble? Mimblewimble is a privacy-oriented decentralized protocol that uses a novel way of structuring and storing transactions on the blockchain. It was designed and introduced by an anonymous developer who went by the name Tom Elvis Jedusor, who was a French counterpart for “Voldemort” in mid-2016. How does Mimblewimble work? Taking its name from the Harry Potter books series’ well-known tongue tying spell that ties the victim’s tongue to prevent it from revealing specific information, Mimblewimble protocol literally works like a spell. It provides a framework for a blockchain that offers a new realm of potential in terms …

New data suggests that Shiba Inu (SHIB) is the largest ERC-20 token holding amongst the top 1,000 Ethereum (ETH) whales. According to data compiled by WhaleStats looking at the Ethereum-based token holdings of the largest ETH wallets, SHIB represents 21.68% of the combined market share at $2.35 billion. The next highest asset in terms of holdings is Crypto.com’s native token CRO, representing 5.54% at $603.9 million. #ShibArmy Congrats! The King is coming back! #SHIB flipped #BEST, #OKB and #CRO to become biggest ERC-20 hodling (17.44%) among the top 1000 ETH wallets with total value of $2,371,207,191 Source: https://t.co/jGSeQ3uXfo pic.twitter.com/WVGOpmcYjf — …

“I’m in it for the tech,” is a phrase commonly used in the cryptocurrency ecosystem by many who want to express a deeper motivation for being involved with blockchain technology beyond the significant gains that are known to happen in the volatile asset class. One project that has quietly climbed the charts without the need to jump on the decentralized finance (DeFi) or nonfungible token (NFT) trend is Vectorspace AI (VXV), a protocol building correlation matrix datasets capable of detecting hidden relationships in data and training artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since …