The use of blockchain technology in the healthcare industry has the potential to revolutionize the way medical records are managed, medical research is conducted and patient care is delivered. Here are nine promising use cases for blockchain in healthcare. Medical record management Medical records can be safely stored and managed using blockchain, improving accessibility for patients and healthcare professionals. Patients’ ability to control access to their medical records enhances security and privacy. One example is MedRec, a blockchain-based system for managing medical information created by MIT researchers. MIT Professor Andrew Lippman says the goal of the MedRec project is to …

A 48% Bitcoin (BTC) price surge since the start of the year has pushed BTC's market cap past that of payment processing giant Visa once again. With the BTC price currently at $24,365, its market cap of $470.16 billion is now marginally above that of Visa with a market cap of $469.87 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. This is the third time that BTC has "flippened" the market cap of Visa, according to Companies Market Cap. The first time came in late December 2020 when BTC also happened to hit $25,000 for the first time. This was achieved during a price …

The network effect is a phenomenon where the value of a product or service increases as more people use it. As the user base grows, there are more opportunities for interactions, which can lead to increased benefits and positive outcomes for each user. The network effect is a powerful driver of growth and adoption for many technologies and platforms, including social media, messaging apps and marketplaces. The network effect and cryptocurrencies The network effect is also a central concept in the world of cryptocurrency. In general, it means that a cryptocurrency’s value rises as more people use it. This is …

Blockchain bridges allow decentralized finance (DeFi) users to use the same tokens across multiple blockchains. For example, a trader can use USD Coin (USDC) on the Ethereum or Solana blockchains to interact with the decentralized applications (DApps) on those networks. While these protocols may be convenient for DeFi users, they are at risk of exploitation by malicious actors. For example, in the past year, the Wormhole bridge — a popular cross-chain crypto bridge between Solana, Ethereum, Avalanche and others — was hacked, with attackers stealing over $321 million worth of wrapped Ethereum (wETH), the largest hack in DeFi history at …

In the latest Crypto Stories episode by Cointelegraph, Aaron and Austin Arnold share their journey of creating 'Altcoin Daily,' a crypto content platform that has amassed millions of subscribers across various platforms. Earlier in life, Aaron spent his childhood dreaming of becoming a veterinarian, and then an actor, and then a filmmaker. Dreams of breaking into the filmmaking industry led the brothers to Los Angeles, where they struggled to get into entertainment. While struggling, Aaron spent many sleepless nights contemplating purpose and how he could help make a difference in other people's lives. One day, while going to a comedy …

Blockchain technology has been around for over a decade and has transformed many industries, from finance to supply-chain management to digital identity. It has the potential to revolutionize the way we live, work and transact in the near future. However, adoption is still far from the global scale that Web3 enthusiasts envision. According to QuickNode’s co-founder and co-CEO Dmitry Shklovsky, blockchain has the power to reshape the way people live — starting with their online presence. A decentralized internet is the next evolutionary stage of the digital world, and blockchain has the power to bring this to reality. Q: How …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) has been a rapidly growing sector of the cryptocurrency industry, but it has also faced significant regulatory challenges. With regulators struggling to keep up with the pace of innovation, the lack of clarity around regulations tends to create uncertainty for DeFi projects. Cointelegraph spoke to Alastair Johnson about regulatory challenges facing the DeFi industry. Johnson is the CEO of an identity “super-wallet” called Nuggets that seeks to deliver verified self-sovereign decentralized identities to users. He said that one of the main regulatory challenges is DeFi platform anonymity, which makes it difficult to comply with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) …

Developers of one of the earliest Android-based mobile browsers are working to bring online communication to the next level by introducing it to Web3. Sending Labs, a new startup focused on decentralized communications protocol, has secured $12.5M in seed funding to launch the Web3 communications stack. The new platform takes on the mission of building accessible and secure infrastructures for Web3 communication for developers and the community, applying end-to-end decentralization of core of its products. With the new offering, Sending Labs aims to enable privacy-preserving communications and guarantee ownership and transfer of digital assets within community chats. The seed funding …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has started ramping up its crackdown on the crypto industry and recent enforcement actions had a negative impact on crypto prices last week and at the start of this week. The SEC is focusing on stablecoin issuers. The most recent SEC stablecoin crackdown was on Feb. 13 through the issuance of a Wells Notice to Paxos Trust Company, the issuer of Binance USD (BUSD). While Paxos denies that BUSD is a security, which would place it outside the SEC’s jurisdiction, some lawyers say the answer is not so simple, which creates fear …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) settled with Kraken on Feb. 9 for an action taken against the exchange’s staking rewards program. Kraken paid a $30 million fine and agreed to halt the program. Set aside for a moment the irony that the SEC is going after a solvent firm in the crypto space with a decade-long reputation as a good actor. Kraken has been helping settle verified Bitcoin (BTC) claimants from the hacking of rival exchange Mt. Gox over a decade ago. It invented the use of Merkle Root data to create verifiable proof of reserves. It …

For readers looking for unique, meaningful gifts for their valentine this Valentine’s Day, consider giving a cryptocurrency-related gift. Here are nine options: A cryptocurrency gift card Give your significant other the gift of choice by giving them a cryptocurrency gift card. They can use it to buy food or any digital asset they want, whether that’s Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) or a stablecoin like USD Coin (USDC). Virtual real estate Readers can buy virtual real estate in the metaverse, such as in Decentraland or The Sandbox, as a unique, romantic gift. Their significant other can build and customize their own …

Censorship resistance is the foundation of crypto, so for many cryptocurrency purists, the Nov. 23 announcement by ConsenSys, the New York-based company behind the leading Ethereum browser wallet, informing its 20 million MetaMask users that their IP and wallet addresses would be collected was simply a gross violation of the crypto spirit. In the weeks that followed, ConsenSys first reacted by saying the data collected would only be retained for seven days and then that it had updated the MetaMask features to allow users to opt out of Infura. However, the question remains: Have they done enough to establish crypto …