Ethereum-based project Status has started an incentivization program for node operators around its decentralized peer-to-peer messaging protocol, Waku. In an announcement on Tuesday, Status said it would be rolling out the first phase of a program to encourage people to set up and run nodes used by Waku, a private messenger based on the Whisper protocol. The project said it planned to offer up to $100 worth in its native token, SNT, to 100 people participating in a three-month program. The Status team forked Whisper to create Waku in 2019. The protocol uses community-owned and -operated nodes to route messages …

“You will own nothing and you will be happy,” — this sentiment was at the core of a declaration issued more than 30 years ago in 2016 by the leaders of the World Economic Forum. It sounded dystopian, like something taken from a book by Aldous Huxley or George Orwell. It was probably among the most insidious ideas I'd ever heard. Somehow, I remembered that idea today in 2050 when selling my racing drone. I guess I was reminded of the merits of true, private ownership. It was a beautiful two-seater, capable of going from 0 to 100 km/h in …

The saying, “Everything in moderation, including moderation,” has taken on new meaning since Facebook outsourced responsibility for content moderation to its Oversight Board following the violent events that occurred at the United States Capitol back on Jan. 6, 2021. First conceived in November 2018 as Facebook’s “Supreme Court” for public appeals, the social media giant’s Oversight Board was officially enacted on Oct. 22, 2020. In its time since, the Oversight Board has overturned many of Facebook’s own decisions on what is and is not free speech. Some of the board’s rulings include overturning decisions meant to limit hate speech and …

Hester Peirce — colloquially known as “Crypto Mom” — of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission has warned of rampant “shadow-centralization” within the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. Speaking to outspoken DeFiWatch founder Chris Blec in a Wednesday discussion streamed by The Defiant, the SEC commissioner noted that decentralized organizations and DeFi are new concepts for regulators and that “having a peer-to-peer system that doesn’t have central intermediaries is very different from what we’re normally dealing with.” “If you want to be decentralized, you really need to be decentralized, and that is going to then put you in a different …

Decentralized finance, or DeFi, has established itself as a force capable of disrupting traditional systems. While DeFi still mostly keeps opposing itself to traditional finance, the centralized operators are actively looking for ways to integrate into the established system. The institutional interest pushes both decentralized and centralized participants to ask questions about DeFi, its role and a possible collaboration with centralized finance, or CeFi. Related: DeFi proved resilient during the March 2020 and May 2021 market crises Of course, the situation isn’t uniform for both centralized and decentralized institutions, but the main generic concerns are the following: Can there even …

Demand for Aave has boomed dramatically in the previous 24 hours as traders assessed its involvement in Bitwise Investment’s upcoming institutionally focused investment vehicle. The San Francisco-based asset management firm announced Wednesday that it would invest directly in Aave to back its “Bitwise Aave Fund,” a fund created to build a bridge between accredited investors and the emerging decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. “There is growing demand from financial advisors, hedge funds, institutions, and other professional investors for exposure to the fast-growing DeFi markets,” Matt Hougan, chief information officer of Bitwise, said in a press release, adding that the investment products …

Marc Andreessen, co-founder and general partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (also known as a16z), made a case for crypto and blockchain as the most significant new architecture change in the tech industry. In a Bloomberg Wealth interview with David Rubenstein, Andreessen reframed the terms of the debate and shifted away from the talk as to whether Bitcoin (BTC) — and crypto more broadly — is or is not an endurable investment proposition. “Crypto is a bit like the parable of the blind men and the elephant. People touch it from different sides. They get distracted and carried away …

The Ethereum (ETH) network continues to be a major driving force behind decentralized finance, or DeFi, signaling the continuation of a trend that began around mid-2020, according to a new quarterly DeFi report by ConsenSys. Toward the end of June 2021, 2.91 million unique Ethereum addresses interacted with at least one DeFi protocol, representing 65% growth from the previous quarter. “As community driven education, simple user interfaces, appealing yields and general awareness around DeFi best practices increased throughout the quarter, so too did the number of new addresses,” the report read. ConsenSys cautioned that non-custodial wallets like MetaMask make it …

Nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, are known by the mainstream as digital assets that represent real-world objects such as art, music and fashion, among others. Yet, while most of the world may be enamored by the high selling prices of NFTs launched by celebrities, athletes and other famous individuals, nonfungible tokens are starting to pique the interest of corporations for business use cases. Enterprises embracing NFTs was a point discussed during the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, or EEA, anniversary event that took place virtually on July 29, 2021. During a keynote session, entitled “The future of Ethereum and Web3,” Joe Lubin, CEO …

A decentralized finance protocol has launched its mainnet — describing it as a crucial step on the journey to a frictionless financial future. Radix, which describes itself as a platform for smart money, is also launching Instapass with its Olympia mainnet — an optional user and developer service that delivers the world’s first single sign-on solution for building compliant DeFi. The Radix mainnet is being positioned as a generational improvement in the history of decentralized ledger computing — and one that delivers 100 times more executional efficiency than the Ethereum Virtual Machine. This comes hot on the heels of the …

Erik Voorhees, founder and CEO of ShapeShift, has revealed in a podcast that he felt embarrassed and disgusted by the behavior of Bitcoin maximalists at the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami. A Bitcoin OG who can see some merit in altcoins, Voorhees spoke on a panel during day two of the conference in June. He caused a stir when he said, “Did I hear someone on that prior panel say, ‘If you’re against toxic maximalism, you’re against Bitcoin and you’re against freedom?’… Yeah, that’s some bullshit.” The ShapeShift CEO expanded on those comments in a Tuesday interview on the Unchained …

DeFi has grown exceedingly fast — and when this happens, it’s inevitable that teething problems will emerge. Here, we talk to Piers Ridyard, the CEO of Radix. He tells us what his company is doing to address some of the main pain points in this sector — and the challenges that consumers and developers currently face. 1. Hello! Can you tell us about Radix? Absolutely. Radix is the first public decentralized network built specifically to serve decentralized finance (DeFi). This was necessary because with DeFi on Ethereum, building sucks — there have been over $285 million in hacks in the …