As established by Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin (BTC) whitepaper, the core of cryptocurrency is a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that eliminates the need for intermediaries like banks. This spirited independence and scoffing at the hand-holding of traditional banking systems is pervasive across the cryptosphere. Yet, when mass adoption is the goal, some hand-holding becomes necessary in order to bring everyone along on the journey toward truly decentralized finance. We cannot expect our grandparents — who have difficulty sending an email — to sort out how to manage private keys, seed phrases and digital wallets and send your birthday gift in Bitcoin …

A yield farming platform has announced that it is expanding to Avalanche. DeFi Yield Protocol — known as DYP for short — says the move will mean that its advanced trading tools are available to a greater cross-section of users. Three of its products are initially going to be available: DYP Farming, DYP Tools and DYP NFTs. Flexible staking terms are offered through DYP — and this means that tokens can be locked up for three days, 30 days, 60 days or 90 days. Through DYP Tools, advanced features are offered that allows users to track tokens, access yield data …

Anybody who uses Airbnb knows that the company is resting on its laurels as the first mover in the home-sharing economy 1.0, but its dominance rests atop exploitation of the hosts and guests that are actually doing the sharing and creating the value. The guests pay too much and the hosts are paid too little. The resulting situation is akin to feudalism, rendering hosts as serfs who rent out their homes, keep things clean, deal with guests, and do the actual work. Yet the value derived from Airbnb’s peer-to-peer exchange goes directly to shareholders who are multiple steps removed from …

My colleague, Elias Simos, likes to say we're living through a digital asset renaissance, including the digitization of non-digital asset value. Decentralized solutions to a myriad of financial and peer-to-peer obstacles are flourishing, but many innovators and entrepreneurs are still tied to old models of building the projects. Some platforms, such as Polkadot and Cosmos, are establishing new startup models suited for Web 3.0. They make it easier to create and connect decentralized applications and to empower innovators to build better solutions. Acting like a startup accelerator, these multichain protocols present a mechanism to launch and naturally scale hundreds of …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) has shined a spotlight on a fairer internet since early 2020, and we’re on the brink of something world-changing. DeFi technology would not be possible without the web infrastructure that is widely used today, demonstrating the tremendous strides we have made with next-level innovation. The third era of the internet has already dawned, with a new economy, new careers and new enterprise opportunities. Many experts believe DeFi’s rise has helped nonfungible tokens (NFTs) become more liquid, allowing users to view them as a more realistic investment opportunity. The rise of NFTs is further proof as to how …

Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has already started losing its market dominance to Ether (ETH), according to Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky. In a Monday interview with Kitco News, Mashinsky argued that the Ether “flippening,” or the hypothetical scenario in which Ether overtakes Bitcoin as the world’s most valued cryptocurrency, is already happening right now. Mashinsky said that the flippening has already happened on Celsius. “We manage about $17 billion in deposits, or in customer coins, and the number one coin held in dollar terms is Ethereum,” he said. Mashinsky also predicted that Ether will have completely …

Every day, we hear of more involvement by big industry players (for example, Epic Games and Roblox) as we creep closer to the Metaverse, a shared persistent virtual environment of interconnected digital experiences. The problem is that none of this matters until netizens are able to truly own digital assets. And it all starts with gaming. Video games make us feel like we can do anything. These virtual worlds of limitless potential allow us to transcend the realities of everyday life as we become heroes. They give us the sense that we are in control of our own destiny. Games …

In the whirl of excitement and debate over where cryptocurrencies are going and whether they are legitimate, sustainable and prudent investments, there is an overshadowed conversation of interest to those in marketing: Are Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Cardano’s ADA, Litecoin (LTC), XRP, Dogecoin (DOGE), etc., crypto brands? And, if so, how are those brands created, and what role do they play in each coin’s adoption? Or, for that matter, how does branding collectively contribute (or detract) from the legitimacy of a cryptocurrency as it seeks increased mainstream acceptance/use? Related: Decentralization vs. centralization: Where does the future lie? Experts answer To …

As if 2020 didn’t provide enough nail-biting moments, 2021 is shaping up to be quite an interesting year for cryptocurrency. With the price of Bitcoin (BTC) floating around the $35,000 mark, skeptics and pundits are flocking to the streets of social media to celebrate the long-awaited demise of the decentralized economy. Of course, they quite conveniently forgot that the price of Bitcoin has experienced a 533% increase since the third halving happened in May 2020. Given the number of people claiming the crypto bubble has burst — including former U.S. President Donald Trump — it is almost hard to remember …

Crypto and blockchain enthusiasts take pride in belonging to a community that is working on the future of financial systems. Yet, the community is innately fragmented thanks to multiple blockchains working independently of each other. The dream of mass adoption of blockchain and decentralized finance faces a major hurdle: a lack of interoperability. Meanwhile, decentralized applications (DApps) — the fruits of decentralization — are being held up. DApp developers face difficulties while transacting between different blockchain networks, and the reason behind this is they are stuck in the Ethereum ecosystem. Despite having the best infrastructure, Ethereum is losing its foothold. …

Decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch has partnered with the ICHI platform to issue a new stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar. In a Thursday announcement, 1inch said it planned to mint a stablecoin “with a blend” of its native 1INCH token and USD Coin (USDC) through ICHI’s Decentralized Monetary Authority, or DMA. The new one1INCH stablecoin — all issuers on ICHI begin with the prefix "one," referring to its Japanese namesake — is aimed at providing a medium of exchange to pay operating expenses, provide liquidity, and distribute liquidity rewards. “The one1INCH stablecoin can grow into an economic game changer,” says …

1inch Foundation, the non-profit arm of the 1inch decentralized exchange aggregator, has introduced important changes to its governance framework intended to streamline the proposal process. On Wednesday, the Foundation announced the creation of the 1inch Network Governance, which complements the “instant governance” framework the protocol launched back in December 2020. Instant governance gave 1inch token stakers the ability to vote on changes to protocol parameters. 1inch Network Governance is described as “a system similar to that of many other leading Ethereum-based projects,” including a user-friendly process for proposing protocol improvements. “Unlike instant governance, which is focused on protocol parameters, the …