Blockchain’s potential to sustain a distributed, tamper-proof infrastructure for collective digital memory has taken on an unexpected political salience for citizens in Hong Kong. Soon after Hong Kong’s public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong, or RTHK, revealed its intent to erase any archived content older than one year, residents hurried to save a trove of past news footage that had until now been freely available to the public. The reason for their haste was the recognition that RTHK’s archive contains critical coverage of the recent years of anti-authoritarian struggles and protests that were initially sparked by the introduction of the …

Zurich-based Dfinity Foundation has announced a fund worth CHF 200 million, or around $223 million, to support development on the Internet Computer — a blockchain-based decentralized network with wildly ambitious plans to one day “replace” much of the internet. The non-profit scientific research organization announced “The Developer Ecosystem Program” on May 26, and is now accepting applicants for development grants. These grants will operate separately from the $14.5 million Beacon Fund, which was announced in September 2020, and is a dedicated venture fund that backs developers creating open internet services on the platform. In a blog post announcing the new …

When this “truly decentralized” blockchain launched on May 7, 2020, it had not sold a single token. A year later, Free TON still hasn’t — and won’t — TON Labs CTO Mitja Goroshevsky said on a May 3 Cointelegraph AMA. That’s unique for a proof-of-stake blockchain, which generally relies on validators who stake a fair amount of a project’s tokens to ensure good behavior. But then, very little is normal about the Free TON project, which arose from the ashes of Telegram messaging service’s Telegram Open Network blockchain. In that incarnation, Telegram presold $1.7 billion worth of tokens to investors. …

An immersive blockchain game where players vie to collect Immortal Shards has announced the launch of play-to-earn elements — enabling devoted gamers to earn recognition for their skills and combat cred. HodlGod’s new feature means that an array of nonfungible tokens and raffle tickets will be dropped randomly in the middle of gameplay, emerging above a character’s head. However, collecting these NFTs isn’t enough… you need to survive until the end of the game in order for them to be truly yours. This approach is set to make playing HodlGod even more competitive than it was before — not least …

The dichotomy between centralization and decentralization in human history seems to be opposing forces gradually overcoming or being overcome by each other. And while one replaces the other, people are justifying both, finding philosophical or theoretical reasons for the existence of both of them. Centralization In the middle of the 17th century, British philosopher Thomas Hobbes published a book titled Leviathan (or, The Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil), where he formulates social contract theory. According to Hobbes, roughly simplified for this article, humans started from a summum malum — greatest evil — or a constant …

Decentralized governance, a facet of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), is perhaps the most valuable application smart contracts could bring to humanity. DAOs can be thought of as living organisms on the internet, entities that would function autonomously according to distributed consensus mechanisms. Managed by a community through voting, DAOs are self-governing systems with a built-in treasury. Although they still depend on community members for certain tasks — offering an economic incentive from the liquidity pool in return — DAOs are almost entirely automated. Despite their potential, DAOs do not rank among the most popular decentralized technologies. Perhaps their reputation hasn’t …

HaloDAO, a decentralized marketplace for stablecoins, has raised $3.5 million in seed investments, setting the stage for the creation of an all-in-one DeFi ecosystem for swapping, borrowing and lending. Founded by former employees of ConsenSys, HaloDAO aims to develop liquid markets for stablecoins beyond the U.S. dollar. As part of its initial rollout, HaloDAO will focus on asset-based stablecoins for Asian fiat currencies. “Asia has one of the most tech-savvy and blockchain-aware populations in the world and will likely reach mass adoption of digital assets before other regions,” Julian Gropp, portfolio manager at Parataxis Capital, said, adding: “We believe that …

Switzerland-based cryptocurrency bank Sygnum is launching custody and banking services for Internet Computer (ICP) utility tokens. Sygnum announced on Tuesday that ICP holders will be able to deposit their tokens with the bank’s institutional-grade segregated wallets. The firm said that it is the first bank to offer storage for ICP utility tokens, which debuted trading on May 11. In a second phase of rolling out ICP support, Sygnum plans to launch a suite of banking services for the token, including spot trading as well as options trading at a later date. The bank also expects to offer Sygnum Lombard loans …

A new peer-to-peer marketplace for NFT artwork is creating a digital art bazaar intended to make it easier for independent and amateur artists to showcase and sell their art while offering galleries and collectors an inexpensive venue. The market for nonfungible tokens exploded in the first few months of 2021, with NFTs going from a niche in the crypto industry to a mainstream medium for works that have been sold at the world’s premier auction houses, garnered prices in the millions and even tens of millions of dollars, and attracted creators ranging from celebrities like recording artist Grimes and NFL …

This year decentralized finance (DeFi) has proven to be a transformative sector for the cryptocurrency ecosystem and it is also making waves in among global financial markets as institutional investors become entranced with the potential to earn high yields on stablecoins, altcoins and Bitcoin. While the price action from Dogecoin (DOGE) has dominated the headlines in recent weeks, Delphi Digital has been chronicling the growth of the DeFi ecosystem on the Ethereum (ETH) network which has steadily been gaining strength over the past month. According to Delphi Digital researchers, while the majority of growth occurred on Ethereum-based DeFi platforms, protocols …

Incumbents in traditional capital markets, as well as new entrants looking to capture market share, should heed the innovations within the crypto ecosystem collectively known as decentralized finance, or DeFi. These innovations present a model for the direction that traditional capital markets are likely to take in the coming years as regulation catches up with the capabilities of distributed ledger technology, or DLT, and as the technology itself is refined through “in-the-wild” usage. Decentralized exchange protocols, also known as automated market makers, or AMMs, are one of these innovations that has been widely adopted in the crypto space. Real-time settlement …

A decentralized video game and entertainment network dubbed “the king of NFTs” has now surpassed more than three million accounts. Worldwide asset eXchange (known as WAX for short) offers an easy-to-use cloud wallet and a convenient way of creating, buying, selling and trading nonfungible tokens. Congestion on the Ethereum blockchain has prompted a number of developers to start seeking alternatives — and figures from DApp Radar suggest that, toward the end of March, WAX had more active wallets than Tron, EOS, Ethereum and Flow. Alien Worlds, a space exploration game built on WAX, has also cemented its place at the …