Though seemingly coming from nowhere for many, the themes behind the Reddit-fueled r/Wallstreetbets pump of GameStop feel familiar. Watching it unfold, I tried to figure out just why it had captured my interest to such a degree, and, to me, it was a spillover into the traditional markets of some pervasive themes driving crypto. Despite some competition in the narrative, I view the motivating force — and by it, I mean the social media-fueled spread of the message that drew enough widespread interest to have an impact in the market — behind the GME pump as analogous with what, at …

Major privacy-focused browser Brave is inching closer to offering a private search engine. Brave announced Wednesday that the company has acquired Tailcat, an open search engine developed by a group formerly working on privacy search and browser products at Cliqz. Operating under the majority holding of Hubert Burda Media, Cliqz terminated its efforts on browser and search tech in May 2020. According to the announcement, Tailcat will serve as a foundation for the upcoming Brave Search — an inbuilt search engine designed to enable private and transparent web surfing. Brave CEO and co-founder Brendan Eich told Cointelegraph that the firm …

Sony's European subsidiary is the latest company to join the validator program of the Theta Network, a decentralized blockchain-based video protocol. Sony Europe’s research and development group, the Center Europe Brussels Laboratory, has joined Theta’s enterprise validator and governance council program, the company announced Tuesday. As part of the development, Sony will operate an enterprise validator node located in Europe to validate network transactions on Theta’s proof-of-stake consensus protocol. Sony Europe will also act as a member of the governance council to participate in strategic technology planning and ensure the network’s security and stability. The validator program includes major technology …

A digital assets platform that serves as a launchpad for up-and-coming crypto projects has integrated Binance Smart Chain — enabling tokens to be created seamlessly within minutes. DxSale is a decentralized token management platform, and its application initially launched in late December 2020 on the Ethereum network. Whereas rivals rely on human verification before startups are given the go-ahead, the organization has chosen to take a different approach by building a trustless application. This is done through smart contracts that work together to remove the risk of fraudulent projects by automatically locking tokens, resulting in an instant gain of trust …

The last few months’ frenzy of institutional money flowing into Bitcoin (BTC) has seen crypto hitting the headlines — at the least as a novelty asset, at the most as a must-have. There is undoubtedly a trend in the market toward greater awareness and acceptance of digital assets as a new investable asset class. A June 2020 report by Fidelity Digital Assets found that 80% of institutions in the United States and Europe have at least an interest in investing in crypto, while more than a third have already invested in some form of digital asset, with Bitcoin being the …

Cointelegraph is following the development of an entirely new blockchain from inception to mainnet and beyond through its series, Inside the Blockchain Developer’s Mind. In Part Four, Andrew Levine of Koinos Group discusses some of the challenges the team has faced since identifying the key issues they intend to solve. Earlier in this series I outlined three of the “crises” that are holding back blockchain adoption; upgradeability, scalability, and governance. In this post I will summarize the solutions we’ve developed to these problems, which we will be showcasing in the upcoming Koinos testnet planned for the second quarter of 2021. …

Veteran cryptocurrency investor Polychain Capital has joined a funding round in DFX Finance, a new decentralized finance exchange protocol optimized for non-U.S. dollar stablecoins. DFX raised more than $5 million in seed funding from Polychain and True Ventures to create a new blockchain-powered market for stablecoins and open up DeFi applications to a global audience. Announcing the news Wednesday, DFX said that other investors included industry players like Hex Capital, CMS Holdings, Castle Island Ventures and DeFi Alliance. DFX is currently being developed by contributors from major crypto projects and firms like the Ethereum Foundation and ConsenSys. The platform is …

Decentralized autonomous organizations — known as a DAO for short — have become a mainstay of the crypto world. The rationale behind DAO is to enable companies and organizations to fully function without the need for a hierarchical management structure. As this Cointelegraph guide explained, it’s like a vending machine delivering a snack in exchange for a bundle of coins — and then automatically using those funds to reorder stock. There’s no need for human involvement in keeping the machine running, as all of the processes it needs to function are pre-written into code. Beyond this real-world example, the possibilities …

Blockchain technology is revolutionizing the way we interact, transact and share information, with many experts predicting it will be the most disruptive technology in the next decade. After little structural innovation since the 19th and 20th centuries, decentralization has brought industries such as finance, media and technology closer to transparency, freedom from intermediaries and heightened efficiency. Traditional enterprises rely on a centralized closed-door structure. In contrast, decentralized finance projects are being built with the ethos that governance should be decentralized and democratic. Transitioning society to decentralized platforms can make many services safer, more accessible and more transparent than ever before. …

Ravencoin (RVN) price has rocketed higher in February as a fresh wave of buying volume lifted the token's price by more than 800% in the past 20 days. Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that RVN rose from $0.016 on Jan.29 to a new all-time high of $0.189 on Feb. 19 on top of a record $1.28 billion in 24-hour trading volume. A scroll through the project’s Twitter feed shows an increase in activity from the account beginning on Jan. 27, when the project tweeted, “Stock markets are transforming. Ravencoin is here for those who want to build services …

On Jan. 26, the internet came to a screeching halt along much of the East Coast. Email services went down; YouTube videos flickered out midstream; millions were likely affected, if only temporarily. But the outage, attributed to a surge in traffic, underscores the metastasizing vulnerabilities surrounding the way most of the world conducts commerce, consumes entertainment and communicates. The implications of such outages should be seen as particularly alarming for those in cryptoland: namely, for the ever-growing numbers of participants in an emerging decentralized ecosystem for transferring peer-to-peer value with Bitcoin (BTC) who build smart contracts on Ethereum or launch …

Voting is a very important part of any democracy, as it gives its citizens the chance to participate in the democratic governance process. In a democracy, the objective of voting is not just the creation of government but a collective effort that drives the interests of the society and the economy. The fundamental objective of voting across the world is to ensure that it happens in a fair and transparent way. The traditional ballot system has existed for years, but it’s safe to say now that it has outlived its time. Challenges, such as double voting, spurious votes and ballot …