On this week’s episode of Market Talks, Cointelegraph welcomes Grant Shears, founder of Blocmates — an educational and consultancy company that aims to create crypto, DeFi and Web3 content that anyone can understand. This week, to kick things off, we take a look at the emerging trends of 2023 and what people should look forward to. What industries could really take off this year, and which sector could have the most potential to grow? It’s no secret that 2022 was not a great year for DeFi, an industry that arguably imploded on itself by offering unsustainable high yields that eventually …

Leading decentralized finance (DeFi) aggregator 1inch Network announced a major upgrade — Fusion — around its 1inch Swap Engine. The Fusion upgrade aims to deliver cost-efficient, secure and profitable swaps for crypto investors. The Fusion mode in 1inch Swap Engine allows DeFi investors to place orders with a predecided price and time range without paying network fees. In addition, the upgrade includes network improvements such as updated staking contracts and tokenomics. As a decentralized trading and matching system, the 1inch Swap Engine connects DeFi users and provides liquidity for crypto trades through professional market makers. Explaining the intent behind the …

Decentralization via blockchain technology has given rise to several applications such as cryptocurrency, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), decentralized finance (DeFi), and many more use cases. However, the future of decentralization may very well extend beyond blockchain technology. Nillion, an internet infrastructure platform based on cryptography, has developed a technology called Nil Message Compute (NMC), which changes how data is stored, processed and decentralized. This new technology could have important implications for how companies and users pursue decentralization as an ethos. When asked how decentralization without blockchains was possible, the CEO of Nillion, Alex Page, explained how NMC …

The popular messaging app Telegram announced on Oct. 26 the official launch of its new marketplace built on the Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain. The marketplace will serve as an auction platform on which rare Telegram handles will be up for grabs. Initially, the idea was mentioned back in August on app founder Pavel Durov’s Telegram channel after the TON Foundation successfully auctioned off TON DNS domains. Telegram will start with auctions of four and five-letter handles, with this being the first time shorter handles will be made available to all users. The auction will last a week with a …

On Sept. 30, NFT Steez, a bi-weekly Twitter Spaces hosted by Alyssa Expósito and Ray Salmond, met with Mashiat Mutmainnah to discuss how regenerative finance (ReFi) can provide more accessibility and inclusivity to blockchain technology. As a "mission-driven movement," Mutmainnah explains that ReFi enables users to redefine their relationship with the current financial system and their relationship with finance and wealth. Currently, in many countries, millions of people lack basic, equitable access to the financial services that would allow them to meet their daily needs. What if there were newer models that could sustainably alleviate this? According to Mutmainnah, ReFi …

There’s more to crypto than just assets, Bank of England deputy governor Sir Jon Cunliffe reminded the Association for Financial Markets in Europe conference in London on Sept. 28. The distributed ledger technology (DLT) behind crypto assets has far-reaching implications for traditional markets and interoperability. DLT will touch on trading, clearing, settlement, and custody as it is integrated into capital markets, Cunliffe said. One of the biggest differences Cunliffe identified in DLT was its speed. Instantaneous settlement can reduce risk by removing the chance of drastic market movements while a transaction is being processed, but: “The development of instantaneous settlement …

After months of uncertainty, the Tribe DAO has passed a vote to repay affected users of the $80 million exploit on decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Rari Capital's liquidity pools. Following several rounds of voting and governance proposals, Tribe DAO, which consists of Midas Capital, Rari Capital, Fei Protocol and Volt Protocol, took the decision to a vote on Sept. 18 with the intent to fully reimburse hack victims. Data from on-chain voting platform Tally shows that 99% of those who voted were in favor and the proposal was executed on Sept. 20. According to the description underneath the voting data, …

Zircon Finance, an automated market maker (AMM) and a decentralized exchange on Moonbeam, announced the launch of a mainnet network to address investor’s challenges related to impermanent loss in decentralized finance (DeFi). Impermanent loss relates to a condition wherein investors lose assets they hadpreviously dedicated to providing liquidity to a liquidity pool for earning profits via yields. The mainnet network, dubbed Zircon Gamma, aims to counter such losses through single-sided liquidity over the Moonriver network, which tranches or splits risks between a volatile cryptocurrency and a stablecoin. For example, in the case of an ETH/USDC pool, Zircon allows Ether (ETH) …

Cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin will introduce native token swap functionality to its in-house wallet after integrating decentralized finance (DeFi) market maker 1inch’s application programming interface. 1inch’s Pathfinder algorithm will increase the functionality of KuCoin Wallet, the exchange’s recently launched decentralized wallet platform, which features cross-chain trading, DeFi and nonfungible token (NFT) support. The algorithm will aggregate liquidity from over 250 sources from automated market makers (AMM) and proactive market makers (PMM) across the DeFi ecosystem. 1inch plugs into liquidity sources running on nine different blockchain networks, providing a wide range of tradable asset pairs. Related: DeFi market has room for growth …

South Korea's most popular metaverse blockchain Klaytn is set to benefit from deeper liquidity and improved token swaps through a new partnership with decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol 1inch Network. Klaytn has enjoyed success in South Korea as the country continues to see prolific nonfungible token (NFT) and GameFi use. Klaytn is a product of tech behemoth Kakao - which commands a user base of some 52 million people that use its flagship KakaoTalk application and suite of software products. Klaytn derived its proprietary blockchain technology off the Ethereum Virtual Machine and powers various play-to-earn and AAA games, NFT marketplaces and …

Just two months after losing $15.6 million in a price oracle manipulation exploit, Inverse Finance has again been hit with a flash loan exploit that saw the attackers make off with $1.26 million in Tether (USDT) and Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC). Inverse Finance is an Ethereum-based decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol and a flash loan is a type of crypto loan that is usually borrowed and returned within a single transaction. Oracles report outside pricing information. The latest exploit worked by using a flash loan to manipulate the price oracle for a liquidity provider (LP) token used by the protocol’s money market …

In the summer of 2021, the Chinese government banned Bitcoin (BTC) mining and cited the typical concerns of harmful environmental effects and money laundering. Now, the Chinese government is working toward establishing its own digital yuan currency. This raises the question as to whether the original reasoning was merely a Trojan horse. This ban could easily have been a huge blow to Bitcoin’s momentum. After all, close to 75% of all Bitcoin mining had been conducted in China by late 2019, according to Cambridge Alternative Finance Benchmarks. If the network teetered under the weight of China’s nationwide ban, other governments …