The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology’s (RMIT) Blockchain Innovation Hub has released a report proposing the implementation of pilot Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), to assist specific precincts in Melbourne’s CBD in recovering from the impacts of the pandemic. The report, which is part of a five-piece series of reports funded by the Victorian Government, details how blockchain technology — specifically DAOs — can be used to help cities like Melbourne recover from a lack of economic activity during the pandemic and to survive into the future with the likely persistence of hybrid working arrangements. Created in consultation with the City …

Non-profit organization Cardano Foundation has announced a three-year collaboration with the Blockchain Center of the University of Zurich (UZH BCC) to further research initiatives and explore blockchain education development. Through the partnership, the foundation will work with the Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies (BDLT) Group at the University of Zurich to explore research topics like the efficacy of consensus protocols and analyze attack vectors specific to Ouroboros, among many others. According to Cardano Foundation CEO Frederik Gregaard, the partnership allows the foundation to provide information to UZH BCC to expand the university's knowledge of the Cardano platform and at the …

The research branch of Nansen, a popular blockchain data firm, has published a meticulous twelve-page report quantifying the performance of Ethereum-based nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, since the turn of the year, unveiling a number of compelling indications as to the economic and cultural future of the ecosystem. Citing the profound impact of traditional financial indexes such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite, the report contemplates the vast potential for comparable models focusing on NFT's, arguing that both education and adoption could be significantly enhanced through their wide-scale utilization. Last month, Nansen released six NFT …

Prestigious Princeton University has launched an initiative to study the "decentralization of societal power" through blockchain technology in an effort to explore the vast depths of it’s social capabilities. For the launch, Bloomberg reported that Princeton’s Venture Forward campaign received $20 million in donations from high-profile alumni Peter Bridger from Fortress Investment, Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin, Pantera Capital CEO Daniel Morehead, and Galaxy Digital’s Mike Novogratz. The initiative is designed to study the ways in which modern technology, especially blockchain, can interfere with and change social norms, just as other technologies such as the printing press and the internet have …

This March, Cointelegraph Research will release a 30-page report about GameFi — the term used to describe the marriage of blockchain-based games with decentralized finance (DeFi). The report analyzes five popular play-to-earn (P2E) games, the economics of GameFi and the future development of an industry responsible for more than 55% of all crypto transactions in the last quarter of 2021. In collaboration with multiple partners including Konvoy Ventures, Game7, Forte, Animoca Brands and others, the Cointelegraph Consulting Research report will evaluate the strength of in-game economies, the GameFi industry’s future challenges and potential ways to overcome them. The report dives …

Interaction between the cryptocurrency industry and Capitol Hill is becoming ever more intensive as efforts to regulate crypto grow in tandem with its popularity. The surge in crypto industry lobbying last year was given some concrete parameters in February by crypto analytics startup Crypto Head. It released a report showing that the crypto companies that spent the most money on lobbying in 2021 were Robinhood, Ripple Labs, Coinbase and the Blockchain Association. These organizations were the lobbying leaders during the past five years as well, although with different rankings. Here is what the United States crypto-lobbying landscape looks like today. …

The University of Cambridge is collaborating with some of the world’s top banking institutions and private companies to introduce a new project targeting cryptocurrency research. The Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, or CCAF, has launched a research initiative aiming to bring more insights on the rapidly growing digital asset industry, the CCAF announced to Cointelegraph on Monday. Dubbed the Cambridge Digital Assets Programme, or CDAP, the project is a public-private collaboration with 16 companies including public institutions like the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub and the International Monetary Fund. The initiative also includes banks like Goldman Sachs, financial giants …

Findings from an online survey of 1,500 United States-based consumers reveal people’s deep concerns over privacy and tech platforms’ outsize power while suggesting that Web3 is yet to become a household term. The study was fielded by global insights and strategy firm National Research Group (NRG) in January 2022. 54% of respondents said they were worried about their rights and freedoms are being threatened by technology, with 44% citing online privacy concerns, 38% being unhappy about online ads, and 35% reporting feeling a lack of control over their data. Almost half believe that tech companies have accrued too much power …

Move aside Bitcoin (BTC), stablecoins are holding the spotlight. Crypto research outlets Arcane Research and CryptoRank confirm that stablecoin supply hit the milestone amount of $180 billion. The growth in stablecoins continues to outpace the rest of the market, up 6% in the past 30 days. In times of market volatility, stablecoins can offer price stability, backed by specific assets or algorithms. Over the month of February, three stablecoins entered the top 10 coins by market cap, as Binance USD (BUSD) briefly entered. According to Arcane Research, the three largest stablecoins, Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), and Binance USD (BUSD) …

By 2026, 25% of people will spend at least one hour a day in the Metaverse for work, shopping, education, social, and entertainment purposes, according to new research. The Feb. 7 report by technology research and consulting company Gartner found that in anticipation of this migration to the Metaverse, brands are already building the infrastructure to allow their users to replicate their lives digitally. According to Gartner Vice President Marty Resnick, brands will need to collaborate in order to unify the Metaverse as their users continue to demand virtual, interactive, three-dimensional experiences. He explained, “from attending virtual classrooms to buying …

Theoretical research into a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in the U.S. has found that distributed ledger architecture has “downsides.” The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the Digital Currency Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published their findings of their initial research into a CBDC on Feb 3. The research project, dubbed “Project Hamilton,” tested a “hypothetical general purpose CBDC” using two potential models. The first one processed transactions through “ordering server” distributed ledger technology (DLT), which organized the validated transactions into blocks to create an ordered transaction history. The researchers were able to use this architecture to …

New research has found that the annual transaction volume on the Bitcoin network surpassed that of some well-known card networks, such as American Express (AmEx) and Discover, during 2021. The NYDIG Research Weekly’s Jan. 29 report stated that Bitcoin processed $3 trillion worth of payments during 2021, placing it above popular credit card networks American Express ($1.3 trillion) and Discover ($0.5 trillion). The report authors, NYDIG Global Head of Research Greg Cipolaro and Research Analyst Ethan Kochav, also found that the Bitcoin network had settled more transaction volume in Q1 2021 than “all credit card networks combined for the entire …