In a blog post dated Dec. 5, Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin wrote that money, blockchain identities, decentralized finance (DeFi), decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and hybrid applications were the top developments he was excited about in the Ethereum ecosystem. Buterin then described his experience in using Ether as a means of payment in a cafe in Argentina: "When we walked in, the owner recognized me, and immediately showed me that he has ETH and other crypto-assets on his Binance account. We ordered tea and snacks, and we asked if we could pay in ETH. The coffee shop owner obliged, and …

The Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) is currently reviewing requests to revise the “regulatory treatment” of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) within its Virtual Financial Assets Framework. Under the current regulatory framework, NFTs are included within the scope of the Virtual Financial Assets Act, which also includes virtual tokens, virtual financial assets, electronic money, and all financial instruments built, or dependent on, Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). However, the MFSA is proposing to have NFTs removed from the Virtual Financial Assets framework since they’re unique and nonfungible and therefore incapable of being used as payments for goods and services, or for investment purposes. …

According to a new press release published on Dec. 5, USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle announced the mutual termination of its proposed merger with special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, Concord Acquisition. The deal was announced in July 2021 with a preliminary valuation of $4.5 billion and was then amended in February 2022 when Circle's valuation ballooned to $9 billion. USDC is currently the second largest stablecoin in circulation, with a market cap of $43 billion. Under the terms of the agreements, Concord had until Dec. 10 to consummate the transaction or seek a shareholder vote for an extension. However, …

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has shared some sage advice for traders feeling the blues of the crypto bear market: Focus on the tech rather than the price. The Ethereum co-founder made the recommendation in response to a Dec. 3 post from self-described crypto investor CoinMamba, echoing what many crypto investors are likely feeling at the moment. After 9 years in crypto I’m kinda exhausted. I want to move on and do something different with my life. Tired of all these scammers and fraudsters.. — CoinMamba (@coinmamba) December 3, 2022 "After 9 years in crypto I’m kinda exhausted. I want to …

Altcoin originally meant “Bitcoin alternative” because, in the early stages of cryptocurrency development, every blockchain-based currency was seen as a sort of Bitcoin (BTC) knockoff. Cryptocurrencies back then were mainly used for payments, such as Litecoin (LTC), XRP (XRP) and Peercoin (PPC). Altcoin was used as a catchall term for cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin. That’s changed since 2011. With the emergence of more than 20,000 cryptocurrencies, each linked to different types of crypto projects and tokens. We have also seen the dexterity of coins stretch across sectors of public chains, decentralized finance (DeFi), layer 2, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), stablecoins …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) markets may have cooled down over the past year, but the technology powering these applications continues to advance. In particular, smart contract platforms that enable transactions to take place across DeFi applications are maturing to meet enterprise requirements. While it’s notable that enterprises have previously shown interest in DeFi use cases, smart contract limitations have hampered adoption. A report published by Grayscale Research in March puts this in perspective, noting that “Despite handling millions of transactions per day, smart contract platforms in their current state would be incapable of handling even 10% of the worlds’ internet traffic.” …

On Dec. 2, NFT Steez hosts Alyssa Expósito and Ray Salmond chatted with Victor Solomon to discuss his journey into bridging his in-real-life artwork into NFTs and how he cultivates the community and culture that surrounds it. Solomon's work centers around basketball, not just the object, but the sport itself. For Solomon, the inspiration for his work comes from his early childhood of wanting to play hockey, a sport that was not accessible for him, and his eventual discovery of basketball which he discovered to be more accommodating. Solomon said: "Basketball was such an inspirational platform for me since there's …

The reality is that blockchain technology can still deliver substantial benefits, particularly within the fine arts. And for those who have been paying attention, 2022 has been a year of incredible normalization for nonfungible tokens (NFTs). Simply put, major institutions across various sectors have dipped their toes into Web3. In November, Instagram announced that creators would soon have the functionality to make and sell NFTs. Apple similarly announced in September that NFTs could be sold in its App Store. Put together, that’s 3.5 billion people (2 billion from Instagram and 1.5 billion from the App Store). Although each of these …

Following yesterday's confirmed multi-million dollar exploit, BNB Chain based protocol Ankr took to its company blog on Dec. 2 to relay its next steps to users. The team said it was identifying liquidity providers to decentralized exchanges as well as protocols supporting aBNBc or aBNBb LP. The group also said it is assessing aBNBc collateral pools, such as Midas and Helio. According to the post, Ankr intends to purchase $5 million worth of BNB, which it will use to compensate liquidity providers affected by the exploit. However, the company said it only intends to compensate LPs who were "caught off …

The online crypto community has discovered a new Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot that can either be used to warn developers of smart contracts vulnerabilities or teach hackers how to exploit them. ChatGPT, a chatbot tool built by AI research company OpenAI, was released on Nov. 30 and was designed to interact “in a conversational way” with the ability to answer follow-up questions and even admit mistakes, according to the company. However, some Twitter users have come to realize that the bot could potentially be used for both good and evil, as it can be prompted to reveal loopholes in smart …

According to a new proposal dated Dec. 1, directed acrylic graph network Fantom seeks to implement an affiliate program for its decentralized application, or dApp, developers with network gas fees. To fund this venture, the Fantom community has proposed slashing the protocol's current FTM token burn rate from 20% to 5%. In supporting the proposal, Fantom developers wrote: "We take what works in web2 and restructure it to fit the network's priorities, which means taking the ad monetisation model and extending it to gas monetisation for performing dApps that manage to attract a steady stream of users." The development team …

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken announced on Nov 30, that it has made “one of the hardest decisions” to cut down its global workforce by approximately 1,100 people, making up approximately 30% of its total workforce, amid current market conditions. According to the CEO and co-founder Jesse Powell, Kraken had to triple its workforce due to the fast-growing crypto ecosystem, and the current pullback takes the company’s team size back to where it was 12 months ago. Powell shared in a tweet; "Macro was already tough and we held out but recent industry woes diminished near-term optimism about a crypto bound." Rough …