While public interest in the Metaverse has not been completely lost, brands are trying to make the most of its popularity. Many luxury brands have already jumped on the gamification bandwagon, selling branded skins and buying land in the Metaverse. We have already visited Decentraland Fashion Week, played the Balenciaga game and regularly watched digital collections move from the mass market to luxury markets. In addition, in Web3, there is a serious beef between the Hermès brand and artist Mason Rothchild, the man behind the nonfungible token (NFT) MetaBirkins furry bags. This event has attracted public attention to the fact …

The crypto world is going through a transformative chapter that is bound to revolutionize how the internet works and how online communities interact, and social tokens are at the heart of the latest inflective developments. Their rise comes at a time when transactional frameworks, such as Web3, are gaining popularity, especially among crypto enthusiasts. Social tokens support the democratization of social networks by enabling brands, influencers and businesses to create and monetize their own online communities using blockchain technology. Daniel Nagy, vice president of Swarm — a decentralized data storage and dispensation firm — spoke to Cointelegraph regarding the new …

Such a philosophy is common among investors who are enthusiastic about blockchain’s potential to dominate Web3 as it becomes the infrastructure of the new internet. Yet, if you swap “cryptocurrency” with “stock,” you get a Warren Buffett quote — word-for-word. Of course, Buffett would never say such a thing about cryptocurrency because he thinks it’s worthless. So do a host of other heavy hitters, ranging from Buffett’s close ally Charlie Munger to gold’s poster boy Peter Schiff. Add to the list J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, and even Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren — a …

Some critics deem nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to be totally worthless. They don’t see the point. Why should they? The industry hasn’t covered itself in glory with countless rug pulls and celebrity endorsements with prompt pump-and-dumps. But, this is missing the point. Already most of the digital and physical objects we use in real life are unique, they are not fungible: this means they cannot be copied, substituted or subdivided. Detractors might still say, well, what’s the point? NFTs are immutable and verifiable assets on the blockchain — these sound like industry buzzwords with little meaning. However, they go a long …

By 2030, Web3 is expected to reach a market size of $81.5 billion, according to Emergen Research, but the industry still has challenges to overcome, including security and interoperability, said players interviewed by Cointelegraph. Interoperability, in short, provides communication between blockchains, aiming to offer a similar experience to users as Web2, hiding infrastructure complexity away and ensuring they don't have to know what solution is powering the mobile app they use, explained Derek Yoo, CEO of PureStake, a development team for the layer-1 blockchain Moonbeam. However, interoperability also brings more moving parts to any system, and security is one of …

Paris Fashion Week 2022 consisted of 64 shows and 42 presentations, many of which demonstrated the future of fashion. From the sprayed-on dress worn by supermodel Bella Hadid at the Coperni show to upcycled fresh looks consisting of recycled garments, Paris Fashion Week brilliantly highlighted trends for upcoming seasons. While the majority of Fashion Week attendees and designers celebrated physical elements — such as in-person fashion shows and tangible designs — a handful of creators incorporated Web3 features to demonstrate fashion’s enormous digital potential. Web3 democratizes fashion Shedding light on this, Victor Weinsanto, a French designer who launched his brand …

A proposal out of Stanford University to make crypto transactions reversible is adding a wrinkle to discussions of crime and fraud prevention. Researchers suggested that mutability — the ability to reverse blockchain transactions — would help prevent crime. One of the advantages of cryptocurrency is that it is possible for the market — individuals, traders and banks — to decide if reversibility is wanted. Not only would a new (reversible) cryptocurrency be able to test the acceptance or desire for reversible transactions, it would help to test the idea that reversibility reduces crime. Although cryptocurrency is not a tool of …

On Wednesday, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, announced that it has successfully moved central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and tokenized assets on existing financial infrastructure through two separate experiments. According to SWIFT, the results demonstrated that "CBDCs can be rapidly deployed at scale to facilitate trade and investment between more than 200 countries and territories around the world." SWIFT is a Belgian messaging system that connects over 11,500 financial institutions worldwide and plays a paramount role in facilitating international transactions. Globally, nine out of 10 central banks are actively exploring digital currencies. Via its collaboration with …

In September, cryptocurrency exchange FTX US secured the winning bid for the assets of embattled crypto brokerage firm Voyager Digital with a bid of approximately $1.4 billion. The bid was made up of the fair market value of Voyager’s crypto holdings “at a to-be-determined date in the future.” According to Voyager, at current market prices, the fair value of its holdings was estimated around $1.3 billion, and the deal included an “additional consideration,” estimated to be worth approximately $111 million. Since then, new details on the case have emerged, with court filings showing that the cash paid for Voyager Digital …

SWIFT is a payments colossus. It operates across more than 200 countries, has 11,000-plus financial institution clients and transmits some 8.4 billion financial messages every year. It is the global leader in cross-border bank-to-bank payments and recently played a key role in the West’s economic sanctions on Russia. That doesn’t mean the Belgium-based cooperative is immune to disruption tremors, however. Critics have long maintained the interbank messaging system, founded in the 1970s, is “old, inflexible, slow, and increasingly prone to cyberattacks.” In May, Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach cast doubt upon SWIFT’s ability to survive the next five years. Meanwhile, it …

Over the last two years, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) have emerged as one of the most active and noticeable aspects of Web3. The data stored on blockchains by NFTs may be connected with files that include various forms of media, such as photographs, videos and audio. In certain instances, it can even be related to physical items. The owner of an NFT will often have ownership rights over the data, material or item connected with the token, and these tokens are typically purchased and traded on specialized markets. The rise of NFTs was meteoric in 2021, but it hasn’t been very …

Bear markets are for building out capacity on the layer-2 Lightning Network. Despite macroeconomic headwinds and sluggish price action the Lightning Network, the layer-2 payments solution on Bitcoin (BTC) continues to flourish. The Bitcoin Lightning Network reached a milestone capacity of 5,000 BTC ($96 million). In effect, more and more Bitcoin is being introduced to Lightning Network payment channels worldwide, as Bitcoiners continue to support the growth of the network. The Lightning Network allows users to send Bitcoin (or satoshis, the smallest amount of a Bitcoin) to send or receive money faster and with lower fees. The more capacity on …