What is Avalanche Network (AVAX)? Launched in 2020 by Ava Labs, Avalanche is a blockchain platform that is smart contract-capable. Avalanche aims to deliver a scalable blockchain solution while maintaining decentralization and security, focusing on lower costs, fast transaction speeds, and eco-friendliness. Avalanche quickly became popular in the cryptocurrency space, with Avalanche TVL currently worth $8.41 billion and still rising across Avalanche decentralized applications (DApps). Avalanche is powered by its native token Avalanche (AVAX) and multiple consensus mechanisms. With Avalanche, users can create an unlimited number of customized and interoperable blockchains. To operate a blockchain on the Avalanche coin, AVAX, …

Multi-chain token bridge Allbridge will become the first to offer Stacks (STX) transfers as part of a partnership with Bitcoin software developer Daemon Technologies. STX is the native token for the Stacks Layer-1 blockchain which settles transactions on the Bitcoin (BTC) network. It currently has a market cap of $1.7 billion. Allbridge currently serves 12 blockchains including Ethereum, various Ethereum-compatible sidechains, Solana, Terra, and others. A token bridge allows crypto from one blockchain to be transferred to another one. The new bridge will allow transfers between Stacks and all chains served by Allbridge. The Stacks Bridge will go live in …

The Meter Passport token bridge platform has incurred $4.4 million in losses due to a smart contract hack which also caused Hundred Finance to lose $3.3 million through under-collateralized loans. Meter.io’s Meter Passport (MTRG) is a token bridge that is compatible with Ethereum and its sidechains. This attack affected the Moonriver side of the bridge. Moonriver is a smart contract platform based on Polkadot’s Kusama network. Hundred Finance is a crypto lending platform based on the code for Compound Finance. Starting at 2pm UTC on Feb. 5 and over the course of several transactions, about $4.4 million in Binance Coin …

Ownership is one of the most critical aspects of nonfungible tokens (NFT). They are a representation of the evolution of execution and ownership of art, content, music, in-game assets, etc., since they are digital assets with distinctive identities that are verifiable on a blockchain network. However, they have also created a new dimension of discussion about the interaction and grey area around copyright, intellectual property (IP) and trademark laws. In a recent highly publicized fiasco in the cryptoverse, crypto decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) Spice DAO was mocked for believing that the ownership of a copy of the unpublished manuscript of …

Li Jiang, COO at Harmony, believes that a bridge connecting all existing blockchains is key to onboard the first 1 billion users on Web 3. “We think that the future is multichain and cross-chain, that you should be able to move assets very easily from one chain to another, with good prices, with good rates and very fast.”, he told Cointelegraph in an exclusive interview. Harmony is a Layer-1 blockchain protocol that aims at creating bridges with all major blockchains and becoming a “unifying Web 3 platform” by 2026. Jiang acknowledges that blockchain technology is not mature enough to onboard …

The Bank of Russia has registered tokenization service Atomyze as the country’s first digital asset management company, the central bank officially announced Thursday. According to the announcement, the Bank of Russia has formally deemed the rules of the company’s information system and the platform’s technical implementation as being compliant with the Russian law. The registration enables Atomyze to provide its clients with an opportunity to issue digital financial assets, or DFA, on its platform as well as obtain “new types of assets in the tokenized form.” The organization will be also enabled to “independently carry out exchange operations within its …

The Wormhole token bridge experienced a security exploit today, resulting in the loss of 120,000 wETH tokens ($321 million) from the platform. Wormhole is a token bridge that allows users to send and receive crypto between Ethereum, Solana, BSC, Polygon, Avalanche, Oasis, and Terra without the use of a centralized exchange (CEX). This is the largest crypto hack of 2022 so far and the second largest DeFi hack to date. The Wormhole team has offered a $10M bug bounty for the return of the funds. The hack took place on the Solana side of the bridge and there are fears …

Kanye West won’t be purchasing a Bored Ape Yacht Club nonfungible token (NFT) any time soon. In a strongly worded Instagram post made on Monday, Ye stated “Do not ask me to do a f*cking NFT.” The message in the photo, shared with his 10.5 million followers, explains he is focused on “building real products in the real world.” He didn’t mince his words in a follow-up comment to the Instagram post: “STOP ASKING ME TO DO NFTs I’M NOT FINNA CO-SIGN … FOR NOW I’M NOT ON THAT WAVE I MAKE MUSIC AND PRODUCTS IN THE REAL WORLD”. Whereas …

The world is currently facing a once-in-a-lifetime race to define the metaverse, characterized by large corporations attempting to be the first to make the virtual world accessible to the masses. While these companies are at an advantage already having well-established communities, they are centralized and therefore lack compatibility with the blockchain technology that enables these kinds of interactions. Furthermore, the need for decentralization is further demonstrated by the reference to the metaverse as “Web 3.0” or the next version of the internet. The internet, which is largely popular for being both open-source and decentralized, provides an example of why these …

All cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin (BTC) were first described as altcoins for a single reason: There was a rise of projects that copied and pasted Bitcoin’s source code. The cryptocurrencies in the early stages weren’t unique enough to have a distinctive term, so “altcoin” (alternative coins) best fit their description. The community, at that point, didn’t put too much thought into other cryptocurrencies due to Bitcoin’s potential advancement — its future price growth, use cases, mainstream adoption, etc. It was the leading head in crypto. But things changed when people caught onto Ethereum’s smart contract platform, as it can produce …

What are altcoins? The word “altcoin” is derived from “alternative” and “coin.” Altcoins refer to all alternatives to Bitcoin. Altcoins are cryptocurrencies that share characteristics with Bitcoin (BTC). For example, Bitcoin and altcoins have a similar basic framework. Altcoins also function like peer-to-peer (P2P) systems and share code, much like Bitcoin. Of course, there are also marked differences between Bitcoin and altcoins. One such difference is the consensus mechanism used by these altcoins to validate transactions or produce blocks. While Bitcoin uses the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism, altcoins typically use proof-of-stake (PoS). There are different altcoin categories, and they can …

Though the likes of Bored Apes and Pudgy Penguins take the headlines, and the potential for decentralized finance (DeFi) and play-to-earn gaming is undeniably grand and exciting, the marketing potential for nonfungible tokens (NFTs) deserves equal attention. It boils down to this: With NFTs, virtually anything can be gamified to promote desired marketing outcomes. Gamification — defined by Gabe Zichermann, author of The Gamification Revolution, as a “process of using game thinking and game dynamics to engage audiences and solve problems” — is not new to sales and marketing. What is new are the mechanisms by which you can engage …