A handful of government-backed financial institutions have been exploring tokenization use cases to revolutionize traditional financial systems. For instance, El Salvador’s Bitcoin Volcanic bond project has been in the works for over a year and aims to raise $1 billion from investors with tokenized bonds to build a Bitcoin city. The Central Bank of Russia has also expressed interest in tokenized off-chain assets. In addition, the Israeli Ministry of Finance, together with the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), recently announced the testing of a blockchain-backed platform for digital bond trading. Cointelegraph Research’s 2021 Security Token Report found that most securities …

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has seemingly given the cold shoulder to a $600,000 monument of him in goat form — which was created as part of a bizarre crypto marketing stunt. Delivered to Tesla’s Austin headquarters on Nov. 26, the 30-foot, 12,000-pound metal statue of Elon Musk was part of a publicity stunt by the co-founders of the memecoin Elon Goat Token (EGT). The statue features the head of Elon Musk on the body of a goat that is riding a rocket. The statue also sees Musk wearing a dog collar with a Dogecoin (DOGE) token attached. We’re very proud …

Argentina’s shock 2-1 loss to Saudi Arabia in the opening match of the FIFA World Cup has plummeted the price of the Argentine Football Association Fan Token (ARG), in line with the hopes of the nation’s die-hard soccer fans. With the ARG token priced at $7.21 at kick-off, the poor performance by the Lionel Messi-led soccer team saw the token’s price fall 31% to $4.96 by the end of the match before rising to $5.22 at the time of writing, according to data from Coingecko. By contrast, the floor price of "The Saudis," a Saudi Arabian-themed nonfungible token (NFT) collection …

The volunteer project lead and developer for Shiba Inu known only as ‘Shytoshi Kusama’ has reported on social media that the World Economic Forum, or WEF, wants to work with the meme-based cryptocurrency on global policy. In a poll posted to Twitter on Nov. 22, Kusama said the WEF had “kindly invited” the Shiba Inu (SHIB) project to collaborate on “MV global policy.” The Shiba Inu developer seemed to be referring to policy on the metaverse. Crypto and blockchain have sometimes been under discussion at WEF events, but partnering with a popular meme token would seemingly be a first for …

The crypto market has witnessed a turbulent few weeks after the FTX collapse but Lido Finance, a liquid staking protocol, has been a bright spot amidst the chaos. According to Data from DeFiLlama, Lido protocol has earned $1 million or more in fees daily since October 26. Lido fees and revenue over time. Lido has collected over $1M in fees every day since October 26th pic.twitter.com/GHkzSzYIOo — DefiLlama.com (@DefiLlama) November 18, 2022 Let’s analyze the on-chain fundamentals to see why this trend has continued. What’s behind Lido Finance’s growth? Lido’s growth started in May 2021, pre-FTX collapse. The fees reached …

Chinese firms bet on ‘Metaverse-like’ experiences for FIFA World Cup China-based technology companies are reportedly working on tech that would give Chinese soccer fans the ability to watch the FIFA World Cup within the Metaverse. The efforts are part of a five-year plan released by the Chinese government in early November to boost the capabilities and development of the local Virtual Reality (VR) industry. Video streaming platform Migu is one of six Chinese firms that has secured the rights to show the World Cup and plans to create a “Metaverse-like” space accessed through VR headsets for users to watch a …

On-chain sleuth ZachXBT has shared his findings on what he sees as the three most common misconceptions about the FTX hack — taking to Twitter to correct a "ton of misinformation" about the event and the possible culprits. In a lengthy Nov. 20 post on Twitter, the self-proclaimed “on-chain sleuth” debunked speculation that Bahamian officials were behind the FTX hack, that exchanges knew the hacker's true identity, and that the culprit is trading memecoins. 1/ I have seen a ton of misinformation being spread on Twitter and in the news about the FTX event so let me debunk the three …

Native cryptocurrencies turned out to be the biggest factor contributing to the demise of numerous exchanges and ecosystems this year, most recently during the FTX collapse. Korea's financial authority, Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KoFIU), took notice of the same as it launched a probe into crypto exchanges in relation to listing their in-house, self-issued tokens. Crypto exchange FTX and its 130 affiliate firms recently filed for bankruptcy due to a price crash of its in-house token, FTX Token (FTT). While Korean crypto exchanges are barred from issuing native tokens, KoFIU’s probe into the same is to ensure regulatory adherence for …

2022 continues to be a year of surprises, with one of the biggest so far being Elon Musk’s decision to acquire social media juggernaut Twitter for a whopping $44 billion. While the takeover has set into motion a whole host of debates — particularly those pertaining to Big Tech censorship — it has also called into question the future of Dogecoin (DOGE), a digital currency of which the billionaire has been a big proponent over the last couple of years. To put things into perspective, just hours before Musk tweeted that “the bird is freed” on Oct. 27, the price …

By creating an alternative financial system with extraordinary flexibility and innovation in less than ten years, Web3 has astounded the globe. Economic and cryptographic primitives such as smart contracts and consensus mechanisms have helped to create an open-source system to conduct and authorize financial transactions. However, the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem cannot support straightforward contracts like an apartment lease because it lacks a native Web3 identity. This article aims to demonstrate how even modest advances toward social identity representation with soulbound tokens could circumvent these constraints and reroute Web3 to an authentic, more transformational path. What are soulbound tokens (SBTs)? …

While crypto exchange FTX stole the limelight from other fallen ecosystems, South Korean authorities continue their efforts to bring closure to the victims of the year’s first crypto crash — Terraform Labs. Nearly six months after the Terra (LUNA) blockchain was officially halted, South Korean authorities froze approximately $104.4 million (140 billion won) from co-founder Shin Hyun-seong based on suspicion of unfair profits. The decision to freeze Shin’s asset worth over $104 million was approved by the Seoul Southern District Court, which was based on a request from the prosecutors. The claim related to Shin’s involvement in selling pre-issued Terra …

The FTX hacker that drained over $450 million worth of assets just moments after the doomed crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, continues to drain assets from the exchange, four days after the hack was first flagged. Crypto analytic firm Certik in a Tweet noted that the hacker wallet is still draining crypto assets from the wallets associated with the FTX and FTX.US. The FTX hacker wallet currently holds $62 million worth of assets. Since Nov. 12 the hacker wallet has received and swapped 3.2 billion meme tokens and sent 2.8 billion of these tokens to popular addresses. …