The United Kingdom is a step closer to launching a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) after releasing a consultation paper explaining the proposed digital pound, which the public has nicknamed “Britcoin.” The 116-page consultation paper was jointly released on Feb. 7 by the Bank of England (BoE) and His Majesty’s Treasury. A technology working paper was also released delving into the technical and economic design considerations. Despite the rise of privately-issued stablecoins in recent years, the paper said CBDCs such as the digital pound can co-exist in what they expect to be a “mixed payments economy.” “In much the same …

From beer breweries on opposite ends of the globe to aircraft technicians in isolated airports, telecoms infrastructure firm Nokia has been looking for ways to use the metaverse to aid remotely-located workers. Nokia, who many remember as a manufacturer of consumer mobile devices, has since pivoted into developing technology and equipment that “delivers the internet.” Robert Joyce, CTO of Nokia Oceania told Cointelegraph that part of those plans also includes delivering the Metaverse. “Nokia set up two labs last year to really look at the Metaverse and the technologies that underpin the Metaverse.” Last year, Nokia began collaborating with an …

Blockchain software developer ConsenSys retains the ability to achieve its goals after recent layoffs, CEO Joe Lubin claimed in a Feb. 7 interview with Cointelegraph, stating that “we’ve retained virtually all of our capabilities.” According to Lubin, the cuts were implemented “mostly because of potential headwinds and potential uncertainty” and partly because of declining volume in the ConsenSys ecosystem due to "macroeconomic and geopolitical" factors. Lubin said his team had been concerned that impending troubles in the venture capital market would make it hard for crypto companies to raise cash, so the company had wanted to be prepared for this …

A massive earthquake hit southeastern Turkey along the border with Syria on Feb. 6, which has so far caused the death of more than 5,000 people. The quake had a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale, which is internationally categorized as a “major” earthquake, and occurred along 100km (62 miles) of the fault line. Infrastructure in the area suffered major damages, resulting in a deadly cross-border humanitarian disaster. However, the world was quick to respond. Across the internet and various social media platforms, people have been gathering funds for local and international aid organizations to provide relief to those …

The financial technology (fintech) industry has its roots in the late 20th century, with the advent of electronic banking and online stock trading. Since then, fintech has expanded and changed over time as a result of technological and internet advances. As a result, new financial services and products have been created with the intention of enhancing accessibility, simplicity and effectiveness in the financial services industry. The 2008 global financial crisis aided the growth of fintech by increasing customer demand for non-traditional banking and financial services. By enabling customers to access financial services from any location at any time, the rise …

The damages caused by the fall of major crypto ecosystems in the last year are on a path of steady recovery as good actors take proactive measures to rebuild trust among investors. Major players from the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem came together to showcase the incentive behind operating trustless, interoperable and permissionless platforms. For 24-hrs from Feb.6 to 7, over 30 DeFi protocols joined in an initiative to “permissionlessly” share tweets from other protocols — thus highlighting the permissionless and interoperable nature of Web3. Projects participating in this campaign include Yearn, MakerDAO, SushiSwap and Aave, among others. An experiment in …

Metamask Snaps aims to facilitate a ‘multichain future,’ allowing the Ethereum-based wallet service to support non-native blockchains and tokens for the Web3 economy. Details of the latest in-development addition to Metamask’s growing ecosystem were unpacked at the StarkWare Sessions event in Tel Aviv, Israel, in Feb. 2023. Speaking to Cointelegraph Magazine editor Andrew Fenton, Alex Jupiter, the senior product manager at Metamask Snaps, revealed details about potential blockchain synergies. The last 18 months have seen the development of Snaps speed up after the success of Metamask Swaps, which brought token swap functionality to the service’s native browser extension. As Jupiter …

Science fiction’s sub-genre, known as cyberpunk, imagines a dystopian future in which advanced technology has overtaken society and divided it into classes for the haves and the have-nots. The genre frequently examines virtual reality, hacking, artificial intelligence and how technology affects people. Cyberpunk is distinguished by its emphasis on a future society in which governments and corporations have amassed enormous power and control over people, frequently at the expense of their freedom and privacy. The genre is renowned for its grim and gloomy depictions of a world where technology has gone beyond human control and produced new kinds of exploitation …

Regulators in Hong Kong are stepping up their game when it comes to monitoring the activities of the crypto industry. According to a Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) report filed on Feb. 6, it plans to hire four additional staff to “better supervise” the activities of local virtual asset (VA) providers. Moreover, the extra oversight will help “better assess the compliance and risk” in allowing retail investors the opportunity to trade virtual assets on regulated platforms. The commission wrote: “This is in response to an increasing number of operators who have expressed interest in carrying on VA activities such as …

Blockchain scaling technology firm StarkWare is set to partner with Chainlink Labs to bring oracle services, data and price feeds to the StarkNet ecosystem. The coalition will see StarkWare join Chainlink’s SCALE program and brings Chainlink price feeds to StarkNet’s testnet. Starknet tokens will also be used to fund certain operating costs for Chainlink oracle nodes, giving Starknet developers access to Chainlink oracle services and data feeds. Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that enables smart contracts to securely access off-chain data sources, APIs, and payment systems. It allows smart contracts to interact with real-world data and events, making it …

The International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO), a.k.a, Interpol, is investigating how it could police crimes in the metaverse. However, a top Interpol executive believes there are issues with defining a metaverse crime. Interpol’s intent to oversee criminal activities on the metaverse was revealed by secretary general Jurgen Stock, according to BBC. Stock highlighted the ability of “sophisticated and professional” criminals to adapt to new technological tools for committing crimes. The move for policing metaverse comes nearly four months after the international organization launched its own metaverse in October 2022, at the 90th Interpol General Assembly in New Delhi, India. During …

The Binance-native blockchain BNB Chain has continued to show steady activity growth in the fourth quarter of 2022 despite the broader crypto bear market according to recent research. In a “State of BNB Chain Q4 2022” report published on Feb. 5, Messari researcher James Trautman revealed that the Binance network had continued with an “aggressive strategy to deploy financial and human capital across its ecosystem.” Due to these ongoing updates and developments, average daily active addresses and transactions “bucked a downward trend and grew by 30% and 0.2%, respectively,” the researcher noted. Bear markets are usually quiet periods in terms …