The celebrated union between blockchain and gaming has encountered several hurdles that have left many wondering if the new sector of crypto and gaming will ever live up to its potential. In the fifth episode of the Hashing It Out podcast, Cointelegraph’s Elisha Owusu Akyaw and Animoca Brands CEO, Robby Yung, discuss how the blockchain gaming industry is striving forward regardless of the challenges. Robby Yung believes that there are issues on both sides. Regarding blockchain developers, Yung argues that the industry has not been able to educate the masses on the benefits of blockchain technology. According to Yung, people …

The metaverse continues to be a central talking point among leaders and decision-makers in global industries. For many, the vision of the future of the metaverse is not limited to a gamified version of reality. At the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2023 in Davos, Switzerland, a panel of experts came together to discuss a global idea of an industrialized metaverse. With echoes of the industrial revolution, the industrialized metaverse will bring Web3 technologies and beyond into industries that are at play in everyday life. “Deployment in the Industrialized Metaverse” started out with Abdullah Alswaha, the minister of communications and information …

The metaverse has been a buzzword inside and out of the Web3 world over the last year. Moreover, development in the metaverse is something that has remained strong relative to the overall turmoil of the decentralized space. It is also a hot topic at the 2023 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. The WEF has been developing its own initiative, “Defining and Building the Metaverse,” with the participation of over 120 participants, for which it held a press conference on Jan. 18. The WEF panel highlighted the initiative’s first two papers, which cover interoperability, governance and the consumer’s role …

National Australia Bank (NAB) is set to become the second “Big 4” Australian bank to launch an Australian dollar-pegged stablecoin on the Ethereum network. Set to launch sometime in mid-2023, the AUDN stablecoin is aimed at streamlining cross-border remittances and carbon credit trading, according to a Jan. 18 report from the Australian Financial Review (AFR). NAB’s chief innovation officer Howard Silby said the decision to mint the AUDN stablecoin on Ethereum — which is backed 1:1 by the Australian dollar (AUD) — was based on their belief that blockchain infrastructure will play a key role in the next evolution of …

Ethereum layer-2 networks have gone through an explosive growth phase over the past couple of months a trend that is set to continue in 2023. According to recent data, the leading layer-2 networks have seen an increase in daily active users which has translated into a growth in fees for the respective ecosystems. According to analytics provider Token Terminal, Polygon leads the pack with 313,457 daily active users as of Jan. 17. Additionally, the metric spiked to over 600,000 daily active users earlier in January. It marks a 30% increase in activity since the beginning of October 2022 which has …

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse expects the firm’s long-running dispute with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) will be finalized within “single-digit months” and remains confident in securing a favorable outcome. Speaking to CNBC on Jan. 18 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Garlinghouse said the verdict could come as soon as June this year now that both parties have “fully filled and fully briefed” their arguments before the U.S. District Court: “We expect a decision from a judge certainly in 2023. You don’t really have control over when a judge makes their decisions. But I’m optimistic that sometime in …

ConsenSys, the parent company behind MetaMask, is letting go of 11% of its workforce, with CEO Joseph Lubin blaming “uncertain market conditions” brought on by recent collapses. In a blog post from ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin on Jan. 18, the blockchain firm CEO said “poorly behaved” centralized finance (CeFi) actors have cast a “broad pall on our ecosystem that we will all need to work through.” Lubin said the decision will impact 96 employees and is part of plans to focus its resources on its core businesses. Today we need to make the extremely difficult decision to streamline some of …

The Digital Dollar Project (DDP) released a new version of its white paper "Exploring a U.S. CBDC" on Jan. 18. The project expanded the paper in order to examine central bank digital currency projects internationally, though its focus is still on the United States. The DDP introduced its “champion model” of an intermediated wholesale and retail CBDC in the first version of the paper in May 2020. Since that time, CBDC projects worldwide have increased from 35 to 114. The updated DDP paper retained the core tenets of the champion, such as those on privacy and monetary policy, and it …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) is on its way from becoming a small niche within the financial industry to something traditional finance (TradFi) is trying to incorporate. In an interview with Cointelegraph at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, Emin Gun Sirer, the co-founder and CEO of Ava Labs, spoke on DeFi’s role in TradFi ecosystems and what users can expect in a future where both are on center stage. Sirer stressed that the purpose of DeFi is not to attack or be an enemy to TradFi, but rather complement it, at least initially. “I don’t think DeFi is meant …

Research shows that Dogecoin (DOGE) was the only memecoin in 2022 to proactively reduce its carbon footprint — a key metric for mainstream adoption — by 25% in one year, thanks to the intervention of developers and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. One of the main reasons why Musk backtracked on accepting Bitcoin (BTC) payments for Tesla was high carbon emissions. At the time, he believed that Dogecoin — “even though it was created as a silly joke” — was better suited for transactions. Working with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, …

Controversial Fox news television host Tucker Carlson has proposed a curious conspiracy theory that seeks to link airline delays in the United States and Canada with a surge in the Bitcoin price. He suggested the computer outage behind the widespread delays may have been caused by ransomware and theorized the US Government may have bought a large amount of Bitcoin to pay the ransom. However he did not provide any evidence for his claims. Speaking on his “Tucker Carlson Tonight” segment of Fox News on Jan. 17, Carlson argued that the Bitcoin (BTC) price increased 20%+ soon after the U.S. …

The notion that bear markets are good for builders appears to be true with the total number of monthly active Web3 developers increasing 5.4% to more than 23,300 over the last 12 months despite a near 70% drop in crypto prices. According to a Jan. 16 report from Electric Capital, “full-time” developers — categorized as those who contribute to 76% of Github commits — also increased 15.2% to over 7000, while “one-time” builders fell 6.2% to over 3,500 during the same time period between December 2021 and December 2022 Despite the crypto market capitalization beginning its long plunge from from …