What are the challenges with Web3 For mainstream adoption of Web3, prevalent challenges need to be dealt with. These include centralized infrastructure, lack of regulatory clarity and rug pulls. While Web3 is perceived to be decentralized, developers integrate Web3 applications with Web2 protocols to make them work. This creates a scenario where functioning of decentralized applications is hinged to a centralized infrastructure. Another major challenge before Web3 is a lack of regulatory clarity. Blockchain technologies are advancing fast, and regulators will take time to catch up. Absence of regulatory oversight has led to unethical behavior in some projects as happened …

The fall of FTX seemingly had the biggest impact on the crypto ecosystem as Google searches for the CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) hit the roof over in November 2022. Some of the biggest drivers for this trend include mainstream media attention, colossal losses and political ties. On Nov. 2, SBF lost his credibility after his company Alameda Research was found holding a large amount of FTX Token (FTT), an asset issued by FTX. Over the following two weeks, the crypto community investigated and found SBF guilty of manipulating and misappropriating users’ funds, ultimately leading to the fall of the empire …

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has confirmed that he intends on integrating payments into what he describes as Twitter 2.0 — “The Everything App” — fuelling a short-lived 19.4% price surge for meme-inspired cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE). The new Twitter CEO revealed his plans in a Nov. 27 tweet to his 119.2 million followers, in which he shared several slides from a recent “Twitter company talk.” Slides from my Twitter company talk pic.twitter.com/8LLXrwylta — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 27, 2022 While Musk made no mention of DOGE in the tweet or in the attached slides, this didn’t appear to stop some investors …

The collapse of the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX has raised many concerns over unregulated centralized platforms. Investors are now coming to question how safe it is to keep one’s funds on these exchanges and have voiced grave concerns about centralized decision-making without any checks. FTX held one billion in a customer’s fund and was found to be using the customer-deposited crypto assets to mitigate its own business losses. Furthermore, a recent report suggests that the downfall of numerous crypto exchanges over the last decade has permanently taken 1.2 million Bitcoin (BTC) — almost 6% of all Bitcoin — out of …

Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized monopoly in global financial payment systems and called for an independent and blockchain-based settlement network on Nov 24, speaking at the International AI Journey Conference in Moscow. During the event organized by Sberbank, the largest Russian bank and a major lender to the government, he stated: "The technology of digital currencies and blockchains can be used to create a new system of international settlements that will be much more convenient, absolutely safe for its users and, most importantly, will not depend on banks or interference by third countries. I am confident that something like this …

The revenue earned by Bitcoin (BTC) miners fell to two-year lows owing to poor market performance and a heavier computational demand amid rising network difficulty. However, an ongoing downturn in the Bitcoin hash rate over the past month has allowed miners to recoup losses. The total Bitcoin mining revenue — block rewards and transaction fees — in U.S. dollars fell down to $11.67 million, a number last seen on Nov. 2, 2020, when Bitcoin’s trading price was around $13,500. While the current market price of around $16,500 suggests an obvious increase in mining revenue, factors including greater mining difficulty and …

Many of the centralized cryptocurrency platforms that collapsed this year had something in common: a young, outspoken and cocky leader. Each gained outsized influence not by virtue of outsized intellect or talent but because of their piles of money and large Twitter followings. And each time, misplaced trust in their abilities resulted in disastrous consequences. If crypto wants to avoid similar catastrophes in the future, it’s time for us to rearrange our leadership priorities. We need to ditch the cults of personality. The theater of crypto on Twitter Before FTX collapsed, founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) had garnered a reputation as …

Just a month after becoming the first Canadian crypto trading platform to get registered by the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC), Coinsquare suffered a data breach that compromised users' personal information. On Nov. 19, Coinsquare had to temporarily shut down operations to investigate an unusual activity on its platform. However, several days of proactive measures allowed Coinsquare to resume operations gradually. We will be re-enabling crypto deposits shortly after the maintenance window with crypto withdrawals to follow shortly after. — Coinsquare (@Coinsquare) November 22, 2022 In a follow-up email to investors, Coinsquare admitted that their customer database with …

While regulations are often aimed at protecting citizens from bad actors, the effectiveness of crypto regulations in the United States is in question owing to the colossal fall of major exchanges and ecosystems over the past year — FTX, Celsius, Voyager, and Terra (LUNA). Congressman Tom Emmer showed concerns about the oversight strategy implemented by Gary Gensler, the chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the crypto ecosystem. Emmer has been vocal against Gensler's “indiscriminate and inconsistent approach” toward crypto oversight. On March 16, the Congressman revealed being approached by numerous crypto and blockchain firms that believed …

Zero-knowledge (ZK)-Rollup tech company StarkWare has officially open sourced its new programming language compiler, Cairo 1.0, which will soon be supported on Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution StarkNet in Q1 2023. The news was announced by StarkWare — the company behind StarkNet — in a Nov. 25 Twitter post. StarkWare’s rollup technology and recursive proofs offer the potential to compress millions of transactions on L2 into a single transaction on Ethereum, however the project has been criticized for maintaining control over its IP, not least of all by its more open source focused competitor zkSync. StarkWare described open sourcing Cairo as …

Belgium’s financial regulatory body has confirmed its position that Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and other cryptocurrencies that are issued solely by computer code do not constitute securities. The explanation came from Belgium's Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) in a Nov. 22 report, a draft of which was opened for comment in Jul. 2022. The clarification comes following an increase in demands for answers as to how Belgium’s existing financial laws and regulations apply to digital assets, according to the FSMA. While not legally binding under Belgium or European Union law, the FSMA stated that under its “stepwise plan,” cryptocurrencies …

Mobile money has been a strong competitor to central bank digital currency (CBDC) in Africa, but many of the continent’s central bankers have greater faith CBDC, according to a Bank for International Settlements (BIS) report published Nov. 24. African central bankers also saw greater utility in CBDC for implementing monetary policy than bankers in other parts of the world, according to the BIS. Nineteen African central banks responded to the survey that served as a basis for the report, and all of them stated that they were actively interested in CBDC. Only Nigeria has issued a retail CBDC, the eNaira, …