Shark Tank investor and venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary has urged crypto exchanges to “get on board with regulation” if they want to “stay out of the way” of Gary Gensler and the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). In a Feb. 20 interview with TraderTV Live, O’Leary said that U.S. lawmakers are “fatigued” over crypto collapses and that they’re only going to get more ruthless if companies continue to not comply: “You got to get on board with regulation, you got to stay out of the way of Gensler at the SEC and other regulators. Those hombres [men] in Washington …

As artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly works its complex magic on one sector of the economy after another, there is an increasingly pressing need for compute resources to power all this machine intelligence. Training a model like ChatGPT costs more than $5 million, and running the early ChatGPT demo, even before usage increased to its current level, costs OpenAI around $100,000 per day. And AI is more than just text generation; applying AI to practical problems across multiple industries requires similar large neural models trained on a diversity of data types — medical, financial, customer information, geospatial and so forth. Moving …

In early February, Cointelegraph started unveiling its 2023 Top 100 list of the finest heroes and worst villains expected to impact the crypto and blockchain space in the year ahead. The list compiles the votes of Cointelegraph readers and staff who decided which players had the most significant impact on the sector in 2022 and who will likely make the biggest splash in 2023. Profiles have been released in batches of 10, starting from No. 100. Profiles 21–30 dropped on Feb. 17, with Sebastian Borget, co-founder and chief operating officer of The Sandbox, at No. 30; Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal …

The use of blockchain technology in the healthcare industry has the potential to revolutionize the way medical records are managed, medical research is conducted and patient care is delivered. Here are nine promising use cases for blockchain in healthcare. Medical record management Medical records can be safely stored and managed using blockchain, improving accessibility for patients and healthcare professionals. Patients’ ability to control access to their medical records enhances security and privacy. One example is MedRec, a blockchain-based system for managing medical information created by MIT researchers. MIT Professor Andrew Lippman says the goal of the MedRec project is to …

The crypto community is continually looking for ways to bridge the gap between traditional finance (TradFi) and fiat currencies with decentralized financial (DeFi) tools. Crypto onramp platforms are a primary way users are able to cross between these two financial ecosystems. However, a new report from Cointelegraph Research and Onramper, a crypto-based financial services provider, revealed that 50% of fiat-crypto transactions fail, even after KYC completion. Moreover, due to difficulties in the transaction process, transaction abandonment during the purchase flow can be as high as 90%. The survey looked at 9 of the largest fiat-crypto onramps including Coinify, Moonpay, Transak …

A new study by DECTA highlighted the importance of embedded finance features in today's fintech world. With online shopping and digital payments becoming a norm, the study pointed towards some of the key drivers for a seamless experience for customers. Embedded finance is a new type of software distribution that works with financial infrastructure providers to include financial services in the ecosystems of already-existing products. The most common embedded finance offerings include banking, lending, insurance, payments and branded credit cards. According to the study, quick payments and the availability of a selected payment option are the most crucial elements for …

Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) calls for public feedback on its newly proposed licensing regime for cryptocurrency exchanges set to take effect from June 2023. A key consideration of the public consultation window is whether to allow licensed exchanges to serve retail investors in the country and what measures should be implemented to provide a range of ‘robust investor protection measures.’ The SFC announced the consultation process on Feb. 20, outlining a new licensing regime for the industry which proposes that all centralized cryptocurrency trading platforms operating in Hong Kong must be licensed with the regulatory body. The …

Crypto's next bull run will start in Asia, according to Cameron Winklevoss, an American investor, and co-founder of crypto exchange Gemini. His comments have come amid an increase in enforcement action and looming crackdowns from United States regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). “My working thesis atm is that the next bull run is going to start in the East,” said Winklevoss in a Twitter post on Feb. 19. "It will be a humbling reminder that crypto is a global asset class and that the West, really the US, always only ever had two options: embrace it or …

A 48% Bitcoin (BTC) price surge since the start of the year has pushed BTC's market cap past that of payment processing giant Visa once again. With the BTC price currently at $24,365, its market cap of $470.16 billion is now marginally above that of Visa with a market cap of $469.87 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. This is the third time that BTC has "flippened" the market cap of Visa, according to Companies Market Cap. The first time came in late December 2020 when BTC also happened to hit $25,000 for the first time. This was achieved during a price …

The network effect is a phenomenon where the value of a product or service increases as more people use it. As the user base grows, there are more opportunities for interactions, which can lead to increased benefits and positive outcomes for each user. The network effect is a powerful driver of growth and adoption for many technologies and platforms, including social media, messaging apps and marketplaces. The network effect and cryptocurrencies The network effect is also a central concept in the world of cryptocurrency. In general, it means that a cryptocurrency’s value rises as more people use it. This is …

Bank of Zambia and the country's securities regulator are "testing technology" to enable the regulation of cryptocurrencies, said Technology and Science minister Felix Mutati on the ministry's website. The country's move aims to "achieve an inclusive digital economy." Speaking in the city of Lusaka, Zambia's capital, the minister claimed that "cryptocurrency is the future that the country desires to achieve", but a policy framework is required to support this "revolutionary technology." According to Mutati: "[...] the testing of the technology on regulating cryptocurrency will be upscaled in due course as part of deliberate measures to achieve an inclusive digital economy …

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) offer a new way to sell and distribute digital art, and they have the potential to unlock new revenue streams for artists in the digital age. Here are five ways to monetize your digital art with NFTs. Fractionalized ownership This involves splitting the ownership of an artwork into smaller parts and selling them as tokens, allowing multiple investors to own a stake in the artwork. For example, an artist can create 100 tokens for a piece of art and sell them to 100 different buyers, each of whom owns a share of the artwork. Related: How do …