Author: Jeremy Ryan

South African Reserve Bank (SARB) governor Lesetja Kganyago highlighted issues surrounding the introduction of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) at the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2023, held in Davos, Switzerland. In a WEF 2023 panel discussion dubbed “In the Face of Fragility: Central Bank Digital Currencies” Kganyago voiced his opinions on CBDCs and questioned if there’s a real problem solved by this new technology. Kganyago said: “Is this a solution looking for a problem or do we have some real problem that we are trying to solve?”The central bank governor also highlighted that the countries that are researching and looking to…

NFT Web3 infrastructure firm MoonPay made its first acquisition, scooping up creative studio Nightshift for an undisclosed amount. Nightshift, based in Toronto, will rebrand to Otherlife by MoonPay in the wake of the deal, according to a company release. Having first started as a fintech, offering a way to buy crypto products with fiat currency, MoonPay has made a play for the NFT space over the last year. In June, it launched Hypermint, a service that lets brands mint up to 100 million digital assets at once. The company partnered with entertainment giant Universal Pictures to roll out an NFT-based…

Blockchain When he’s not working on hastening humanity’s rush toward the Singularity by creating an artificial general intelligence (AGI), Ben Goertzel plays in a jazz-rock band called Jam Galaxy fronted by a robot named Desdemona. It’s one of his many side projects, which naturally led him to try and tokenize the music business by reaching out to members of Pearl Jam and Heart. Goertzel is also working on longevity research by crowdsourcing human health data with token rewards via an app called Rejuve.ai. That information is then pooled with animal and insect study data and analyzed with an AI to…

Grails are back, better than ever! The PROOF Collective is kicking off the festivities with a first look at the highly-anticipated Season III artwork. The Grails Season III mint is live and will be open for the next 7 days.PROOF-curated Grails: Season III introduces 20 new artists and some exciting elements to their collections. Featuring limited supply items with lower mint quantities, this Grails season has something special for every kind of collector. Here’s the catch – Grails now have a hard cap on total supply, so grab the pieces you love before they run out!Grails Season III mint is…

Blockchain The Amazon Web Services (AWS)-Avalanche “cooperation,” as it was carefully described last week, should almost immediately make it easy for developers to establish nodes on the Avalanche blockchain, including via “one-click node deployment.” Eventually, too, it might make it simpler for everyday businesses — i.e., non-crypto-related enterprises — and even individuals to establish their own subnets like smaller, private, layer-2 blockchains. But perhaps the outstanding message from the Jan. 11 announcement is that the blockchain revolution isn’t just about cryptocurrencies. It’s also about things as prosaic as storing documents more securely and sensibly so they can be quickly retrieved…

Blockchain Cross-chain bridge protocol Stargate has integrated with the Layer 2 Ethereum scaling solution Metis in its first blockchain expansion since it was launched by LayerZero Labs in March last year. Stargate’s integration with Metis aims to provide more flexibility for projects managing their funds, treasury, and yield strategies, according to an announcement. “Web3 represents community and decentralization, both of which must begin at the infrastructural level. We firmly believe that, alongside the Stargate team, our partnership is a major step toward eliminating the barriers between blockchains and opening the doors to a more decentralized, multi-chain economy,” said Metis CEO…

Blockchain Cross-chain bridge protocol Stargate Finance integrates with Ethereum layer 2 platform Metis, to enable more flexible and secured cross-chain applications for users. The partnership is being pitched as a way to allow Stargate – a protocol built by LayerZero Labs – to give projects more flexibility when building decentralized finance (DeFi) applications across different blockchains. Read more: What Are Blockchain Bridges and How Do They Work? “Stargate’s expansion to Metis will leverage LayerZero technology to enable greater flexibility for projects to manage their funds, treasury, and yield strategies,” the company said in a statement. Stargate had about $350 million…

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 into industries that are at play in everyday life.The “Deployment in the Industrialized Metaverse” discussion started out with Abdullah Alswaha, the minister of communications and information technology in…

NFT Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s NFT collection rose 133% in the last 24 hours to 0.3738 ETH which is roughly $570 as of press time. The NFT collection was involved in 961 transactions in the last 24 hours, and its sales volume surged 1687% to 316 ETH, according to OpenSea data. The 45,000 NFTs currently have 14,677 owners, representing a 33% unique ownership rate. CryptoSlam’s data shows that the collection’s sales volume in the last seven days was above $770,000. Crypto data aggregator Coingecko tied the uptick to reports of Trump’s planned return to social media platforms Twitter and…

The final vote on the European Union’s (EU) much-awaited set of crypto rules, known as the Markets in Crypto Assets regulation (MiCA), was deferred to April 2023. It marks the second delay in the final vote, which was previously postponed from November 2022 to February 2023.The latest delay is due to a technical issue where the official 400-page document couldn’t be translated into the 24 official languages of the EU, according to The Block. Legal documents like the MiCA, which are drafted in English, must comply with EU regulations and be published in all 24 official languages of the union.The…