Crypto
Wazupnaija – Naija Entertainment blogs & Forums – Business – Crypto
‘Legacy’ NFT prices are soaring, but exactly what makes a collection a blue-chip?
Blue-chip NFTs is a popular buzzword one will find strewn across Twitter and various crypto media. The term, “blue chip,” is borrowed from traditional finance where stocks that are considered to be the well-established extension of corporations known for their quality, reliability and financial stability. But, exactly what are blue chip NFTs and how are they identified? Nansen research analyst Louisa Choe, comments to Cointelegraph that since NFTs are still nascent “…it is sometimes challenging to apply this criteria since NFT as an asset class is still evolving.” The general consensus is that the much sought after blue chip is the asset with the least amount of volatility, meaning it sustains its value over time. Let’s explore a few of the factors that play into determining wh...
The Metaverse needs to keep an eye on privacy to avoid Meta’s mistakes
Metaverse skeptics fear the prospect of unprotected data and large-scale user surveillance on a scale never seen before. Ironically, the largest company pushing the Metaverse, Meta (previously known as Facebook), has faced its own fair share of privacy scandals in the internet’s current iteration, culminating in Mark Zuckerberg being infamously hauled before the United States Congress to answer for Facebook’s inability to combat hate speech and data privacy violations. In a U.S. Senate committee hearing, whistleblower Frances Haugen accused Meta of prioritizing “profit over the well-being of children and all users” when it came to creating manipulative algorithms that tap behavioral data to persuade users into spending more time on the platform. The controversy hasn’t weakened Facebo...
Macron or Le Pen: What promise does each presidential candidate hold for crypto?
As France braces for the April 24 presidential election in a runoff, political pundits around the globe are making their bets. The choice is between the centrist incumbent Emmanuel Macron and right-wing populist Marine Le Pen. Much of the political debate this time revolves around economics, but there is one indispensable part of it that is largely absent from the candidates’ electoral agendas: digital assets. While both have a record of public statements on matters related to crypto, neither Macron nor Le Pen seems to be likely to trigger any significant policy change with regard to the French digital economy. State of the art Despite the current administration’s notable efforts to embrace the IT industry, France is still, in many ways, not a particularly tech-friendly country. For ...
How to use Minecraft to understand the Metaverse and Web3
What is the Metaverse? The Metaverse is a term coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash to describe a future virtual reality-based online world. Some have gone as far as pronouncing Stephenson’s novel a prediction of the future. Before you agree that it’s some mystical peek into the future and invoke the rules of time travel, let’s first investigate what the Metaverse is through the lens of something much more accessible: Minecraft. But, more on this later. Unlike the internet or even virtual reality as we know it today, the Metaverse would be a fully immersive 3D environment where people could interact with each other and with digital objects as if they were real. The Metaverse is yet to be fully existent. However, some platforms have already created experien...
Green finance needs voluntary carbon markets that work
The United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland catalyzed a commitment to carbon neutrality, achieving net-zero carbon emissions, requiring reducing emissions as much as possible, and balancing the remaining emissions with the purchase of carbon credits. A carbon credit reduces, avoids or removes carbon emissions in one place to compensate for unavoidable emissions somewhere else through certified green-energy projects. Carbon credits represent one ton in carbon emission reduction. They are 1) Avoidance or reduction projects — e.g., renewable energy (wind, solar, hydro, biogas) — and 2) Removal or sequestration — e.g., reforestation and direct carbon capture, which are aimed at the voluntary carbon market (VCM). Carbon credits can be resold multiple times...
Memecoins eye major revamps in an effort to return to their former glory
Memecoins briefly took the cryptocurrency market by storm in 2021 after steady attention and shilling from big-name influencers like Elon Musk and Mark Cuban helped propel coins like Dogecoin (DOGE) to 100x gains. As one should expect, in the crypto market, rapidly rising prices have a tendency to reverse course just as fast and many of the formerly high-flying meme tokens now find themselves struggling for survival as the market matures and investors look for real-world use cases. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular memecoins of 2021 to see whether they were just a flash in the pan or if there are fundamental developments that may prove fruitful in the long-term. Dogecoin DOGE is the original memecoin and it helped kick off the rally of ‘21 after its price skyrockete...
US Treasury Dept sanctions 3 Ethereum addresses allegedly linked to North Korea
The United States Treasury Department has added three Ethereum wallet addresses to sanctions allegedly linked to the hacker group responsible for the theft of more than $600 million in crypto from nonfungible token game Axie Infinity’s Ronin sidechain. In a Friday update, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, listed three Ethereum addresses to its Specially Designated Nationals restrictions for North Korea’s Lazarus Group. U.S. authorities, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, have targeted the group over its alleged role in taking more than 173,600 Ether (ETH) and 25.5 million USD Coin (USDC) from the Ronin sidechain in March — the tokens were worth more than $600 million at the time. The U.S...
Altcoin Roundup: Crypto indexes offer broad access, but are they profitable in the long run?
The cryptocurrency market is known for its high volatility and the wild-west nature of the space is, in part, due to many of the assets having small market caps and the 24/7 operational hours of centralized and decentralized exchanges (DEXs). In addition to being high risk, crypto trading can also be a very time-intensive process. It can be an overwhelming task and a barrier to entry for most investors in determining which tokens to invest in. For these investors, index investing could be a profitable alternative for gaining exposure to some of the hottest sectors of the cryptocurrency market. Here’s a look at how crypto index products compare to individual tokens and which strategies have produced the biggest return. Index Cooperative Index Cooperative (INDEX) is a decentralized autonomou...
The new HM Treasury regulations: The good, the bad and the ugly
As the 2021-2022 United Kingdom tax year finished on April 5, 2022, Her Majesty’s Treasury announced they were paving the way for the U.K. to become a global crypto asset technology hub. This could mean that the previously not particularly crypto-friendly U.K. is changing its strategy and trying its hand at making crypto investments more attractive. But what are the potential scenarios at play? The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), a financial regulatory body in the U.K., in its “Cryptoasset consumer research 2021” report, shows that approximately 2.3. million adult U.K. citizens held crypto in 2021, a 21% rise year-over-year. It seems natural that with rising interest and potential crypto mass adoption, HM Treasury would revisit its crypto regulations. This is especially true when ...
Bitcoin’s 30-day correlation with tech stocks hits July 2020 numbers
The Fed’s decision to tighten monetary policy has primarily caused this increased correlation Bitcoin’s correlation with the dollar strength index is as high as March 2020 Analysts at Arcane Research have published a report detailing that Bitcoin’s 30-day correlation with the stocks has reached heights not seen since July 2020. The post revealed that the flagship crypto’s correlation with gold is now at an all-time low, all of which are bearish indicators for the leading digital asset token. Further, it also noted that Bitcoin’s correlation to the U.S. Dollar index had reached 0.53, the highest since March 2020, as the dollar continues regaining strength. Impact of the U.S. Fed policy One huge cause for this shift is the U.S. Federal Reserve policy. While the leading digital asset by...
How Web 3.0 apps must adapt to become next-gen of tech, explained
Unlike Web 2.0 applications, offerings built on Web 3.0 are enabling users with true data ownership. Web 2.0 brought about a major change to how the world views the internet, introducing online platforms like TikTok, Twitter, Meta (former Facebook) and Instagram, among others. Although valuable in the number of opportunities made available, Web 2.0 has brought concerns about data ownership. With users spending more time online, their data, including what they like, the content they create and other details about themselves, are being shared with big tech companies, many of which have been caught in data scandals in the past and paid their way out of it. Web 3.0 addresses these concerns by presenting a new reality for application usage. Leveraging verifiable, trustless, self-governing, perm...
Here’s how the Akutars NFT project hopes to redefine how culture intersects with Web3
Since the wake of the nonfungible token (NFT) boom, creators have been leaving their Web2 entities in droves and are carving their own lanes in the Web3 world. It’s not just technologists and artsy-creators who are pivoting toward Web3. For example, former American professional baseball player Micah Johnson pivoted to painting and focused his pieces on representation. In debuting his first digital piece, sä-v(ə-)rən-tē (pronounced “sovereignty’) Johnson was not only fueled by adversity but inspired by a question that would change the trajectory of his work. “Can astronauts be black?” Johnson’s four-year-old nephew asked his mother. Alas, the main character of “Akuverse” was created in February 2021. Aku is a physical depiction of the confidence and boldn...
