Crypto

Dfinity founder Dominic Williams believes content creation platforms like OnlyFans are ripe for disruption now that decentralized technologies have become mainstream. He’s inviting developers to build a blockchain-driven content platform on Internet Computer (ICP) — a powerful general-purpose blockchain launched by Dfiniity Foundation earlier this year. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Williams discussed recent attempts by financial institutions to censor adult content creation on OnlyFans, as well as the general outlook on smart contract platforms. Creator-driven platforms are ideal for decentralization In August of this year, major financial institutions such as Bank of New York Mellon, Metro Bank and JPMorgan Chase effectively forced OnlyFans to ban sexually explicit content on its p...

This month, Cointelegraph Research will release a comprehensive report on nonfungible tokens, discussing NFTs in detail and providing a detailed guide to getting into this market.  In collaboration with multiple partners — including Enjin, NFTBank, The Sandbox and others — the report will evaluate the technology behind NFTs, their regulatory challenges, and their prospective growth and current market positions. The report will also outline the hurdles that the market may encounter in the future, and potential ways to overcome them. At the beginning of 2021, there was increased interest in NFTs, with the largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, experiencing a hundredfold sales increase in half a year. The total volume of NFT sales reached $2.5 billion in the first half of 2021, almost ei...

Indian short-video sharing platform Chingari is preparing to launch its own blockchain network and social token. Chingari has completed a $19-million funding round to launch its mainnet and conduct a token sale for its Solana-based GARI token in November, the firm announced on Friday. Chingari co-founder and CEO Sumit Ghosh said that the token sale is scheduled for Nov. 2, while the mainnet launch and application integration are expected to have gone live by the end of that month. Co-led by major blockchain investors such as Republic Crypto and Mike Novogratz’s investment firm, Galaxy Digital, the new raise included over 30 venture funds and individual investors, including Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research, Solana Capital and Kraken crypto exchange. Ghosh stated that the $19-million fun...

As the decentralized finance (DeFi) market continues to pique the interest of investors across the globe, a few incidents have shone a major spotlight on the vulnerabilities various platforms operating within this space are continually exposed to.  For example, it has recently been unveiled that due to a buggy system upgrade, prominent DeFi money market Compound had put approximately $150 million worth of the native COMP tokens at risk of a third-party hack. Even though the error was recognized fairly early as Compound’s developers submitted a fix for the protocol’s bug soon after, it’s worth noting that the upgrade is governed by a seven-day time lock, as a result of which no tangible efforts to resolve the issue could have been enacted until Oct. 7. The proposal to fix the bug has s...

Bitcoin (BTC) faced stiff resistance near previous highs on Oct. 8 as a fresh push over $56,000 quickly ended. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Buying the dip? $53,000 is “logical” Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView tracked BTC/USD as it came off four-month highs of $56,150. The area near $58,000, which had proved a sticking point for bulls earlier in the year, returned to haunt them on the day, something which did not come as a shock to analysts. “Not surprising to see this $56-$58K area providing some resistance as there is a good amount of overhead supply there from earlier this year,” William Clemente commented. “~$53K would be a logical area to buy a dip.” BTC/USD 1-day annotated candle chart (Coinbase). Source: William Clemente/...

Under pressure from regulators around the world, major exchange Binance is looking to establish a headquarters in Ireland. Until now it has operated globally for years under what its chief executive, Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has described as a “decentralized” structure. An Oct. 6 report from Irish media outlet Independant noted that Binance had established three subsidiaries in the country on Sept. 27 — Binance (APAC) Holdings, Binance (Services) Holdings, and Binance Technologies — with CZ listed as the director for each. In an interview with Reuters published the next day, CZ stated that Binance is currently “in the process of establishing a few headquarters in different parts of the world.” When asked if Ireland was part of Binance’s plans for formal headquarters, CZ responded: “Yes, it does...

The amount of Ethereum that is being held by miners has reached record levels in U.S. dollar terms as they remain reluctant to sell. The balance held by Ethereum miners is the largest it has been since shortly after the network was launched five years ago. When converted into USD, it is at a historic peak of $1.85 billion, according to data provided by analytics platform Santiment. The firm stated that the 532,750 ETH is the largest balance held by miners since July 13, 2016. The amount equates to around 0.45% of the total circulating supply of Ethereum which is currently 117.8 million ETH. Ethereum miner balances and price – santiment.net Miners usually sell the asset regularly to cover expenses which include electricity and hardware costs. A reluctance to sell suggests that miners ...

Yat Siu, the co-founder and chairman of NFT game developer Animoca Brands, believes nonfungible tokens offer a new way for culture to be stored in the virtual sphere. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Siu argued that while the technology underpinning NFTs may be new, the desire to “store culture” has long been with us throughout human history. “We describe NFTs as stores of culture, because they embody a moment in history,” he said, adding: “What is art? Art stores culture.” Siu is a Hong Kong-based tech entrepreneur who previously worked at Atari and also founded the Outblaze gaming company. Animoca Brands was founded in 2014 and has released notable NFT projects including The Sandbox, F1 Delta Time and MotoGP Ignition, and it  invested in Dapper Labs, OpenSea and Axie Infinity. Th...

Abracadabra Money’s stablecoin Magic Internet Money (MIM) has surged past a $1 billion total supply this month as the project works to provide competition to MakerDAO. Abracadabra is a cross-chain stablecoin lending protocol that operates on Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Fantom, Avalanche, and Arbitrum. Along with MIM, the project also has a SPELL governance token which can be staked on the protocol. The project describes itself as a “spell book” that enables users to provide collateral via interest-bearing bearing tokens such as yvUSDC, xSUSHI and to borrow the MIM stablecoin against their tokens. “To reverse the spell, the caster simply returns the conjured MIMs to the spell book. Then the magically locked interest-bearing tokens are released,” the website reads. Interest-bearing ...