technology
Near Project’s Octopus Network lays off 40% of its staff amid crypto winter
Octopus Network, a decentralized app chain network natively built on NEAR Protocol, has announced that it will be “refactoring” to adapt to current market conditions. As part of its refactoring process, Octopus network will let go of roughly 40% of its team, which accounts for 12 out of 30 members. The remaining staff will also be subjected to a 20% salary cut, while its team token incentive will be suspended indefinitely. According to Louis Liu, the founder of the Octopus Network, although he has lived through previous crypto winters, “this winter is very different from the others.” Liu said he anticipates that this current “crypto winter will last at least another year, perhaps much longer,” adding that “most Web3 startups will not survive.” To survive the crypto winter, the founde...
Meta Releases Sub-Saharan Africa ‘2022 Year In Review’ highlighting key milestones across the region
Tweet Tweet Share Whatsapp reddit Today, Meta released its `2022 Africa Year in Review, capturing some of the company’s investments and initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa across innovation, its support of SMBs and Creators as well as its work connecting communities. Showcased through an infographic and short video, this highlights Meta’s ongoing milestones and successes across the region, whilst reinforcing its continued investment and commitment to Africa. Commenting, Enitan Denloye, Country Director SSA, Meta said: “We remain invested in Africa and the various communities we support here in the region. Our work continues to be rooted in giving people the power to build community, whilst bringing the world closer together – whether as SMBs, creators or tech innovators...
We Asked the A.I. Program ChatGPT About EDM—It Knew Too Much
Following the release of the now-viral sensation, ChatGPT, it took OpenAI’s eerily sophisticated chatbot just five days to amass over one million users. And it’s become the most successful story at the intersection of artificial intelligence and meteoric tech adoption in the last decade. There’s many reasons why ChatGPT has become an instant hit. Some have called it a creative enhancer, others a search query replacement. But no matter what you think ChatGPT’s future use cases are, there’s no denying it has a tremendous trove of information to draw upon, including niche topics like electronic dance music. Despite our best efforts to stump ChatGPT with absurdly specific questions—and even thought-provoking, nuanced topics—it seems the algorithm has a deeper unde...
Crypto Stories: Dr. Adam Back shares his life of hacks
It’s been a life of hacks for Dr. Adam Back, the CEO and co-founder of Blockstream. One of the few people quoted on the Bitcoin Whitepaper, hacking highlights of Back’s life are brought to life in the latest animated Crypto Story from Cointelegraph’s video team. [embedded content] Over a game of Jenga in a park, Back told Cointelegraph that he’s always had a “kind of security mindset.” From his days as a student, he tinkered with door codes, pin pads and locks, testing out code and gaining access to places he “wasn’t supposed to have access to.” Back talks through the creation of Hash Cash, one of the early attempts at digital money. He uses the “Birthday collision” as an allegory for hash functions, demonstrating his aptitude to breaking down complex functions into intelligible lang...
Crypto community members discuss bank run on Binance
Within the past 24 hours, cryptocurrency exchange Binance has seen outflows of over $1.14 billion due to rising FUD — or fear, uncertainty and doubt — within the crypto ecosystem. According to Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the exchange has seen this before, and he believes “it is a good idea to ‘stress test withdrawals’ on each CEX [centralized exchange] on a rotating basis”. We saw some withdrawals today (net $1.14b ish). We have seen this before. Some days we have net withdrawals; some days we have net deposits. Business as usual for us. I actually think it is a good idea to “stress test withdrawals” on each CEX on a rotating basis. 1/2 https://t.co/uF9lLPDSyS — CZ Binance (@cz_binance) December 13, 2022 The bank run on Binance comes a month after CZ triggered a bank ...
Algorand to support bank and insurance guarantees platform in Italy
Layer-1 blockchain platform Algorand has been chosen as the public blockchain to support an “innovative digital guarantees platform” to be used in Italy’s banking and insurance markets. The Algorand-supported platform is expected to be launched in early 2023. According to Algorand’s Dec. 13 announcement, this is the first time an EU Member State will use blockchain technology for bank and insurance guarantees. A bank guarantee is when a lending institution promises to cover a loss if a borrower defaults on a loan. It’s an alternative to providing a security bond or a deposit to a supplier or vendor. An insurance guarantee is similar but is offered by an insurance company rather than a bank. Algorand said that blockchain technology was ideally suited for the “Di...
This Innovative Smartwatch Comes With Built-In Wireless Earbuds
Huawei’s latest smartwatch is capable of holding and charging wireless earbuds. The innovative, two-in-one watch is called “Watch Buds” and has been confirmed by the Chinese tech giant. “Watch Buds” will feature a digital smartwatch face and ear-bud charging case embedded underneath, according to The Register. Owners will be able to push a button, triggering the watch’s face to open and reveal the underlying earbuds. The design of the “Watch Buds” is similar to Huawei’s Watch GT series, sharing specs like steel casing and a leather strap. It’ll operate on Huawei’s HarmonyOS. Huawei Central received an exclusive look at the Watch Buds. Take a look below. Scroll to Continue Recommended Articles Huawei had originally plann...
Malta prepares to revise regulatory treatment of NFTs
The Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) is currently reviewing requests to revise the “regulatory treatment” of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) within its Virtual Financial Assets Framework. Under the current regulatory framework, NFTs are included within the scope of the Virtual Financial Assets Act, which also includes virtual tokens, virtual financial assets, electronic money, and all financial instruments built, or dependent on, Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). However, the MFSA is proposing to have NFTs removed from the Virtual Financial Assets framework since they’re unique and nonfungible and therefore incapable of being used as payments for goods and services, or for investment purposes. According to the MFSA, “the inclusion of such assets within the scope of the V...
Ankr says no one should trade aBNBc, only LPs ‘caught off guard’ will be compensated
Following yesterday’s confirmed multi-million dollar exploit, BNB Chain based protocol Ankr took to its company blog on Dec. 2 to relay its next steps to users. The team said it was identifying liquidity providers to decentralized exchanges as well as protocols supporting aBNBc or aBNBb LP. The group also said it is assessing aBNBc collateral pools, such as Midas and Helio. According to the post, Ankr intends to purchase $5 million worth of BNB, which it will use to compensate liquidity providers affected by the exploit. Some users speculatively traded diluted aBNBc after the exploit had occurred as well, but the company indicated that these traders won’t be included in the protocol’s recompense measures stating, “we are only able to compensate LP’s caught off...
DAM Finance unvleis out the Moonwalkers v1 testnet
In its quest to introduce a decentralized omnichain stablecoin solution to securely address the liquidity challenges facing the broader decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, DAM Finance has launched the Moonwalker v1 testnet. The Moonwalkers v1 testnet lays the foundation for DAM’s solutions and DAM is expected to introduce its solutions on the mainnet after the testnet phase. This will provide users with a wide range of assets including yield-generating collateral. Using the Moonwalker V1 testnet The Moonwalker v1 testnet has been deployed on both Ethereum’s Goerli Testnet and Moonbeam’s Moonbase Alpha, an EVM-compatible chain built on Polkadot. DAM community members will be able to mint DAM’s decentralized omnichain stablecoin d20 directly using existing stablecoins like USDC on Ethere...
SubQuery extends its data indexing support to Flare Network
SubQuery has today announced integration with Flare Network. The integration, which came shortly after SubQuery received a grant from the Flare Ecosystem Support Programme, will allow SubQuery to extend its data indexing support to Flare Network. Flare Network’s cross-chain approach is consistent with SubQuery’s main objective of becoming the universal blockchain indexing tool for Web3 developers. Flare Network provides a simple and coherent stack for decentralized interoperability for developers, allowing them to develop dApps that serve multiple chains through a single deployment. Flare Network also supports EVM-based smart contracts and has in-built data and interoperability infrastructure. This provides dApps with highly decentralized price feeds and secure state acquisition from other...
How blockchain technology is used in supply chain management?
To trace the activities along the supply chain more efficiently, concerned parties can access price, date, origin, quality, certification, destination and other pertinent information using blockchain. Traceability, as used in the supply chain sector, is the capacity to pinpoint the previous and current locations of inventory and a record of product custody. It involves tracking products as they move through a convoluted process, from raw materials to merchants and customers, after passing through many geographic zones. Traceability is one of the significant benefits of blockchain-driven supply chain innovations. As blockchain consists of decentralized open-source ledgers recording data, which is replicable among users, transactions happen in real-time. As a result, the blockchain can build...
