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Tech entrepreneur and billionaire Mark Cuban expressed interest in a transformative crypto real estate project to integrate smart contracts and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to facilitate construction and urban development. This development follows a proposal by Jason Calacanis, a serial entrepreneur, to build ten new cities across the US, each housing a million units. These cities are envisioned to redefine urban living with an emphasis on sustainability and affordability. Cuban’s vision for crypto-driven real estate Cuban took the conversation a step further. The billionaire investor’s proposal involves utilizing a blockchain -based smart contract that operates on a layer-2 scaling solution to ensure privacy and efficiency. So you are saying you will have written a smart contract on a ZK L2 which will check for a construction permit being issued , which in turn will create and send me an NFT that unlocks and delivers 250k in USDC when the oracle checks property and uti...

OKX launches its Layer-2 blockchain, leveraging Polygon’s technology, to enhance digital transaction efficiency. Leading crypto exchange OKX has introduced its own exclusive Layer-2 blockchain , the X1 chain , leveraging technology from Polygon. This move places OKX in a growing league of exchanges actively developing secondary networks to enhance the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of digital asset transactions. Hot Off The Press We're thrilled to introduce #X1, our new Ethereum L2 network built on Polygon's CDK. Our landmark collab. with @0xPolygonLabs empowers next gen. devs. with increased security, scalability & low transaction costs to BUIDL the future of Web3. pic.twitter.com/Wkz11vu2be — OKX (@okx) November 14, 2023 This strategic step by OKX follows the trend set by major players like Coinbase, which launched its Base blockchain in August, quickly attracting developer and user interest. Bloomberg reports that Kraken, another major exchange, i...

Cathay Securities is permitted to issue $930,000 worth of tokenized green bonds every six months. Taiwan's financial watchdog, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), has awarded the country's first security token offering (STO) license to Cathay Securities. According to local news reports on Nov. 9, Cathay received regulatory approval for its "Sunshine Green Yield" STO bonds with a time to maturity of six years, initial annual interest of 3.5%, and an initial principal amount of 30 million New Taiwan Dollars ($0.93 million). Through the token subscriptions, enterprise owners can purchase green electricity on the market for environmental, social, and corporate governance initiatives under favorable conditions and receive variable interest rate payments of up to 5.8% per year. Trading for the Subshine Green Yield bonds will debut on Dec. 12 on Cathay's in-house STO exchange platform. Since 2019, the FSC has classified token ized assets as securities, with ...

Shibarium’s beta phase saw a total of 21 million wallets on the L2, driving the interest of users months before the launch. Shiba Inu launched the Shibarium mainnet , an Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution, on Aug. 16 after months of testing that saw millions of users participate and 21 million wallets created. Shibarium is built on a new consensus mechanism called proof-of-participation (PoP), which works by selecting validators in proportion to their quantity of holdings in the associated cryptocurrency. This is done to avoid the computational cost of proof-of-work schemes. The new L2 blockchain solution is designed to interact with the primary Ethereum layer-1 blockchain , providing a more scalable and cost-effective transaction platform. Shiba Inu (SHIB) rose to popularity during the bull market of 2020–2021, even briefly overtaking the OG meme cryptocurrency, Dogecoin (DOGE). However, it couldn’t hold onto its gains for long and lost more than 80% of its valuation during the bear ...

Despite the downturn in the NFT industry, Reddit continues to attract new holders of digital collectibles issues on blockchain. Social media platform Reddit continues exploring digital collectibles despite a significant downturn in the non-fungible tokens (NFT) industry. According to an official announcement on r/CollectibleAvatars, Reddit will drop its latest series of collectible avatars on July 26. According to social media reports, the new drop will be launched at 3:00 pm Eastern Time. Titled “Retro Reimagined,” Reddit’s new collectibles drop will be the fourth generation of collectible avatars launched since the platform debuted the project in July 2022. Just like all previous generations, the latest drop will be issued on the Polygon blockchain and will be available for decentralized trading and third-party sales. Reddit’s Gen 4 CollectibleAvatars’ teaser. Source: Reddit The new drop of Reddit’s collectible avatars brings fresh designs from new and existing creators, including r...

The decentralized game publisher said their team has witnessed a significant rise in phishing attempts within their community and in the Arbitrum ecosystem. A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) focusing on gaming has recently warned its users that some of its X accounts were compromised. The company reminded its community that they don’t have airdrop s, new mints or anything else planned.  In a tweet published on July 24, decentralized game publisher Treasure posted that their X accounts Playontreasure and Playbridgeworld were taken over by hackers. The organization warned users to refrain from interacting with links shared by the accounts. PSA Please do not interact with links shared by @PlayOnTreasure + @playbridgeworld at this time. The accounts have unfortunately been hacked and we are working to regain access. There is NO airdrop , new mint of TreasureTags, or anything else planned for today. Be safe. — Treasure (@Treasure_DAO) July 24, 2023 After working to r...

DeFi's rapid growth offers new investment opportunities, but complex processes exclude retail users. Automated trading infrastructure can bridge the gap. Decentralized finance (DeFi) is one of the most critical use cases of blockchain technology. Despite the dramatic decline that has left the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi at about 20% of its peak ($248.8 billion in November 2021 compared to $48.6 billion in April 2023), the trend is here to stay and has the potential to recover in the coming years. The main argument for DeFi’s continued growth concerns the unmatched benefits of having financial services built on decentralized infrastructures. As DeFi continues to evolve, crypto holders have access to many yield-generating opportunities. For example, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) reward liquidity providers (LPs) from the fees generated on their platforms. There are also other investment options like lending, staking or yield farming. However, it is more difficult for retail in...

While total year-over-year losses to hackers dropped 58%, BNB Chain saw 119 security incidents leading to losses of around $70 million, followed by Ethereum, with 55 incidents netting hackers over $65 million. More than $300 million in digital assets were lost to crypto hacks and exploits in the second quarter of 2023, according to on-chain data compiled in the quarterly report by the blockchain security company CertiK.  In the report, CertiK showed that there were a total of 212 security incidents in the quarter. The firm noted that across the incidents, malicious actors drained a total of $313,566,528 from Web3 protocols. Compared to the second quarter of 2022, when hacks and exploits took $745 million, the security firm pointed out that there was a 58% decline in the amount lost. Despite the lower total amount recorded compared to 2022, the quarter saw an increase in the value lost to exit scams, which amounted to around $70 million in the second quarter of 2023. This is almos...

With advances in scaling and interoperability, cryptocurrencies are more ready than ever for widespread adoption. With crypto gas prices dropping to lows after numerous recent innovations in scaling and interoperability across different chains, we can more vividly imagine a possible shift toward widespread crypto payment s. Crypto payments at scale are currently prevented by regulation, lack of understanding and mass adoption, as well as digital assets being used primarily for investment purposes. For starters, Satoshi Nakamoto’s original concept was steeped in the idea of peer-to-peer digital cash — that’s exactly what appears in the title of his 2008 Bitcoin white paper. Despite the initial excitement and deep conviction surrounding this pioneering system since its inception, the core idea quietly slipped through the cracks as our focus shifted to cryptocurrency as an investment. The often-expressed nostalgia for the famous white paper became overshadowed by this unintentional dev...

"DCA works," wrote Binance CEO in response to the purchase. On June 28, software analytics firm MicroStrategy announced the corporate purchase of 12,333 Bitcoin (BTC), worth $347 million at the time of publication. After the transaction, the total balance of Bitcoin owned by MicroStrategy has increased to 152,333 ($4.52 billion) with an average purchase price of $29,668 apiece.  The total average purchase price is close to the $28,136 apiece purchase price disclosed in today's announcements. The coins were bought between April 27 and June 27. The purchase was partly financed with the issuance of new stock, as the company wrote: "On May 1, 2023, MicroStrategy entered into a Sales Agreement with Cowen and Company, LLC and Canaccord Genuity LLC, as sales agents, pursuant to which MicroStrategy may issue and sell shares of its class A common stock, par value $0.001 per share ("Shares"), having an aggregate offering price of up to $625.0 million from time to ...

In the aftermath of the attack, Atomic Wallet — along with individual blockchain investigators — have amped up efforts to track and revert stolen funds. A hack that drained $35 million from Atomic Wallet users since June 2 impacted less than 1% of its monthly active users , according to the company. In the aftermath of the attack, Atomic Wallet — along with individual blockchain investigators — have amped up efforts to track and revert stolen funds. Trying to cash in on the commotion, a few verified scam Twitter accounts impersonated Atomic Wallet while sharing phishing links claiming to help users recover lost funds. Pseudonymous on-chain researcher ZachXBT further claimed to have helped a victim recover $1 million of lost funds. However, the recovery process is yet to be disclosed, which ZachXBT allegedly “Will share in time but best not to yet.” A huge shoutout goes to @buffalu__ @brian_smith_0 for helping us successfully rescue $1m from the Atomic Wallet hacker for one of the...

The cryptocurrency exchange secured VASP licensing in Lithuania in April. On May 23, cryptocurrency exchange Bitget announced its successful registration as a virtual asset service provider (VASP) in Poland. The regulatory license allows Bitget to operate legally within the Polish market. In April, Bitget received its VASP license in Lithuania, allowing it to offer cryptocurrency-related services both within and from the Baltic nation.  Gracy Chen, Bitget’s managing director, said, “We understand that regulation is the future of the cryptocurrency industry if mainstream adoption is to be achieved. The recent registrations in the two European countries enhance our foothold and service in Europe.” According to its latest quarterly update, Bitget grew its staff count from 1,000 to 1,300 members during Q1 2023 and still has around 300 openings in research and development, compliance, business development, operations and customer support.  Additionally, the price recovery of Bitcoin (B...

The Ethereum mainnet briefly stopped finalizing transactions but recovered after 25 minutes. An unidentified issue on Ethereum’s Beacon Chain led to a halt in transactions for nearly half an hour on May 11.  Around 8:15pm on Thursday May 11, a number of Ethereum core developers announced that the Beacon Chain was having issues with confirming transactions. New blocks were able to be proposed but an unknown issue was preventing them from being finalized. The beacon chain stopped finalizing about thirty minutes ago. I don't know why yet, but in general the chain is designed to be resilient against this, transactions will continue as usual and finalization will kick in when the problem is resolved. pic.twitter.com/utAS0uAWpG — superphiz.eth ️ (@superphiz) May 11, 2023 A similar issue occurred on March 15, where low validator participation rates caused a delay on the Goerli testnet version of Ethereum's "Shapella" upgrade, which was successfully executed on April 12. ...

According to ZachXBT, one alleged scammer in particular launched around 114 projects in the past 45 days alone. Crypto scammers have been ramping up the launch of spurious memecoins over the past two months, according to crypto sleuths.  According to research from blockchain sleuths ZachXBT, one address, in particular, has allegedly launched “114 memecoin scams” in the past 45 days alone. In an April 26 Twitter thread, ZachXBT tracked the movements of the Wallet address: 0x739c58807B99Cb274f6FD96B10194202b8EEfB47 , noting that “each time stolen funds from the scam are sent to the exact same deposit address.” “I suspect there are more too. These are just ones sent to that deposit address lol,” ZachXBT added in response to a comment. Over the past 1.5 months one person has created 114 meme coin scams. Each time stolen funds from the scam are sent to the exact same deposit address. 0x739c58807B99Cb274f6FD96B10194202b8EEfB47 pic.twitter.com/uwVAiG9WGG — ZachXBT (@zachxbt) April 26, ...

The Agenda podcast chats with DarkFi to explore how Rojava is experimenting with cryptocurrency and why encryption and anonymous spaces are critical for building self-autonomy. In the mid-2010s, the Islamic State was rapidly advancing through Iraq and Syria, conquering territory and terrifying residents. However, one group of Kurds in Northern Syria representing the de facto autonomous Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, in an area known as Rojava, successfully fought back the Islamic State and captured the attention of the world. Many people from around the world went to Rojava to fight, but one lesser-known story made ripples in the crypto world: Some volunteers traveled there to help build blockchain and technological literacy and experiment with the potential of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) to serve as a tool for revolutionary change. After all, Rojava promotes decentralization, autonomy and self-empowerment — sound familiar? On Episode 10 of The Agenda , hosts Ray Sal...

At NFT.NYC 2023, Cointelegraph's team learned firsthand how nonfungible tokens are shaping the digital world of tomorrow. From tokenizing investment assets to game avatars, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) have an array of applications that go beyond digital art, with more projects coming online despite the market downturn in 2022.  At the NFT.NYC 2023 conference, Cointelegraph's team learned first-hand from experts, projects, companies, and the NFT community how the technology is shaping the digital world. Check out the highlights of the three-day event below: NFT games show signs of maturing  After years of development, the first batch of NFT-based gaming projects are entering the market, paving the way for a world in which real life and games will be blended, companies and developers told Cointelegraph. "Ten years from now, I could be wearing my VR glasses or still using my phone, or probably using some new system interacting with the Metaverse, but I'm going to be able ...

Web3 interoperability integration between Radix and LayerZero, launching in the second half of 2023, enables cross-chain communication and asset transfers, unlocking omnichain functionality for DApps and assets. Web3 interoperability is important to building a decentralized ecosystem that is scalable, secure and provides a seamless user experience.  Radix, a Layer-1 protocol, has partnered with LayerZero, an interoperability protocol, to integrate LayerZero with the Radix Babylon public network. The integration encourages cross-chain communication and asset transfers to the Radix ecosystem, benefitting both platforms and their users. Web3 interoper ability refers to the ability of different decentralized applications (DApps) and Blockchain networks to communicate with one another. Put simply, interoper ability is the state where blockchains can listen to each other, allow users to transfer digital assets and data and enable better collaboration. LayerZero's technology enables ...

Metis co-founder Elena Sinelnikova delves into the world of layer-2 blockchain technology, and its potential to transform how we interact, collaborate and build the decentralized economy of the future. In episode 13 of Cointelegraph’s  Hashing It Out podcast, Elisha Owusu Akyaw sits down with Metis co-founder Elena Sinelnikova. Metis is an Optimistic Rollup built on Ethereum to explore the world of layer-2 Blockchain technology, and its potential impact on decentralization, scalability and real-world applications. Sinelnikova shares her unique insights and experiences in the rapidly evolving Blockchain space, and gives us a glimpse into the future of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) powered by Metis. The conversation begins with Sinelnikova providing a comprehensive introduction to Metis, its mission and the challenges it aims to address in the current Blockchain landscape. Next, she dives deep into the limitations of Ethereum’s layer 1, highlighting issues such as high g...

While many expressed serious sentiments, a Twitter user poked fun at the update, saying that it’s time to spend ETH on nonfungible tokens. On March 28, Ethereum core developers confirmed that Shapella will take effect at 10:27 pm UTC on April 12. According to the announcement, Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4895 will allow withdrawals after pushing the staked Ether from the Beacon Chain into the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which is the execution layer. This will allow full and partial withdrawals with some mechanisms set in place to make sure that a flood of ETH will not disrupt the market. Many community members were happy with the new update, taking to social media to express their sentiments over the news. One community member said that they had serious doubts in the last two years. According to the Twitter user, they were unsure whether they will be able to ever unstake. However, the community member believes that the new update solidifies the importance of believing in ...