Blockchain

Otherside, the much-anticipated metaverse gaming platform from the creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), is open for business. Over the weekend, 4,300 "Voyagers" were invited for a demo and tour of the immersive, ape avatar-navigated online platform. Continue Reading →

OpenSea, the world's largest NFT marketplace, announced that it will lay off 20% of its staff. This is not a surprise. Cryptocurrencies, the main driver of value for NFT speculators, are trading 50%-70% below their all-time highs, and NFT trading volume on OpenSea has tumbled as well. Then, there's the overarching problem: while OpenSea continually evolves, NFTs continuously evolve. Continue Reading →

In partnership with Ticketmaster, the NFL will offer ticket buyers free virtual commemorative tickets (NFTs) for more than 100 games next season. Continue Reading →

By trading volume, Axie Infinity is the largest NFT project of all-time, but the world's leading play-to-earn game has traveled a rocky road. If you remember, in March 2022 Axie was the victim of the largest crypto hack in history, losing approximately $622 million. However, things are looking up. While all of Axie's industry comps and KPIs are well under their high water marks, Axie is making a comeback. Which raises the question: Why? Continue Reading →

As we enter another crypto winter, it has become de rigueur for tech types to go on record espousing that Web3 is nonsense, that blockchain is a terrible technology, and that cryptocurrencies (all of them) are Ponzi schemes. There is seemingly no end to the tweets and blog posts from highly credentialed people about tulips and "The Emperor's New Clothes" and greater fool theory. It's as if the technocrats want to make sure that they know that you know that they know that all things Web3 are technologically inferior to all things Web2. Are they right? Continue Reading →

Teller, which touts "crypto loans for the real world," wants to help you buy "blue chip" NFTs using their BNPL (buy now pay later) feature. Continue Reading →

A new notice from the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) prohibits any federal government employee who owns cryptocurrency from working on federal crypto regulation. This includes employees at The White House, The Federal Reserve, and The Department of the Treasury. Continue Reading →

One of the first (and still one of the best) use cases for tokenized assets (NFTs) on immutable public ledgers (blockchains) was fraud prevention. You could tokenize a physical item (make a "digital twin"), then follow (and authenticate) that item/token through its journey. Today, because NFTs (smart contracts) are easy to write, this is much easier to do. Continue Reading →

When government regulators scared Facebook out of its Libra/Diem cryptocurrency project a while back, I didn't think too much about it. The original project was ambitious. Libra was designed to be a stablecoin and was backed by deposits of real cash to be contributed to the Libra Association, a supporting plutocracy with a membership fee of $10 million. Founding members got an option to become validator node operators, a vote on the Libra Council, and could earn interest on their investment. Continue Reading →

In World of Warcraft, a soulbound item, once picked up, cannot be transferred or sold to another player. It is this idea of “immutable, permanent binding” that inspired Ethereum’s creator, Vitalik Buterin, to ask a question: What if NFTs could be soulbound? Continue Reading →