Despite a general consensus amongst degen apes that NFTs are headed to the proverbial moon, space agency NASA has revealed it will not clear the use of its content and logos for take off. This is an important clarification as the US government agencies’ images and video content are typically not copyright protected, and can ordinarily be freely used for…
A new Chainalysis report has revealed that $8.6 billion in value was laundered through cryptocurrency in 2021. It marks a 25% increase from 2020, but still remains well below the high watermark hit in 2019. That year $10.9 billion in value was laundered via cryptocurrency. Since 2017, Chainalysis estimates that a total of $33.4 billion in crypto has been laundered.…
A top special agent from the Internal Revenue Service has told a conference that NFTs and crypto are the “future” but highlighted that fraud and manipulation is still rampant in the space. Ryan Korner from the IRS Criminal Investigation’s Los Angeles field office made the comments virtual event held on Tuesday by the USC Gould School of Law, Korner. Bloomberg…
Russian president Vladmir Putin has given crypto enthusiasts a glimmer of hope for the future of digital assets in the country, which have been under threat from a recent push to ban cryptocurrencies and mining. The strongman leader opened a Jan 26 video conference with members of the Russian government by saying he would like to “start with an issue…
2021 was a major year for Bitcoin mining. The third halving in May 2020 brought broader attention to mining at large, and the growing interest has never subsided. In 2021, favorable economics made mining profitable for almost all participants, drawing in more and more participants. The emergence of flare-gas mining, Elon Musk’s comments about Bitcoin’s ESG footprint, the creation of…
Ripple has bought back shares from its Series C funding round, which raised the company’s valuation to $15 billion, according to CEO Brad Garlinghouse. He added that despite the lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over the status of XRP cryptocurrency, Ripple had the best year on record. Ripple’s $15 Billion Valuation and ‘Best Year on Record’…
In brief The Sandbox, an Ethereum metaverse game, has launched a $50 million accelerator program with Animoca Brands and Brinc. The program will invest in up to 100 startups across the wider crypto ecosystem over the next three years. As hype around the coming metaverse builds, Ethereum-based crypto game The Sandbox has emerged as one of the early contenders in…
Starting and operating a DAO can require stitching together dozens of single-feature solutions. Superdao wants to change that, announcing today that it has raised $10.5 million in a funding round led by VC firm SignalFire to help it achieve its goal of building an all-in-one DAO protocol. Decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs, are a popular way to build Web3 startups,…
Virtual world project The Sandbox announced its metaverse accelerator program that will push the development of the open metaverse by investing $50 million in startups. The Animoca Brands subsidiary is partnering with the venture accelerator firm Brinc to target 30 to 40 blockchain startups a year for the program. The Sandbox Metaverse Accelerator Program will allocate up to $250,000 in…
In brief MakerDAO transitioned to decentralized governance in 2021. The Maker Protocol is now governed by people who hold MKR tokens. A successful December proposal called for the “offloading” of the content team. In July 2021, one of the first decentralized projects to take hold on Ethereum fundamentally changed the way it did business: Instead of managing development and channeling…
