From the massive fall of Bitcoin’s (BTC) price to the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, 2022 was full of upheaval for the blockchain industry. But the blockchain community has always been resilient, finding new ways to develop in the most challenging times. A striking example of optimism and growth is the development of the GameFi industry, which combines gaming, decentralized finance (DeFi), nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and the metaverse. In 2021, GameFi became a growth leader in the crypto space, with successful projects like Gala Games, Decentraland, The Sandbox and Axie Infinity. The GameFi sector has continued to develop, attracting more …

Blockchain technology continues to make its way into mainstream view, as many companies adopt the technology as a part of their operations. In the push for adoption of this technology comes the simultaneous need for more education on the technology. A new partnership announced on March 2 between the Polygon blockchain network and Mercy Corps Ventures, the investment arm of the humanitarian organization Mercy Corps, focuses on bringing blockchain education and opportunities to underserved communities. According to the announcement, the new partnership has three primary objectives in its effort to bring blockchain and Web3 solutions to “traditionally excluded and underserved …

The Chinese government’s beloved project of central bank digital currency (CBDC) has not sparked much enthusiasm in the citizens of Hong Kong. In the first four days since the “digital yuan” (also known as “e-CNY”) hard wallets became accessible to the islanders, only 625 Hongkongers had actually obtained them. As reported by the local newspaper on Feb. 28, the city of Shenzhen installed the machines, dispensing the hard wallets for digital yuan, the first of a kind in the whole country. Due to the city’s unique location as a gateway from Hong Kong to mainland China, the machines were programmed …

Donations made in cryptocurrencies are proving to be a fast and far-reaching means of providing financial aid during times of crisis, according to multiple industry players. This has proven to be the case after devastating earthquakes hit parts of Turkey and Syria in February. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis estimates that around $5.9 million of donations have been made to support relief efforts in the region in the month since the natural disaster took place. The likes of Turkey’s Ministry of Interior Earthquake Humanitarian Aid campaign, Turkish Red Crescent, Save the Children and Project Hope have received cryptocurrency-based donations. In addition, …

Trading platform Robinhood has launched its Web3 wallet on Apple’s App Store, becoming available to iOS users in over 130 countries. Robinhood shared the news in a Mar. 1 post, stating that users would no longer need to sit on a waitlist to access the new multi-chain, self-custody wallet. It added that it will be supported on Android “later this year.” #RobinhoodWallet is now available to everyone with iOS: https://t.co/yUdL8jCgJN pic.twitter.com/q7RIWBJUIT — Johann Kerbrat (@JohannKerbrat) March 1, 2023 Since the beta launch of the Robinhood Wallet in September, the trading platform integrated Ethereum — in addition to already supporting Polygon …

Polygon, a layer-2 scaling protocol for Ethereum has launched a zero-knowledge decentralized identity solution, Polygon ID to the public nearly a year after announcing its development. The service uses zero-knowledge proofs (ZK proofs) that use cryptographic techniques to allow users to verify their identity online without having their sensitive information passed, or potentially stored with a third party. The public release of Polygon ID by Polygon Labs on Mar. 1 comes almost 12 months after it was officially launched in a closed-source environment in late March 2022, which the Polygon team says was built to “solve the issue of digital …

HyperPlay, a Web3-native game launcher with a built-in crypto wallet, has announced its early access launch, according to a Mar. 1 announcement from the developer. The online game launcher was built in collaboration with crypto wallet provider MetaMask, aimed at integrating players' crypto wallets with game libraries such as Epic Games Store, GOG (formerly Good Old Games), and its own HyperPlay Store. The new platform, founded by former Metamask operations lead, JacobC.eth, doesn’t charge developers any commissions and instead plans to rely on crypto services such as swaps and bridges to monetize the platform. Today, we’re excited to celebrate the …

The entertainment industry rarely sees a dull moment when it comes to disputes over the ownership of intellectual property or creative rifts between big networks and showrunners. A tiny number of studios and networks own the majority of rights, leading to the mass production of films and TV shows that somehow feel the same. Web3 aims to change that by giving the power back to content creators and fans. “In Hollywood, there’s a formula,” explained Jason Neubauer, the founder and CEO of Affect Change. “People have their own agendas. I wanted to create stories that are authentic, and inspire others …

Repeated outages of one of the most popular blockchains believed to have the potential to dethrone the Ethereum network sparked a conversation among community members about the future of those carrying the burden of being called an “Ethereum killer.” A member of the cryptocurrency forum on Reddit opened a conversation on Ethereum killers and questioned their ability to succeed in the current crypto space. According to the community member, those dubbed as Ethereum killers are not likely to succeed because they do not get the same adoption that Ethereum does. In addition, the community member argued that even if a …

Opportunity cost, explained Opportunity cost is a concept in economics that refers to the value of the next best alternative that is forgone when making a choice — i.e., the cost of the best alternative that is not chosen. Consider the scenario when you have a limited budget and are debating between buying a new laptop or going on vacation. The value of the vacation you could have taken with the same amount of money would be the opportunity cost if you decide to buy the laptop. Similarly, if you decide to take the vacation, the opportunity cost would be …

A central focus for many in the Web3 community has been improving identity solutions available to consumers. Last year the emergence of soulbound tokens (SBT) introduced a new way for users to define themselves. Although the SBT hype quieted over the last months, they have not disappeared off the scene. On Mar. 1, the SBT protocol Masa Finance announced that it will deploy on the carbon-negative Celo blockchain to create a new identity solution. More than 10 million wallets active in the Celo ecosystem will be able to generate a Masa “Prosperity Passport.” This new Web3 identity solution allows users …

2022 was a rather challenging year for the crypto sector, and the prevalence of Ponzi schemes, decentralized finance scams, nonfungible token rug pulls and questionable centralized exchange bookkeeping put the issue of ethics in the space on blast. Of course, the negative news of last year wasn’t an outlier or a one-off — generally, “good” ethics have been an issue in crypto for years, and it’s probably safe to assume that challenges will continue to dot the landscape for the foreseeable future. Within the context of media, it’s important to recognize that objective, unbiased news reporting and transparency are paramount …