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Web 3.0 Adoption Requires Education, Better Security and Realistic Expectations
Web 3.0 can very well be worth $81.5 billion by 2030 as predicted by Emergen Research. It can even be bigger, or for that matter, smaller. Such speculative figures go well with boom cycles when hype and mania predominate. But they often matter much less to those focusing on the bigger, more long-term picture.
One can’t accurately predict where Web 3.0 will be in the next 10-15 years. It’s still too early for that. Web 3.0 has immense potential and can indeed do wonders that are presently impossible to even imagine. It’s thus pretty reasonable to say, for now, that a bright future awaits Web 3.0.
Yet, Web 3.0 can achieve its full potential – and foster the promised future – only by addressing certain vital concerns now and here. These are better security, better education and above all, realistic expectations – i.e., the keys to ensuring Web 3.0’s mass adoption.
Focusing on and strengthening the above aspects will help innovators endure (and overcome) the ongoing bear market. And they’ll take Web 3.0 to new heights – possibly way beyond current forecasts. Read More
Listen-to-earn lets you earn Bitcoin for listening to a podcast
Podcast platform Fountain has partnered with app monetisation company ZEBEDEE to bring Bitcoin micropayments to podcast listeners.
The partnership will give both podcast creators and listeners the ability to earn Bitcoin based on the amount of time spent with content.
ZEBEDEE says that listeners will support creators by paying for content by the minute as they listen to it. Listeners themselves will also earn money for their first hour of daily podcast listening and for watching promoted content.
Using crypto to micro-monetise content has been a popular trend across a variety of industries. Play-to-earn gaming with crypto integration is a sector that has seen hundreds of millions invested into it in recent years.
Oscar Merry, founder and CEO of Fountain, believes the ability to listen to a podcast – or Listen-to-Earn – and be paid for doing so will be the future of content creation.
“A few years from now, we’ll look back at paid subscriptions for content platforms that aren’t related to how much we actually use those platforms and laugh at how basic and inefficient it was,” he said.
Users will apparently not need to understand anything about cryptocurrency to take full advantage of the rewards thanks to debit and credit card integrations. Read More
Aave deploys v3 on Ethereum after 10 months of testing on other networks
The new version includes features developers believe will increase capital efficiency and lower gas fees.
The third version of the crypto lending app Aave has now been deployed to Ethereum for the first time, according to a Jan. 27 Twitter thread from the Aave team. “Aave v3” was originally released in March 2022 and deployed on multiple Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible blockchains shortly afterwards. Until now, Ethereum users only had access to the app's older “v2” version.
Aave v3 includes several features intended to help users save on fees and maximize the efficiency of users’ capital. For example, the high-efficiency mode allows the borrower to avoid some of the app’s more stringent risk parameters if the borrower’s collateral is highly correlated with the asset being borrowed. Developers say this may be useful for borrowers of stablecoins or liquid staking derivatives.
In addition, the “isolation” feature allows certain riskier assets to be used as collateral as long as they have their own debt ceiling and are only used to borrow stablecoins. Under the previous version, there was no way to limit what type of asset could be borrowed given a certain type of collateral. This meant that lower market cap and illiquid coins often couldn’t be used as collateral. Read More
California DMV to digitize car title management system via Tezos
California DMV’s chief digital officer, Ajay Gupta, emphasized that the agency is looking to modernize its current systems and bring greater transparency to car title transfers.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is testing out the digitization of car titles and title transfers via a private Tezos blockchain.
The move is part of a collaboration between the California DMV, Tezos and blockchain software firm Oxhead Alpha, with the latter announcing a successful proof-of-concept on Jan. 25.
The California DMV has tapped Oxhead Alpha to build on a private Tezos testnet that it has dubbed a “shadow ledger.” It is essentially designed to become a blockchain-based replication of the agency’s current database.
The California DMV’s chief digital officer Ajay Gupta told Fortune on Jan. 26 that the agency wants to have the shadow ledger ironed out within the next three months.
Following on from that, it is looking to roll out applications such as digital wallets to hold and transfer nonfungible token car titles, with the DMV acting as a middleman to oversee such operations.
“The DMV’s perception of lagging behind should definitely change,” Gupta told Forbes. Read More
A democratic society values a free-flowing media ecosystem. A healthy media ecosystem is one of the characteristics of a democratic society. Mass media outlets such as newspapers and cable TV networks were prominent in the past. Today, the internet and social media platforms allow for greater communication across society.
Journalism, investigative correspondents, and even freelance writers are essential to that ecosystem. High-quality reporting revealing brutal truths and users' scope and exposure on social media to either create or access information are forces that can drive genuine societal change. And even keep the power structures in check.
Despite the positive aspects mentioned above, harmful practices and negative external forces related to the media ecosystem often eclipse them. These issues are usually easy to recognize once they’re identified. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge them and spread awareness about their potential risks.
Doing so will help you make informed decisions about how you use media and how it can impact your life and the lives of others. The following are a few issues pervasive in many digital news sites, forums, and social media platforms. Read More
Markethive Media has embraced blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, building an ecosystem that belongs to “we the people,” eliminating many of the issues plagued by media outlets today. With its meritocratic culture, dynamic social media interface, and growing community, Markethive is enhancing and bringing the platform into the future internet with new technology and interfaces, but still in keeping with the human touch.
Fluidity Aims to Reward Actual DeFi Users Over Profit Farmers
Fluidity is looking to give DeFi protocols another option for renting out precious liquidity: utility mining.
If you’ve been in DeFi for a while, you already know about yield farming and the Curve Wars.
But what about utility farming?
A new project called Fluidity claims to be ushering in a new era for handing out crypto coins for different projects. This time, it wants to reward active users—not just mercenary farmers.
Previously, whales would simply deposit their massive holdings into a new protocol, harvest its token launch, withdraw that liquidity, and then dump those tokens (otherwise called yield farming).
Fluidity wants to change this model and pay people for actually using a protocol (rather than just farming it). Here’s how it works.
Users first deposit a stablecoin (i.e. USDT, USDC, DAI, etc) into the Fluidity protocol and get a Fluidity-wrapped token (for the sake of this story, we'll call this asset an fToken, like fUSDT or fUSDC, for example). The original stablecoin is then deposited into a yield-earning protocol like Aave or Compound.
The new fToken operates like any other stablecoin. You can use it to buy NFTs, make simple transfers, or join liquidity pools. The added bonus that comes with these fTokens—and what makes them so unique—is that the more you use it, the higher the chances that you will win a payout. Read More
Crypto Association in Turkey Vows to Block Exchanges That ‘Victimize Traders’
A new organization has been established in Turkey with the aim to monitor and help develop the country’s crypto sector, local media reported. Its first task will be to address recent problems with some cryptocurrency exchanges and boost confidence in the industry as a whole.
New Entity to Deal With Issues in the Crypto Space in Turkey, Hopes to Increase Transparency
People trading cryptocurrencies in Turkey have been estimated at over 8 million as of 2022, according to Emrah Inanc, head of the Crypto Industry Development, Monitoring and Reporting Association. The country is in the world’s top five in terms of crypto investments, he highlighted.
Speaking to the Anadolu Agency, the top executive of the newly-founded organization also emphasized that transparency is crucial for the development of the crypto sector. That’s why it will first focus efforts on solving problems with crypto exchanges and improve confidence in the industry.
Inanc pointed out that a number of exchanges from the Far East have been trying to attract Turkish customers. On this backdrop, he noted that the lack of rules and regulatory authority has led to “inconvenient results,” and acknowledged some of the challenges in relations with the public sector: Read More
Monkey Drainer-linked scammers possibly exposed after an on-chain quarrel
The scammer referred to their pseudonym during a blockchain message argument that may have revealed their actual identity, according to CertiK.
Blockchain security firm CertiK believes it has found the real-life identity of at least one scammer allegedly linked to the “Monkey Drainer” phishing scam.
Monkey Drainer is the pseudonym for a phishing scammer who uses smart contracts to steal NFTs through a process known as “ice phishing.”
The individual or individuals behind the phishing scam have stolen millions of dollars worth of Ether (ETH) via malicious copycat nonfungible token (NFT) minting websites.
In a Jan. 27 blog, CertiK said it found on-chain messages between two scammers involved in a recent $4.3 million Porsche NFT phishing scam and was able to link one of them to a Telegram account involved in selling the Monkey Drainer-style phishing kit. Read More
EOS Blockchain Is Making Web3 Waves On The Comeback Trail
EOS, the blockchain once famously entangled in a protracted dispute with developer Block.one, is now out on its own and making a bid for web3 relevance.
Once at the center of a jaw-dropping $4 billion ICO, EOS has had a major facelift, and since severing ties with Block.one has been managed by the nonprofit EOS Network Foundation DAO led by long-time developer Yves La Rose.
As acknowledged by La Rose himself, it’s been a year since EOS “was on life support, left for dead.” But the past 12 months has seen this sleeping giant finally awaken, with a slew of positive developments positioning it for rapid growth in 2023.
Don’t Call It A Comeback:
The EOS narrative was toxic for a number of years, a consequence of its nasty divorce from Block.one. A blow-by-blow account of the head-scratching imbroglio was provided by Wired in an article that went viral last May. But EOS, it’s fair to say, has come out the other side, with a renewed focus on building impactful products that web3 users want and need.
EOS might have missed the lucrative DeFi boom, but it’s clearly positioning itself for the next one, having introduced support for Tether (USDT) in addition to DeFi-centric products like the Yield+ liquidity program and Recover+ insurance layer. It even has its own VC, EOS Network Ventures (ENV), which manages a $100m war chest to invest in web3 protocols. Read More
Disclaimer: These articles are provided for informational purposes only. They are not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other advice.
