x
Image Source: Pixabay
Square Enix President Reiterates Focus on Blockchain Games, 'Play-to-Contribute' Trend
In a recent Letter, Square Enix president, Yosuke Matsuda, outlined several distinctions between traditional gaming and blockchain games.
Yosuke Matsuda, president of Square Enix, the Japanese developer behind video games like Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, has set his sights firmly on NFTs and blockchain technology.
"I see 2021 not only as 'Metaverse: Year One,' but also as 'NFTs: Year One,' given that it was a year in which NFTs were met with a great deal of enthusiasm by a rapidly expanding user base," Matsuda said in a New Year's Letter.
The president also attributed much of the metaverse momentum to "sophisticated blockchain technology," before reiterating Square Enix's changing strategy to meet this new environment.
"To address these changes in our business environment, the medium-term business strategy that we unveiled in May 2020 identified AI, the cloud, and blockchain games as new domains on which we should focus our investments," he said, adding that Square Enix has been "aggressive" in research and development in these areas. Read More
Transparent future of work enabled by Blockchain
There is growing consensus that career – as a vertical progression along a corporate ladder does not hold good anymore. With marketplaces for skills picking pace and increasing commoditization and breaking work into gigs, the notion of full-time employment will become even more bleak in the coming years. One crucial technology that will facilitate end-to-end working in this Future of Work is undoubtedly blockchain and related technologies.
At the heart of blockchain technologies is a “a shared, immutable ledger” which helps record transactions and tracking of assets. These two attributes – shared and immutable render this technology powerful, thereby bringing transparency and traceability to its users. It is encouraging to see mature discussions around use-cases of blockchain technologies evolve beyond the shadows of just one of their applications – the cryptocurrency.
Can blockchain-powered technologies build better transparency and remove information asymmetry challenges in the world of work? Read More
Why Kevin O’Leary thinks NFTs could become bigger than Bitcoin
Despite betting that NFTs will surpass Bitcoin, Kevin O’Leary said he would hedge his bets and invest on “both sides of the equation.”
Millionaire investor and crypto proponent Kevin O’Leary thinks that the nonfungible token (NFT) sector could be worth more than Bitcoin (BTC) in the future.
Speaking with CNBC’s Capital Connection on Wednesday, O’Leary — also known as Mr. Wonderful — argued that NFTs provide a greater potential to attract capital than Bitcoin due to their ability to tokenize and authenticate physical assets such as cars, watches, and real estate:
“You’re going to see a lot of movement in terms of doing authentication and insurance policies and real estate transfer taxes all online over the next few years, making NFTs a much bigger, more fluid market potentially than just Bitcoin alone.”
Mr. Wonderful admitted, however, that he is not tied to that bet and will still be investing on “both sides of that equation.” Read More
Ethereum dominates among developers, but competitors are growing faster
The total monthly active developers measured hit a record high of more than 18,000, but Ethereum retains the largest number of them.
The Ethereum ecosystem still has far more developers than rival networks, but they are catching up with a faster rate of growth.
Ethereum competitors, such as Polkadot, Solana, and Binance Smart Chain (BSC), are growing faster in terms of development activity according to crypto research firm Electric Capital, which released its findings on the blockchain development ecosystem in a new report on Thursday.
It revealed that more than 4,000 monthly active open-source developers work on Ethereum — considerably more than the 680 who work on the Bitcoin network. Across all chains, the total monthly active developers measured was more than 18,400, and the record was broken for the number of code commits by new developers in 2021 with more than 34,000. Read More
A token that is only a medium of exchange has a very strong chance of falling victim to price manipulation. Alternatively, Markethive has in place, numerous velocity stabilizers including staking, (The Vault), network utility expansion, and the fact it is a cryptocurrency coin, will keep the balance of velocity. This ensures that the velocity is maintained for the initial and long-term price of MHV and is indicative of a healthy Markethive Ecosystem. A strong economy will in turn sustainably increase MHV’s price.
Coins or Tokens that are structured to capture a significant portion of the economic value generated by the network will reward both the investors who took on early-stage risk as well as the platform who can continue to fund development through the retention of now valuable tokens.
There is a huge market looking for what Markethive does. Read More
Blockchain of Things platform plans to boost further adoption with startups competition
Internet of Things’ interconnection issue can be solved with blockchain, and this company does just that.
The advent of the internet led to a paradigm shift that has transformed nearly every aspect of society since then. This was compounded by the growing interconnectivity of an ever-increasing amount of WiFi-enabled devices known as the Internet of Things (IoT) that fostered the development of Web 2.0.
Innovations enabled by blockchain technology, such as decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible tokens (NFTs), are now being referred to as the basis for Web 3.0. Whereas Web 2.0 integrated the internet into our daily lives and greater culture and society, Web 3.0 portends a decentralized digital version of the world online, which will have a resounding effect in the real world.
One company, in particular, has been integrating the two phases more explicitly, enhancing IoT by putting it on blockchain, and has ambitions to scale this efficiency across cities. In building such a system, it would have to be stable and secure while also being open and transparent, which is what makes blockchain technology an ideal solution. Skey Network aims to utilize these blockchain benefits to resolve some of the limitations that currently beset IoT. For instance, with its Smart Key, it hopes to introduce a standardized communication system. Read More
Solana, Terra, and Polkadot Are Growing Faster Than Ethereum Did: Report
Ethereum still has the largest ecosystem of developers in Web3, according to Electric Capital. But other networks are gaining traction.
The top-five blockchain ecosystems in terms of developers are Ethereum, Polkadot, Cosmos, Solana, and Bitcoin, according to Electric Capital.
Polkadot and Solana have more active development than Ethereum did at similar points in its history.
There's nothing like a market boom to bring people aboard. After a record 2021 for crypto prices, more developers than ever joined Web3 projects last year.
And according to a new report from early-stage crypto investment firm Electric Capital, several protocol ecosystems are outpacing the largest developer ecosystem out there, Ethereum. "Polkadot, Solana, NEAR, [Binance Smart Chain], Avalanche, and Terra have faster initial ecosystem growth than Ethereum," the report states. Read More
Drone Racing League Partners with Hivemind's Playground Labs, Launch First P2E Game on Algorand Blockchain
Professional drone racing League (DRL) joins the Metaverse world by launching its first game. A money-making crypto sports game on the Algorand blockchain in partnership with Playground Labs, a Web 3 game developer from crypto investment fund Hivemind.
These two teams said they would launch the first in-game money-making game using DRL in their virtual world on the Algorand blockchain, extending DRL's high-speed drone race into the metaverse.
The global gaming, cryptocurrency, and drone market are currently worth over $2 trillion. By developing the first P2E on-chain and launching a digital drone racing series in a virtual world, players can get rewards in cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) by participating in DRL drone races, which will go beyond the digital realm of finance Value becomes reality.
Play-to-earn (P2E), or GameFi, is a popular business model that stays in the blockchain game world, which corresponds to the F2P (Free to Play) model that is common in the game industry in the real world. Read More
Ex-US CFTC Chair Advocates Building Financial Infrastructure with Blockchain
Former Chairman of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Christopher Giancarlo slammed handlers of the economy for taking a back seat in financial innovation related to blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.
Christopher Giancarlo is a renowned advocate of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies. Christopher’s advocacy dates back to his time as Chair of the CFTC under former President Donald Trump, and at an event organized by the American Enterprise Institute this week, he said if the US does not modernize with Blockchain and crypto, the nation stands the risks of falling behind frontline innovators like China.
He noted that just as the nation’s physical infrastructure is in a bad shape, so also is the financial ecosystem. “Money is changing right before our eyes,” the former chairman said. “Like text messages and photographs, money is becoming digital, decentralized, tokenized, and borderless,” he added.
He described the difficulty and time delay that still plagues transaction settlements, especially those involving securities in the US. 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.
