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Why Blockchains Are A Peculiar Paradox For Data Management
Bitcoin recently turned 13 years old, and over that time, the Bitcoin blockchain has remained uncorrupted and impervious to attack. As a result, the Bitcoin network maintains a pristine, permanent record of every single Bitcoin transaction that’s taken place.
We live in a data economy, where data governance and data management are becoming some of the biggest challenges in the tech industry. So the very fact alone that Bitcoin has managed to demonstrate this unique ability to rigidly govern its data is impressive.
However, there’s a peculiar paradox too. While blockchains may perhaps be the best-known way to ensure complete data governance, blockchains simply aren’t built to handle much data. Bitcoin generates about a gigabyte of data each day – a drop in the ocean compared to the 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created in the world daily. Read More
Near Protocol raises $150M to promote Web3 adoption
Ethereum competitor Near Protocol raised funds for Web3 adoption, with Three Arrows Capital and Andreessen Horowitz supporting the PoS blockchain.
Proof-of-stake blockchain Near Protocol has raised $150 million in seed investments to accelerate the adoption of Web3 technologies. The team announced that the fund would be used to develop regional hubs and raise awareness for blockchain and decentralized tech.
Near Protocol aims to use the fresh funds to foster the adoption of Web3. According to the announcement, the funding will be used to “help billions of people learn and use blockchain.” With this, projects building on the Near blockchain will have the opportunity to connect with new audiences.
The investment round was led by hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, with additional participation from Mechanism Capital, Dragonfly Capital, a16z, Jump, Alameda, Zee Prime, Folius, Amber Group, 6th Man Ventures, and Circle Ventures. MetaWeb.VC, Near’s ecosystem fund, also participated in the seed round. Additionally, angels Alan Howard, Santiago Santos, and Aave founder Stani Kulechov joined the funding.
“We are excited to support the NEAR team and ecosystem as they scale blockchain applications,” said Kyle Davies, co-founder and chairman of Three Arrows Capital. Read More
Coldwell Banker to use public blockchain to tokenize real estate
Real estate firm Coldwell Banker (CB) plans to tokenize luxury real estate assets, starting in Thailand. The local office has partnered with blockchain firm Coinweb targeting luxury properties. A Beta launch is scheduled for Q3 2022, subject to Coinweb acquiring an exchange license from the Thai SEC.
Tokenization promises to improve the liquidity of various assets, including real estate, by fractionalizing the investment and lowering backend investment costs.
Many real estate assets that are tokenized are commercial properties or rental units. Peter Meyer, CB Operations Director in Thailand, said the company sells and manages a large portfolio of luxury villa rentals in Thailand and worldwide.
“On a rental basis, they throw off not insignificant yields during normal times. Coinweb identified with us that liquidity could be unlocked via tokenisation using part of the yield. Much of the time luxury can be more illiquid than other asset classes, so the proposal was a good fit,” said Meyer, responding to Ledger Insights questions via email. Read More
How Art Blocks Is Building for the Future After the Ethereum NFT Boom
Following its explosive rise, generative artwork sensation Art Blocks is now focused on long-term sustainability.
Art Blocks is a popular Ethereum generative artwork NFT project.
The project has generated more than $1.3 billion worth of trading volume to date.
When the NFT market surged to new heights late last summer, Ethereum project Art Blocks saw one of the steepest ascents. The generative artwork project jumped from $11 million in secondary market trading volume in June to $63 million in July—and then $587 million in August.
Rapidly, Art Blocks went from a crypto-native curio—blockchain-generated artwork—into a blue-chip collection that many investors sought to profit from. Suddenly, the NFTs were selling for upwards of millions of dollars apiece, and each new collection launch was swarmed with demand, driving up Ethereum network transaction fees and frustrating would-be owners.
It was chaos. For Art Blocks founder and CEO Erick Calderon (aka Snowfro), also creator of the project’s original Chromie Squiggle collection, the boom was too much, too soon. And it invited in investors who appeared to be there purely for the potential speculative upside, rather than collectors who truly appreciated the work and wanted to support artists.
“The explosion was fun, but it was more terrifying than fun. Things don't naturally grow at that rate,” Calderon told Decrypt. “It's validating, but it also feels like someone is taking your baby and using it for what it wasn't originally intended to be used for.” Read More
Markethive, the blockchain-driven ecosystem for entrepreneurs, has already successfully bypassed the centralized web services, like AWS and Microsoft, and operates on its own cloud system. The new login system Markethive has developed relinquished the need for 3rd party APIs that are potential vulnerabilities in Web 2 and threaten our freedoms.
Currently, Markethive is expanding its cloud system, called Mining Hives, worldwide. This means all data about Markethive and its users will not be stored on servers owned and controlled by a centralized entity.
Instead, it is a distributed database on the Markethive Blockchain with no single point of failure and no internet disruption or censoring by dictatorial authorities who may decide to shut off the internet.
Web 3 gives us a better chance at building a more inclusive internet that respects all who use it. Decentralized networks can win the third era of the internet for the same reason they won the first era: by winning the hearts and minds of entrepreneurs and developers.
Web 3 is an opportunity to distribute the wealth amongst the rest of us generally paid only to shareholders. Markethive stands tall and is dedicated to delivering the emerging environment of Web 3 to its community; one of self and financial sovereignty. Read More
Stacks ecosystem becomes #1 Web3 project on Bitcoin
There were also 140,000 NFTs minted on the Stacks blockchain during its inaugural year.
On the first anniversary of the launch of Stacks blockchain (STX), which seeks to make Bitcoin (BTC) programmable, the network achieved over 350 million monthly API requests, 40,000 Hiro (development tool for Stacks to build applications on Bitcoin) wallet downloads, and 2,500 Clarity smart contracts. According to a report by Electric Capital, a venture capital firm focused on cryptocurrencies and fintech, these statistics make Stacks the largest project on Bitcoin.
More than 11,000 users earned more than 100 BTC rewards per month on Stacks due to its unique proof-of-transfer, or PoX, consensus mechanism. Miners bid BTC to verify transactions, execute smart contracts and mine new blocks on the STX blockchain and earn STX as rewards. Meanwhile, the BTC bids are sent to STX holders as rewards for performing tasks like running nodes. To date, the mechanism has delivered over $50 million worth of BTC rewards and surpassed $1 billion in total value locked.
According to the report, there were also decentralized finance, or DeFi, advancements on BTC created through Stacks. These included the launch of wrapped BTC (xBTC), the Arkadiko borrowing and lending protocol, and Bitcoin Lightning decentralized swaps, allowing users to swap STX for Bitcoin, stablecoins, and altcoins. Read More
Altcoin Roundup: 3 ways blockchain technology could further mainstream in 2022
The trend of blockchain adoption is set to continue in 2022. Here are three sectors that are likely to pivot toward DLT solutions.
2021 was a breakout year for the cryptocurrency sector and this year is expected to see an extension of the “mass adoption” trend.
Public awareness of blockchain technology is on the rise and a new cohort of projects designed to fill more niche roles in society are likely to emerge in the coming months.
Three sectors that have the potential to see significant growth in 2022 are human resources (HR), employee payment solutions, and platforms that serve the gig economy by offering corporate blockchain solutions. Read More
Cardano Enters The Basho Stage: How It Improves Performance
The software platform Cardano has entered the third stage of its roadmap, the Basho era. It promises to improve the network’s performance and scalability.
Cardano’s roadmap is “a summary of Cardano development” divided into five eras to deliver improvements in diverse functionalities of the network that are “delivered across multiple code releases”.
Now that the platform’s core smart contract capability Plutus has been deployed, the launch of the Basho era focuses on scaling Cardano, promising “Parameter adjustments, improvements, enhancements and other innovations” supposed to increase the network’s capacity.
They also call it “an era of optimization”, promising to enhance the performance and interoperability “to better support growth and adoption for applications with high transaction volume.” It is supposed to bring high performance, resiliency, and flexibility to the network. Read More
ADALend CEO Kaspars Koskins: “We Are Building a Secure Lending Platform on Cardano”
Starting ADALend CEO Kaspars Koskins interview series, one of the most promising companies that is revolutionizing the lending industry by using blockchain technology to disintermediate the traditional middlemen – providing unprecedented access to loans for those ignored by the traditional banking system and providing high yields for investors in a persistently low-interest-rate environment. I hope you are as excited for this conversation as we are so let’s jump in. 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.
