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Corporate evolution: How adoption is changing crypto company structures
Could the growing adoption of cryptocurrencies also mean a move away from its decentralized principles?
Crypto-focused companies have come a long way since their beginnings in terms of corporate structure, employee motivation, decision-making systems, compliance, and other aspects of their operations. While the early 2010s saw startups founded by small groups of crypto enthusiasts, the space has since grown to become home to large institutional businesses.
Still, crypto companies are engaged in business, and business is alien to anarchy. The rapid growth of the cryptocurrency industry in the 2010s transformed small, independent businesses into huge conglomerates with thousands of employees and offices worldwide. Investment funds and professional investors own shares of them, many have functioning boards of directors, and their corporate structures have dozens of departments and divisions. But does all this bureaucracy destroy the very philosophy of cryptocurrency?
Like any other company, most cryptocurrency businesses got their start when their founders came up with the idea to launch a business. The difference, however, is that crypto is not only a new form of finance but also has an ideological foundation that combines the spirit of decentralization, freedom and anonymity. Over the last decade, cryptocurrencies have challenged traditional fiat currencies and rejected many of the rules of the financial world, causing confusion in the measured life of the global investment industry. Read More
Struggle for Web3’s soul: The future of blockchain-based identity
What’s behind Buterin’s embrace of “soulbound tokens”? Ensuring Ethereum’s dominance? A backlash against NFTs? Creating a better world?
There is no shortage of visionary scenarios about how Web3 might unfold, but one of the latest, “Decentralized Society: Finding Web3’s Soul” — a paper published in mid-May by E. Glen Weyl, Puja Ohlhaver and Vitalik Buterin — is close to becoming one of the top 50 most downloaded papers on the SSRN scholarly research platform.
The attention, one might suspect, has much to do with the participation of Buterin, blockchain’s wunderkind and the legendary co-founder of the Ethereum network. But it could also be a function of the paper’s ambition and scope, which includes asking questions like: What sort of society do we really want to live in? One that is finance-based or trust-based?
The authors illustrate how “non-transferable ‘soulbound’ tokens (SBTs) representing the commitments, credentials, and affiliations of ‘Souls’ can encode the trust networks of the real economy to establish provenance and reputation.” These SBTs appear to be something like blockchain-based curricula vitae, or CVs, while “Souls” are basically people — or strictly speaking, individuals’ crypto wallets. However, Souls can also be institutions, like Columbia University or the Ethereum Foundation. The authors wrote:
“Imagine a world where most participants have Souls that store SBTs corresponding to a series of affiliations, memberships, and credentials. For example, a person might have a Soul that stores SBTs representing educational credentials, employment history, or hashes of their writings or works of art.” Read More
‘Father’ of the Metaverse Neal Stephenson launching metaverse blockchain
At LAMINA1, Neal Stephenson will focus on “helping get artists and other value creators paid properly for their work, helping the environment [...] and seeing a truly open Metaverse get built,” noted co-founder Peter Vessenes.
Neal Stephenson, the author who coined the term “Metaverse” 30 years ago, is launching a metaverse-focused blockchain project called LAMINA1.
He has also revised his vision for the Metaverse, stating that the experience is likely to be geared more toward flat 2D screens rather than virtual reality or augmented reality tech such as headsets and lenses, as in the model proposed by Meta and Microsoft.
Stephenson is a popular speculative fiction author who explored the concept of a virtual reality world called the Metaverse in his sci-fi novel Snow Crash in 1992. Outside of writing, the 62-year-old also served as the chief futurist for an augmented reality (AR) firm called Magic between 2014 and 2020.
According to a Wednesday announcement from OG crypto investor and former Bitcoin Foundation chairman Peter Vessenes, he and Stephenson have co-founded a new layer-1 blockchain called LAMINA1 that they hope will act as the “base layer for the Open Metaverse.”
“A place to build something a bit closer to Neal’s vision — one that privileges creators, technical and artistic, one that provides support, spatial computing tech, and a community to support those who are building out the Metaverse,” Vessenes wrote, adding that the network will “probably” be carbon negative. Read More
Rainmaker Games Announces The First Cross-Chain, GameFi-Exclusive NFT Marketplace
Rainmaker Games is glad to announce the launch of the world’s first-ever cross-chain, GameFi exclusive NFT Marketplace as part of its popular GameFi platform. For the first time in the GameFi industry, gamers can explore aggregated top NFT listings from across Web3, complete with guides, strategies, and reviews all in one place. This robust NFT marketplace seamlessly integrates with Rainmaker’s game discovery engine, ushering in the next generation of frictionless gameFI experience.
Throughout the entire development process, Rainmaker Games has prioritized ease of use and accessibility. Nothing has changed with their cross-chain and cross-platform NFT marketplace. The Rainmaker Platform is also complete with comprehensive Game Guides, in-depth Buying Guides, and data-driven Price Estimates for increased transparency in gaming. Selecting from over thousands of blockchain games on multiple chains, Rainmaker’s team aggregates the best GameFi NFT listings across the Web3 landscape.
Rainmaker’s all-in-one gaming platform is designed by gamers, for gamers. Rainmaker is taking the guesswork out of buying NFTs and empowering gamers around the world with the data to play and invest smarter. From curated listings, a comprehensive discovery platform, and user-generated reviews, the NFT Marketplace is the newest addition to an already information-rich platform that will continue to bring innovation and adoption to the industry. Read More
Markethive Leading The Way In Web 3 Social & Market Media
Web 3.0 is the next generation of the internet which people envision will be more decentralized and permissionless. One that's built on decentralized protocols, where users help with content creation and the governance of the web itself. They also have the ability to own a part of the network, so you can think of it as a Read-Write-Own Internet.
There are already several technologies that could serve as the backbone for a Web 3 world. Most point to blockchains like Elrond, Cardano, or Ethereum, for example, but other distributed technologies like IPFS can also be used to decentralize networks.
Thousands of dApps (decentralized applications) are already being built in the Web 3 environment. These often include native tokens to add value to the application to those who hold the tokens. These native crypto assets allow those who participate in the network to share in the value generated from it.
Web 3 promises a decentralized alternative where we are all users, owners, and developers. This quote from Fabric Ventures sums it up beautifully,
“Web 3.0 enables a future where distributed users and machines are able to interact with data, value, and other counterparties via a substrate of peer-to-peer networks without the need for third parties—the result: a composable human-centric & privacy-preserving computing fabric for the next wave of the web.” Read More
Gillibrand and Lummis state that most altcoins are securities
“Most cryptocurrencies go to the SEC. [...] Bitcoin and Ether would be certainly commodities, and that’s agreed upon,” said U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
United States Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Cynthia Lummis believe that most altcoins would likely be considered securities under their proposed new legislation, but they confirmed that Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) will be classified as commodities.
Lummis and Gillibrand both agreed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler’s assessment that most cryptocurrencies are securities under the Howey Test, with Gillibrand stating:
“Most cryptocurrencies go to the SEC [...] Bitcoin and Ether would be certainly commodities, and that's agreed upon. That’s agreed with Chairman Gensler as well as the chairman of the CFTC.”
Gillibrand pushed back on reports characterizing the legislation as making the Commodity Futures Trading Commission the primary regulator. “I don’t think CFTC is the primary regulator,” she said. “They just have the obligation to regulate Bitcoin and Ether, the majority of cryptocurrencies today.” Read More
Chainlink brings Keepers and VRF to the Avalanche blockchain
Ava Labs CEO Emin Gün Sirer said that this will simplify the experiences of Avalanche developers and users.
Blockchain oracle platform Chainlink (LINK) launched two of its services, Chainlink Keepers and Chainlink Verifiable Random Function (VRF) and integrated them into the Avalanche Primary Network, a special subnet within the Avalanche (AVAX) platform.
In the announcement sent to Cointelegraph on Thursday, the Chainlink team highlighted that the integration with Avalanche was done to support developers within the platform. Chainlink Keepers will enable developers to automate smart contract functions in a decentralized manner. On the other hand, Chainlink VRF will provide a random number generator (RNG) that can be used in many decentralized applications (DApps) that require randomness.
Emin Gün Sirer, the founder and CEO of Ava Labs, expressed his belief that integration is a big milestone for those who are building in Avalanche. According to Sirer, this will "simplify both the developer and user experiences." Apart from this, the Avalanche executive noted that this will also improve functionalities and designs within DApps. He stated that:
“The Avalanche Community is full of tireless builders, and their ability to rapidly build and ship applications at scale just became even easier." Read More
Polygon taps Airbnb’s director of HR to spearhead its decentralized workforce
Cointelegraph spoke to Polygon’s newly appointed global head of HR, Bhumika Srivastava, to learn more about her Web2-to-Web3 transition and philosophy for decentralized cultures, among other things.
Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Polygon has announced the hiring of Bhumika Srivastava in a bid to consolidate its strategy and cultural ambitions for the company’s 500-employee global workforce.
Serving as the head of human resources and director for employee experience at Airbnb for the past five years, Srivastava arrives with an illustrious portfolio and plethora of experience from her work in Web2, having occupied senior roles at Adobe, Yahoo, Tesco PLC, and Snapdeal.
Srivastava’s appointment marks a consistent trend in Polygon’s hiring strategy of prominent figures within the Web2 space, such as the former head of gaming at YouTube, Ryan Wyatt, being hired as CEO of Polygon Studios in January and, more recently, Tyler Sellhorn being brought on to promote Polygon’s decentralized working model as head of remote.
In an interview with Cointelegraph, Srivastava spoke candidly about the necessities of leadership, Polygon’s parabolic employee growth over the past year, and her ambitions to cultivate a thriving decentralized culture that operates with sustainable high-performance. Read More
Blockchain for sustainable development: The case of Ghana
How blockchain technology might help developing economies increase financial inclusion — a closer look at financial services in Ghana.
In modern times of rapid globalization and digitization, technological developments have now reached such proportions that the usage of cryptocurrencies is no new phenomenon. The technology behind blockchain opens the internet for financial services by replacing trust, a fundamental component of the financial system for centuries, with transparency integrated into a decentralized network. Thereby, blockchain bears the potential to help achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by empowering the unbanked, predominantly women, reducing transaction fees as well as creating an alternative source of liquidity.
Only 57.7% of adults in Ghana in 2021 had a bank account. Unable to afford participation in the formal financial system, the poor find themselves paying the most for fundamental financial services. Moreover, there is a multiplier effect inherent with the economic participation of women that takes wide-ranging consequences respecting a number of SDGs.
Financial inclusion may alleviate poverty, improve health and well-being, gender equality, take a positive effect on children’s education, and more. Access to affordable financial services thus becomes a catalyst for economic growth and opportunity. Simply put, there is a lot at stake here. Let’s dig into it. Read More
Here’s how blockchains are helping to advance the global energy grid
Governments and environmentalists are quick to criticize the amount of electricity Bitcoin mining uses, but investors’ growing interest in crypto is leading to positive steps in the energy sector.
The blockchain industry’s impact on the energy sector has been a major source of controversy over the past five years. Governments and environmental protection advocates have routinely expressed concerns about the amount of energy required to keep the Bitcoin network secure. Data shows the network’s energy consumption now rivals the yearly energy consumed by some small countries.
While much of the debate has centered around the negative environmental impacts of Bitcoin (BTC) mining, the drive to maximize earnings from mining and integrate blockchain technology with the energy grid has also introduced new developments that have the potential to be beneficial in the long term.
Here’s a look at several developments that have arisen out of the demand for energy to operate blockchain networks and the positive effects cryptocurrency mining is having on the energy industry. 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.
