Over the years, several cryptocurrency companies have claimed that deposits with them were insured by the United States Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as if they were regular savings accounts. While so far, no crypto firm has been able to offer depositors this type of insurance, some speculate it could be the key to mass adoption. The most notable case is that of bankrupt lender Voyager Digital, which saw regulators instruct it to remove “false and misleading statements” regarding FDIC insurance. Crypto exchange FTX has been a beacon of hope looking to backstop contagion in the …

The lack of regulation and good governance in the crypto sector is more than a hindrance to businesses and lack of protection for users, it is an existential threat, Bank of England Financial Policy Committee external member Carolyn Wilkins said in a talk on Oct. 19. Decentralized finance (DeFi) would be a good place to start getting affairs in order, she said. Speaking at the University College London Centre for Blockchain Technologies, Wilkins said that the most common complaints about scamming that reach the Financial Conduct Authority, the U.K. financial regulator, are about crypto. In addition to that financial risk, …

Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey have lifted the curtain on the latest iteration of its social protocol and a new Bluesky Social app — as part of its decentralized answer to Twitter. The Oct. 18 announcement comes nearly three years since the initiative was announced by Dorsey in December 2019, with the aim that social media users should have control over their data and be able to move it from platform to platform without permission. The new protocol has been renamed from “ADX” to “Authenticated Transfer Protocol” — or AT Protocol — and is described as a “protocol …

Over the past few years, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) have introduced a clear paradigm shift in blockchain governance. With their community decision-making and adherence to hardcoded rules, they have challenged the role of hierarchy and central authority that are present in modern organizations, especially as it pertains to business. Ideologically, DAOs have a lot in common with democracies: individuals holding an amount of a DAO’s specific token can allocate those tokens as votes on governance proposals. Once voting has concluded, the final outcome is executed autonomously by smart contracts. In functional democracies, however, citizens elect representatives to legislate laws and …

All revolutions have their dogmas, and the cryptocurrency/blockchain insurgency is no different. It’s an article of faith among crypto adherents that decentralization will solve many of society’s ills, including the problem of governance. Vili Lehdonvirta — an Oxford University social scientist, book author, and former software developer — disagrees. “The underlying technology will change and it’s already changing,” he told Cointelegraph last week. “It’s becoming less blockchain-like, less like the original idea of a trustless system,” especially after the Ethereum Merge, where corporate-like ‘staking’ entities will be needed to “uphold the integrity of the chain,” in his view. Indeed, crypto …

Considerable anxiety exists in the world of Web3 related to regulation and the legal status of cryptocurrency projects. It’s particularly apparent in the United States, where the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fueled concerns in September with an announcement that it was imposing a $250,000 fine on a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), Ooki DAO, and its investors. The fine was particularly ominous, considering DAOs are intended to be “regulation proof.” The CFTC said in its statement on the issue that Ooki DAO’s bZeroX protocol offered illegal off-exchange trading of digital assets. The agency took issue with the fact that the …

Despite the rise of decentralized finance (DeFi), cryptocurrency investors appear to stick to centralized exchanges (CEX) over DeFi tools, according to a new report. Crypto investors are more comfortable with holding their assets on CEXes because decentralized exchanges are still more vulnerable to the threat of hacks. This is according to a joint report by the blockchain data firm Chainalysis and Bitfinex exchange, issued on Oct. 13. According to the study, the risks of hacks associated with CEXes have significantly dropped over the past few years, while various DeFi platforms have become increasingly hacked. The total value stolen from centralized …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) led cryptocurrency’s rapid growth in early 2021, but the crypto market has since plummeted in value. Global markets have played a role, but so has recklessness among developers when it comes to both cybersecurity and (often self-serving) inflationary token models. Too much DeFi has been based on tokens minted from nothing or tokens that finance other tokens at high interest rates, with no part of the entire activity having any real underlying economic activity to back the yields offered. Secondly, security issues, hacks and exploits of DeFi contracts and bridges have been widespread, and most notable DeFi …

Decentralized identity (DID) and compliance services will become a “key infrastructure” to the success of decentralized finance (DeFi) and the transition of real world financial assets onto the blockchain according to Fabrice Cheng, CEO and co-founder of Quadrata. Speaking with Cointelegraph, Cheng said the key driver behind the demand for DID will come from Web3 protocols, which will utilize the DID of users to build better products that are “catered” to existing customers and also “targets new sets of customers.” Quadrata provides a Web3 identity solution which allows users to perform KYC compliance without sharing personal data, it recently partnered …

For years, mass adoption has been pitched as the endgame of crypto. We’re supposed to envision a world where we can pay for our morning coffee with stablecoins and put mortgages on-chain to be used as collateral in decentralized finance (DeFi). In a world in which crypto has become mainstream, prices would likely reach all-time highs, but at what cost? Concessions inevitably would be made to meet consumer expectations to realize this future. Though the proliferation of online banking may seem like it set the stage for a seamless transition to DeFi, traditional finance (TradFi) customers are accustomed to a …

Three economists were awarded the Nobel Prize in economic sciences on Oct. 10 for their discoveries which are said to have improved “how society deals with financial crises." Ben Bernanke, Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig conducted research on the economic role played by banks during times of financial crisis. According to the Nobel Prize Organization, this research included an important finding on why it is not only important but “vital” to avoid the collapse of banks. Tore Ellingsen, the chair of the committee for the prize in economic sciences, said that: “The laureates’ insights have improved our ability to avoid …

Some critics deem nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to be totally worthless. They don’t see the point. Why should they? The industry hasn’t covered itself in glory with countless rug pulls and celebrity endorsements with prompt pump-and-dumps. But, this is missing the point. Already most of the digital and physical objects we use in real life are unique, they are not fungible: this means they cannot be copied, substituted or subdivided. Detractors might still say, well, what’s the point? NFTs are immutable and verifiable assets on the blockchain — these sound like industry buzzwords with little meaning. However, they go a long …