American comic book publisher Archie Comics, known for its iconic Riverdale characters, is leveraging the blockchain to develop fan-generated art and stories as well as Archie-inspired nonfungible token (NFT) collections. Laura Braga and Vincezo Federici, the artists behind the 80-year-old franchise, partnered with Palm NFT Studio, to create a new blockchain-based writer’s room called the "Archiverse: Eclipse." According to the company, the Archiverse intends to empower Archie Comics fans to author the brand's future through generative storytelling. Its writer’s room invites fans to create and submit new storylines for their characters. The creators of selected submissions will be directly rewarded …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols have diversified investment opportunities in the crypto industry by facilitating novel and innovative passive income generation schemes. Delving a bit into how they work, DeFi systems are based on blockchain technology and run on programmable chains such as the BNB Chain and the Ethereum Network. The chains use decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) finance architectures to cut out the middleman and enable lending, borrowing and liquidity provision. This leads to higher interest rates compared to those provided by regulated financial institutions such as banks. For perspective, many regulated banks provide interest rates of less than one percent per …

The world’s energy market is rapidly evolving, moving from hydrocarbon plants to a future centered around clean energy enabled by wind and solar power. As such, today’s energy market is shifting to an increasingly decentralized, real-time model based on distributed energy resources (DERs) including battery energy storage systems, solar arrays, natural gas generators and more. Recent findings from Allied Market Research show that the global distributed energy generation market size was valued at $246.4 billion in 2020, yet this number is predicted to reach $919.6 billion by 2030. Web3 technologies for managing energy assets Given today’s advancing energy market, Jesse …

“The Market Report” with Cointelegraph is live right now. On this week’s show, Cointelegraph’s resident experts discuss the worst mistakes you should avoid making in crypto. But first, market expert Marcel Pechman carefully examines the Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) markets. Are the current market conditions bullish or bearish? What is the outlook for the next few months? Pechman is here to break it down. Next up: the main event. Join Cointelegraph analysts Benton Yaun, Jordan Finneseth and Sam Bourgi as they talk about the worst crypto mistakes to avoid making in 2022. First up we have Bourgi, who thinks …

The EU Blockchain Observatory published its fifth report under the headline “Blockchain Applications in the Healthcare Sector.” The document highlights the importance of distributed ledger technology for the European healthcare sector, which faces a number of challenges on its route to the “Healthcare 4.0” revolution. The 66-page document was announced on the EU Blockchain Observatory's Twitter on April 11. Its authors take an optimistic perspective on the implementation of blockchain technology in healthcare, noting its compatibility with the core principles of “Healthcare 4.0”, such as interoperability, virtualization, decentralization, real-time capability, service orientation and modularity. Below are 7 key takeaways from …

At the height of the nonfungible token (NFT) rally in 2021, Sky Mavis, the creator of Axie Infinity, rolled in like the Trojan horse and coined the term play-to-earn (P2E) for blockchain games. Axie Infinity grew in popularity after amassing a $3 billion valuation and it steadily onboarded millions into Web3. According to Axie Infinity co-founder Aleksander Larsen, roughly 50% of Axie Infinity’s daily active users (DAUs) had never had a cryptocurrency wallet until they began playing. As a result, the Web3 ecosystem perked up at the prospect of utilizing games as a method to onboard new entrants. Despite this, …

Whatever you prefer to call it — crypto, blockchain or Web3 — this new segment of the digital economy is booming across Africa. If you’ve been sleeping on the sector, now’s a good time to wake up. Why? Well for one, according to analytics firm Chainalysis, Africa’s crypto market increased in value by more than 1,200% between July 2020 and June 2021. Led by especially high adoption rates in Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Tanzania, Africa had the third-fastest growing cryptocurrency economy worldwide during that period. And that’s not all. Chainalysis also found that Africa leads the world in the …

Incredible as it may seem, digital fashion has developed so much that it already needs its own fashion week with all that implies: from the shows and presentations of new collections to public talks and parties with true DJs. The first-ever digital fashion week took place March 23-27 in Decentraland, a decentralized virtual social platform on the Ethereum blockchain. Previously, Jonathan Simkhai presented his collection in Second Life right before New York Fashion Week. After the show, skins of evening outfits could be purchased at NFT to dress up users’ avatars in Second Life. Decentraland also held the first full-fledged …

The outlook for projects in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector has begun to improve in recent months as a combination of global events have highlighted the benefits of holding funds outside of the traditional financial systems. One project that has rallied over the past few months is Kyber Network (KNC), a multi-chain cryptocurrency trading and liquidity hub that aims to offer users the best trading rates. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after bouncing off a low of $2.83 on April 6, the price of KNC jumped 55.4% to hit an all-time high of $4.04 on April …

Lawmakers in Australia want to regulate decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO). In this three-part series, Oleksii Konashevych discusses the risks of stifling the emerging phenomenon of DAOs and possible solutions. Regulating a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) as a company, first of all, means registration as a company. But who remembers why we need that registry in the first place? Will anyone question whether a blockchain-based DAO needs registration at all? Historically, the government took the role of that trusted third party that, through its public agency — i.e., a registry office — keeps records about a company: who is in charge, …

Near Protocol (NEAR) has rallied by almost 30% after announcing on April 6 that it had raised $350 million in a funding round led by Tiger Global, a New York-based hedge fund. NEAR price eyes 100% price rally NEAR's price reached over $19.75, just about 2.5% below its all-time high. However, many analysts agreed with the potential for the NEAR/USD pair to reclaim its best level to date, and even rise above it in the coming weeks. Adoption remained the key focus behind the bullish predictions. For instance, Zoran Cole, the founder of the popular Telegram group Crypto Insiders highlighted …

Interoperability network Interlay has released a 21-page technical whitepaper, titled XCC: Theft-Resilient and Collateral-Optimized Cryptocurrency-Backed Assets, advocating for the imminent development of cross-blockchain interoperability solutions to unlock a plethora of potential within the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. As a Polkadot parachain, Interlay is focusing its efforts on opening pathways of communication and interaction between Bitcoin’s currency-native ecosystem, with the wider functionalities of the DeFi space with networks such as Ethereum and Polkadot. The newly-launched XCC protocol — serving as an additional layer of XCLAIM which was introduced to the market in 2018 — enables greater asset sovereignty during cross-chain activities …