As brands focus on building new use cases during the bear market, a team has come up with combining nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and near-field communication (NFC) chips to enhance the experience of their users. In an interview with Cointelegraph's Alyssa Exposito, RTFKT co-founder Steven Vasilev shared insights from their experience in creating RTFKT and gave thoughts on how they are creating an ecosystem of authenticity through NFTs and NFC technology. According to Vasilev, when their team was creating the RTFKT project, they realized that NFTs and blockchain technology had the potential to enhance the experience of collectors. He explained that: …

Law enforcement in Australia is working to boost cryptocurrency expertise and trace crypto transactions by setting up a dedicated police group. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has established a new cryptocurrency unit to focus on monitoring crypto-related transactions, The Australian Financial Review reported on Monday. Stefan Jerga, the national manager of the AFP’s criminal asset confiscation command, said that the use of crypto in criminal activity had significantly increased since the AFP made its first crypto seizure in early 2018. In response to this, AFP decided to set up a dedicated crypto team in August, Jerga noted. The increased focus …

Should I share my Bitcoin address publicly? It is not a problem to share public keys, but make sure the private key cannot be found by third parties. Transactions can be sent to the public key, which is completely secure. It is safe to share your Bitcoin address publicly. This way, it is possible to safely complete donations or payments. No cryptocurrencies can be stolen through a public address. The only way by which stealing crypto is possible is if someone has managed to get hold of the private keys. Bitcoin wallets always make a difference between public keys and …

Trust is the cornerstone of socioeconomic success and geopolitical balance. Our current world is exhibiting a massive trust deficit. Distrust is resulting in socioeconomic failures and geopolitical angst. Blockchain’s superpower is trust. It is time to mandate blockchain businesses to rebuild trust, success and balance across global systems. Geopolitical agitations, the war in Ukraine and elsewhere, famine, climate crisis, inflation, supply chain problems, and financial market turmoil are a few of humanity’s many challenges today. Let’s talk about trust The world is in need of and must trust again. Blockchain is a technology built upon integrated trust. Where there is …

Cryptocurrency mixers have been an interesting topic of discussion ever since the advent of cryptocurrencies and their adoption by retail investors around the world. Cryptocurrency mixers are services that essentially focus on one feature of a blockchain network: privacy. Cryptocurrency mixers, also known as tumblers, provide anonymity so no one can trace the sender or receiver of a transaction. This can help protect the identity of individuals who want to be completely anonymous and non-traceable. How cryptocurrency mixers work is that they break down the funds sent using the mixer and scramble them with other transactions. They break the link …

Scientists can leverage blockchain tools, such as smart contracts and tokens, to improve collaboration in scientific endeavors between different stakeholders. This so-called decentralized science movement, or DeSci for short, combines blockchain and Web3 technologies to improve scientific research. A primary goal of DeSci is wider participation and funding when approaching scientific challenges, as well as democratizing the peer-to-peer review process, which is dominated by a few journals in which it can be costly to appear and combatting censorship. DeSci can also create standards for research storage with the proof of existence technology. Whereas on financial blockchains such as Bitcoin, transactions …

Kimbal Musk, Nadya Tolokonnikova and Alex Zhang took to the SXSW stage on Monday to participate in the "Move Over NFTs. Here Come the DAOs" panel at Austin's Convention Center. Tolokonnikova is a former member of the Russian protest punk rock group Pussy Riot, and the co-founder of UnicornDAO and UkraineDAO. Zhang cofounded the social club DAO Friends With Benefits and serves as its mayor, while Musk cofounded the philanthropic DAO, Big Green DAO. Journalist Michael Casey moderated. Throughout the discussion, the panelists described their distinct and contrasting use cases behind their own decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs, and came …

On Jan. 30, the South China Morning Post reported that one of the largest Asian pharmaceutical companies, Zuellig, had launched a blockchain-based system to track the quality of COVID-19 vaccines. Called “eZTracker,” it allows any user to “instantly verify the provenance and authenticity” of vaccines by scanning the QR code on the package. Somewhat surprisingly, throughout the pandemic, there have not been many reports of blockchain-based products adopted by big pharma or global healthcare organizations to bolster the anti-COVID effort. Here is a rundown of the major cases of such adoption, along with possible reasons for the limited interest in …

The Russian Federal Taxation Service (FNS) is actively monitoring the cryptocurrency market to prevent tax evasion, FNS head Daniil Egorov said. Cryptocurrencies can potentially cause “significant erosion” to Russia’s tax base, Egorov argued in a Monday interview with the local publication RBC. But cryptocurrency transactions are still traceable and should be reported, the official said, adding that FNS is ready to deploy automated tracking systems to process big data volumes. “When you get into the digital space, you still leave a trail somewhere. And it’s a matter of time before this trail is identified,” Egorov declared. The official also noted …

The regulators are closing in. It’s one thing to unbundle market functions to their parts ― custody, aggregators and Prime Brokerage ― to satisfy institutional compliance departments. It’s another to keep regulators happy. From the Financial Action Task Force pushing forward with its guidance for Travel Rule compliance to the still-evolving European Markets in Crypto-Assets regulatory framework, and the somewhat clumsily-handed U.S. infrastructure bill, the regulators are slowly tightening their noose, and I fear this may be the start of a multi-year staring match ― with the decentralized finance (DeFi) market now firmly in their sights, too. Related: DeFi: Who, …

Federal authorities in Russia are moving forward with a plan to closely monitor cryptocurrency activity for illicit transactions and deanonymize crypto users’ identities. The Russian Federal Financial Monitoring Service, also known as Rosfinmonitoring, has selected a contractor for developing a platform for tracking cryptocurrency activity. According to data from Russia’s state procurement website, the country will allocate 14.7 million rubles ($200,000 USD) from its budget to create a “module for monitoring and analyzing cryptocurrency transactions” using Bitcoin (BTC). According to the official data, the procurement contract was granted to a company referred to as RCO, which is reportedly indirectly backed …

United Kingdom-based crypto fund Nickel Digital Asset Management released a survey of 100 wealth managers and global institutional investors to find out the biggest investor concerns associated with crypto. The survey features respondents from the United States, France, Germany, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom, who collectively own $275 billion in assets under management. Conducted online from May to June 2021, the survey found low confidence among institutional investors in crypto security, with 76% of respondents citing concerns about the security of custodial services as one factor stopping them from investing in crypto. Respondents also identified the regulatory …