Readers expect their news content to be reliable and trustworthy, yet many doubt it actually is. Readers cite issues like unchecked sources, rushing too fast to print, careless reporting and news sites being deliberately misleading as contributing to their eroding trust in published content. Yet readers seek out — and are even willing to pay for — credible, factual, objective news. Increased trust will come from providing more transparency into the reporting and writing process, and the solution to this for news sites will come from an unusual source: blockchain technology. State of trust in publishing today We recently conducted …

Bithumb, a major South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, is moving forward with trading restrictions for its employees by banning its staff from trading on its platform. According to an official Friday announcement, Bithumb will completely ban its employees from buying or selling crypto using a Bithumb account starting this month. The restriction intends to strengthen internal regulations and improve transaction transparency on Bithumb exchange, the company said. As part of the measure, staff members already sent written statements regarding account withdrawals last month. Additionally, the exchange will implement a permanent monitoring system including self-audits and an internal reporting system, the announcement …

Trust in state-backed digital currencies will be “immeasurably higher” than trust in public cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Russian former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev argued. Medvedev, the incumbent deputy chief of Russia’s Security Council, spoke on cryptocurrencies and central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, at the Saint Petersburg International Legal Forum on Tuesday, local news agency TASS reported. The official pointed out the crucial role of digital transparency associated with emerging financial technologies like public cryptocurrencies. “It’s time to recognize their importance,” Medvedev noted, also stressing the role of new digital forms of money like central bank digital currencies. “It is …

Establishing responsible cobalt sourcing practices has become a major focus of attention for human rights groups, environmental researchers and others in recent years. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC, where over 70% of the world's cobalt is sourced, experts have cast a spotlight on severe human rights risks across many mining operations. Meanwhile, under-regulated deep-sea mining to extract cobalt and nickel has sparked profound concern amongst experts about its environmentally destructive impact. A new announcement by world-leading miners Glencore, CMOC and Eurasian Resources Group, together with battery material supplier Umicore, suggests corporate actors are looking to blockchain technologies …

S&P Dow Jones Indices, a major global resource for index-based data and research, has introduced its first cryptocurrency indexes amid a renewed surge on crypto markets. The company announced on Monday that it had launched three crypto indexes tied to the performance of the two largest cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). The newly introduced indexes include Bitcoin-based S&P Bitcoin Index (SPBTC), Ether-based S&P Ethereum Index (SPETH), and S&P Cryptocurrency MegaCap Index (SPCMC), which is designed to track the performance of BTC and ETH weighted by market capitalization. All three indexes are immediately available on the S&P’s website. The company …

Fact-checking agencies are in charge of verifying facts and claims in the news that may be distorted in the process of rewriting or for any political purposes. The news text may consist of truthful information written in a neutral format peculiar to the news, but one sentence may contain a false fact or claim whose origin is unknown. In addition, the state itself has begun to produce false information, as was the case with former U.S. President Donald Trump’s famous Twitter account. The main strength of fake news is the rapid speed with which it disseminates. While false information has …

The long-awaited video game Cyberpunk 2077 came out as an unfinished product with a bunch of technical flaws, but that doesn’t stop it from being one of the most important cultural phenomenons of recent years. And while some gamers are asking for refunds and the developers are hurriedly working on patches, I suggest we look at the enormously rich video game setting. The picture is not very nice — this world is a real centralized hell. In the fictional world of Cyberpunk 2077, blockchain technology either never existed or was never massively implemented. This is a world where full-scale decentralization …

Blockchain technology is great because it cuts out the middleman, removes the need to trust third parties, and gives users full agency over their finances, or true ownership of their wealth. From Bitcoin (BTC) to decentralized finance, blockchain technology has been delivering on this promise for quite some time now — but just how trustless is crypto really? Cryptocurrencies were created as a result of a lack of trust in the legacy financial system, but as crypto continues to evolve and change, more trust is required: in the developers, miners, exchange operators and other network participants. To some degree, crypto …

Blockchain technology can help countries like Kenya from losing billions of dollars to corruption, according to an official at the United Nations’ drugs and crime agency. David Robinson, the regional anti-corruption advisor at the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime, believes that new technologies like blockchain will help Kenya combat government corruption and other economic crimes. According to Nation Media Group on Nov. 3, Robinson claimed that blockchain-based solutions can provide full traceability of transactions, protecting public registries from fraud and forgery. The official said: “Blockchain technology becomes attractive to the global community and international organizations because it is a …

Some people predicted that crypto assets were going to be a fad that would quickly come and go. But in just a short time, we’ve seen crypto assets become the focus of new innovation. Cryptocurrencies have offered value exchange, the ability to generate income, and a viable investment option. Young companies are turning away from traditional VC to offer token options to investors. And blockchain technology is offering new value in the form of frictionless data exchange. As a result, crypto is making an ever-expanding effect on global economies, technology and culture. Because of this, crypto assets are becoming a …

A blockchain-based energy trading platform backed by German tech giant Siemens is being publicly demonstrated in a Bavarian municipality today. The so-called “Pebbles” project — short for “peer-to-peer energy trading based on blockchains” — is holding a virtual demo of its blockchain-based marketplace platform for optimized electricity trading. The demo was officially announced by the project on Oct. 22. The public demonstration of Pebbles’ energy platform in the town of Wildpoldsried in Bavarian marks a major milestone after the project was launched in March 2018. Funded by German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, Pebbles is a joint initiative …

A report published by the World Economic Forum, or WEF, highlighted the critical role of fourth industrial revolution technologies. New technologies like blockchain could help stimulate growth by implementing “nature-positive” solutions following the COVID-19 outbreak. According to the “Future of Nature and Business” study shared with Cointelegraph, nature-friendly solutions could have the capacity to create 395 million jobs and generate $10.1 trillion in business opportunities by 2030. Inger Andersen, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Program, commented on the matter: “As we enter into a historic decade of action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by …