The Metaverse is quickly becoming one of the most important places for companies and individuals looking to expand their reach. New findings from research firm MarketsandMarkets predict that the Metaverse market size will grow from $61.8 billion in 2022 to $426.9 billion by 2027. In addition, a recent report from Juniper Research links nonfungible token (NFT) growth to metaverse use cases. According to these findings, metaverse-related NFTs will experience an increase from 600,000 transactions in 2022 to 9.8 million by 2027. Given this potential, a number of regions across the globe have started to establish a virtual presence. For example, …

Digital asset custody platform Fireblocks has launched support for Solana, giving its thousands of users access to the developer network’s applications and infrastructure. Beginning Tuesday, Fireblocks users will have direct access to Solana’s various decentralized finance (DeFi) and Web3 applications — a move the company says will directly benefit “alternative asset managers” and “capital market participants.” “Thousands of businesses use Fireblocks to access novel Web3 products and services,” Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko said in a statement. “Starting today, these businesses will immediately have access to the depth and breadth of the Solana ecosystem.” The Solana integration will come via Fireblocks’ …

All for one and one for all We need GameFi, DeFi and SocialFi to create a holistic Metaverse experience. Even with metaverses focusing on one purpose, these elements are essential to ensuring viability and scale. In essence, a metaverse can scale only if DeFi, GameFi and SocialFi can work together seamlessly. DeFi, in essence, would take care of the financial elements, GameFi the experiential elements and SocialFi the credibility elements for the economic actors. Without the DeFi elements, a metaverse would lack commercial scalability. Without the GameFi elements, the community would lack the experience motive for continually returning to it. …

American fast-food chain Taco Bell and Metaverse platform Decentraland are teaming up to offer United States-based couples a chance to get married in the Metaverse. The chain has called for engaged couples to enter a competition to win the brand’s first legally-recognized Metaverse wedding package, with a ceremony and reception to take place in the virtual world of Decentraland. According to Taco Bell, the ceremony and reception will include NFT invitations and custom-designed wedding attire. The couple will be able to bring virtual guests, who can partake in all the traditional wedding day celebrations like musical entertainment, dancing, and eating …

Bitcoin whales: who are the largest BTC holders? Satoshi Nakamoto has more than 1 million BTC, making him the largest Bitcoin holder. He is followed by the founders of Grayscale and Binance, who together have about the same amount of BTC as Satoshi Nakamoto. When looking at the largest Bitcoin holders, there are a few parties that stand out. Of course, Satoshi Nakamoto, with a total of 1,100,000 BTC, has more significant holdings than number two and three holders of Bitcoin, namely Grayscale and Binance. These companies have over 600,000 BTC and 400,000 BTC, respectively, numbers that most Bitcoin investors …

An independent Web3 gaming company has unveiled its very first project — and is vowing to offer an immersive, powerful experience for players. Digital Insight Games says its debut title will be known as Cloud Castles. It's scheduled to be released in 2023 — and promises to blend beloved elements from role-playing games with cutting-edge real-time strategy and tactics. In lush battlegrounds rendered in stunning detail using the latest technology, including Unreal Engine 5, Cloud Castles will give gamers the chance to collect and evolve fantasy creatures, and deploy them in fast-paced battles. Of course, a key tenet of Web3 …

Cryptocurrency entrepreneur and Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal has raised $50 million for a new startup fund dedicated to Web3 companies, underscoring venture capital’s growing interest in the blockchain-powered internet. Nailwal’s venture firm, Symbolic Capital, is backed by cryptocurrency protocols, exchanges, crypto-focused auditing firms and other venture capital investors, the company disclosed Thursday. Symbolic’s fund has already invested in three blockchain-focused gaming startups: BlinkMoon, Planet Mojo and Community Gaming. The initial funding received by these startups was not disclosed. In perhaps a new take on venture funding, Nailwal said his company is focused on supporting project founders from emerging markets. “Starting …

To many, Web3 is a concept that is equal parts promising and distant. Naturally, as the conversation continues to grow, many are now confused about where Web3 can be accessed, especially with the sheer number of self-proclaimed “decentralized applications” better thrown as “dApps” that are supposedly running and available. The caveat is that many of these projects aren’t fully decentralized, as they claim, often relying heavily on components of Web2 like centralized storage. The result is that at any time, a centralized party can disable access leaving users unable to access associated applications or, in extreme cases, compromise the dApps, …

Bitcoin (BTC) first drew attention to the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithm, a process that demonstrated users could maintain a secure, decentralized blockchain if only at the expense of large amounts of energy. As history would have it, Bitcoin grew in popularity and faced trouble scaling to accommodate the sheer number of transactions needed. Recognizing the gap in technology, alternatives were developed, the most popular being proof-of-stake (PoS). With staking, holders of a crypto asset could participate in the transaction validation process by locking their funds. Each participant would receive compensation in proportion to the amount staked, eliminating the need for …

The Metaverse as a concept is an attempt to fuse physical reality, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) into one seamless and immersive experience. The term “metaverse” was first used in Neil Stephenson’s 1982 cyberpunk novel Snow Crash. Stephenson’s metaverse was a virtual place where characters could go to escape a dreary totalitarian reality. Some of the key attributes of the Metaverse include: Even before the Metaverse became a phenomenon amid the nonfungible token (NFT) craze and crypto market boom, the concept was already in focus with the likes of Facebook, now Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung and several other …

Today’s social media landscape is dominated by Web2 corporations — mostly Meta (Facebook) and Twitter. The companies collect data from billions of users and collect billions of dollars in revenue from user-generated content. While it’s great for the corporations and their shareholders, it comes at a cost for average users and professional content creators. But in the near future, decentralized social media — or Web3 — is likely to end that old model by giving power back to users. No more evicting unruly users Because platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are centralized, users are at the mercy of …

Web3 came into existence posed as a blockchain-powered disruption to the current state of the internet. Yet, as a nascent technology, a fog of assumptions plagues discussions about the real capabilities of Web3 and its role in our day-to-day lives. Considering the promise of a decentralized internet using public blockchains, a complete transition to Web3 would require scrutiny across several factors. Out of the lot, security stands as one of the most crucial features as, in a Web3-powered world, tools and applications hosted over the blockchains go mainstream. Smart contract vulnerabilities While the blockchains that host Web3 applications remain impenetrable …