A partnership between Web3 payment protocol Immersve and payments giant Mastercard will allow users to make crypto payments on digital, physical and the Metaverse worlds. USD Coin (USDC) tokens — a US dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Circle — will be used to settle transactions on Mastercard’s network. The Mastercard-Immersve partnership uses decentralized protocols to settle real-time cryptocurrency transactions on outlets accepting Mastercard payments online. Users will be able to use their existing Web3 wallets to make direct crypto payments without relying on a third party for collateral. Instead, Immersve will partner with a third-party settlement provider and allow its users …

Automated systems and blockchain technology are being increasingly utilized to improve the efficiency and accuracy of the carbon market, a critical component in the fight against climate change. Cointelegraph spoke to Bill Kentrup about the role of blockchain technology in digitizing verifiable data in the carbon market. Kentrup is the head of Origination and co-founder of enterprise software Allinfra Climate — a platform designed to help institutions achieve their sustainability goals. According to him, on-chain monitoring, reporting, verification, issuance, allocation, and retirement of carbon credits and carbon claims, could bring about efficiency and predictability that hasn’t existed in the past. …

A $100 million is being earmarked for a grant program funding the development of Web3, AI and decentralized technologies in a partnership between Bosch and Fetch.ai. The two companies are collaborating to create the Fetch.ai Foundation, which will aim to fuel industrial adoption of innovative software, AI and Web3 technologies. The initiative will fund research and develop decentralized technologies for real-world use cases. The program will provide $100 million in grants to fund the long-term development of Web3-based solutions and services for the mobility, industrial technology and consumer industries. An announcement shared with Cointelegraph indicates that the grant program will …

The game industry has taken notice of the growing GameFi sector, which utilizes blockchain technology, and many brands have launched their own unique blockchain games. However, many of these games lack the engaging gameplay mechanics and enjoyment found in successful traditional games. Undeads aims to bring these elements to the forefront with high production values, high entertainment and replayability values not yet seen in the Web3 space. Undeads Metaverse is a AAA survival game that is revolutionizing the world of blockchain gaming. The team of over 70 developers is using play-to-earn mechanics, a well-designed game economy and high production values …

Google-owned YouTube has appointed Web3-friendly exec Neal Mohan as its new CEO following the departure of Susan Wojcicki this week. Wojcicki stepped down from YouTube on Feb. 16 after nine years at the helm, outlining plans to start a “new chapter” focused on family, health and personal projects. During her tenure, she oversaw the pivotal introduction of the revenue-sharing model, among other things. Moving forward she will remain an advisor for Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. Thank you, @SusanWojcicki. It's been amazing to work with you over the years. You've built YouTube into an extraordinary home for creators and viewers. …

In the latest Crypto Stories episode by Cointelegraph, Aaron and Austin Arnold share their journey of creating 'Altcoin Daily,' a crypto content platform that has amassed millions of subscribers across various platforms. Earlier in life, Aaron spent his childhood dreaming of becoming a veterinarian, and then an actor, and then a filmmaker. Dreams of breaking into the filmmaking industry led the brothers to Los Angeles, where they struggled to get into entertainment. While struggling, Aaron spent many sleepless nights contemplating purpose and how he could help make a difference in other people's lives. One day, while going to a comedy …

Non fungible tokens (NFTs) started as what are essentially tamper-proof ledgers to verify authenticity and guarantee collectors’ ownership rights over artworks. However, since their emergence several years ago, NFTs have become much more than that. Now, many projects claim to seek to deliver new forms of value and utility. So far, many have centered around community building and intellectual property. As of yet though, no notable projects have tried to center their build around the potential of the core technology that is blockchain. Simultaneously, growing traction of the Metaverse concept and Web3 culture have led to many enthusiasts identifying themselves …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) has been a rapidly growing sector of the cryptocurrency industry, but it has also faced significant regulatory challenges. With regulators struggling to keep up with the pace of innovation, the lack of clarity around regulations tends to create uncertainty for DeFi projects. Cointelegraph spoke to Alastair Johnson about regulatory challenges facing the DeFi industry. Johnson is the CEO of an identity “super-wallet” called Nuggets that seeks to deliver verified self-sovereign decentralized identities to users. He said that one of the main regulatory challenges is DeFi platform anonymity, which makes it difficult to comply with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) …

The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (HKSAR Government) announced on Feb 16 that it had issued HK$800 million in tokenized green bonds, under the Government's Green Bond Program (GBP). The bonds were underwritten by four banks and priced at a yield of 4.05%. According to the announcement, the platform used Goldman Sachs' tokenization protocol GS DAP for the bond, which uses a private blockchain network to settle security tokens representing the beneficial interests of bonds in a T+1 payment-vs-payment (DvP) manner, and cash tokens representing claims on the HKMA's Hong Kong …

Blockchain video delivery network Theta Labs has partnered with the artificial intelligence (AI) platform FedML to enable collaborative machine learning on content recommendation and generative AI. In an announcement sent to Cointelegraph, the two firms said that the partnership would focus on the collaborative training of large-scale generative AI models, allowing the Theta TV community to contribute personal preferences and compute resources in training and deploying AI models to enhance personalized recommendations and advertisements through FedML. According to the FedML team, Theta’s Edge Network, which is operated by many decentralized nodes across the globe, is a good fit for distributed …

Developers of one of the earliest Android-based mobile browsers are working to bring online communication to the next level by introducing it to Web3. Sending Labs, a new startup focused on decentralized communications protocol, has secured $12.5M in seed funding to launch the Web3 communications stack. The new platform takes on the mission of building accessible and secure infrastructures for Web3 communication for developers and the community, applying end-to-end decentralization of core of its products. With the new offering, Sending Labs aims to enable privacy-preserving communications and guarantee ownership and transfer of digital assets within community chats. The seed funding …

Abu Dhabi's technology ecosystem, Hub71, has announced a new initiative called "Hub71+ Digital Assets," with a capital backing of over US$2 billion. This project aims to advance Web3-based innovations, such as blockchain technology and metaverse applications. The initiative aspires to provide Web3 startups with access to a range of programs, and initiatives, as well as, corporate, government, and investment partners in both global markets and the UAE. The Hub71+ Digital Assets initiative said it intends to provide Web3 startups with access to a state-of-the-art blockchain and virtual asset infrastructure, as well as a progressive regulatory environment. This initiative will be …