Saturday Spotlight: Nigeria and China speed ahead of UK in digital money race weekend e-money special A new index charting the readiness and adoption of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) has seen Nigeria top the ranking with the e-Naira, launched in October 2021. Nigeria’s lead is closely followed by other early CBDC adopters, the Bahamas, Mainland China, Jamaica and Eastern Caribbean. The findings, from the PwC Global CBDC Index, capture the [...]
Manchester United sign blockchain platform Tezos as training kit sponsor £20m a year deal Manchester United have confirmed a training kit sponsorship deal with blockchain platform Tezos. The multi-year agreement is believed to be worth more than £20m a season, representing an increase on their previous contract with insurer Aon. It will Tezos appear on the training kit worn by both United’s men’s and women’s team, starting immediately. “This [...]
Is the future of our financial system DeFi? City Talk If Bitcoin is the Book of Genesis in crypto’s historical record, then DeFi (decentralised finance) might as well be the New Testament. Not a big religion buff? That’s ok – we’ve put together a way more detailed explanation about DeFi and its key components. While having knowledge of the broader cryptoasset market is key, DeFi [...]
How can the blockchain help tackle climate change? February 1, 2022 When you think of all the use cases for blockchain technology, solving the existential threat that is climate change is probably not one of them. If anything, crypto has had to play defence in 2021 when it comes to environmental issues, as big questions have been posed about the industry’s energy consumption and sustainability. Well, [...]
State news agency Xinhua releases NFTs amid China crypto crackdown December 22, 2021 Chinese state media agency Xinhua has announced plans to launch a line of NFTs despite a stringent nation wide crypto ban.
Producer of The Irishman backs NFT’s first step into Hollywood December 1, 2021 Production company NFT Studios announced “the first-ever Hollywood feature film to be fully funded” by “non-fungible tokens”, with Niels Juul, the exec producer behind Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, as the founder. The production company is the first in its kind to fund a series of movies entirely through NFTs, which are ways of owning the [...]
Adidas partners with Coinbase amid metaverse push November 25, 2021 Global fashion brand Adidas has announced a partnership with Nasdaq-listed crypto exchange Coinbase amid a push into the Metaverse.
Blockchain and DeFi: Drivers of change in asset management November 23, 2021 “The future of assets is tokenized.” That’s what Mona El Isa, the founder and CEO of Avantgarde Finance, told the audience at the Alpha Summit by CFA Institute in May this year. “If you make that assumption, you can totally re-imagine the infrastructure that finance is built on,” she continued. “You can see a totally automated operational and [...]
Blockchain start up Starkware valued at $2bn in latest funding round November 16, 2021 An Israeli start up that provides scalable blockchain technology for apps has secured $50m (£37m) in a Series C round led by Sequoia Capital. Starkware aims to solve the scaling issues faced by legacy blockchains in the crypto space by allowing companies to build apps on top of an ultra-fast chain capable of processing a [...]
China’s crackdown on crypto continues as more mining projects shut down July 14, 2021 The cryptocurrency industry in China was further hit today as Anhui province said it would close all crypto mining operations due to energy consumption concerns. The province in east China will shut down the energy-intensive projects as part of a package of changes to address a power supply shortage. Cryptocurrency prices continued to drop overnight, [...]