Web3 Financial News

A leading South Korean professor says that restrictive crypto laws are stopping Web3 unicorns from growing in the nation.

Despite Hong Kong steadily progressing with cryptocurrency adoption, mainland China has not changed its anti-crypto stance in terms of local regulations.

Crypto exchange Bitget announced the launch of a Web3-focused corporate social responsibility (CSR) project, with plans to invest millions in nurturing young talent for the future of crypto adoption.

According to a critique written by a senior software engineer at Google, the company is losing its advantage in artificial intelligence (AI) to the open-source community. The engineer contends that independent researchers in open-source technology are making swift and unforeseen strides in AI technology. 

One of the most critical issues in the Web3 space that needs to be resolved as soon as possible is the blockchain trilemma in addressing decentralization, security, and scalability. Only then can this industry achieve mainstream adoption.

On May 4, cryptocurrency derivatives exchange Bitget announced it would allocate $10 million over five years for its novel corporate social responsibility project. Dubbed "Blockchain4Youth," the project will provide blockchain courses and certifications through Bitget Academy and host campus lectures in partnership with universities worldwide. In addition, Bitget staff wrote:

Being stuck at home for almost two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people around the world are eager to experience new cities, countries and cultures. The flexibility of working from home now allows travelers to plan around a less home-bound lifestyle. However, age-old problems, including delayed or canceled transportation, lost luggage and check-in mixups, continue to trouble the travel industry, which is expected to tap $850 billion in revenue by the end of 2023.

Global financial services giant Mastercard has launched a new Web3 solution aimed at enhancing user verification standards and “reducing the opportunities for bad actors” in the digital asset space.

The cryptocurrency market is currently experiencing a puzzling episode as the crypto total market cap underwent a sharp decline of $100 billion on Wednesday, only to witness a swift recovery.

The launch of "Robinhood Connect," a fiat-to-crypto on-ramp featuring support for decentralized applications (DApps) and self-custody wallets, was announced at Consensus 2023 on April 27.

The cryptocurrency market is experiencing a day of mixed fortunes as an initial rally was followed by a downturn, negating gains from the day's earlier upswing.

The team behind Lens, a Web3 social media protocol, has announced the launch of a new “layer 3” network to scale blockchain social media apps. Called “Bonzai,” the new network processes and stores posts, comments and shares, taking this data off the Polygon network and thereby increasing scalability for Lens, according to an April 26 announcement viewed by Cointelegraph.

Binance.​US users will soon be able to set up decentralized domains that will serve as digital identities across the Web3 ecosystem through a new partnership with Unstoppable Domains.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been making headlines as the technology becomes more pervasive in major industries across the world. 

Global platform Cosmose AI has partnered with the Near Foundation, the Swiss non-profit supporting the governance and development of the NEAR protocol, announcing a strategic investment from the foundation and valuing the company at $500 million. 

According to data from Crunchbase, venture capital (VC) funding into Web3 start-ups tanked 82% year-over-year (YoY), declining from $9.1 billion in Q1 2022 to $1.7 billion in Q1 2023.

Web3 interoperability is important to building a decentralized ecosystem that is scalable, secure and provides a seamless user experience. 

The advent of blockchain technology has revolutionized several industries, ranging from finance (DeFi) and gaming (GameFi) to Web2 brands such as Nike for digital fashion and Starbucks for Web3 customer loyalty. However, one area that has remained essentially unchanged is physical infrastructure.

Web3 data company Space and Time has announced that developers can now deploy their data warehouse directly from the Azure Marketplace, Microsoft’s online store that provides services and applications to use on Azure.

Ethereum’s decentralized community of developers and innovators has done it yet again: The Shapella upgrade is complete — a significant milestone for the network that is the linchpin of Web3 tools. Why is Shapella significant? A deep dive: First, some context: Ethereum is the second-largest crypto asset by market cap. It is the first smart contract blockchain, developed by Vitalik Buterin and others in 2015. Now, about Shapella. The upgrade was actually done in two steps: SHAnghai & CapELLA. Together, they mark the final piece to Ethereum’s switch to Proof-of-Stake achieved last year. The upgrade enables the withdrawal of staked ETH and the rewards that were until now locked in. This is significant for a) ETH as an asset & b) Ethereum as the Web3 pillar.

Tribe Capital, the San Francisco-based venture capital firm that previously invested in FTX before its collapse, is exploring the possibility of injecting new capital to revive the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, Bloomberg reported on April 18.