Adriana Hamacher

What Are Meme Coins and Tokens?

Influencers have always featured prominently in cryptocurrency culture, but never more so than recently. When Elon Musk threw his weight behind the original meme cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, it sparked a wave of imitators, promoted by influencers on social media platforms such as TikTok. Some call investing in meme coins insanity, others think of it as a cheap bet with the potential to realize 1000% profits. Whoever’s right, interest in meme coins or tokens has surged in recent months. Here's the l

Binance is one of the world's biggest crypto exchanges. Image: Shutterstock

Binance Urges Industry-Wide Action to Boost Trust in Crypto

There’s no doubt that the crypto industry is at an inflection point. In the past months, a series of scandals—including bankruptcy, insider trading, and unorthodox withdrawals—have rocked fragile confidence in its ecosystem. Rana Kortam, global policy lead at Binance, told Decrypt that “the challenges have definitely underscored the need to do more,” and insists that “we all have a part to play,” to provide further protections for users and investors, and build for the long term. In the U.S. and

Member of St. Maarten’s Parliament Launches Bid to Adopt Tron as Legal Tender

Tron-based cryptocurrency could become legal tender in the Caribbean nation of St Maarten, after pro-crypto member of parliament Rolando Brison initiated legislation to begin the process in January, according to local news outlet SMN-N. The move to adopt Tron as legal tender in the Dutch-governed part of the territory, Sint Maarten, “marks another achievement for our push [toward] worldwide blockchain adoption,” tweeted Tron founder Justin Sun. Last Fall, St Maarten’s Caribbean neighbor Dominica

From USDD Stablecoin to Dominica: Tron's Road Ahead

In the decade since he discovered crypto and stocks, Justin Sun has come a long way. The China-born tech entrepreneur is the founder of Tron, a smart contract network that has doubled its market share in recent months. He owns the world's largest distributed storage system, BitTorrent, among other enterprises, and is an alumnus of the Forbes 30 Under 30 list—with a talent for publicity that’s made him a household name in crypto circles. Famously, in 2019 he paid $4.5 million for a charity dinner

Tron founder Justin Sun. Image: Tron Foundation

Justin Sun: Tron’s USDD Is Taking Stablecoins to ‘The Next Level’

For a stablecoin launched amid the fallout of the Terra UST collapse last spring, Tron’s USDD is faring remarkably well. The success of Tron’s over-collateralized, decentralized stablecoin has helped the smart contract blockchain to double its market share. Tron has jumped from seventh to third place behind market-leaders Ethereum and BSC in total value locked (TVL), with the TVL across Tron’s various apps now standing at $5.2 billion. Speaking to Decrypt from his base in Singapore, Justin Sun e

Chainlink is a decentralized oracle provider. Image: Shutterstock

Chainlink Announces Staking Plans, Aiming to Be AWS of Web3

Chainlink, which uses oracle networks to provide secure access to real-world data for Web3 apps, has unveiled that its long-awaited staking rewards are set to go live in December, together with two new programs designed to increase the economic sustainability of its services. Chainlink Co-founder Sergey Nazarov made the announcement at SmartCon 2022, the network’s first IRL conference. Ex-Google chief Eric Schmidt, now a Chainlink advisor, is a speaker along with other luminaries including FTX’

DexGuru Hands Power to its Users With ‘Bootstrap’ DAO Launch

The grand vision for Decentralized Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) is of industrious, utopian communities owned and managed by their members, with each individual having a voice in how assets are allocated and how things are run. But the sad truth is that DAOs often start out centralized; in many cases, key decisions have already been made by the DAO’s core team well before the bulk of its members even join. But there’s a change in the air. One soon-to-be-launched DAO is determined to remedy the

Boss Cat Rocket Club's metaverse. Image: Boss Cat Rocket Club

Boss Cat Rocket Club Builds First All-Inclusive Metaverse on Cardano

Boss Cat Rocket Club, a collection of algorithmically generated, space-bound kitties, launched last year, is one of the most successful non-fungible token (NFT) projects on the Cardano blockchain. Now, BCRC is building out Boss Planet, its own metaverse with a difference. Founded by Blue Magic, a member of the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) community (and the proud owner of Ape #4064), Boss Planet is pursuing an inclusive metaverse, in which other Cardano projects can collaborate and hang o

NFTs Started ‘a Digital Art Renaissance.’ It’s Far From Over

Digital art was born in the 1960s, but the 2020s will surely go down as the era when the medium came into its own, and turned the art industry upside down in the process. Technology, in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) such as CryptoPunks, has played a key role in disrupting traditional art-market dynamics. Online marketplaces and platforms have enabled artists to dispense with gatekeepers, birthing a billion-dollar business that favors creators. “The art landscape changed when CryptoPunks

Why NFTs Need an 'Airbnb of the Metaverse' to Flourish

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have gone from niche to mainstream in the past year, with explosive growth in sales volume accompanied by innovative use cases for the cryptographically unique tokens. Vibrant new communities have emerged around NFTs linked to sports, digital art, music, and film. Yet even as new brands, game experiences and metaverses are being built, a corresponding financial layer remains underdeveloped. This is the area to watch, and it’s replete with derivative options for NFT fra

David Chaum. Image: Harry Murphy/Web Summit via Sportsfile

How David Chaum Went From Inventing Digital Cash to Pioneering Digital Privacy

It all started in a hot tub at the University of California, Berkeley at the tail end of the 1970s—that’s where David Chaum, cryptography pioneer and eCash creator, came upon the idea for his Masters thesis, he told Decrypt on a recent call from Los Angeles. It was a vibrant period at the university. “My officemate was Eric Schmidt, and Bill Joy was down the hall,” he says; the two went on to found, respectively, Google and Sun Microsystems, which helped shape industry perceptions of open comput

2022 Crypto and Bitcoin Tax Guide For U.S. Taxpayers

Tax season is upon us, which means that it's time to trawl through your finances and get your incomings and outgoings in order. Tax liability is a thorny area when it comes to Bitcoin and other digital assets. The truth is that Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reporting guidelines on crypto are still evolving. This, combined with the frequency with which transactions may take place, can make filing crypto taxes seem like a daunting task for investors and traders alike. Fortunately, new tools like

Crypto Exchange Volume in Ukraine Spikes As Currency Controls Introduced

Trading volume for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on popular Ukrainian crypto exchange Kuna surged over 200% earlier today, according to CoinGecko. From under $1 million on February 21, trading volumes on Kuna reached highs of $4.8 million today, the highest volume seen on the exchange since May 2021, before stabilizing around $2 million. On Thursday, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and a state of national emergency in has been declared in the country, including a ban on d

The dome of the Swiss Federal Palace, with the coats of arms of the cantons. Image: Shutterstock

How Switzerland's Role in Global Finance Is Evolving With The Crypto Era

Since the eighteenth century, Switzerland has been synonymous with private wealth management and banking, thanks to its history of neutrality, anonymized numbered bank accounts and secure vaults. Those vaults used to be filled with gold bars and banknotes; estimates put the value of the private fortunes sitting in Swiss banks’ vaults at around $2,500 billion, around a third of all private funds. Now, with the advent of cryptocurrency, the country is reinventing itself as a centre for crypto fina

Sustainable development goals. Image: Shutterstock

Cardashift Is Building a Cardano-Powered Launchpad For Sustainable Impact

Fostering sustainable development has never been more urgent; according to recent research, the COVID pandemic has had a negative impact on 17 sustainable development goals, while nearly four in ten experts believe that a likely effect of the COVID pandemic will be to increase poverty and inequality. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that $2.5 trillion is needed to finance sustainable development throughout the world. To meet this challenge, one start-up

Chainlink continues to grow. Image: Shutterstock

Next Up for Chainlink in 2022: LINK Staking and ‘Internet of Blockchains’

Chainlink, which securely brings real-world data to the world of smart contracts, has come a long way since October 2018, when Decrypt first came across the decentralized oracle network provider at Berlin’s annual Web Summit. With smart contracts being a foundation of DeFi (decentralized finance), oracles that enable them to securely execute based on verifiable real-world events—such as a cryptocurrency reaching a certain value, or a measured lack of rainfall affecting an insurance payout—are

Non-Fungible People is a collection of 8,888 female and non-binary NFTs. Image: Daz 3D

Zeroing in on NFT Diversity For a More Inclusive Metaverse

The metaverse has shot to the forefront of the popular consciousness in recent months, as brands and celebrities have seized on the possibilities of the embryonic shared virtual world. But while Mark Zuckerberg's Meta touts the possibilities of strutting around as a virtual representation of our best selves, the metaverse also raises thorny questions. In mixed or virtual reality, where identity both reflects and determines social capital, avatar NFTs (aka PFPs) pose ethical challenges around ge

K-Pop Band BTS Moves Forward With NFTs in Face of Fan Protest

The management agency behind South Korean boy band BTS is pressing ahead with plans to produce non-fungible tokens (NFTs), despite sharp criticism from the K-pop act’s millions of supporters. After entertainment giant Hybe announced plans to launch a range of NFTs based on its roster of artists earlier this year, fans of BTS took to Twitter to protest at the environmental impact of NFTs. However, on Thursday, Hybe confirmed in a statement —the first time it has responded publicly to the backlas

15 Biggest NFT Influencers of 2021

Sorting the wheat from the chaff in the blazing-hot non-fungible token (NFT) market calls for expertise. NFTs existed before 2021, but this year they went mainstream. Even as astonishing price tags of individual NFT sales often got the headlines, overall trading volume surged, hitting $10.67 billion in the third quarter of the year—an astonishing 38,000% increase on the previous year. Amid the trading frenzy, new trends such as generative artwork and collective world-building have emerged, while

Polygon is a layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum. Image: Shutterstock

Polygon Quietly Patched Vulnerability That Put $24 Billion in MATIC at Risk

A “critical” vulnerability that risked $24 billion in user funds was quietly patched earlier this month by developers at Polygon, a scaling framework for Ethereum—though not before one attacker was able to steal $1.8 million in Polygon’s MATIC token. The exploit was shared by white hat hackers on bug bounty platform ImmuneFi on December 3. An upgrade was initiated within 48 hours and, in a blog post Wednesday, the Polygon team explained that they chose not to reveal the incident until it was pat

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