Energy Web CEO Jesse Morris explains why blockchain can make “going green” more efficient, how fighting climate change is easier and why they are building on Polkadot.
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As the EU works on its upcoming AI bill, executives from 160 companies in the industry drafted an open letter on the implications of too strict regulations.
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The export privilege bar comes as a consequence of Griffith’s conviction and further impacts his involvement in international trade and transactions.
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Amazon will reportedly use AI to minimize product-customer distance, highlighting its impact on transportation, product search and inventory.
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Experts believe that decentralized systems can help secure the integrity and objectivity of data being fed to AI systems, but there still exist very clear limitations.
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Cointelegraph sat down with activist and cybersecurity expert Chelsea Manning to discuss how blockchain technology can combat challenges associated with artificial intelligence.
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Web3 is the buzzword that’s on everyone’s lips — but when you put the mania aside for a moment, there’s a burning question that needs to be asked: Can these projects fully replace Web2… and what stands in the way of this happening? The likes of Google and Facebook have made a killing during the Web2 era, amassing billions of dollars in profits and a profound influence over the shape of the internet. But their continued influence is far from guaranteed. The 30-year history of the web is littered with the collapses of once-indestructible companies… MySpace being a notable example.Amid countless concerns over how the data of users is harvested and used, plus fears that content creators aren’t being properly compensated for their hard work, Web3 is positioning itself as a democratizing force that puts power back in the hands of the public. Even the Web2 giants themselves see the potential of this new approach — it’s been almost a year since Facebook changed its name to Meta and declared plans to focus on the Metaverse. While the vision and ambition of Web3 startups is to be applauded, there are challenges that must be tackled. Critics rightly point to the vast energy consumption of some blockchains — especially those based on a Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism. They argue that creating a level playing field online can’t be at the expense of the environment. And with a dizzying number of DeFi protocols and cross-chain bridges falling victim to eye-watering hacks, with billions of dollars lost, there are safety issues to take into account as well. For Web3 projects to achieve their full potential, the infrastructure they rely on needs to have fully decentralized data management — and that means eliminating a reliance on centralized cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services. Owners need to be in the driving seat too, and blockchains have to be immutable, affordable and more eco aware. Ticking all of these factors is no mean feat.Big ideas, worrying teething troublesThe Metaverse has been touted as a $1 trillion opportunity by JPMorgan — a silver bullet that could revitalize the music industry and reinvent the way we work and play. But before virtual worlds truly go mainstream, tricky security and privacy challenges must be overcome. A lack of interoperability risks standing in the way of adoption, too. And while the internet was pretty clunky in the early days, Metaverses have a long way to come before they’re usable and intuitive. The aspiration of people using blockchain technology without even realizing is some way off yet.And that brings us to some of the other use cases that have been proposed for blockchains. A number of entrepreneurs firmly believe these immutable ledgers could drag the healthcare sector into the 21st century — ensuring medical records are properly digitized and easily transferred between facilities. Here’s the problem: this is an industry that has copious amounts of data, and patient confidentiality is sacrosanct. Big opportunities lie ahead for networks that can achieve interoperability, immutability, security, transaction transparency, and medical data sovereignty. Blockchain could also be nothing short of revolutionary if it tackles the sheer volume of fake medication that’s in this space — with some estimates suggesting 10% of the drugs in circulation are counterfeit.So… what’s the answer?Inery is a Layer 1 blockchain that aims to tackle some of these burning issues — seamlessly connecting systems, applications and a plethora of networks. Its database management solution, IneryDB, champions high throughput, low latency and complex query search — all while ensuring data assets remain fully controlled by their owners.The team behind this Proof-of-Stake network say it’s scalable, resistant to Sybil attacks, energy efficient, tamperproof and speedy — capable of achieving 5,000 transactions per second, with new blocks created every half a second. All of this is achieved without compromising on security.Dr Naveen Singh, the CEO of Inery, told Cointelegraph: “With Inery, our efforts are focused on envisioning a decentralized, secure and environmentally sustainable architecture for database management. Inery enables an affordable and scalable solution that allows people to issue and control data assets to activate a new paradigm for data accessibility.”Inery says it’s already achieved a number of big milestones, and has been listed on Huobi. The network’s testnet has now been launched, and it has secured a $50 million investment commitment from GEM — as well as other contributions from the likes of Metavest and Truth Ventures. It’s also attracted some big-name talent. The founder of Orange Telecom now serves as chairman, and the ex-VP of global marketing at Apple is joining as a principal advisor.Looking ahead, the project wants to enter into strategic partnerships that will unlock compelling use cases for its systems in more industries. It’s hoped that the mainnet will launch in the first quarter of 2023 — paving the way for developers and users alike to properly discover what the future of Web3 should look like.Disclaimer. Cointelegraph does not endorse any content or product on this page. While we aim at providing you with all important information that we could obtain, readers should do their own research before taking any actions related to the company and carry full responsibility for their decisions, nor can this article be considered as investment advice.
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Snap Inc’s CEO Evan Speigel announced in a note on Friday that the company had made the difficult decision to reduce the size of its workforce by approximately 20%. The note said that this round of layoffs comes after the company experienced slow revenue growth, a slump in stock prices, and a general lag behind its financial targets. Speigel shared:“Our forward-looking revenue visibility remains limited, and our current year-over-year QTD revenue growth of 8% is well below what we were expecting earlier this year.” Snap Inc. will now undertake the task of restructuring in an attempt to ensure the company’s success in a highly competitive space where Instagram and TikTok are currently dominating. As part of its restructuring process, the company has axed its entire Web3 team. Jake Sheinman, head of Snap’s Web3 team, announced his exit from the company on Wednesday in a series of posts on Twitter stating:“As a result of the company restructure, decisions were made to sunset our web 3 team.”I’m humbled to have partnered with the smartest builders, most creative artists, and kindest humans. Today was tough and I’ll miss this place dearly but I’m grateful for all of it. Will be taking some personal time in the coming weeks but open to discuss new opportunities 2/2— Jake Sheinman (@jakeryanshein) August 31, 2022CEO Speigel shared that the restructuring is a part of an effort to focus on three strategic priorities; namely, community growth, revenue growth and augmented reality (AR). Projects that are not in alignment with these areas will be discontinued or have their budgets slashed significantly. At the moment, it appears that Snap will not be prioritizing the budding Web3 and Metaverse space as much as its competition, such as Meta. Although many tech innovators seem to share the opinion that Web3 is going to be the next iteration of the internet, Snap does not appear interested in positioning itself within the blockchain industry.Snap’s layoffs come after other tech companies like Coinbase, LinkedIn, Meta, Apple, Google and Netflix have had to cut down their workforce due to rising interest rates in an inflationary economy.
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The crypto job market shows few signs of slowing down despite high profile cases of staff layoffs and hiring freezes across big tech companies. In recent weeks, several major tech companies have announced a paring back of staff, citing a downturn in the traditional market and narrowing demand for products that had boomed during the pandemic. Recently announced hiring cuts include Twitter, Uber, Amazon and Robinhood. On Tuesday, movie streaming service Netflix terminated the roles of 150 mostly U.S.-based employees, amidst a slowdown in revenue growth. Earlier this month, Facebook parent company Meta instituted a hiring freeze for most of its mid and senior level positions after failing to meet revenue targets.A Netflix employee post on LinkedInThe crypto industry has not been totally immune. On Tuesday Coinbase announced it was slowing down its hiring, after posting a $430 million loss in Q1. Coinbase chief operating officer Emelie Choi told employees in an internal memo that plans to triple the headcount in 2022 were on hold due to market conditions that require the company to “slow hiring and reassess our headcount needs against our highest-priority business goals.” So are we at the beginning of a major slow down in crypto industry hiring? Crypto recruiters Cointelegraph spoke to don’t think so.We’ve been hearing about a big slowdown in tech but we’ve hardly noticed it other than many more candidates looking to enter the crypto markets. We’ve been overwhelmed with requests for quality candidates and have positions across all sectors.— Cryptorecruit (@cryptorecruit) May 18, 2022“We have not seen a slowdown in crypto hiring. We are as busy as ever,” said Neil Dundon, founder of Crypto Recruit.. Dundon’s firm specializes in recruiting exclusively within the blockchain and cryptocurrency space. “We have a team based globally across the US, Asia/Pac and European regions and demand is equally as high across the region.”Kevin Gibson, founder of Proof of Search told Cointelegraph that lay-offs in the tech sector have had little to no impact on his crypto industry clients so far. “[I’ve] only heard of two companies letting people go,” said Gibson. “This may change in the next month but any slack will immediately be taken up by well funded quality projects. As such as a candidate you won’t notice any difference… if you do lose your job you will also have multiple offers pretty quickly.”VC funding runwaysGibson said that most crypto projects are still in the start-up and early stages of their life cycle, and are still operating off venture capital (VC) funding secured last year.“The vast majority of quality projects were funded last year so [they will] continue to build & hire. There was such an imbalance of talent to role that any pull back from pre-funded projects will not be noticed.”CB Insights’ State of Blockchain Q1 22 report stated that blockchain and crypto start-ups saw a record-breaking funding quarter, with venture funding reaching an all time high in the three-month period, raising $9.2 billion and beating the preceding quarter of $400 million in Q4 2021. It was the seventh consecutive quarter of record blockchain funding. Dundon said he has seen more traditional tech companies and employees venturing into the crypto space, further enriching the crypto job market. “At a minimum most forward thinking tech companies are allocating some budget to […] look at how they might incorporate blockchain into their existing models […] Not only are more companies venturing into this space but candidates are flocking over as traditional tech downsizes.”A study from Linkedin released in January this year found that crypto-related job postings surged 395 percent in the U.S. from 2020 to 2021, compared to only a 98 percent increase in the tech industry in the same period. The most common job titles demanded included blockchain developers and engineers. According to Glassdoor, the average annual blockchain developer salary is US$109,766. The average annual blockchain engineer salary sits slightly lower at US$105,180.Related: Analysts note parallels with March 2020: Will this time be different?Asked whether the current crypto bear market may translate to more crypto company lay-offs, Dundon said that he doesn’t expect a similar situation to play out as it did in 2018. “Crypto hiring in the past has tended to slow right down when the Bitcoin price tumbles. It was almost directly correlated to its price,” explained Dundon. “This time it’s different though as crypto companies now manage their treasuries in a much more responsible manner […] This all translates to a much more stable hiring market.”
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Ethereum has proven to be a formidable force. While its major issues have spawned other coins aimed at addressing them, Ethereum looks to shed its old skin with the release of Ethereum 2.0.Despite the fact that Ethereum was created six years after Bitcoin (BTC) and the introduction of blockchain technology, the digital asset Ether (ETH) has grown to be the second most valuable cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization, surpassing coins such as Litecoin (LTC), Ripple (XRP), Dash (DASH) and Monero (XMR), which were launched before it.The technology behind the Ethereum blockchain is the primary reason for its meteoric rise.Vitalik Buterin, the Canadian-Russian programmer and co-founder of Ethereum, explained to Business Insider that the Ethereum blockchain is intended to address Bitcoin’s “limited functionality.”The Ethereum blockchain seeks to foster innovation by enabling the development of decentralized applications (DApps). This is the foundation of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and the Metaverse concept.While Ethereum has solved the problem of limited functionality, it hasn’t addressed some of the major concerns associated with Bitcoin and most blockchains because it relies heavily on the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus.Low scalability, network congestion, high gas fees and environmental concerns are some of the major issues, all of which are related to the PoW consensus mechanism used by Bitcoin and Ethereum.As a result, Ethereum has been making preparations to transition to proof-of-stake (PoS) for some time now in the soon-to-be-launched Ethereum 2.0.Proof-of-work vs. proof-of-stakeThe network verifies transactions on a blockchain using a consensus mechanism, which helps to ensure that no one spends the same money twice. The consensus mechanism is used to validate transactions, add them to the blockchain and generate new coins. PoW and PoS are the two main consensus mechanisms used to achieve this.Proof-of-work as a consensus mechanism uses mining to verify transactions. The computers in the network must solve a puzzle, and the first to do so gets to validate the most recent transaction and add it to the blockchain. The network rewards the first person who solves this puzzle and verifies the transaction with a token.While PoW contributes to the security of the blockchain, the issue with this consensus mechanism is its association with mining. The computers involved in mining use a significant amount of energy while attempting to solve these mathematical puzzles.According to data from the University of Cambridge, Bitcoin consumes more power than Argentina, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates. This raises significant environmental concerns.Furthermore, due to the reliance on mining, blockchains like Ethereum that run a large number of transactions are slow in terms of transaction speed, resulting in network congestion and, as a result, higher gas fees.The PoS consensus mechanism uses staking instead of mining to verify and include new transactions in the blockchain. PoS requires coin holders to stake their coins in a staking pool, which allows the stakers to validate new transactions to be added to the blockchain.Moreover, PoS eliminates the environmental issues associated with mining, allowing transactions to be completed faster and at a lower cost.Related: DAOs: A blockchain-based replacement for traditional crowdfundingThe birth of Ethereum killersEthereum killers are networks that seek to unseat Ethereum by addressing its blockchain issues such as low scalability, high fees, low transactions per second (TPS) and environmental concerns. They intend to accomplish this through the use of the proof-of-scale consensus mechanism. Cardano, Solana, Polkadot and Tezos are among the most well-known.CardanoCardano, for example, employs Ouroboros, a consensus and security protocol based on PoS. The Cardano blockchain is highly scalable thanks to the use of Ouroboros, allowing for faster transaction speeds and lower fees.Furthermore, Cardano’s Hydra project aims to increase its speed by more than 300%. Currently, Cardano can process about 250 TPS. However, the developers are working on a scaling solution to aim for a 1,000 TPS. The Cardano blockchain is energy efficient and addresses the environmental concerns associated with the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains because it uses a PoS consensus mechanism.Cardano also has 579 decentralized applications (DApps), according to Cardano ecosystem tracker Cardano Cube. This number is much lower than Ethereum’s nearly 3,000 DApps with more than 50,000 daily active users and 126,000 transactions per day, according to State of the DApps.TezosTezos is another contender that stands out due to its unique governance model.Tezos, unlike other blockchains, is self-governed in the sense that users are given the opportunity to upgrade and make design decisions. Because the governance is in the network itself rather than a development team, it has been dubbed “the blockchain designed to evolve.”Tezos also uses PoS in addition to its liquid proof-of-stake (LPoS) mechanism, which enables coin holders to transfer validation rights of their tokens to another user without necessarily losing ownership.Furthermore, Tezos has an upgrade ahead called Octez v13 that, according to the team, will increase its transaction speed from 215 TPS to nearly 1,000 TPS. SolanaThe Solana blockchain is compromised on a fundamental building block of blockchain technology known as decentralization in order to achieve faster transactions and a more secure blockchain. It does this by incorporating a core node in the network that acts as a secure determinant of time that the entire network agrees on, which is known as proof-of-history (PoH).To achieve even faster transactions, Solana employs a PoS consensus mechanism called Tower BFT, which is based on the PoH mechanism. Also as the blockchain with the highest staked value of $37 billion, Solana can process up to 50,000 TPS with very low fees, ranging from $0.00001 and $0.00025.However, several reports have surfaced of Solana transactions failing due to instability. Major network congestion in the Solana blockchain occurred sometime in January and lasted for more than 30 hours, resulting in transaction failures and subsequent liquidations. This was a result of bots spamming the network with duplicate transactions.Solana still doesn’t have many DApps onboarded. According to DappRadar, the largest PoS blockchain has only 71 decentralized applications in different categories including decentralized finance (DeFi), gaming and decentralized exchanges (DEXs). It’s also important to note that Solana is one of the largest platforms for nonfungible tokens (NFTs). According to CryptoSlam, Solana’s 24-hour NFT sales volume roughly touches the $23 million mark at the time of writing. Ethereum 2.0Ethereum has planned to switch to PoS from the start, and significant preparations have been made. The Ethereum 2.0, or Serenity upgrade, aims to increase the scalability of the Ethereum blockchain, improving transaction speed and lowering the gas fees.Eth2 will be implemented in three stages.The first phase dubbed the Beacon Chain went live on December 1, 2020, signaling the start of the upgrade. Holders are given the opportunity to stake their tokens during the Beacon Chain phases while the launch is being completed.The second phase which is slated to happen in Q2 2022 is called The Merge, which will incorporate the Beacon Chain into the Ethereum mainnetGeorge Harrap, co-founder of Step Finance, however, believes that transaction throughput and fees are still going to be an issue for Ethereum regardless, noting that these are likely to be solved in years to come even though other blockchains and layer 2s have done “exceptionally well” in combating them. Harrap told Cointelegraph that “Ethereum has a long way to go to be competitive there, but The Merge is progressing nonetheless.”Bart, pseudonymous community moment and operation supporter of Harvest Finance, thinks that The Merge is a step forward in solidifying Ethereum as the original blockchain and “the chain” to use. He told Cointelegraph that layer-2s like Arbitrum or Optimism will continue to grow in strength. “Alt-chains like Polygon, Avalanche and Solana have seen strong growth recently and I expect this to continue even after The Merge.” “The biggest impact for users is now anyone will be able to become a validator — as long as you have 32 ETH. This is one of the main draws for switching to proof-of-stake. Proof-of-work requires more technical capabilities, knowledge and hardware to set up,” Bart told Cointelegraph.On the other hand, Komodo chief technology officer Kadal Stadelman doesn’t seem very optimistic about Eth2. Stadelman told Cointelegraph that major Ethereum killers will still thrive even after The Merge happens because they have “the major advantage of extremely low gas fees for end-users.” He noted that “the upcoming merge won’t reduce gas fees on Ethereum. It will only change how blocks are produced,” he said, adding: “I don’t think that The Merge alone will lead to an influx of new Ethereum-based projects. Until Ethereum gas fees are reduced significantly, projects will probably adopt Ethereum layer-2 solutions, rather than layer-1. The more likely scenario is that new projects will continue to use alternative blockchain networks that offer layer-1 scalability and Ethereum Virtual Machine/Solidity compatibility.”Speaking on data validation post-Merge, John Letey, co-founder of KYVE, told Cointelegraph that “while many people are looking at a variety of changes that The Merge will bring, what it means for data validation, while important, has not been a topic of the discussion.” Related: Has New York State gone astray in its pursuit of crypto fraud?Once The Merge takes place, according to Letey, historical data won’t be required for validating the chain. This means there will be no incentive for nodes to carry this data around. Hence EIP-4444 was born, a proposal to automatically prune data older than one year. In other words, full nodes and Remote Procedure Call (RPC) endpoints won’t be able to sync from the chain directly and will have to rely on centralized endpoints. “As such, new nodes will have to get their data from a snapshot. This means that services offering truly decentralized access to validation and storage will become vital for projects, rather than simply an option,” he added.As the problems with the second-largest blockchain increase, the so-called Ethereum Killers see an opportunity. For example, Ethereum’s PoW working mechanism can process only 15 TPS while other competitors aim for thousands of transactions per second.On the other hand, Ethereum 2.0 is said to be the solution to many problems with the current Ethereum mainnet. While the project is expected to be completed next year, the crypto community anticipates the second phase, The Merge this second quarter. It remains to be seen how thoroughly these issues will be addressed.
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The Sandbox co-founder Sebastien Borget wants to defend the metaverse from Big Tech giants aiming to make a foray into the nascent market. In a recent interview, Borget said that he is not very keen on Big Tech companies such as Meta joining the metaverse. He explained further that major technology companies could threaten the decentralization of the metaverse as their business model goes against it.The Sandbox co-founder went on to add that it’s not about the competition, rather more about an open, decentralized future. Tech giants have a monopoly over Web 2.0, something Web 3.0 technologies, such as the metaverse and crypto, are trying to break. Borget explained:“We don’t think those companies can build something truly fun that’s catered to the users because they’ve been so focused on their key business model and how to satisfy shareholders rather than satisfy users who own the asset, who own the governance of their own platform.”Facebook rebranded itself as Meta to acknowledge its focus on the virtual world. The social media giant has shifted its focus to be the leading tech giant in the nascent virtual reality metaverse after a failed attempt at launching a universal stablecoin. Related: Just did it: Nike enters the metaverse game following RTFKT acquisitionFacebook’s record with user data mismanagement has created distrust among the masses, and the company’s business model worries The Sandbox co-founder.The Sandbox closed a $93-million funding round led by Japanese banking giant SoftBank. It also launched the first metaverse game where people can buy virtual land, and the game has already attracted many headlines over a $4.3-million virtual land sale. Metaverse projects combine the best of crypto and virtual reality-based gaming ecosystem, making them among the most sought-after projects in the crypto world.
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