Analysis Crypto by Thebittimes.Com

DeSci: How Crypto is Rewiring the Future of Science! Science is supposed to be humanity’s greatest collective project. However, today, it’s trapped behind paywalls, hindered by bureaucracy, and dominated by a handful of gatekeepers. Researchers struggle to secure funding, groundbreaking ideas get buried in silos, and the public—who often finances research through taxes—rarely has access to the results. Enter DeSci (Decentralized Science) : a growing movement using crypto and Web3 primitives to rebuild the scientific process from the ground up. By combining blockchain technology, decentralized governance, and tokenized incentives, DeSci promises to make research more open, transparent, and community-driven. 1. The Problem with Traditional Science Traditional science faces structural bottlenecks: Publishing gatekeepers: Top journals charge fees to read and often even to publish, turning knowledge into a commodity. Slow funding cycles: Grants are often controlled by centralized institut...

Throughout the first few months of the year, the US stock market has had a tough go. However, macroeconomic pressures and geopolitical uncertainty haven’t stopped artificial intelligence from remaining at the forefront. Amid increased demand, there’s reason to think Amazon (AMZN) could eventually eclipse Nvidia (NVDA) by 2023 thanks to AI. Both companies have remained at the forefront of the developing technology. For Amazon, it has used it to increase efficiency and greatly enhance its operations while strengthening its Amazon Web Services (AWS) business. Alternatively, Nvidia has become the chief chipmaker, strengthening the development of those products. Yet, could their positions flip over the next five years? Source: Reuters / Brendan McDermid Also Read: Amazon (AMZN): One Key Reason the Stock is Still a Bargain… For Now Can Amazon Usurp Nvidia in Market Cap Over the Next Five Years? Both Amazon and Nvidia have become some of the most valuable companies in the world. Th...

With investors growing ever concerned with AI spending, Microsoft (MSFT) is looking to justify it, as experts are noting that ventures into the sector have $100 billion potential for the company. Indeed, it has become one of the biggest spenders on the technology, but yet to see a significant return. That is a common occurrence throughout Wall Street in 2024. Firms like Meta (META) and Amazon (AMZN) have not been shy about their desire to continue spending on AI development. The move looks to be a smart one, as they seek to compete with Nvidia (NVDA), a company on pace to be the first to break a $4 trillion market cap. Source: CNBC Also Read: Microsoft Stock (MSFT) FY25 Q1 Earnings: AI-Driven Growth Amid Cloud Strength Microsoft AI Spending Hinders Profits but Has Massive Potential, Expert Says Amid Donald Trump’s successful return to the White House, Nvidia officially surpassed Apple (APPL) as the most valuable company in the world. Indeed, the chipmaker has benefited greatly fro...

Blockchain Voting: Secure and Transparent Solutions! In the age of digital transformation, traditional voting systems are increasingly scrutinized for their vulnerabilities, from security breaches to allegations of fraud. As the demand for more secure, transparent, and trustworthy voting mechanisms grows, blockchain technology has emerged as a promising solution. By leveraging the decentralized, immutable, and transparent nature of blockchain, a new era of voting could be on the horizon—one that ensures the integrity of democratic processes worldwide. The Need for Change in Voting Systems Traditional voting methods, whether paper-based or electronic, are prone to various issues. These include voter fraud, vote tampering, and administrative errors. Moreover, in many regions, access to voting is still limited, leading to lower voter turnout and disenfranchisement. These challenges underscore the urgent need for a system that not only addresses these vulnerabilities but also enhances acce...

Google's parent company Alphabet was the worst performer on the day, falling 9.5% in a massive $180 billion wipeout. More than $280 billion has been wiped from the “magnificent seven” tech stocks following the release of several earnings reports on Oct. 25, triggering fears of a looming tech recession. The so-called “magnificent seven” refers to the top seven blue-chip tech firms including Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, Nvidia, and Tesla — who combine to make up a quarter of the value of the S&P 500 index. Google parent company Alphabet saw its share price fall over 9%, wiping $180 billion from its market cap and was noted as Google’s worst-performing day since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020. Google’s (Alphabet Inc Class A) share price over the last five days. Source: Google Finance The share prices of Amazon, Nvidia, and Meta fell 5.5%, 4.3%, and 4.2% respectively, according to Y Charts. Apple and Tesla’s fall in share prices were less severe at 1.35% and...

Using zero-knowledge technology for KYC-based transactions and creating a Sybil-resistant network for on-chain political institutions were the main topics of the recent Cointelegraph AMA. Unique solutions for compliant privacy in web3 were discussed and offered during Cointelegraph’s recent AMA session that brought together Occam DAO core contributor Cristina Stavila, Galactica Network co-founder Michael A. and SwissBorg founder and CEO Cyrus Fazel. As the speakers discussed, the establishment of solid standards for compliant privacy is required as a key component for mass crypto adoption. "Compliant privacy is the only technological component between a nightmarish dystopia of CDBC and a high-profile Web3 world of obfuscated identities," Michael noted. "The regulations and the establishment of certain KYC entry points on the blockchain are necessary for the elimination of malicious participants. This process must respect privacy, which requires off-chain KYC processes t...

Decentralized physical infrastructure is offering one of the most real-world implementations of blockchain technology to date. 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. Traditionally, the deployment and management of physical infrastructure, such as telecom networks, cloud services, mobility networks and power grids, have been dominated by large corporations due to their enormous capital requirements and logistical challenges. As a result, these corporations have had a near-monopoly on pricing, conditions and services offered to end-users, leading to a lack of competition and innovation. That is, until blockchain and Web3 entered the picture. Most are familiar with DeFi, GameFi, SocialFi and decentralized autonomous organizations (DA...

Fiscal policy shapes economies through government spending, taxation and borrowing. Fiscal policy is a tool used by governments to regulate economic activities in their country. It involves the use of government spending, taxation and borrowing to influence economic growth, stabilize inflation and maintain a stable economy. This article will explain what fiscal policy is, how it works, and why it is important. What is fiscal policy? Fiscal policy is a tool used by governments to regulate economic activities in their country. It is one of the two main categories of economic policy, along with monetary policy. The main goal of fiscal policy is to control the economy through government spending and taxation. How does fiscal policy work? The government has a number of ways to affect the economy through fiscal policy. One of the primary methods used is government spending. The government may boost economic activity and create jobs by raising spending, which will add more money to the econo...

A cartoon version of Dr. Adam Back recounts stories of hacking coded doors at university and the inception of Hash Cash in the latest of Cointelegraph Crypto Stories. It’s been a life of hacks for Dr. Adam Back, the CEO and co-founder of Blockstream. One of the few people quoted on the Bitcoin Whitepaper, hacking highlights of Back’s life are brought to life in the latest animated Crypto Story from Cointelegraph’s video team.  Over a game of Jenga in a park, Back told Cointelegraph that he’s always had a “kind of security mindset.” From his days as a student, he tinkered with door codes, pin pads and locks, testing out code and gaining access to places he “wasn’t supposed to have access to.” Back talks through the creation of Hash Cash, one of the early attempts at digital money. He uses the “Birthday collision” as an allegory for hash functions, demonstrating his aptitude to breaking down complex functions into intelligible language: “If you have a room full of people at a party or...

WAVES price and its USDN stablecoin lose value after the Digital Asset eXchange Association issues a caution notice and Upbit exchange delists the token. Algorithmic stablecoins have had a rough year, starting with UST de-pegging to zero and the subsequent blow-up of Terra’s LUNA token which was used for the asset’s backing. Algorithmic stablecoins are not fully collateralized and rely on different mechanisms to maintain the peg, making them inherently fragile to market conditions.  The UST implosion created a domino effect that caused another stablecoin , Magic Internet Money (MIM) to de-peg. Despite the fragility of algorithmic stablecoin s, new projects like Djed by Cardano (ADA) are still planning on launching, but that doesn’t mean that the concept has improved since the crises seen earlier in the year. Let’s look at the latest de-peg event in the cryptocurrency space. Warning issued for WAVES and its USDN stablecoin On Dec. 8, the Digital Asset eXchange Association (DAXA), whic...

Smart contacts capable of handling complex computations, while ensuring a level of privacy are the future for enterprise adoption. Decentralized finance (DeFi) markets may have cooled down over the past year, but the technology powering these applications continues to advance. In particular, smart contract platforms that enable transactions to take place across DeFi applications are maturing to meet enterprise requirements.  While it’s notable that enterprises have previously shown interest in DeFi use cases, smart contract limitations have hampered adoption. A report published by Grayscale Research in March puts this in perspective, noting that “Despite handling millions of transactions per day, smart contract platforms in their current state would be incapable of handling even 10% of the worlds’ internet traffic.” This notion is particularly troublesome considering the market opportunity behind DeFi. For instance, Grayscale Research’s report mentions that DeFi and Metaverse applica...

The strategic adoption of blockchain technology still makes sense, regardless of the distraction FTX created for cryptocurrency. The reality is that blockchain technology can still deliver substantial benefits, particularly within the fine arts. And for those who have been paying attention, 2022 has been a year of incredible normalization for nonfungible tokens (NFTs). Simply put, major institutions across various sectors have dipped their toes into Web3. In November, Instagram announced that creators would soon have the functionality to make and sell NFTs. Apple similarly announced in September that NFTs could be sold in its App Store. Put together, that’s 3.5 billion people (2 billion from Instagram and 1.5 billion from the App Store). Although each of these major institutions has its own quirks and rules, most notably the fees associated with using their platforms, the reality is that they are still some of the largest platforms in the world and will drive the onboarding of million...

"Fantom will become the youtube/twitch of blockchain platforms," commented ecosystem architect Andre Cronje. According to a new proposal dated Dec. 1, directed acrylic graph network Fantom seeks to implement an affiliate program for its decentralized application, or dApp, developers with network gas fees. To fund this venture, the Fantom community has proposed slashing the protocol's current FTM token burn rate from 20% to 5%. In supporting the proposal, Fantom developers wrote:  "We take what works in web2 and restructure it to fit the network's priorities, which means taking the ad monetisation model and extending it to gas monetisation for performing dApps that manage to attract a steady stream of users." The development team further elaborated that Fantom’s Opera network [native dApp builder] "is not directly competing against Youtube or Twitter," but seeks to "attract and retain high-grade talent continuously" in the Web 3.0 spa...