The global fast food chain is among the first to participate in a crypto-friendly experiment in the town of Lugano.

Multinational fast food chain McDonald’s started to accept Bitcoin (BTC) as a payment method in the 63,000-populated city of Lugano in the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland, which is becoming a hotspot for crypto adoption in Western Europe.

A one-minute video of ordering food on McDonald’s digital kiosk and then paying for it at the regular register with the help of a mobile app was uploaded on Twitter by Bitcoin Magazine on Oct. 3. The Tether (USDT) logo could be spotted next to the Bitcoin symbol on the credit cash machine, which is not surprising, as in March 2022 the city of Lugano announced it would accept Bitcoin, Tether and the LVGA token as a legal tender.


#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn #mcdonalds

Ethereum-native projects like Uniswap that are written in Solidity can now be transpiled to StarkNet via Nethermind’s new ‘Warp’ project

Ethereum development company Nethermind has announced it has “transpiled and compiled” decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap v3 on “Warp” — a project designed to allow Ethereum users to swap tokens on the more scalable Ethereum layer-2 network StarkNet.

The milestone was announced by team lead Jorik Schellekens in an Oct. 9 Medium post.

Nethermind describes Warp as a “Solidity to Cairo Transpiler” which enables Ethereum-based projects written in Solidity to transition its codebase onto StarkNet, allowing them to capitalize on cheaper fees.

Transpiling is the process of taking source code written in one programming language and transforming it into another language that has a similar level of abstraction.


#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn #uniswap

User data from DappRadar consists of metaverse users who have also made an in-game purchase with the project's native token, but the Decentraland and Sandbox projects disagree with that criteria.

Sandbox CEO Arthur Madrid tweeted on Oct. 10 that “on chain transactions does not mean Users” and that nonfungible token (NFT) owners “invest in an asset that will grow in value over time based Utilities.”

In its tweet, Decentraland said “better data” can be found at DCL Metrics, a data aggregator custom-built for Decentraland, which measures DAUs by the number of “people who login and then move out of a parcel.”

This distinction is significant, as Decentraland’s September data shows 56,700 Monthly Active Users but only 1,074, or 1.89% of those users actually interacted with Decentraland’s smart contracts.


#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn #sandbox

A source familiar with the matter said the SEC is looking into whether certain NFTs from Yuga Labs could be “more akin to stocks.”

Sources say that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) probe into Yuga Labs is actually part of a wider investigation into the nonfungible token (NFT) market, which already came to light in March.

On Oct. 11, a report from Bloomberg citing a source “familiar with the matter” said the SEC is investigating Yuga Labs over whether certain NFTs are “more akin to stocks” and whether the sales of certain digital assets violate federal laws.

However, Cointelegraph understands that the investigation is part of the ongoing SEC probe into the wider NFT market, which is looking at whether certain NFTs and fractional NFTs could fall under federal securities laws.

#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn #boredapes

Blockchain.com becomes the second crypto exchange in two days to receive preliminary approval to provide crypto services within the growing crypto hub.

Crypto exchange Blockchain.com has become the latest crypto company to secure preliminary approval from Singapore’s central bank to provide Digital Payment Token services in the city-state.

Blockchain.com’s regulatory approval follows hot on the heels of Coinbase, which revealed it had received the same “in-principle” approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Oct. 11.

If officially approved, Blockchain.com would join the likes of companies already licensed for digital Payment Token services including crypto exchanges DBS Vickers and Independent Reserve, digital payment solution provider FOMO Pay, and crypto-friendly payments app Revolut, among others.


#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn #blockchain

Consecutive all-time-high smart contract deployments and surging usage of Web3 script libraries mean that Web3 devs are still busy working despite the prolonged market downturn.

Web3 developers don’t appear to be fazed by the crypto bear market, with one Web3 platform suggesting they’re “more active than ever” — particularly on the Ethereum network.
In a new Q3 2022 report on Oct. 13 by Web3 development platform Alchemy, the company said that 2022 could be the “biggest year yet” for development on Ethereum.

Around 36% of all smart contracts ever deployed and verified on the blockchain have been in 2022, a count of nearly 118,000 compared to the over 323,700 ever deployed, according to the report.

This is despite the price of ETH falling by nearly 66% since the start of the year and the total value locked in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols falling around 70% year-to-date according to DappRadar.


#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn #web3

Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis has labeled October 2022 as “the biggest month in the biggest year ever for hacking activity."

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you significant developments over the last week.

October is historically associated with the bulls, but in 2022, the month has also become the leader in crypto hacks as barely halfway through, and the DeFi ecosystem has already seen nearly a dozen hacks resulting in losses of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The largest hack occurred on Solana’s DeFi platform Mango Markets on Oct. 11, resulting in a loss of over $100 million worth of crypto. The hacker has now come out to demand $70 million in USD Coin stablecoin as a bounty to return the stolen crypto.

In another hack, TempleDAO was exploited for $2 million on the same day as Mango Market’s exploit.


#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn

Europe will leave the United States behind unless lawmakers act to provide clear regulatory definitions for cryptocurrencies.

This month, the European Union (EU) agreed on the text for a unified licensing regime for cryptocurrency exchanges to operate across the EU bloc as part of its Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA). The United States — despite being a traditional global leader in legal frameworks for technological innovation — has not provided that same regulatory clarity.

National cryptocurrency exchanges in the U.S. are regulated at the state level through a patchwork of money transmission laws that overburden companies while under-protecting consumers. In our view, many digital tokens are properly characterized as digital commodities rather than securities. Yet, a unified federal regime for cryptocurrency exchanges listing digital commodities does not exist.


#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn

We are excited to announce the partnership between Undeads and Universal Music Group. UMG is the market-leading multinational music corporation that will manage our further collaborations with world-famous celebrities and music artists across the world. In 2019, Fast Company named Universal Music Group the most innovative music company and listed UMG among the Top 50 most innovative companies in the world and amid the music industry's digital transformation, Universal is redefining what a modern label should look like. UMG has signed licensing agreements with more than 400 platforms worldwide.


#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn #undeads #universal

Mark Zuckerberg's tech empire has a long history of using centralized systems to hurt users. Now it's trying to join Web3.

The future of how we socialize online is being defined as we speak, and it’s far too important to leave things to the likes of Meta and other mega social companies. Just a surface-level look at Meta’s history is enough to understand its tendency to severely miss the mark.

Some companies like to use Web3 principles to right the wrongs of Web2. And as a poster child for large, centralized organizations, Meta offers us some of the most useful examples of those wrongs.

Let’s touch on three times that Meta fell short of building the future of online social experiences.


#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn #facebook

Meta announced its latest VR headset, Quest Pro, which includes a new eye and facial movement tracker said to enhance digital avatar expressions and realism.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced its latest virtual reality (VR) headset at the Meta Connect 2022 event on Oct. 11. The company introduced new features to enhance digital avatars, which raised privacy concerns regarding data collection.

The Quest Pro is the latest piece of VR technology released by Meta as it continues its push into the Metaverse. It utilizes five cameras inside the headset, which are positioned to watch and track a person’s facial expressions and eye movements. In addition, it has five external cameras, which will be employed in the future to track other bodily movements to mimic real-world motions.


#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn #metaverse

An external member of the BoE policy committee looks at DeFi governance and regulation and lists measures the industry should take before regulated blockchain swallows up business.

The lack of regulation and good governance in the crypto sector is more than a hindrance to businesses and lack of protection for users, it is an existential threat, Bank of England Financial Policy Committee external member Carolyn Wilkins said in a talk on Oct. 19. Decentralized finance (DeFi) would be a good place to start getting affairs in order, she said.

Speaking at the University College London Centre for Blockchain Technologies, Wilkins said that the most common complaints about scamming that reach the Financial Conduct Authority, the U.K. financial regulator, are about crypto. In addition to that financial risk, investors are also concerned about reputational risk, which, according to Wilkins, is present in DeFi in abundance.


#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn #defi

The new aggregation feature provides listings and prices of Ethereum-based NFTs listed on major NFT marketplaces across Web3.

Rarible, an Ethereum-based nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace, announced its platform upgrade to Rarible 2 on Oct. 20.

The NFT marketplace says it is introducing new aggregation tools to showcase NFTs from across the Web3 space. This means users can browse and purchase Ethereum-based digital assets from Rarible, OpenSea, LooksRare, X2Y2 and Sudoswap.

Alex Salnikov, the chief strategy officer and co-founder of Rarible, told Cointelegraph that the NFT platforms we have now are “siloed,” and aggregation is the way to change that:

“It creates an open environment where users can access the best prices for NFTs all through one interface.”

#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn #rarible #nft

DeFi investing is riddled with potholes. Here are a few tips on how to avoid them.

Welcome readers, and thanks for subscribing! The Altcoin Roundup newsletter is now authored by Cointelegraph’s resident newsletter writer Big Smokey. In the next few weeks, this newsletter will be renamed Crypto Market Musings, a weekly newsletter that provides ahead-of-the-curve analysis and tracks emerging trends in the crypto market.

The publication date of the newsletter will remain the same, and the content will still place a heavy emphasis on the technical and fundamental analysis of cryptocurrencies from a more macro perspective in order to identify key shifts in investor sentiment and market structure. We hope you enjoy it!

DeFi has a problem, pump and dumps

#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn #defi

From regulation to taxation, Japan has been hostile to cryptocurrency gaming. That stance is threatening the country's position as a global leader in gaming

A marked hostility toward new and emerging Web3 technologies like cryptocurrencies runs the risk of costing Japan its place as the world’s gaming capital. We’re getting dangerously close to the point of no return, and here’s why.

Nobody can be sure where the country’s antagonism to crypto originated or why it still persists even after the nonfungible token (NFT) and crypto “boom” of 2021, which took off in a major global way and prompted officials in the United States and Europe to backtrack on their initial antipathy for the space, finally opening up to regulations.

#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn

A website revealing personal information from Celsius creditors has created stress and chaos for many, leading some to question the privacy of centralized exchanges.

Crypto lending platform Celsius filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 13, 2022. Although the Celsius case involves digital assets, it remains subject to United States Bankruptcy Code under the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

While this may be, a series of unusual events have ensued since Celsius filed for bankruptcy. For instance, Chief United States Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn — the judge overseeing the Celsius case — stated on Oct. 17 that the court will look abroad for guidance.


#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn #celsius

Apple has published rules for NFTs for the first time while clarifying rules around cryptocurrency payments and crypto exchanges.

Technology heavyweight Apple has clarified its App Store rules around nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and cryptocurrency exchanges marking the first time its codified specific rules for NFTs.

The new rules confirm how NFT purchases will be taxed and what they can and can't be used for, while also clarifying rules around when a crypto exchange app can be listed.

The Oct. 24 update to its App Store guidelines saw language added that allows fo in-app purchases of NFTs, but bars any NFTs acquired elsewhere to be used for anything other than viewing.

It also allows applications to use in-app purchases to “sell and sell services” related to NFTs such as “minting, listing, and transferring.”


#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn #apple #nft

Trademark applications seem to hint at an asset and commodities exchange, insurance, and Western Union’s own token as it faces increasingly diverse competition in the remittances market.

Western Union may be preparing to offer crypto-related services, judging from trademark applications filed by the company last week. This is the latest of several attempts the company has made to enter the cryptoverse. So far, it has had limited success.

Western Union filed for three trademarks on Oct. 18. According to trademark attorney Mike Kondoudis, activities covered by the applications include managing wallets, exchanging digital assets and commodities derivatives, issuing tokens of value, and brokerage and insurance services.


#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #playtoearn #westernunion

The tech giant is just over $500 million away from topping its more than $10 billion Metaverse department losses in 2021, but it said its spending will only grow next year.

Big Five technology player Meta is still burning cash through its Metaverse research and development arm Reality Labs with a $3.67 billion loss posted for the third quarter of 2022, stating those losses will further deepen next year.

The company’s Q3 2022 earnings released on Oct. 26 show the biggest-ever quarterly losses for Reality Labs from earnings dating back to the fourth quarter of 2020, the business also made $285 million in revenue for the third quarter, its lowest on record within that time.

With its Reality Labs business marking its third straight quarterly loss totaling $9.44 billion so far in 2022, Meta is shaping up to beat its 2021 losses on its metaverse play which saw just over $10 billion in losses last year.


#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi

NFTs could change the way subscription services work by allowing users to sell or rent out their subscriptions when they don’t need them.


Subscription-based services have become so ubiquitous it’s hard to remember a time when they weren’t the norm. Streaming companies have sought to take advantage of that norm by fleecing consumers for everything they’re worth — just look at Netflix’s decision to start running advertisements.

Another benefit of leveraging NFT technology is that streaming services can increasingly be used to create communities. As with all consumer culture in the digital world, we are what we consume. NFTs, however, have the potential to make the relationship between the consumer and what is consumed far more profound.


#blockchain #nonfungible #gamefi #metafi #defi #nft