Skip to main content
How To Set Up And Secure Your Bitcoin With The Foundation Passport Wallet
Skip to main content
Tag: Foundation
Skip to main content
ESG oriented blockchain wants on-chain ‘nutrition labels’ for every commodity exchanged
The Watr Foundation, in partnership with blockchain platform Algorand, recently launched a project to provide ESG scoring for different commodities with a special focus on climate change. While the project has a clear environmental focus, the platform will also include labeling for everything from how a company treats its workers to the number of people participating in an asset’s ecosystem by gender.
Watr Foundation council president Maryam Ayati said in a statement:
“We believe this next iteration on resource models should be co-created in mutually-owned profit models. It is a privilege and comfort to be collaborating with the pioneers of decentralized technology, blockchain, industry, and environmental products in bringing this blockchain ecosystem to life.”
Algorand COO Sean Ford said “Watr’s vision to enable a commodities market that is grounded in transparency, environmental responsibility and activism by all participants is aligned with Algorand’s leadership as a carbon-negative network.”
In September Algorand released a protocol upgrade to improve their smart contracts and unveiled a $300 million fund aimed at DeFi projects.
$1B science fund seeks blockchain projects to expand human lifespan
Scientists are continuously pursuing ways to lengthen the human lifespan, and blockchain might have been a missing part of the puzzle. The Longevity Science Foundation, a Swiss entity launched by a consortium of biotech founders, clinicians and leading longevity research institutions, aims to spend more than $1 billion over the next 10 years to find tech-based means to achieve a 120-year human lifespan.
The foundation seeks to fund research, institutions and projects that use blockchain and other next-gen technologies to find new horizons in four critical areas of the field, namely therapeutics, personalized medicine, artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive diagnostics. The announcement states that such projects can make a significant difference in people’s lives even within a time window of five years.
Applying theoretical longevity concepts to real-world use is a primary goal for the group. The foundation aims to transform scientific findings and technological advances into clinical treatments and solutions through donations.
“By identifying and funding the most promising and cutting-edge advances, the Foundation seeks to address one of the most pressing issues in the science and applicability of longevity medicine radical inequality in accessing and understanding longevity-focused treatment,” the announcement reads.
The foundation’s contributors, who can also make donations with cryptocurrencies, will get voting rights to have a say in deciding which projects receive funding. A visionary board will pre-select and evaluate potential candidates “for their technical soundness and potential impact on human longevity.”
Related: The next generation of data-driven healthcare is here
Joining the Visionary Board of the Foundation is Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov, known for his work on longevity tech. Dr. Zhavoronkov is also an advisor to blockchain medical data marketplace Longenesis, which launched a joint project with the Bitfury Group to establish a blockchain-based consent management system for the healthcare industry.
“The Foundation has created a unique and transparent mechanism for boosting early longevity research worldwide and ensuring mass public participation in decision making,” Dr. Zhavoronkov said.
As for how technology can help healthcare research, LongeVC Managing Partner Garri Zmudze told Cointelegraph that if paired with AI, blockchain can unlock hundreds of terabytes of unstructured hospital data for further analysis.
NFT Mania Slows with Tapering Transaction Volume on Top Marketplaces
Non-Fungible Token (NFT) marketplaces are seeing a decreasing demand for digital collectables, a trend that might have been aggravated by the recent flash crash in the broader crypto industry.
According to data from crypto market analytics platform Dune Analytics, there has been a steady decline in transaction volumes on OpenSea from September 3. Beyond OpenSea, other competing marketplaces, including Rarible and LarvaLabs, also witnessed a similar trend.
Per the data, the total average Ethereum tokens transacted on September 3 was 56,842.07 ETH across the five platforms featuring Foundation and SuperRare. This volume slumped to 29,371.84 ETH on September 9. The decrease in trading volumes has effectively showcased the shift in demands as gas fees across various NFT blockchains soars and collectors toned down their interests.
Individual marketplaces have also recorded a shrink in the growth metrics for most projects listed. As of the time of writing, the top two projects on OpenSea, including CryptoPunks and Art Blocks Curated, saw their trading volumes shrink by 54.85% and 3.23%, respectively. While Bored Ape Yacht Club deviated from the bearish drop with a rise of 53.30% in its trading volume, the overall outlook of the NFT marketplace is not positive.
With Bitcoin (BTC) and the thousands of altcoins reeling from the impacts of the recent price flash crash, the path the NFT markets trailed shows a great deal of correlation between both offshoots the underlying blockchain technology. There has been an incremental leap in the growth of the NFT metaverse this year as collections continue to go for sale at over-the-roof prices.
The demand the market witnessed has placed outfits like OpenSea under immense staffing pressure as more projects and collectors troop into the market. However, the current interest decline is bound to regain rejuvenation in recent times, as the volatility of the crypto market, which served as its bane in the recent slump, can potentially stir an unprecedented revival.
Image source: Shutterstock
IOTA Foundation to support EU blockchain initiative
The European Commission’s blockchain initiative has selected the IOTA Foundation as one of seven projects to participate in the preliminary stage of designing an EU-wide distributed ledger technology platform.
The initiative seeks to increase the efficiency and accountability of the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI), a network of nodes dedicated to facilitating the efficiency of EU-centric transactions, as well as the expansion of the region’s supply chain through the adoption of emerging technologies, all the while reducing European carbon footprint.
The IOTA Foundation — a non-profit organization supporting the Tangle, an open-source DLT platform — will support EBSI in cross-border relations between governments, businesses, and citizens for the “digital management of educational credentials, the establishment of trusted digital audit trails and document traceability, SME financing, data sharing among authorities, and digital identification.”
This is a developing story, and as such we will add to this article within the hour.
Team officially re-establishes Dogecoin Foundation after 6 years
After several years of nearly total media silence, the Dogecoin Foundation is coming back to support core developers and projects benefiting the meme-based cryptocurrency.
In a Tuesday announcement, the Dogecoin Foundation said it would be re-establishing itself in an effort to support the Dogecoin (DOGE) community as well as promote the future of the blockchain. The foundation said it would be announcing new projects in the coming weeks encouraging the adoption and utility of DOGE “that increase Dogecoin uptake at a grassroots level.”
“The Foundation holds the Dogecoin mark and the Dogecoin Logo and will maintain them for the community,” said the announcement. “This will mean the Foundation can continue to protect the Dogecoin Brand and allow (under a very liberal license) the ability to use it for Dogecoin-related memes, projects and fun. — We’ve got your back on this one.”
According to the foundation, it is aiming to secure a three-year budget to on-board team members to support its goals. The project’s website lists Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Dogecoin co-founder Billy Markus, and Dogecoin core developer Max Keller as advisory board members. In addition, Tesla CEO and DOGE proponent Elon Musk’s interests will seemingly be represented by Neuralink CEO Jared Birchall.
Related: Dogecoin hasn’t always been a ‘fun meme coin’
First formed in 2014 months after Dogecoin founder Jackson Palmer announced the project on Twitter as a joke, the foundation was behind many charitable contributions in and out of the crypto space. However, after some of its founders — Ben Doernberg and Eric Nakagawa — left the original foundation, the group had largely been silent.
As data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro shows, the price of DOGE has risen more than 19% in the last week to reach $0.32 at the time of publication.
1inch Foundation launches $3M grants program for DeFi developers
1inch Foundation, the non-profit organization of the 1inch decentralized exchange aggregator, has earmarked $3 million to fund new protocol upgrades as part of a grants program targeting developers.
Over the next 12 months, 1inch Foundation will disburse grants for projects in the following categories: network development, community development and research and analytics.
The network development category targets aggregation products, automated market makers, wallets, layer-2 protocols and integrations involving the 1inch API.
For community development, eligible projects include educational materials, local meetups and hackathons.
In the research and analytics category, 1inch Foundation is looking to fund projects around data analytics and research.
Projects that have recently started in decentralized finance, or DeFi, and have no prior funding history are eligible to apply, 1inch Foundation said. After submitting an application, eligible applicants will be invited for an interview to determine grant potential. Winners will receive a formal grant offer and begin the onboarding process.
Related: 1inch Foundation upgrades governance framework
1inch Foundation also announced that it has awarded its first grant of $100,000 in 1INCH tokens to DeNet, a decentralized storage and hosting platform.
“DeNet’s concept is based on utilizing unused disk space on personal computers for storing and hosting dApps,” the Foundation explained.
The 1inch Network officially launched in April of this year, though the project has been on crypto watchers’ radar for much longer, having burst onto the scene during an ETHGlobal New York hackathon in May 2019. As Cointelegraph reported, 1inch launched its mobile application on Apple iOS in April. More recently, the protocol revealed a new stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar.
Nifty News: Italian copyright agency mints 4M NFTs, breast cancer LINK found, and more
Italian copyright collecting agency Società Italiana degli Autori ed Editori, SIAE, has minted more than four million NFTs on the Algorand blockchain to digitally represent the rights of more than 95,000 authors.
The partnership between SIAE and Algorand started in 2019, with SIAE aiming to digitize its entire copyright database to help decentralize the management of the metadata. NFTs will eventually provide copyright owners such as authors and publishers with royalty streams to their work.
The tokenization of the articles and published works will allow the system “to transfer management directly to rights holders, who will then be able to manage directly the metadata relating to their rights,” said general manager of SIAE Gaetano Blandini
“Blockchain technology is definitely an interesting strand to continue exploring because of its transparency and efficiency — by design — features, which are fundamental for those who, like us, manage the salary of other people’s hard work.”
Chainlink to assign cancer?
Chainlink’s Variable Random Function, or VRF, will play a key role in a new conceptual NFT art experiment Project Mahin in order to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer.
The project will release 60 unique NFTs representing breasts, each of which could be unfortunate enough to “be diagnosed with breast cancer.” The VRF, will randomly assign one in eight of the NFTs cancer, representing the same odds of women who will develop the invasive cancer throughout their lives.
Those illustrations will permanently update at the time to represent a post-operation state, and the secondary sale royalties of the NFT will increase to 15%.
The project was created by artist Armaghan Fatemi and dedicated to her mom and all other women who are currently battling breast cancer:
“We created this project intending to raise awareness for breast cancer, and we are pleased to be able to contribute all royalties to Breast Cancer Now UK.”
A token column by the New York Times
A journalist from the New York Times has written an article explaining NFTs — which he then turned into the very first NFT based on a New York Times article and put it up for auction. “Why can’t a journalist join the NFT party, too?” NYT tech columnist Kevin Roose tweeted in an explainer thread
The NYT made a NFT!
My new column is about NFTs, and I also turned the column into a NFT and put it up for auction on @withFND, with proceeds going to charity.
Bid away, and you could own the first NFT in the paper’s 170-year history. https://t.co/9ItGZvID8B
— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) March 24, 2021
The NFT is listed for auction on the Foundation marketplace with a current bid of 7 ETH. With 14 hours to go at the time of writing, the item has received bids from a dozen different people including Coin Center’s director of communication Neeraj Agrawal and music producer RAC.
It follows the conclusion of an auction of three Time Magazine covers on the NFT marketplace Superrare. Each cover just sold for between 70 to 88 ETH with a fourth NFT of the three covers together selling for 35 ETH. The listings gained considerable attention from those within the mainstream media, including founder of The Street Jim Cramer.
Artist behind Obama ‘Hope’ poster auctions NFT
Shepard Fairey, the artist behind former U.S. president Barack Obama’s “Hope” campaign poster, is selling an NFT called “Obey Ideal Power”. The sale goes live on Superrare on March 29, at 1pm EDT.
Fairey intends to use this and other artforms to “raise awareness for the important political and social issues of our time.” He suggests power is not all bad, as it can also be used to benefit and uplift people as well as oppress them. The sale is part of a collaboration between SuperRare and a company called Verisart, which provides ownership certificates for blockchain-based assets.
I would buy XLM here. It’s down by association to XRP but the legal fundamentals are different. XLM didn’t dump billions of tokens on the public to fund a company. They are decentralized, run by a foundation, raised minimal capital etc etc.
I would buy XLM here. It’s down by association to XRP but the legal fundamentals are different. XLM didn’t dump billions of tokens on the public to fund a company. They are decentralized, run by a foundation, raised minimal capital etc etc. https://t.co/g8pNydE3Oz
Few understand that the internet’s utility is derived from its resistance against nation state attacks. Few will understand that Bitcoin’s utility is derived from its resistance against central bank and nation state attacks. The foundation for adoption is built by the few.
Few understand that the internet’s utility is derived from its resistance against nation state attacks.
Few will understand that Bitcoin’s utility is derived from its resistance against central bank and nation state attacks.
The foundation for adoption is built by the few.