Recently, Gabe Newell, Co-Founder and President of video game company Valve Corporation, the developer of the software distribution platform Steam, explained why his firm had to stop accepting Bitcoin as a payment method on Steam. Steam is “a video game digital distribution service by Valve” that was “launched as a standalone software client in September 2003 as a way for Valve to […]

Why webs of trust may be unavoidable even in an optimally decentralized world.

Japanese financial giant Nomura has announced its plans to launch a new digital asset division to look into the potential opportunities in the crypto sector. Nomura to Explore Crypto, NFTs With New Unit According to an official announcement, Nomura Holdings will be restructuring its Future Innovation Company into a new Digital Company, which will begin operations starting next month. With the new unit, the company will explore the possibilities of cryptocurrency, NFTs, security tokens, alongside technologies such as distributed ledgers to expand its private markets businesses. With a whopping value of almost $432 billion in total assets from the past year, Nomura might become one of the largest investors in blockchain technologies from the Asian region, alongside Animoca Brands. Commenting on the development, Nomura President and Group CEO, Kentaro Okuda, said: “Digital technology is a critical part of our strategic drive to expand our operations in private markets. The new Digital Company will lead deeper collaboration among internal and external stakeholders, accelerate our uptake of digital technologies, and enhance our client services.” Japan’s Budding Crypto and the NFT Market NFTs are becoming increasingly popular in Japan, despite the country having the most rigorous crypto regulations. For instance, Nomura Holdings recently became the latest Japanese financial company to explore NFTs. Similarly, Rakuten, a Japanese e-commerce company, announced the launch of its own NFT trading platform, Rakuten NFT, last week. Earlier last month, Japan’s largest bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), announced it would terminate its three-year-old blockchain payment project to focus on issuing a Yen-backed stablecoin.

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Gabe Newell, founder and CEO of Valve, a popular company in the PC gaming market, has revealed his take on crypto and NFTs when applied to games. In an interview with gaming media, Newell validated the NFT technology that makes it possible to create these digital representations. However, he also stated that the actors in…

The post Valve CEO Gabe Newell Praises NFT Technology, Criticizes Bad Actors appeared first on Bitcoin News Miner.

Valve founder and billionaire Gabe Newell has commented on two of the most buzzworthy topics in the tech and gaming space these days: crypto and NFTs. Speaking to Rock Paper Shotgun, Newell doubled down on his lack of excitement and enthusiasm for the crypto/NFT space, which should come as no surprise given that Valve banned games with crypto and NFT elements back in 2021.

In the new interview, Newell said the underlying technology here is "pretty reasonable," but the implementation of what we've seen so far is not something the executive is interested in.

"You have to separate the underlying technology versus which actors are utilizing that technology," Newell said. "It's like, if you're a chemist, and you're looking at nitrocellulose, you're like, 'Oh, yeah, we can do some really interesting stuff with that.' And then if everybody's buying guns and shooting people with them, you're sort of like, 'Hey, this whole chemistry thing is great, but there are some outcomes that can be negative.' Not to equate NFTs with shooting people, but the underlying technology of distributed ledgers, and the notion of digital ownership, and shared universes, are all pretty reasonable."

People and companies involved with NFT projects these days are "not people you really are wanting to do business with," Newell said, saying NFT technologies give bad actors a chance to rip off customers or take part in money laundering schemes, for example.

"It's much more about the actors than it is about the underlying technology, or the rationale for what we're doing," Newell said.

As for why Steam does not allow cryptocurrency as a form of payment, Newell said this decision came down to volatility around pricing. Not only that, but cryptocurrency is often associated with fraud, Newell said. Some amount of fraud will exist on any platform, but Newell said the rates shouldn't come out to "half of all transactions turning out to be fraudulent transactions."

For more, check out GameSpot's roundup piece to see where other companies stand on NFTs.

No wonder Steam stopped taking cryptocurrency.

Blockchain and digital assets rose to new heights in 2021; with a record $30 billion in investments, interest in this sector of FinTech has never been stronger.  But what’s happening with all that money? That was the subject of 1871’s recent Tech Talk: Digital Assets and Cryptocurrency: A Breakout Year, with experts weighing in on where developments in digital assets are headed over the next few years. And it’s a broad topic – from cryptocurrencies, to tokenized securities and CBDCs, digital assets incorporate a wide range of very different technologies set to different purposes, whether on the bleeding edge of

The post The Future of FinTech: Not a Zero Sum Game first appeared on FinTech Rising.

Blockchain technology is expected to continue streamlining the retail market, given that its usage is anticipated to increase 12-times to reach $2.082 billion by 2028 from $172.22 million recorded in 2021. (Read More)

Animal Concerts is a next-generation entertainment platform that has already hosted concerts with Busta Rhymes, Future, Alicia Keys, Meek Mill, Diplo, and Gunna in the metaverse. They successfully held a $6.75 million private round from a consortium of funds and token holders.

Animal Concerts is a next-generation metaverse entertainment platform found at the intersection of concerts, NFTs, VR, gaming, advertising, merchandising, distributed ledgers, and cryptocurrencies. The aim is to completely revolutionize the existing concert and entertainment industry through the introduction of Web3 technologies, replacing an obsolete model with an entirely new paradigm that provides numerous verticals for profitability. 

Some of the prominent backers within the private round included ZMT Capital, Maven Capital, Metrix Capital, Magnus Capital, Skybridge20, Arkn, Amesten Capital, Greenhorns Capital, Brotherhood VC, Interstellar Ventures, and Sheesha Finance. Additional supporters included Polygon and Klaytn through ecosystem grants, as well as Netvrk, Vera, and GlobalStar. 

Animal Concerts has a number of initiatives towards which the funds are being allocated. This will mainly include the pursuit of top-tier artists for metaverse events as well as collaborative NFT drops, marketing, ecosystem development, liquidity provisioning, and team expansion. Shortly after the fundraising, an in-person concert was held in LA on the 12th of February with Mill, Diplo, and Gunna. The project is finalizing two sets of NFT collections: one with an A-list artist and their own, along with securing a Tier 1 exchange to list the $ANML token in the coming months.

The project is looking to disrupt the existing live concert and online entertainment industry by securing record deals with artists and providing a new means of experiencing entertainment events. This will further open revenue generation models in the form of record deals, ticket sales, merchandising, advertising, and more. The project whitepaper notes the glaring inefficiencies within the existing concert industry and is complementing it with decentralized technologies to ensure a more interactive and equitable transaction for all parties.

Animal Concerts is launching its own in-house cryptocurrency specific to the live concert industry with some real utilities never before experienced. The project is bringing an entirely new ‘Watch-to-Earn' model where metaverse participants are rewarded for their time and attention. Alongside being able to use your $ANML to purchase merch, virtual meet and greets, and stake to get access to free concerts, the ecosystem invites purchasers to get involved knowing their tokens are getting circulated into best use case scenarios.

Alongside the successful private round, the $ANML token was available for purchase on five project launchpads between January 17–21, before selling $800k throughout the week. The launchpads included Vent Finance, Firestarter, Synapse Network, Polkabridge, and Starter. The price for the token was $0.0045. For each IDO the lock-up was 25% at the TGE with 75% vested over 6 months. These project launchpads assist in finding long-term holders, incubation and awareness, marketing, and KYC verification.

Next on the Animal Concerts roadmap is a Tier 1 CEX listing where the token, $ANML, will be listed and available for purchase. They also have secured AscendEX as another exchange that will list $ANML. Finally, an exciting NFT drop in collaboration with an A-list artist will be hitting the marketplace in the next quarter. 

About Animal Concerts

Animal Concerts is building the Next Generation of Live Events in the Metaverse. The platform aims to revolutionize the music industry for fans and artists worldwide: delivering unique, physical concerts with A-list artists, collaborating on NFT drops, live streaming in the Metaverse, and tokenizing the entire experience. 

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Animal Concerts
info@animalconcerts.com

Nicole Olson, vice president of digital product development and innovation at State Street, will join a panel on “Leveraging Smart Contracts and Blockchain for Smarter Banking” at Bank Automation Summit 2022 on Wednesday, March 2, at 1:30 p.m. ET at the JW Marriott in Charlotte, N.C. The panel discussion will address settlements using distributed ledgers […]

Pavel Durov, founder of the messaging app Telegram, has criticized Bank of Russia’s proposal to impose a blanket ban on a range of crypto-related activities. Such move would stifle high-tech development and chase away blockchain specialists, Durov says. Durov Speaks Out Against Bank of Russia Push for Crypto Ban The cryptocurrency ban proposed […]

Cardano (ADA) is a third-generation blockchain. What does that mean? In a nutshell, it builds on all the lessons learned from other coins to create a layered and distributed computing platform that places a special emphasis on security and engineering rigour. Cardano was officially launched in September 2017 under the so-called ‘Byron’ bootstrap phase. It […]

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