5 Things Blockchain You Need to Know For September 27, 2022
How Web3 Technology Could Help Tackle Climate Change
TLDR: Decentralized Web3 technologies could improve climate change coordination by using local knowledge and actors to guide policies and put funding where it’s needed.
Climate change is a worldwide coordination issue. The system has been unable to come together on effective policy and capital investment to address humanity’s most serious risk. In order to limit further damage, we need immediate and progressive climate policies that are required to adapt to changing conditions and drastically lower emissions. To fight climate change, we urgently need global coordination technologies that can transcend mass bureaucratization. This is where Web3 innovation might come in handy.
Web3, a new version of the internet that uses blockchain to decentralize management, is at the center of the regenerative finance movement, or “ReFi.” ReFi is a new economic paradigm that combines climate action and Web3 communities. It is based on the principles of decentralized finance (DeFi) and the theory of regenerative economics. DeFi is an alternative financial system that focuses on giving everyone access to financial goods and services. The goal of regenerative economics is to establish systems that replenish and preserve the physical resources required for planetary well-being.
Today, ReFi is a call to action driven by the desire to combat both traditional markets’ failure to account for carbon emissions’ negative externalities and inefficient resource allocation. This is also a call for policy-makers to provide legislative guidance and support for Web3 innovation in applications as a means to achieve positive environmental and social consequences for everyone, not just the fortunate few. The rise of Web3 technology, principles, and ideas associated with the ReFi movement may help finance climate crisis solutions that are currently being researched by The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).
OpenSea implements a new protocol that ranks NFT rarity
TLDR: The new standardized rarity rating system will ensure consistent rarity ranks across all NFT platforms with the new protocol, allowing collectors can make informed decisions about what they buy or sell.
These days, with thousands of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) getting minted each day, it can be tough for NFT collectors to locate rare pieces. Thankfully, as the industry advances, the challenge of sourcing out one-of-a-kind NFTs may soon become a thing of the past.
To put it simply, NFT rarity refers to the scarcity of a specific collectible or NFT depending on various criteria. These factors include the physical characteristics of the NFT, such as color, design, costume, and so on, as well as qualitative influences such as an artist’s or project’s reputation or profile. While a certain art piece may be rare due to its physical characteristics, if the entire project isn’t worth the hype, then the value of said artwork is lowered.
OpenSea announced the introduction of OpenRarity, a protocol that provides verifiable rarity estimations for NFTs on its platform. The protocol is based on a transparent mathematical approach to estimating rarity. Rare NFTs will be assigned lower numbers, such as 1 or 2, whereas NFTs with characteristics comparable to many other NFTs will be rewarded with higher ones. With a trustworthy “rarity ranking”, potential NFT buyers would be able to evaluate and see how reliable the purchase would be. The OpenRarity feature will not be automatically added to all NFT collections. Creators will still have the choice of whether they want to apply the feature to their collections or not, according to OpenSea.
The new standardized rarity rating system is a much-needed development for the NFT industry. Ensuring that all platforms use the same rating scale will make it easier for collectors to make informed decisions about what they buy or sell. This should help to stabilize the market and encourage more widespread adoption of NFTs. We are excited to see how this new protocol develops and looks forward to seeing even more amazing rare NFTs being created in the future!
Latest Draft of US Crypto Law Would Temporarily Ban Terra-Like Stablecoins
TLDR: Federal agencies would implement a two-year moratorium on algorithmic stablecoins.
Even as the time to act narrows, House Financial Services Committee leaders continue to hammer out the details of a proposed bill that would regulate cryptocurrencies. The most recent draft legislation would prohibit algorithmic stablecoins like TerraUSD (UST) for two years, while government authorities study “endogenously collateralized” tokens., referring to anything that is developed or synthesized within the system.
Previous versions of the bill demanded that stablecoin issuers keep 1:1 liquid reserves for each stablecoin in existence and would only allow particular types of assets to back them. The most recent draft takes it a step further. The proposed legislation now enables banks and other financial organizations to create stablecoins by collaborating with their existing network of regulators. However, the network would also include state-level regulators, giving state-approved stablecoin issuers a six months track to federal approval. To protect consumers, stablecoin issuers would be prohibited from combining customers’ funds with company assets. Non-bank issuers would also be regulated on a state level, but also have to register themselves with the Federal Reserve. If it passes, the legislation would demand that stablecoins be fully backed by reserve assets. Payments stablecoins, which are backed by liquid assets, and “endogenously collateralized stablecoins” would be then restricted.
Moscow Exchange Suggests Issuing Crypto Receipts for Those Afraid of Blockchain
TLDR: Are you afraid of distributed ledgers and don’t want to get started? That might not be the case for much longer — well, in Russia, at least. Proposed legislation to legalize the issuance of receipts for digital financial assets would allow Russian citizens to effectively engage in securities trading.
Russia’s major equities and derivative exchange has drawn up new legislation that would allow depositories to issue receipts for digital financial assets (DFAs). The current country’s law associates ‘DFAs’ with cryptocurrencies, especially digital coins and tokens that have an issuer. Securities can be traded as DFA receipts under such an arrangement. The legislation will enable individuals who are not yet ready to work with distributed ledgers and are afraid of custodial risks to transfer those risks and issue securities.
If the law is passed, Russian depositories will be able to store DFAs on their blockchain accounts and issue receipts against them to their clients. The customer would cancel the receipt and receive the digital asset as soon as they need it, which would be deposited onto their blockchain account.
With sanctions in place, Moscow is seeing an increase in supporters of digital assets for international settlements. Using cryptocurrencies would allow for more freedom, but it’s still up to regulators if they will allow free circulation inside the country. In any case, according to the head of the parliamentary Financial Market Committee, Russia needs to create its own crypto infrastructure.
Designers, Is Your Next Big Break Going to Be in the Metaverse?
TLDR: The metaverse has the potential to revolutionize how architecture design concepts are communicated to clients and stakeholders. The technology has great potential for designers and their clients, but social implications must be considered.
Regardless of whether it’s a fad or future, when the market share growth forecast for anything is in billions, $50.37 billion to be precise, we must take notice. I’m talking about Metaverse technology. From couples saying ‘I do’ in metaverse weddings to companies like Walmart and Roblox diving into the virtual realm, there are numerous indications that the metaverse has enormous potential. This also signals a major shift in the architecture and design industries.
One of the most exciting applications of the metaverse for designers is its potential to revolutionize how architecture design concepts are communicated to clients and stakeholders. Virtual reality transports graphics to life by allowing individuals to visit a place while it’s still being built, instead of clicking through plans and renderings on a screen. The clients’ ‘epiphany moment’ happens as soon as they put on the VR goggles and enter their space. By touring it and getting a feel for what they want, clients can make more informed decisions. This saves time in change requests and overall makes the process much smoother. Metaverse meeting platforms provide a versatile, efficient way for designers to virtually bring together client and project teams from anywhere in the world. In these virtual renditions of space, participants can move around and even edit features in real time.
Another technology to examine the influence of various design decisions on spaces and items in order to increase their efficiency and resilience is “digital twins,” computer-generated replicas of real objects and places that exist alongside their physical counterparts in the built environment. Manufacturers and brands can use metaverse technologies to build showrooms with highly accurate representations of products or materials that may be customized in real-time.
There are many reasons to be excited about the potential of the metaverse for designers and their clients, but we must also consider the social implications of this new technology. Issues like accessibility, diversity, sustainability, safety and security will become even more important in virtual environments as they continue to develop. The opportunity (and burden) for designers is to avoid bringing the problems and disparities that exist in our own reality into a new parallel environment.
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