Every UFC fighter who steps into the octagon will wear the logo of leading cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com under a historic new US$175 million sponsorship deal.
UFC President Dana White said the partnership made sense given the popularity of both brands. UFC is the highest-profile martial arts organisation with a global fan base of more than 625 million people.
No company has done more to grow the popularity of combat sports than UFC, and now we’re one of the biggest sports brands on the planet. We can help Crypto.com reach more people around the world through the strength of our brand.
UFC President Dana White
Crypto.com dubs itself “the world’s fastest-growing crypto app” and has more than 10 million users buying and selling more than 100 crypto assets.
Branded uniforms and other sponsored content covered by the deal will be introduced on July 10 when Conor McGregor takes on Dustin Poirier in Las Vegas.
Crypto.com and UFC Embrace Blockchain to Engage
Crypto.com and UFC are both dipping their toe into blockchain-powered solutions to deliver content to their target audiences.
Crypto.com is collaborating with celebrities in sport and music to deliver exclusive content on an NFT marketplace, soon to be launched, while UFC will soon launch a UFC fan token in partnership with blockchain fintech provider Chiliz, to be made available on the fan engagement and rewards app Socios.
The Republic of San Marino will issue NFT-based digital certificates to enable its citizens to prove their vaccination history and travel more freely across Europe, in partnership with the public blockchain platform VeChain.
The ‘vaccination passport’ will be provided, by request, to anyone vaccinated in the small, landlocked enclave – located in central Italy – to enable verification of green passes outside the European Union.
Together with @DNV_Assurance, we hereby announce the world's first national level #eNFT adoption:
The Republic of San Marino @sanmarinoinnova has just approved the Digital COVID Certificate, issued using #NFTs through the VeChainThor public blockchain! https://t.co/SyWrU0Bpl9
— VeChain Foundation (@vechainofficial) July 1, 2021
The passport will hold data about vaccination against SARS-CoV2 (the precursor of COVID-19), past infection or a negative test result.
VeChain’s passport, which it describes as a ‘Digital Covid Certificate’, contains two QR codes. The first code gives access to a certificate that meets EU standards so member states can instantly verify a person’s vaccination status, while scanning the second code opens a certificate that’s verifiable by anyone.
The solution is enabled by linking to a Non-Fungible Token (NFT): a unique and non-repeatable certificate of digital authenticity guaranteeing immutability and accessibility by being registered on VeChainThor public blockchain.
Blockchain Could Be Key to COVID-19 Recovery
Immutable records of vaccination history, enabled by blockchain solutions, could be key to pandemic recovery efforts.
If countries want to validate uptake or tie the vaccination to incentive payments, which has been flagged in Australia, medical records stored on a blockchain could streamline the process.
Monash University in Melbourne will be hosting Australia’s first international blockchain hackathon, aiming to tackle social and environmental problems through blockchain technology.
According to the event posted by Monash, the initiative is a joint venture between the university’s Blockchain Technology Centre and fintech company and cryptocurrency provider Algorand.
We want to see participants apply their interests and knowledge in blockchain technology to address a global need that can really make a difference in the world.
Professor Joseph Liu, Director of Blockchain Technology Centre, Monash University
Algorand has established itself as the world’s first pure proof-of-stake foundational blockchain. It claims to bring forth the “future of finance” by enabling the creation of tokens, NFTs, stablecoins, securities and cryptocurrencies on a simple and cost-effective infrastructure.
How to Participate
The hackathon starts on Friday, 9 July at 10am and ends Sunday, 11 July at 11:59pm. Interested individuals can register for free here, and registration closes at 10am on 7 July.
We're proud to support the Monash Blockchain Hackathon, hosted by @MonashInfotech & #Algorand. Hack is open to all globally, from IT professionals, uni students & highschoolers, centering on how can #blockchain technology drive social good.
— Algorand Foundation (@AlgoFoundation) June 24, 2021
Contestants can choose from four topics – education, digital health, construction and energy – and must use tools developed by Algorand (ALGO). They must build solutions with blockchain technology to improve on some aspect of these services. Algorand has a wealth of use cases from which contestants can borrow tools and ideas.
Blockchain technology has so many applications and we want this hackathon to demonstrate how this technology can be a driving force for social good.
Professor Joseph Liu
Some examples will look at solutions in digital certification and records management in a secure and efficient manner, as well as smart metering and real-time energy consumption, plus sharing IoT data across systems. The innovation potential of blockchain technology is endless.
Prizes Paid in ALGO Cryptocurrency
Algorand, the world’s first open source, permissionless, green blockchain, will be contributing A$6000 worth of ALGO cryptocurrency and a certification as part of the hackathon prize pool.
Professor Joseph Liu will be among the academics on the judging panel, joined by industry experts from Algorand. Winners will be announced on 28 July 2021.
Australia has long been a proponent of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. With many fintech companies implementing blockchain technology, it’s crucial that individuals have the skills to utilise and apply these technologies to the benefit of the user. Many businesses are losing out due to a lack of skilled individuals in the blockchain space.
Bigturn, an international recruitment company, has implemented blockchain technology to help ease identity storage and verification for international hiring in Australia.
For more information, watch this video which describes the future of blockchain and how else it can be used within the context of business.
The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) is updating its broker platform with blockchain-based technology. The upgraded CHESS system has been undergoing rigorous testing to ensure it can deal with the increasingly large sharemarket in Australia.
The Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS) is essentially the ASX’s system for securing, settling and clearing the Australian AU$2.5 trillion sharemarket.
The Need For Blockchain Technology
The exchange started the replacement project in 2015 and selected Digital Asset as its technology partner in January 2016 to develop a prototype based on blockchain technology. The new system improves on the previous one by creating a “single source of truth” through distributed ledger technology, where previously messages of ownership were sent back and forth leading to multiple records of share ownership.
At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, trading volumes had reached unprecedented levels, hitting equity volumes around 7 million trades a day in March 2020 compared to normal daily averages around 2 million. Thus, creating a scalable solution became imperative.
The New System Might Not Be Available to the Public until Mid-2022
The project has already been delayed three times. In September 2018 ASX pushed the live date to late 2020, and in July 2020 it was further extended to April 2022. The testing program will continue to the end of the 2022 calendar year before the system goes live in April 2023.
One of the reasons for this extension was to allow participants and regulators to cope with the volatility of early pandemic trading, and then to allow the new system to be redesigned to accommodate a huge increase in trading volumes.
ASX's CEOs says the exchange’s enterprise blockchain to settle and clear the Australian equity market will host more value than all the public blockchains powering global cryptocurrency markets, reports @eyersj. https://t.co/MhRcbz4MBF
ASX chief executive Dominic Stevens said the synchronised ledger was being stress-tested to see if it could deal with high daily trading volumes, with about 40 market participants also testing the clearing and settlement system’s new code. By the end of July, ASX predicts it will have completed the code and will publish this into a “customer development environment” at the end of August.
The project is moving to operational implementation, as opposed to a technology build. We are reaching that turning point over the next six months.
ASX Chief Executive, Dominic Stevens
Since the ASX’s equities trading outage last November, some have questioned the necessity of such an ambitious technological endeavour that has far-reaching economic implications.
It needs a lot of testing as it’s a big ecosystem of value. But when you look at what was [designed] during the course of 2018, that is basically finished and is out there in the market.
Hong Kong activists are scurrying to preserve the back catalogue of pro-democracy newspaper the Apple Daily by uploading thousands of articles onto the censorship-proof blockchain platform ARWeave.
ARWeave is a decentralised file storage platform that breaks down a file into bits of information distributed over an open network of anonymous computers around the world. It describes itself as a “collectively owned hard drive that never forgets“.
After a 26-year run, the Apple Daily was forced to cease publication on June 23 after being targeted by a national security crackdown for breaching “vaguely formulated offences“ as China’s grip over free speech tightens.
Five Executives Arrested, Assets Frozen
Last week, 500 officers raided the newspaper’s headquarters, going through reporters’ notes and other journalistic material. Police froze assets of companies linked to the Apple Daily and arrested five executives.
Following the raid, the Apple Daily closed its website and erased all its social media platforms. In anticipation of popular demand for its final print run, the paper printed 1 million copies, more than 10 times its usual run.
Staff members of Apple Daily and its publisher Next Digital with the final edition at the paper’s headquarters in Hong Kong, June 24. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
Democratic Leaders Condemn Closure of Apple Daily
The shutdown is the most serious blow yet to Hong Kong’s media freedoms. US President Joe Biden described it as “a sad day for media freedom in Hong Kong and around the world“, adding that the Apple Daily had been “a much-needed bastion of independent journalism in Hong Kong“.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab asked China to respect the agreement signed in 1997 committing to continue allowing free media in Hong Kong after the colony’s reversion to China from British rule.
We certainly view what’s been happening with the closure of the Apple Daily and the arrest of journalists very, very seriously. We call on China to respect the terms that it freely signed up to and we think that’s a matter of trust as well as important for the people of Hong Kong.
Dominic Raab, British Foreign Secretary
Apple Daily owner Jimmy Lai has been behind bars since last December over unauthorised rallies during Hong Kong’s mass pro-democracy protests in 2019. Lai is facing three national security charges, including colluding with a foreign country, and is already serving several jail sentences.
As the fight for free speech in Hong Kong continues, blockchain technology is playing a vital role in advocating for human rights in China – providing a platform where repressed citizens can resist centralised power by accessing decentralised networks that are immune from state censorship and impossible to silence.
New Blockchain Platform LikeCoin Embraced
Programmer Kin Ko has been building a decentralised registry called LikeCoin, which helps internet users identify metadata (creator, date, time, location, version) of content through a unique code called an International Standard Content Number (ISCN), similar to a book’s distinctive International Standard Book Number (ISBN). Any changes made to content would be recorded and tracked through a digital fingerprint. LikeCoin has been embraced by pro-democracy activists such as Citizen News, already using the platform to catalogue its online images.
The open-source transparency and immortality of blockchain technology poses a grave threat to those in power in China, who are desperate to keep authoritarian control over the narrative of the country’s media.
The city of Bogotá in Colombia has recently announced the “Hub Blockchain Bogotá” project, which aims to assist 100 companies in developing blockchain solutions.
Claudia Hernández, Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia’s capital city, announced that four financing programs totalling US$8.8 billion have been made available for companies to apply to, one of which is specifically aimed at companies using/developing blockchain technology.
Bogota’s $2.8 Billion Program to Finance Blockchain Companies With up to $50 Million pic.twitter.com/zK4DFM7z2r
— CryptoNewsAggregator (@CryptoNewsAggr2) June 25, 2021
The 100 companies selected by the Hub Blockchain Bogotá project will receive $2.8 billion in direct funding, logistical support, as well as the formation of a Blockchain academy to improve blockchain knowledge and skills.
Each venture, each company, will be able to receive from the Fund for Innovation, Technology and Creative Industries of Bogotá [FITIC] between $10 [million] and up to $50 million in capital to be able to take their idea forward, but also in support for strategic resources, whatever each entrepreneur needs, and also in markets.
Claudia López, Bogotá mayor
Official applications to FITIC were to be received from June 25 and the names of the winners announced on August 20.
Bogotá’s Push For a Smart City
The larger initiative, of which Hub Blockchain Bogotá is a part, is looking to help businesses and entrepreneurs through innovation and technology, keeping a broader focus on the environment and green technology to help solve problems faced by the city and businesses confronting the fourth industrial revolution.
We want to make Bogotá a benchmark in innovation and a smart city. With these four FITIC programs we will help those companies and entrepreneurs who are looking for new solutions to respond to current and future challenges, as well as those generated by the fourth industrial revolution.
Claudia López, Bogotá mayor
Colombia is Already Deep in Crypto
Colombia’s financial regulator launched a cryptocurrency sandbox earlier this year allowing banks to explore business models associated with handling crypto assets. The government is also working with the World Economic Forum (WEF) on a blockchain-based solution to track government contracts transparently.
The country is emerging as one of the fastest-growing crypto markets in the South American region, second only to Venezuela, according to the Chainalysis 2020 global crypto adoption index. Colombia has ranked ninth in the index, only three places behind the US. Peer-to-peer marketplace LocalBitcoins reported that Colombia accounted for 11.3% of its global trading volume throughout the year, the third-largest market globally by trading volume.
An attempted sale of rapper Jay-Z’s debut album Reasonable Doubt as an NFT was recently stopped by the US District Court of New York.
As one of the owners of Jay-Z’s label Roc-A-Fella Records, Damon Dash allegedly attempted to sell a tokenised version of the album. However, Dash stated he was only selling his stake in the company.
No More Doubt About Reasonable Doubt NFT
In any case, NFT artworks of the Reasonable Doubt album will be going on sale at Sotheby’s – this time with the approval of Jay-Z himself.
From June 25, Sotheby’s put up for auction an NFT commemorating the album, just in time for its 25th anniversary. Bidding starts at $1000 and will continue until July 2.
An undisclosed percentage of the sale proceeds will go to the Shawn Carter Foundation, an organisation that provides scholarships to low-income and at-risk students.
Can’t knock the hustle. In celebration of JAY-Z’s pioneering and landmark debut album, ‘Reasonable Doubt’, Sotheby’s is offering an NFT of original digital art by critically admired American artist @derrickadamsny. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/YaXoBinl7E
The artwork is called “Heir to the Throne” – which was reportedly the original name of the album in its early stages of conception. The artwork was created by Brooklyn-based Afro-American artist and curator Derrick Adams, who has maintained a long professional relationship with Jay-Z.
Over the years Jay has collected and supported my work and so this collaboration is particularly fulfilling. With this NFT project, we jointly embrace the opportunity to further the conversation about how artists of different mediums contribute to a more inclusive society. Jay’s album Reasonable Doubt changed the game 25 years ago, and continues to influence so many of us.
Artist and curator Derrick Adams
This NFT is the first to be created by Adams – and the first to be sold by Jay-Z. The artwork can be viewed at Sotheby’s Decentraland art gallery.
The APAC Blockchain Conference, an event where the industry comes together to share ideas, insights and accelerate the adoption of blockchain technology across Australia, will be held in Sydney from September 14-16 to discuss all things crypto.
Date: 14-16 September 2021 Location: Crowne Plaza, Darling Harbour, Sydney Click here to register
The conference has been running since 2017 and has become a key event for any business or company embracing blockchain technology. In attendance at this year’s event, to be held at the Crowne Plaza in Sydney’s Darling Harbour, will be start-ups to developers, financiers to government, exchanges to blockchain platforms, and the like.
Topics Up for Discussion
Australian government update and policy review
Disrupting the status quo: Blockchain and the future of finance
Preparing the way for the next evolution in blockchain technology
Embracing emerging challenges and opportunities in cryptofinance
Governance, regulation and security in the blockchain industry
Blockchain technology and digital identity management protocols
Legal updates: insights into smart contracts
Blockchain in practice: how innovation and change are becoming a way of life for Australian businesses
Cross chain technology and its role in large-scale adoption
Bitcoin and its role in the future of day-to-day business
Addressing blockchain security and vulnerability issues
CoinJar CMO Will Speak About Decentralised Finance
Among the line-up of key speakers will be: Dominic Gluchowski (chief marketing officer at CoinJar, who will be speaking about DeFi), Simon Callaghan (head of OTC Markets at Celsius), Maximilian Marenbach (head of APAC Expansion/head of Banking and Payments at Kraken Digital Asset Exchange), and many more.
Attending APAC Blockchain? Come see our CMO, Dominic Gluchowski share his expertise on DeFi at the #APACBlockchain conference in Sydney on September 15. Dom will cover the ever-evolving impact of DeFi and its role in disrupting traditional banking systems:https://t.co/444ItnmIsgpic.twitter.com/RAkWyQgGxA
A new entrant into the crypto copy trading market, DeXe Network offers what it calls the “world’s first” decentralised social trading platform.
Copying the deals of successful traders is an effective way for novices to reduce their effort and risk. While copy trading is not new to the crypto market, where DeXe Network differs is that it operates in the DeFi environment.
An introduction to DeXe Network from the company’s YouTube channel
Simplified Copy Trading for the DeFi Ecosystem
In development since 2019, DeXe Network currently offers a standard “wallet-to-wallet copy” for decentralised copying of successful traders, where users follow another trader’s activity automatically. The application enables social trading of any Ethereum wallet addresses.
Trading in DeFi is a jungle that’s often extremely frustrating, with too many manual steps and complexities. The main mission of the DeXe Network is to simplify much of that into an automatic and transparent way for both traders and followers to increase their DeFi earnings.
Making Decentralised Asset Management a Reality
DeXe’s other main product, which is still in testing phase, is what’s known as DeXe Investments. It involves smart contracts that connect users with a trader in a decentralised way.
Users can essentially invest their capital with specific traders who then manage those assets on their behalf. The user receives a synthetic token from the trader as collateral – and as the trader increases the value of their traded funds, the value of the user’s token also increases. DeXe Investments is in its final testing stages before being opened to the public.
The necessity of such a secure and decentralised money management tool is undeniable. DeXe provides an opportunity for any user to invest safely in a decentralised environment, controlling risks and finances using just his/her wallet.
DeXe Network operates on DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation) principles and is designed to ensure users maintain control of all financial transactions in their personal wallets, with no third-party interference.
While DeFi social trading may be expanding, digital exchanges such as Binance continue to break records for trading volume. Many traders are also making profits through DeFi bot arbitrage trading, according to research on the Ethereum blockchain.
Gajesh Naik designed a Decentralised Finance (DeFi) protocol that now manages around US$1 million in cryptocurrency – and he’s only 13 years old.
Gajesh, a schoolboy from Goa, India, is the chief architect and developer of PolyGaj – a DeFi protocol built on the Polygon blockchain. Last month PolyGaj was actually managing almost US$7 million, all under Gajesh’s entrepreneurial stewardship.
polygaj.finance assets under management – 18 June 2021
When you entrust your money to a DeFi protocol, you’re diverting it into a series of smart contracts – essentially code that dictates how your funds are invested. So how did Gajesh come up with that code?
I had the basic math skills, like addition, subtraction. Then I started learning all the programming languages.
Gajesh Naik
Those languages – Gajesh knows C, C++, Java, JavaScript and Solidity, the language used to write Ethereum-based smart contracts – were learned at a boot camp he attended five years ago, using a drag-and-drop tutorial program called Scratch. He was eight years old at the time.
Gajesh’s father, Siddhivinayak, a public servant with a degree in computer science, encouraged his son all the way.
Once the COVID threat in India eases, Gajesh hopes to devote “four to five hours” to schoolwork while continuing to work on PolyGaj.
Asked whether someone his age should be handling such large amounts of money, Gajesh has a simple answer: “Age is just a number.”
The project has a roadmap with plans to add new features, and has just launched an NFT marketplace. You can view the code on Github.
