Coindesk

Four and half years ago, when Zain Zaidi was applying to grad school, he submitted his academic transcripts. But, through an administrative error, the documents were lost, and he almost lost his place. Understanding how someone’s life could be altered by not being able to prove something like an academic credential, Zaidi set out to try and make it easier. Instead of going to grad school, Zaidi started TransCrypts, which helps companies verify employment information. The blockchain-powered startup recently won CoinDesk’s Pitchfest at Consensus Hong Kong.Zaidi says if we’re not able to prove data about ourselves, we give up something important about who we are. “We as consumers can’t actually verify who we are, own who we are,” Zaidi told...

Several U.S. states are getting closer to putting public money into cryptocurrencies effort, spurred by President Donald Trump since he announced plans to do the same on a federal level. And Texas is now among the leading contenders.On Thursday, the Texas state senate passed the so-called SB 21 bill which would allow the state to invest some of the public’s money into digital assets, specifically bitcoin (BTC).Bitcoin, according to a statement from Texas Senator Charles Schwertner last week, “has proven itself through multiple boom and bust cycles,” making it a great reserve asset in times of a “devastating national deficit” along with “inflation and uncertainty,” as Schwertner described.New Hampshire also passed a bill on Wednesday through a state house committee,...

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried suggested on Thursday in an interview with conservative pundit Tucker Carlson that one of the reasons he’d been given a harsh prison sentence was because he was getting closer to the Republican Party in the lead-up to his arrest.“One fact that might be relevant. In 2020 I was center-left and I gave to Biden's campaign," he said. "I was optimistic he'd be a sort of solid center-left President. I spent the next few years in DC a lot. I made dozens of trips there, and was really, really shocked by what I saw, not in a good direction, from the administration."“By late 2022 I was giving to Republicans privately as much as Democrats. And...

Today, hundreds of millions of people own bitcoin and other tokens hosted on blockchains worth trillions of dollars.Increasingly, though, blockchains host far more than tokens. In fact, blockchains are our future tech stack, and they can host sophisticated Web apps too, which live fully-onchain, just like tokens. These apps are implemented entirely from network-resident code (i.e. smart contract software and its evolutions).This has huge potential: by the end of 2025, more than 5 billion people will own internet-connected smartphones with Web browsers. So what might drive them to create and use fully-onchain web apps, which can sport seamless Web3 functionality?I believe a new blockchain revolution is imminent, thanks to advancing AI and “self-writing app” technology.This relates to an important emerging...

The latest in a series of reversed tariff threats by President Trump isn't having the hoped-for effect on risk markets at least halfway through the U.S. trading day on Thursday.The stock market initially bounced off a sharply lower opening and bitcoin (BTC) rose through $91,000 as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — in an appearance on CNBC — said the president would exempt Mexico from his new 25% tariff for any goods or services covered under a previous trade agreement. The nicer stance toward the country's neighbor to the south was confirmed later by a social media post from Trump.The positive moves in markets were short-lived though, with the Nasdaq at its session low just past the noon hour on the east...