India, UAE to explore cross-border CBDC transactions to facilitate trade; Ethereum’s Shanghai Hard Fork gets official target date

This week’s top-5 stories curated to catch up with the crypto world.
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Several crypto enterprises have been left in the dark after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Silvergate Capital, two of the most crypto-friendly banks in the market. The crypto sector has been and will continue to be challenged by the failure of SVB and Silvergate as the fallout serves as a constant reminder of the difficulties the sector will likely face in the coming days.

Apart from that, here are some of the top stories from the crypto industry this week.

India, UAE to explore cross-border CBDC transactions to facilitate trade  

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates announced the collaboration to enhance both countries’ central bank digital currency (CBDC) efforts. 

To promote trade and remittances, both nations will focus on central bank digital currency interoperability and create a proof-of-concept and pilot program for a CBDC bridge. This is set to expand economic links, lower expenses, and improve transactional efficiency.

Indian and UAE banking officials are discussing a rupee-dirham payment system using correspondent banks. That system has been under development for a year. The countries currently U.S. dollars to settle payments.

Ethereum’s Shanghai Hard Fork gets official target date

The long-awaited Shanghai hard fork for Ethereum now has an official target date - April 12th.  

The Shanghai mainnet upgrade features five Ethereum Improvement Proposals, including EIP-4985, which will enable staked Ether withdrawals on the Beacon Chain, completing Ethereum’s transition from proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus.

Ethereum's transition to PoS officially started on Sept. 15, 2022, with 'The Merge' a significant milestone for the token. The Shanghai upgrade, more accurately called "Shapella," marks the completion of Ethereum’s full transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) network, and will enable staked ETH withdrawals.

Nissan enters metaverse with Web3 trademarks

Japanese automotive brand Nissan files four new Web3-related trademarks with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) joining the growing list of car manufacturers looking to leverage the potential of the metaverse.

The move comes as Nissan Japan experiments with auto sales in the metaverse, using its virtual store “Nissan Hype Lab”.

The filings to the USPTO reveal Nissan’s plans to create virtual clothes, cars, headgear, trading cards, toys, tickets and an NFT marketplace for trading and minting NFTs. 

The company has also outlined plans for metaverse advertising services and other “entertainment services” along with a website with information about Nissan’s proposed NFTs and how they will work.

Ethereum’s new unblockable URL standard outshines HTTP

With the introduction of ERC-4804, Web3 URLs have now been made available on Ethereum, enabling users to access Ethereum applications and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) without being concerned about centralized censorship.

ERC-4804 allows users to access dynamic NFT, on-chain music NFT, personal websites, hostless wallets, dropbox, GitHub, and others.

The majority of users today use HTTP, or "Hypertext Transfer Protocol," to access the internet. Under ERC-4804, internet users have the option to type in “web3://” instead of “http://” in their browsers to bring up DApps such as Uniswap or on-chain NFTs directly.

Meta explores decentralized social network app for text updates

Facebook-owner Meta Platforms Inc is set to explore a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates. This could be a direct competitor to Elon Musk’s Twitter Inc.

According to the report, Meta's new content app would support ActivityPub, the decentralized social networking protocol that powers Twitter-rival Mastodon.

Meta’s new app would be branded by Instagram and will grant permission to the users to register or log in through their Instagram passwords and usernames.

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DisclaimerThis article was authored by Giottus Crypto Exchange as a part of a paid partnership with The News Minute. Crypto products and NFTs are unregulated and can be highly risky. There may be no regulatory recourse for any loss from such transactions. Please do your own research before investing and seek independent legal/financial advice if you are unsure about the investments.

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