X, is disruptive and malignant. X harbours and stimulates multiple attacks on our liberal democracy. X’ algorithms promote extreme opinions. People no longer connect with each other. There is no open and fruitful exchange of ideas. Deliberately created disruptive misinformation remains available and can be widely shared. Many accounts are non-human and serve only to…
A monetary paradox abounds in the world’s wealthiest nations: the most money is spent, while it seems that day by day fewer people carry bills and coins in their wallets. The opposite paradox exists in the global south, where most people don’t even have a bank account so instead rely on cash. That’s why central…
The growing craze behind NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and the exuberant prices which they sell for mean that more and more artists are considering selling tokens of ownership of their artworks on the blockchain as collectibles. The hype and the value involved, brings with it interesting innovations when it comes to the possibility for visual artists…
Another season, another NFT trend. The market in non-fungible tokens that made global headlines this year, is still making waves. One of the more recent developments has been the application of NFTs in the real-estate realm. Though the first NFT-based auction of real estate occurred in 2017, the idea is only now taking hold on…
So you want to join the NFT hype. Maybe you have an unpublished photograph lying around. Maybe you published an image years ago that people loved and you would like to tokenise it. Maybe you modelled in a photoshoot and you would now like to add ‘NFT-aficionado’ to your influencer repertoire. In any case, you…
Imagine you are the artist of an image and you hold the associated copyrights, as well. On one of your leisurely strolls across the internet, you find that someone has made an NFT of your image and has minted a thousand of these NFTs. These are now recorded on the blockchain. Only, you have never…
If you are on instagram, chances are you have seen your favourite artists start selling their pieces as NFTs. If you read the newspaper, you will have read about the first tweet selling for millions. If you are more of a long-read article enthusiast, you may have read about the environmental impact associated with NFTs….
You may have noticed that NFTs have been popping up in the news. Digital artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, sold a collage of his works for a whopping $69.3 million worth of Ether, a cryptocurrency. Quite the sum for a JPEG file. Everybody seems to be jumping on the NFT train lately; Taco Bell…
In March of last year, an Amsterdam resident won back €470 in service fees from AirBnB. When booking with AirBnB, both the host and the renter are charged service fees, and the judges found that this double charging broke Dutch law. Subsequently, advertisements to claim your service fees back through a conditional fee class action…
Read Jetse Sprey’s interview with Blockleaders about Blockchain, privacy and smart contracts here.
A couple of months ago, the New York Post published an article on its website, which sharply criticised the American (then) presidential candidate Joe Biden. Private emails supposedly leaked to the press, showing that Biden would have met with an adviser for the Ukranian company Burima during his vice-presidency, while his son Hunter was on…
This is Dragon, a cryptokitten that was sold for 170.000 dollars two years ago. Cryptokitties are at once blockchain collectibles and a game of sorts. The cats can be bred, resulting in new cats which will have a new generation on the Ethereum blockchain. The limited number of early-generation kitties have the highest collection value….
Last month a proposal for a regulation on markets in crypto-assets (MiCA) was leaked to the press. It concerns a 168-page document consisting of 114 articles. The proposal has four main self-proclaimed objectives. First, to provide legal certainty and regulatory clarity for all crypto-assets that have not yet been covered by existing financial services legislation….
Blockchain obviously has not been the focus of the people that drafted the GDPR. It simply wasn’t there yet. The GDPR is written with some sort of central control in mind. That is not how blockchain is supposed to work. The consequences of that and the way Europechain deals with that are detailed in this…
When bitcoin was introduced, many believed that this blockchain based crypto coin would replace the “old” money like the euro and dollar (also known as “fiat” money). All payments would be made in crypto. Fiat would become obsolete. Users wouldn’t need banks anymore. They would trade freely, globally and independently. Furthermore, blockchain would enable additional…
Is the blockchain and EU privacy laws a bad marriage? One might think so. Isn’t the EU privacy law all about the right to be forgotten? To be erased from a system one wants to break free from? And isn’t it impossible to be forgotten once your data are on a blockchain? And therefore, isn’t…
With blockchain one can divide up any object into countless pieces and sell or rent out these pieces, and keep track of everything in a way that is as safe as the old-fashioned land registry, but infinitely cheaper. All the buyers of these pieces become co-owners of the object. The blockchain does the work; from…
Widely used and valuable: Google Customer Match. But often permission is required, due to privacy regulations. When this is required and it is lacking, Google Customer Match is against the law. Google Customer Match. A useful system to approach one’s own customers through Google. It makes advertisers’ customers see their ads when they type a…
What if all professionals pay 1 cent every time a visitor clicks on one of the hyperlinks they offer? Then the press (and other producers) will finally be paid a reasonable fee for the value they add. The independent press is struggling. Subscriptions have halted and advertising revenue wanes. Visitors to news media websites don’t…
What to do with shares and shareholder agreements? Establish agreements: it seems clear, but if you have to work with it, your e-mailbox quickly fills up with a ton of documents. What should you do with all those papers? The only thing you want is to sign and get on with things. But you must…