Latest news with #AvaLabs
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Blockchain firm, NJ county ink deal to digitize $240B of deeds on-chain
This story was originally published on Banking Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Banking Dive newsletter. A deal inked between a blockchain firm and one of the nation's most densely populated counties will result in the digitization of 370,000 property deeds worth $240 billion in real estate value, marking what the entities call the largest blockchain-based deed tokenization project in U.S. history. Balcony, utilizing the Avalanche blockchain, will create a fully digitized ledger of titles across Bergen County, New Jersey's 70 municipalities, in a five-year partnership aimed at reducing fraud, title disputes and administrative errors. 'For generations, the deed and property records to your home have been stored in fragile and disparate databases, vulnerable to tampering, ransomware and fraud that is no longer acceptable,' said Balcony CEO Dan Silverman at a press event Wednesday morning. 'Many of the systems used today to manage property records were built before I was born. They weren't designed for the threats of today's world,' Silverman said. 'Sophisticated cyber criminals target state systems with ransomware attacks that cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars annually, and now, with the rise in generative AI, fraudulent documents can be fabricated in seconds, completely indistinguishable from the real thing.' That's where blockchain technology comes in, moving all of the information to an immutable, searchable ledger and cutting deed processing time by 90%, Silverman said. John Hogan, who has served as Bergen County clerk since 2012, said in a prepared statement that the initiative is about improving the lives of Bergen's residents by simplifying and securing the recordkeeping process. 'We can't be afraid of new technology. I kind of think that those who were here before me were afraid of new technology, because when I came here, there was Post-It notes, there was mimeograph stuff …I think the place was stuck in time,' Hogan said Wednesday morning. 'This is a great step forward for our office and for our county and for the people we serve.' When Balcony's digital asset registry is completed, Hogan said any resident will be able to trace the history of their property from beginning to current on the registry. Blockchain technology stands to revolutionize 'any process that relies on trust, transparency, and secure recordkeeping,' well beyond deeds, according to Chief Strategy Officer Luigi D'Onorio DeMeo at Ava Labs, the creator of the Avalanche blockchain. 'We're seeing major potential in areas like identity verification, supply chains, licensing, and financial settlement. These systems are often outdated, siloed, or paper-based. Blockchain brings a shared, tamper-proof source of truth that can drastically reduce fraud, delays, and administrative costs,' he said in an emailed statement to Banking Dive. Bringing real-world assets on-chain is a step toward a more efficient economy, he wrote, allowing programmability, fractional ownership, and global liquidity across things like property, commodities, or financial instruments. 'That means more people can access and interact with markets that were previously gated – unlocking new business models and financial inclusion at a global scale,' DeMeo said. Outside of Bergen County, Balcony is working with several other municipalities in New Jersey and beyond to modernize government real estate systems, according to the press release. In Orange, New York, Balcony uncovered nearly $1 million in lost municipal revenue, according to a press release seen by Banking Dive. The revenue was previously hidden due to 'incomplete or outdated records.' Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Avalanche's John Nahas on web3 gaming: ‘Blockchain on the backend'
As blockchain matures beyond peer-to-peer payments, gaming is fast becoming one of its most compelling frontiers — and Avalanche is betting big on that transformation. Speaking with TheStreet Roundtable's Malak Albaw, John Nahas, Chief Business Officer at Ava Labs (the team driving Avalanche's growth), explained how their ecosystem is changing the game for everyday users of decentralized apps. 'The problem that we have in this space... is that the user experience and the user interfaces are very difficult,' Nahas said. 'That's because you have to, again, contort your application to fit the existing blockchain infrastructure that exists.' But Avalanche is flipping that script. 'With Avalanche, you can have a blockchain on the backend,' he explained. 'A perfect example is Gunzilla Games. They have Off the Grid, it's a new AAA game that's on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. They have 15 million users. Every user that has an account... has a Web3 wallet on the backend.' In this model, every in-game item — whether earned or purchased — is not just data but a digital asset owned by the player. 'All of their in-game assets... are owned by them and are able to be freely traded,' Nahas said. 'This is using blockchain for efficiencies, to unlock new use cases.' Beyond gaming, Avalanche's strategy is sweeping. 'We like to look at it comprehensively,' Nahas said. 'We can tackle payments... institutional adoption, tokenize real-world assets... enterprise use cases such as loyalty and rewards.' And for gamers used to closed ecosystems, the Web3 model offers something radical: control. 'You don't really own your assets,' Nahas said of Web2 games. 'In a situation like Off the Grid, you are able to own your own assets. You can sell them, you can trade them... It gives ownership back to the player.' Avalanche Labs is the development arm behind the Avalanche blockchain, a high-performance, scalable Layer-1 platform designed for decentralized applications and custom blockchain networks. Founded by Emin Gün Sirer and launched in 2020, Avalanche supports fast transaction finality and low fees through its unique consensus protocol. It enables developers to create interoperable subnets tailored for everything from gaming and DeFi to institutional-grade finance. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
01-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Crypto Experts Predict Blockchain Trends Fueled By New U.S. Rules
On April 25, 2025, the Cornell Blockchain Conference at Cornell Tech's Verizon Center in New York City spotlighted a growing convergence between academic rigor, institutional credibility, and a maturing blockchain industry. What emerged was not just a conversation about scaling technology—but about scaling trust, regulation, and the next wave of entrepreneurs. Abhishek Bhattacharya, the President of Blockchain at Cornell Tech, helped coordinate the event on the main stage. John Wu, President of Ava Labs, and a Cornell alum framed Ava's strategy as one bridging traditional finance and decentralized systems. 'We were huge risk-takers in technology, but very conservative when it came to regulation,' Wu said during a fireside chat. 'In a weird way, the coming wave of regulation favors the builders who've already aligned with those standards.' Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, General Counsel at StarkWare, was on a regulatory panel earlier discussing expected changes in regulations at the state level, the importance of a crypto general counsel as strategic business partner given the near-constant material shifts in the regulatory environment, and expecting continued focus on stablecoins, tokenization, and payments. Starknet, a layer two network built by Starkware, has $117.16m in total value locked (TVL) with 3.69 million transactions over the prior week according to Dune. Regarding Wu highlighting a conservative approach to compliance and regulation while being risk-takers with technology, Bos said, 'the best crypto companies know that legal and regulatory strategy is key. In many ways, the industry is under a microscope, and lawyers in crypto add value by working alongside product teams and developing a proactive strategy for compliance and regulation.' According to Wu, who said he just met with over 15 U.S. Senators and Representatives in Washington, he expects significant movement in Washington D.C. on stablecoin and market structure legislation before year's end. Wu predicted by the end of this year there would be a stablecoin and market structure legislation in the U.S., and it couldn't come soon enough. Bos agreed, saying 'crypto has long been seeking reasonable regulation, and the likely passage of a stablecoin bill is a great first step.' Emin Gün Sirer, founder and CEO of Ava Labs, positioned Ava Labs as a company ready to meet global demands from its base in New York City. Sirer was the original founder of the Cornell Blockchain student group at Cornell. Sirer began by tracing the evolution of blockchain from Bitcoin's original design and the need for broader infrastructure. 'We didn't know how to build blockchains that scale,' said Sirer. Sirer then claimed, 'One of the first things we did at our labs was develop the world's fastest consensus protocol—so that a group of nodes operating in unison could act together as fast as possible, at the speed of light.' Finally, Sirer argued every use case needs its own chain. "Some might be able to share infrastructure, but most have unique demands—and for that, they need a chain that operates according to its own rule set, its own technical specifications, and its own roadmap,' said Sirer. The Avalanche blockchain has $1.32 TVL (total value locked) with 2.16 million transactions over the prior week according to Dune. Sirer also highlighted the role of blockchain in gaming and how users may not actually realize the technology that is used in the future. Sirer described the launch of 'Off The Grid', a next-generation battle royale game where players can collect in-game assets—such as the arms and legs of defeated opponents—as NFTs. In Off The Grid, those body parts are actually NFTs minted on the Avalanche blockchain, demonstrating how ownership and gameplay can be merged without disrupting user immersion. Ari Juels, Chief Scientist at Chainlink Labs and a professor at Cornell Tech, kicked off a student-led pitch competition at the end of the day capturing the energy and excitement of fresh minds working in the space. The Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3), which Juels is a co-founder of and co-directs, servies as a launchpad for student-led ventures. One of the pitches was called Prinx, a blockchain-based 'Robinhood for IPOs' that democratizes access to late-stage private equity. Co-founders Brendan McShane and Patrick Sullivan presented their tokenized pre-IPO exchange to a professional crowd eager for fresh ideas. McShane said, 'Our mission is to bring late-stage private equity to the masses. Through Ari Juels' class, we were able to bring Prinx to life.' Another innovation idea came from a project dubbed BitGPT. Lia Müller, founding partner of BitGPT, introduced to the crowd a fiat-crypto native payment system using the once-abandoned HTTP 402 gateway—enabling micropayments between machine agents 'This is the next evolution,' Müller said. 'We're moving from human invoices to machine-initiated micropayments, just as we once moved from mail to email. The rails are being laid for what's next.' What distinguished this year's Cornell Blockchain Conference wasn't just the prominence of speakers like Sirer, Wu, Bos, and Juels—but the way their narratives converged. Whether discussing throughput, legal compliance, financial market integration, or student-led experimentation, one theme was constant: The blockchain industry is stepping into maturity. From the halls of Congress to university classrooms, builders are aligning with standards, not avoiding them. And that, more than any hype cycle or price movement, may be the real signal that Web3 is here to stay.
Forbes
30-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Ava Labs And Student Projects Shine At Cornell Crypto Conference
On April 25, 2025, the Cornell Blockchain Conference at Cornell Tech's Verizon Center in New York City spotlighted a growing convergence between academic rigor, institutional credibility, and a maturing blockchain industry. What emerged was not just a conversation about scaling technology—but about scaling trust, regulation, and the next wave of entrepreneurs. Abhishek Bhattacharya, the President of Blockchain at Cornell Tech, had the honor of moderating the featured panel on the main stage that included leaders from Ava Labs. Emin Gün Sirer, founder and CEO of Ava Labs, shared a sweeping technological vision centered on building for real-world adoption. From his roots as a Cornell computer science professor to pioneering Avalanche's consensus model, Sirer positioned Ava Labs as a company ready to meet global demands from its base in New York City. Sirer began by tracing the evolution of blockchain from Bitcoin's original design and highlighting the two foundational pillars that guided Ava Labs in building its platform. 'We didn't know how to build blockchains that scale,' Sirer said. 'One of the first things we did at our labs was develop the world's fastest consensus protocol—so that a group of nodes operating in unison could act together as fast as possible, at the speed of light.' The second pillar, he explained, was the concept of a network of networks. Sirer emphasized that Ava Labs was the first in the space to demonstrate this architectural approach. 'Every single use case deserves its own chain,' he argued. 'Some might be able to share infrastructure, but most have unique demands—and for that, they need a chain that operates according to its own rule set, its own technical specifications, and its own roadmap.' Sirer also highlighted the role of blockchain in gaming through the launch of 'Off The Grid', a next-generation battle royale game where players can collect in-game assets—such as the arms and legs of defeated opponents—as NFTs. The audience chuckled as the legendary computer science professor described the game mechanics, but his point was clear: blockchain is becoming so seamlessly embedded in user experiences that players may not even realize they're interacting with decentralized technology. In Off The Grid, those body parts are actually NFTs minted on the Avalanche blockchain, demonstrating how ownership and gameplay can be merged without disrupting user immersion. John Wu, President of Ava Labs, and a Cornell alum (as well as a Harvard MBA grad) framed Ava's strategy as one bridging traditional finance and decentralized systems. With experience in hedge funds and venture investing, Wu's insights connected the capital markets' language with blockchain's potential as financial infrastructure. 'We were huge risk-takers in technology, but very conservative when it came to regulation,' Wu said during a fireside chat. 'In a weird way, the coming wave of regulation favors the builders who've already aligned with those standards.' Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, General Counsel at StarkWare, was on a regulatory panel earlier discussing the importance of a crypto general counsel as strategic business partner given the near-constant material shifts in the regulatory environment, and expecting continued focus on stablecoins, tokenization, and payments. Regarding Wu highlighting a conservative approach to compliance and regulation while being risk-takers with technology, Bos said, 'the best crypto companies know that legal and regulatory strategy is key. In many ways, the industry is under a microscope, and lawyers in crypto add value by working alongside product teams and developing a proactive strategy for compliance and regulation.' Having just met with over 15 U.S. Senators and Representatives in Washington, Wu said he expects significant movement on stablecoin and market structure legislation before year's end. His broader message: blockchain isn't just evolving—it's institutionalizing. Wu predicted by the end of this year there would be a stablecoin and market structure legislation in the U.S., and it couldn't come soon enough. Bos agreed, saying 'crypto has long been seeking reasonable regulation, and the likely passage of a stablecoin bill is a great first step.' Ari Juels, Chief Scientist at Chainlink Labs and a professor at Cornell Tech, kicked off a student-led pitch competition at the end of the day capturing the energy and excitement of fresh minds working in the space. The Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3), which Juels is a co-founder of and co-directs, served not only as the intellectual framework for industry giants like Avalanche—but now also as a launchpad for student-led ventures. One innovative project idea was Prinx, a blockchain-based 'Robinhood for IPOs' that democratizes access to late-stage private equity. Co-founders Brendan McShane and Patrick Sullivan presented their tokenized pre-IPO exchange to a professional crowd eager for fresh ideas. McShane said, 'Our mission is to bring late-stage private equity to the masses. Through Ari Juels' class, we were able to bring Prinx to life.' Another innovation idea came from a project dubbed BitGPT. Lia Müller, founding partner of BitGPT, introduced to the crowd a fiat-crypto native payment system using the once-abandoned HTTP 402 gateway—enabling micropayments between machine agents 'This is the next evolution,' Müller said. 'We're moving from human invoices to machine-initiated micropayments, just as we once moved from mail to email. The rails are being laid for what's next.' What distinguished this year's Cornell Blockchain Conference wasn't just the prominence of speakers like Sirer, Wu, Bos, and Juels—but the way their narratives converged. Whether discussing throughput, legal compliance, financial market integration, or student-led experimentation, one theme was constant: The blockchain industry is stepping into maturity. From the halls of Congress to university classrooms, builders are aligning with standards, not avoiding them. And that, more than any hype cycle or price movement, may be the real signal that Web3 is here to stay.
Forbes
30-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Ava Labs, Student Projects Shine At Cornell Crypto Conference
Emin Gun Sirer, chief executive officer of Ava Labs, spoke at the Cornell Blockchain Conference ... More titled, "A New Era of Innvoation in Crypto". On April 25, 2025, the Cornell Blockchain Conference at Cornell Tech's Verizon Center in New York City spotlighted a growing convergence between academic rigor, institutional credibility, and a maturing blockchain industry. What emerged was not just a conversation about scaling technology—but about scaling trust, regulation, and the next wave of entrepreneurs. Abhishek Bhattacharya, the President of Blockchain at Cornell Tech, had the honor of moderating the featured panel on the main stage that included leaders from Ava Labs. Emin Gün Sirer, founder and CEO of Ava Labs, shared a sweeping technological vision centered on building for real-world adoption. From his roots as a Cornell computer science professor to pioneering Avalanche's consensus model, Sirer positioned Ava Labs as a company ready to meet global demands from its base in New York City. Sirer began by tracing the evolution of blockchain from Bitcoin's original design and highlighting the two foundational pillars that guided Ava Labs in building its platform. 'We didn't know how to build blockchains that scale,' Sirer said. 'One of the first things we did at our labs was develop the world's fastest consensus protocol—so that a group of nodes operating in unison could act together as fast as possible, at the speed of light.' The second pillar, he explained, was the concept of a network of networks. Sirer emphasized that Ava Labs was the first in the space to demonstrate this architectural approach. 'Every single use case deserves its own chain,' he argued. 'Some might be able to share infrastructure, but most have unique demands—and for that, they need a chain that operates according to its own rule set, its own technical specifications, and its own roadmap.' Sirer also highlighted the role of blockchain in gaming through the launch of 'Off The Grid', a next-generation battle royale game where players can collect in-game assets—such as the arms and legs of defeated opponents—as NFTs. The audience chuckled as the legendary computer science professor described the game mechanics, but his point was clear: blockchain is becoming so seamlessly embedded in user experiences that players may not even realize they're interacting with decentralized technology. In Off The Grid, those body parts are actually NFTs minted on the Avalanche blockchain, demonstrating how ownership and gameplay can be merged without disrupting user immersion. John Wu, President of Ava Labs, and a Cornell alum (as well as a Harvard MBA grad) framed Ava's strategy as one bridging traditional finance and decentralized systems. With experience in hedge funds and venture investing, Wu's insights connected the capital markets' language with blockchain's potential as financial infrastructure. 'We were huge risk-takers in technology, but very conservative when it came to regulation,' Wu said during a fireside chat. 'In a weird way, the coming wave of regulation favors the builders who've already aligned with those standards.' Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, General Counsel at StarkWare, was on a regulatory panel earlier discussing the importance of a crypto general counsel as strategic business partner given the near-constant material shifts in the regulatory environment, and expecting continued focus on stablecoins, tokenization, and payments. Regarding Wu highlighting a conservative approach to compliance and regulation while being risk-takers with technology, Bos said, 'the best crypto companies know that legal and regulatory strategy is key. In many ways, the industry is under a microscope, and lawyers in crypto add value by working alongside product teams and developing a proactive strategy for compliance and regulation.' Having just met with over 15 U.S. Senators and Representatives in Washington, Wu said he expects significant movement on stablecoin and market structure legislation before year's end. His broader message: blockchain isn't just evolving—it's institutionalizing. Wu predicted by the end of this year there would be a stablecoin and market structure legislation in the U.S., and it couldn't come soon enough. Bos agreed, saying 'crypto has long been seeking reasonable regulation, and the likely passage of a stablecoin bill is a great first step.' Ari Juels, Chief Scientist at Chainlink Labs and a professor at Cornell Tech, kicked off a student-led pitch competition at the end of the day capturing the energy and excitement of fresh minds working in the space. The Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3), which Juels is a co-founder of and co-directs, served not only as the intellectual framework for industry giants like Avalanche—but now also as a launchpad for student-led ventures. One innovative project idea was Prinx, a blockchain-based 'Robinhood for IPOs' that democratizes access to late-stage private equity. Co-founders Brendan McShane and Patrick Sullivan presented their tokenized pre-IPO exchange to a professional crowd eager for fresh ideas. McShane said, 'Our mission is to bring late-stage private equity to the masses. Through Ari Juels' class, we were able to bring Prinx to life.' Another innovation idea came from a project dubbed BitGPT. Lia Müller, founding partner of BitGPT, introduced to the crowd a fiat-crypto native payment system using the once-abandoned HTTP 402 gateway—enabling micropayments between machine agents 'This is the next evolution,' Müller said. 'We're moving from human invoices to machine-initiated micropayments, just as we once moved from mail to email. The rails are being laid for what's next.' What distinguished this year's Cornell Blockchain Conference wasn't just the prominence of speakers like Sirer, Wu, Bos, and Juels—but the way their narratives converged. Whether discussing throughput, legal compliance, financial market integration, or student-led experimentation, one theme was constant: The blockchain industry is stepping into maturity. From the halls of Congress to university classrooms, builders are aligning with standards, not avoiding them. And that, more than any hype cycle or price movement, may be the real signal that Web3 is here to stay.
