As AI blurs the line between real and synthetic media, strategies for restoring user trust online are still taking shape as we enter 2026. How often have you come across an image online and wondered, “Real or AI”? Have you ever felt trapped in a reality where AI-created and human-made content blur together? Do we still need to distinguish between them? Artificial intelligence has unlocked a world of creative possibilities, but it has also brought new challenges, reshaping how we perceive content online. From AI-generated images, music and videos flooding social media to deepfakes and bots scamming users, AI now touches a vast part of the internet. According to a study by Graphite, the amount of AI-made content surpassed human-created content in late 2024, primarily due to the launch of ChatGPT in 2022. Another study suggests that more than 74.2% of pages in its sample contained AI-generated content as of April 2025. Read more
Tokenized commodities are increasing amid growing investor demand for more accessible onchain financial products, following new all-time highs for gold and silver. Blockchain-based tokenized commodities are nearing the $4 billion milestone, following new all-time highs reached by the world's leading precious metals. Gold, silver and platinum hit record highs on Friday, with spot gold rising as high as $4,530 per ounce, TradingView data shows. Silver, currently not a major contributor to the tokenized commodities market, briefly touched an all-time high of $74.56 per ounce. Tokenized commodities rose 11% in the month leading to Friday, reaching $3.93 billion, according to data aggregator RWA.xyz. Tether Gold (XAUt) was listed as the largest tokenized commodity, worth $1.74 billion, followed by Paxos Gold (PAXG) at $1.61 billion. Read more
The lowdown on how the switchover to ZK-proofs is expected to work this year as part of Ethereum’s plan to scale to 10,000 TPS. 2026 is a pivotal year for Ethereum. The first Ethereum validators will process tiny zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs instead of reexecuting transactions. This unlocks immediate scaling benefits for the layer 1 and sets it on the path toward 10,000 transactions per second (TPS). Researcher Justin Drake demonstrated that validating proofs on an old laptop is already possible at EthProofs Day at Devconnect in November. One in 10 validators are expected to make the switch to ZK before the end of the year. It’s a complete overhaul of the fundamental way the blockchain works: comparable in scale to the Merge in 2022, when Ethereum successfully switched from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. Read more
Once a barometer of retail hype, memecoins are closing the year with shrinking liquidity, weaker participation and fading speculative momentum. Memecoins are trading near year-end lows, marking a sharp reversal from the speculative peak reached in Christmas 2024. Memecoins fell 65% over the year to a market capitalization of $35 billion on Dec. 19, their lowest level of 2025, according to CoinMarketCap data. They retraced some losses on Friday, rising to about $36 billion. Last year, memecoins thrived on Christmas Day, recording about $100 billion in valuation, according to CoinMarketCap data. Read more
From hacks and macro shocks to stablecoin regulation and market-structure upgrades, 2025 reshaped how crypto operates and what mainstream adoption really means. On Feb. 24, the crypto industry faced a renewed security reckoning after about $1.4 billion was stolen from Bybit, making it one of the largest exchange-related thefts on record. US authorities publicly attributed the attack to actors linked to North Korea and warned that the stolen assets would likely be laundered through a network of addresses and intermediaries. Read more