Select observations from the day:
Cobie article - “ ‘staking’ has been repurposed and redefined. Instead of receiving rewards for contributing to chain security with collateral at stake, modern “staking” just seems to mean idk we give you more coins as a reward if you don’t sell your current coins lol”
Justin Tron launching decentralized algorithmic stablecoin $USDD on Tron. Will use $10B of crypto as collateral w/ basic risk-free interest rate to 30%
Near's native stablecoin $USN has been launched on the Near public test network
Bastion to launch $BSTN token at a $180M valuation plus raises $9 million in funding led by Three Arrows Capital. $BSTN will trade on Trisolaris dex
Binance required to limit services for Russian nationals that have crypto assets exceeding the value of 10,000 EUR
Kadena launched a $100 million grant program to encourage Web3 development on its platform
Ragnarok minting April 27th
Nansen is leading a $1.27 million seed round for Web 3 gaming startup ZeroDrop
Plus more, as always. Busy day in crypto land.
- Time moves differently in crypto. Crypto is an intricate game filled with various players operating across multiple time frames and with varying agendas. Day in, day out, the pieces are moving all across the board. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. Here’s a small glimpse of what has happened so far today in our little crypto bubble -
Chain News:
“ApeCoin & the death of staking” - New Cobie article - source
Near-Based DeFi Protocol Bastion to Launch BSTN Token at a $180M Valuation. BSTN token will trade on Trisolaris, a dex on Near’s EVM-compatible layer Aurora, beginning 23:59 UTC on April 21 - source - tweet
Justin Sun will imitate Terra to launch an algorithmic stable currency USDD and raise a reserve of $10 billion, the TRON DAO Reserve will set its basic risk-free interest rate to 30% - source
Proof-of-work blockchain Kadena has launched a $100 million grant program to encourage Web3 development on its platform - source
STG staking is now live. Will see veSTG balance, and now be able to vote on proposals - source
zkSync announced that it has supported the direct purchase of tokens on zkSync through UTORG with fiat. UTORG currently supports 26 fiat currencies, and users can make purchases with any bank card or Apple Pay - source
Frax, Terra-Backed 4pool Goes Live on Fantom Network ahead of its eventual launch on Ethereum - source
The TON Foundation, steward of the cryptocurrency project abandoned by messaging app provider Telegram, said it has raised over $1 billion in donations from users to advance its ecosystem - source
Bitcoin Google Searches Down to Lowest Levels Since 2020 - source
DeFi protocol Zeed was exploited for $1 million. The hacker destroyed the contract used without moving any of the tokens, rendering them immobile - source
SlowMist Alert: Recently, the assets of some users on the Terra have been stolen. When users search Google for some well-known Terra projects, the first seemingly normal advertisement link on the Google result page is actually a phishing website - source
0x Protocol has partnered with the Coinbase NFT marketplace. Powered by 0x Protocol V4, gas efficiency has increased by 54% = lower transaction costs - source
Weekly trade volume on centralized exchanges dropped to lowest level since June 2021 - source
Options strategy protocol Ribbon Finance has announced that it will launch a lending platform, Fuse Pool, in the next few weeks, where users can deposit their treasury tokens into the pool to borrow out stablecoins, a feature expected to add $100 million in TVL - source
BORA Portal Launched with key function such as connecting wallet, swapping tokens, NFT Drops and Marketplace to support current projects - source
Mercurial has released the first phase of the Mercurial Dynamic Yield Layer - source
Bounce has released Metalents, a freelancer marketplace designed specifically to fit the needs of the Metaverse - source
Layer 2 network Boba Network has announced its hackathon winners, First Prize aims to reward meme creators and audiences by tokenizing memes as NFTs - source
Launch of Tribe Turbo, a 0->1 innovation in stablecoin issuance and lending liquidity provision - source
Introducing Berachain: a high-performance, scalable, EVM-equivalent smart-contract and cross chain interoperability platform - source
Fukkatsu: Make Sushi great again - DeFi Wonderland - source
EVM Wallet Tracker -NFT Alerts -DeFi Alerts 10 different EVM chains (so far) - source
Primitive is live on mainnet with a new domain, app and brand - source
FIP-55: A proposal to pause the Curve AMO and instantiate an FXS TWAMM AMO to allow supply expansion to burn additional FXS - source
New Fixed Rate Zaps Feature is Live on the Element Protocol - source
Incognito <> Fantom bridge is now live. Transfer FTM without revealing your identity and get rid of prying eyes - source
Metaverse News:
Luxury goods giant LVMH, overseeing brands like Christian Dior, Marc Jacobs, Tiffany & Co., and Louis Vuitton, is eyeing the metaverse 'very carefully' - source
OpenSea: We now support Metaplex Certified Collections (MCC) in our Solana beta - source
Ragnarok minting April 27th - source
Nyan Heroes has announced its upcoming IDO in May 2022 - source
DOT, BTC, ETH, and USDC payments have been supported in Sotheby's April 19-April 26 Natively Digital 1.3: Generative Art auction - source
Index Coop’s New NFT Index Fund Includes Blue Chips Like CryptoPunks and Bored Apes - source
Football star Neymar "EneJayVault" recently purchased MAYC 10953 for 55ETH. Neymar also bought BAYC 6633 and 5269 for 159.99ETH and 189.69ETH respectively - source
BlockSec: Vulnerability in the NBA NFT contract, allowed non-whitelisted users to mint by copying the signatures of whitelisted users. An attacker minted and sold 100 NFTs - source
HK MTR Corporation will be the first global transport operator to join The Sandbox metaverse. It will acquire a plot of land and build a railway-focused virtual space - source
Next Earth Launches ‘Metaverse as a Service,’ Plans $60M Venture Fund - source
SFLMaven Corp, a provider of high-end luxury goods, announces that the Company has begun the process of accepting Bitcoin for purchases of high-end vintage jewelry items - source
News:
Following the EU’s fifth package of restrictive measures, Binance is required to limit services for Russian nationals or natural persons residing in Russia, or legal entities established in Russia, that have crypto assets exceeding the value of 10,000 EUR - source
Germany's Commerzbank Applies for Local Crypto License. If the license application is accepted, the bank would be authorized to offer exchange and crypto-asset services - source
Tesseract unveils yield platform to help mid-size crypto firms compete with Binance and Coinbase - source
Bahamas to allow citizens to pay taxes with digital assets - source
Raises:
Aurora-based DeFi protocol Bastion raises $9 million in funding led by Three Arrows Capital - source
On-chain data platform Nansen is leading a $1.27 million seed round for Web 3 gaming startup ZeroDrop - source
Limewire raised USD $10.4M in a private token sale - source
Spruce has closed its $34M funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) - source
Rario, an NFT platform for cricket, closed $120M Series A round led by Dream Capital - source
Privy raised an $8M Seed round, led by Sequoia and BlueYard Capital, to help protect user data in web3 - source
Crusoe Energy, the company that pioneered bitcoin mining by using wasted natural gas as a power source, has raised $505M in its funding round - source
Tower 26 Venture Fund Raises $50M for VR Games - source
MetaLend, a lending protocol NFTs raised $5 million in funding - source
Alameda Research has become a strategic partner & investor of the Klaytn ecosystem - source
New Listings:
Itheum (ITHEUM) has announced its upcoming listing on the Maiar DEX, on April 25th - source
X World Games (XWG) Gets Listed on KuCoin - source
IDEX (IDEX) Gets Listed on KuCoin - source
Blockchain Brawlers (BRWL) Gets Listed on KuCoin - source
Huobi Global will list Celsius (CEL) on April 22 - source