Select observations from the day:
The Ethereum Merge upgrade may be delayed past June according to project lead developer
The blockchain industry received nearly $12.5 billion in venture capital in the first quarter of this year, with 624 financings. Money is pouring into the crypto sector
MoonPay received $87M from over 60 celebrities as part of its $555M Series A round including Ashton Kutcher, Justin Bieber, Gwyneth Paltrow, Maria Sharapova, Gal Gadot, Diplo, The Weeknd, Drake, Matthew McConaughey, Snoop Dogg, Bruce Willis and Paris Hilton
Tether coming to the Kusama - Polkadot ecosystem. Terra's Anchor Protocol to launch on Polkadot DeFi hub Acala
Nexo Partners with Mastercard, DiPocket to launch crypto card. Latest proof of the immense synergy between the existing financial network and digital assets
Plus a ton more as always. Even if you just browse over these writeups, you can see how active this space is every day
- 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:
The Ethereum Merge upgrade that will see the network switch to proof-of-stake delayed to a few months after June, according to Project Lead Developer Tim Beiko - source
Luna Foundation Guard Adds $100 Million BTC to UST Reserves. LFG Balance now is at $2.26 billion, 75% of which is bitcoin - source
Cosmos Theta upgrade quietly went live. The upgrade marks the official launch of Interchain Accounts, a module that has the potential to drastically boost interoperability, traffic and composability on the internet of blockchains - source
Tether (USDT), the largest of the dollar-pegged stablecoins with a market capitalization of over $80 billion, is launching on Kusama, a system of parallel blockchains that serves as Polkadot’s “canary network” - source
Helium announced the integration of Microsoft IoT Central. It provides IoT Central users with an easy and secure way to aggregate their IoT signals and enabling access to all of the services in the Microsoft cloud - source
The Nervos CKB mainnet will upgrade at epoch #5414 (May 10, 2022) - source
Unique has officially won the 14th polkadot parachain auction - source
Terra's Anchor Protocol to Launch on Polkadot DeFi Hub Acala a month after launching on Avalanche - source
Build2Earn: Benefits of dApp Staking and How to dApp Stake on Astar - source
Polygon & KlimaDAO commit to going carbon neutral in 2022 and pledged $20 million to offsetting their carbon footprint and fostering an industry wide movement - source
Balancer Labs devs discovered that the veCRV smart contracts that form the basis of the veBAL system operate differently from initial expectations - source
Attacker cashes out more than $11 million from Elephant Money - source - post mortem
Metis native storage layer Live. Transactions on Metis are more efficient, resulting in a significant reduction in transaction costs - source
DeBridgeFinance protocol is live on Avalanche The protocols & app from other blockchains or Avalanche can start passing any arbitrary assets & messages & building new cross-chain applications - source
Crypto.com’s Cronos partners with Chainalysis to track CRC-20 tokens - source
MetaMask has formed a new strategic partnership with four major crypto custodians: Gnosis Safe, Hex Trust, GK8, and Parfin - source
Tribe Turbo gives utility to unproductive DAO Treasury assets: Launch 4/20 - source
Ellipsis 2.0 live: users can lock their EPX tokens on Ellipsis, vote for next week’s EPX emissions and have a share of the platform fees - source
Ren Development Report | Q1 2022 - source
Coin98 Isolated Pool with 5 reserves C98/ $UXD/ $USDH/ $UST/ $PAI is now available on Solend protocol. APR of up to 20% - source
Redacted Cartel: [Redacted] Files #3 substack report - source
Chainsight releases web app Snowsight, an AVAX mempool service - source
Whitepaper for “Panoptic: a perpetual, oracle-free options protocol” is now available - source
Maker & Maple partnership would see Maker's D3M and Maple’s pool delegate model and smart contract kit combine - source
Introducing Bond Voucher: the first market-tested debt instrument in DeFi that helps DAOs tap into the debt capital markets - source
The farming of $ZOO is now live on Avalanche dexes Trader Joe and Pangolin - source
Wingriders live on mainnet. Together with Milkomeda and FlintWallet, they bring $USDT & $USDC to Cardano - source
Strategic partnership between Bonfida and PocketPay. With this collaboration they will aim to bring more integrated and innovative features to PocketPay wallet users through Bonfida's name service ecosystem - source
Sweatcoin will launch $SWEAT on NEAR - cryptocurrency you earn with your steps - source
SolanartNFT and Dispatch join forces to bring the first on-chain message feature to a solanaNFT marketplace - source
Metaverse News:
Traditional Japanese game company Namco announced the establishment of a fund of 1 billion yen in 1 year and 3 billion yen in 3 years to invest in the Web3 metaverse game company, making full use of NFT and encryption technology - source
Sony and its partners established "Sony Network Communications Singapore Pte. Ltd." in Singapore to engage in NFT-related contract development and consulting - source
METADROP X Anata: live at Noon Pacific Time (7pm UTC) on April 21st - source
A $12 million yacht NFT was minted and sold via Opensea on the Ethereum blockchain to a Texas businessman, the world’s first NFT yacht sale. The unnamed Texan businessman will also receive a real-life Yacht to be built over the next 36 months - source
Fan Token Platform Socios Signs 13 NFL Teams. The Rams, Giants, and Buccaneers are among Socios’ new allies, but there are no NFL team tokens yet due to league restrictions - source
News:
Crypto payments infrastructure firm MoonPay received $87 million from an array of celebrities as part of its $555 million Series A round including Ashton Kutcher, Justin Bieber, Gwyneth Paltrow, Maria Sharapova, Gal Gadot, Diplo, The Weeknd, Drake, Matthew McConaughey, Snoop Dogg, Bruce Willis and Paris Hilton - source
Nexo Partners with Mastercard, DiPocket to Launch Crypto Backed Credit Card - source
In First Crypto Partnership With NFL, Blockchain.com Teams Up With Dallas Cowboys - source
Ripple scores 'a very big win' in SEC case, judge on the case denied the SEC’s motion to review certain documents - source
Colombian delivery app Rappi, which deliveries of food and other goods across Latin America, has launched a cryptocurrency payment pilot program in Mexico - source
Fidelity Investments, the asset management company, announced the launch of two new thematic exchange-traded funds (ETFs): Fidelity Crypto Industry and Digital Payments ETF (FDIG) and Fidelity Metaverse ETF (FMET) - source
Crypto platform Luno has partnered with KOKO, a well-known music venue in Camden, London, in a deal that will offer perks to Luno customers - source
Avi Felman joining 01exchange team as an advisor, where he'll leverage his extensive background in finance and crypto to help shape the future of DeFi and Trading - source
Tether to further reduce holdings of commercial debt in stablecoin reserves. Tether holds short-term corporate debt in its reserves but does not disclose from which companies, raising transparency concerns - source
Raises:
According to The Block Research, the blockchain industry received nearly $12.5 billion in venture capital in the first quarter of this year, with 624 financings, both hitting a record high in the history - source
Binance has announced a 100 million euro ($108 million) investment in France and a partnership with Paris-based startup incubator Station F - source
Nomad Raises $22M Seed Round for Security-first Interoperability at a $225M valuation, led by Polychain and with participation from 1kx, Ethereal, Hack VC - source
Binance Labs Invests in Gaming DAO Merit Circle - source
Dfns Raises $13.5M to Build Out Password Protection for Crypto Wallets - source
Hashed & Delphi Ventures Co-Lead Seed Round for Reactor.Money Terra’s Omni Booster - source
A16z Leads $4M Seed Round for Web 3 Recurring Payments Startup Loop - source