Author: Mark Hampton

The cryptocurrency market is a multi-trillion dollar space, growing consistently in length and breadth. Not only is the volume of trade increased, but the number of market participants and market facilitators is also increasing each day.

There are more than 18,000 crypto assets in the market today, traded across nearly five hundred exchanges. While the increased volume of crypto-trade is a natural outcome of the growing number of crypto assets, other blockchain-powered systems and mechanisms are also surging fast.

For instance, the total value locked in all the DeFi protocols combined is more than $230 billion, while the NFT market reached $41 billion in 2021. Growth in diverse streams and areas encourages platforms to come up as an ecosystem of offerings rather than concentrating on one or two areas of high growth.

Terra, the well-known network in the crypto space, claiming to have introduced programmable money for the internet, has gone up a step ahead with Terraformer, an engine propelling the growth of its ecosystem.

Aggregated Trading With Terraformer

Trading with Terraformer is a one-stop-shop for every maneuvering possible with your crypto assets. You can connect Terraformer online with your Terra Station extension wallet or mobile application and start swapping any coins on Terra, including the native USD Terra, KRW Terra, Eur Terra, etc, as well as other Terra-compatible tokens. You can access a wide variety of liquidity pools to stake and earn. There are some high-return liquidity staking pools in Terraformer’s list. For instance, the Credefi pool, where you stake CREDI to earn CREDI, comes with an APR of nearly 280% (as of the time of this writing).

The toolkit that Terraformer has launched is actually the first trading aggregator on Terra, which also includes an aggregated data and analytics tool, as well as an IDO database. In the process, it plans to achieve a super aggregator dApp that will solve some of the biggest industry bottlenecks.

An aggregated DEX for Terra means access to all DEXes simultaneously rather than having to visit them one at a time. This leads to the best rate available for token swaps with a single click. For the users, it will mean optimizing their investment in a shorter time, while for the platform, it would translate to more traffic and volume.

Adding liquidity is as easy as connecting your wallet online, while you can remove liquidity anytime you want to receive your tokens back. Terraformer also has a launchpad, where new projects can apply for IDOs. Projects like DeFiato, DragonSB, and BitLocus are projects that have successfully raised funds through Terraformer.

Moreover, the data and analytics as well as IDO stats database will increase transparency in the system, making it more credible and predictable for users. These services will serve as a conversion funnel for the platform to turn visitors into potential users.

Leveraging the NFT Market Growth With Terraformer

Terraformer is building an aggregator for the NFT space as well. It will bring together all NFT marketplaces on Terra, helping users with single-point access from the Terraformer platform. This facility will help save time and money for consumers shopping for an NFT. The NFT sales diversity in Terraformer will be available through a variety of formats, such as outright buy and bidding.

Two NFT-powered market segments growing fast these days are the GameFi and Metaverse. While GameFi already commands a market size of US$14 billion, the global metaverse market size would cross US$650 billion by 2030. The aggregation service of Terraformer will help leverage the growth in these areas without having to work on several platforms with diversified strategies for different segments.

All these developments align with Terraformer’s vision of providing what is required to make the space conducive for future blockchain users. According to its plans, the platform empowers the stakeholders with technology, community-centered funding avenues, a robust support network, and marketing capabilities. The native token TFM that is yet to launch and function as the membership asset of the ecosystem leading to increased access and discount, would bring more value to its holders as the ecosystem keeps growing.

Duelbits is a cryptocurrency casino and sports betting platform that began operations in February 2020. The platform intends to bridge the gap between bookies and casinos, which are now separated by a large margin.

While Duelbits is primarily focused on Crypto gaming, the site also accepts credit cards and PayPal as deposit options, allowing players to deposit using their preferred way.

Duelbits’ registration and cryptocurrency payment processes are both instantaneous, and in the vast majority of circumstances, no KYC verification is required. This allows you to begin playing Duelbits right now.

By building one of the most competitive VIP schemes on the market, the platform prides itself on offering a pleasant and unique experience for its players. Duelbits’ VIP programme and regular crypto awards.

In this Duelbits review, we will show you all of the platform’s relevant features, terms, and facts that you should be aware of before wagering on Duelbits.

Duelbits Features

Duelbits offers innovative games such as Crash, Roulette, and Dice Duel, as well as their unique Dice game with 3 new game modes. The platform also has a VIP referral programme that offers 37.5 percent Rakeback plus 10% of the wagering earned by every referred friend a player brings to the platform, for a total of about 50% Rakeback.

Duelbits offers daily casino and sports promotions, as well as personalised VIP benefits on top of the Rakeback. Duelbits also has weekly and daily leaderboards where users may earn up to $19,000 every week.

Duelbits offers an accumulator bonus for parlay bets in sports, allowing players to gain up to 100% of their winning bet. Players can also get a parlay bonus by starting with a trebles bet. Furthermore, if the picked team achieves more than 120 points, Duelbits always pays as winning bets on NBA.

Duelbits Registration

In order to register your account on Duelbits, go to “Register” in the upper right corner of the site and choose your chosen signup option. You can also click the “Register” button in the top center of the home page.

Duelbits enables social network sign-ins and does not require manual KYC verification, so creating an account and using Duelbits is simple. Users may join up using their Steam or Google accounts, as well as their email addresses.

 

On Duelbits, every registration is considered equally in terms of features. This implies that at Duelbits, there is just one type of account.

Once you have signed up, you can now use all of the features available on Duelbits. You can also play any game right away without having to wait for authorization from a human.

Duelbits Deposit Methods

In order to place bets on Duelbits, users need to make a deposit via one of the payment methods offered by the platform. In order to deposit money on Duelbits, users need to go to the “Cashier” tab, click on “Deposit” and choose a preferred deposit method.

Deposit payment methods include Visa, Mastercard, Skrill, WebMoney, PayPal, Paysafecards, and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Solana, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Kinguin vouchers.

All of the available deposit methods offered by Duelbits are instant. Deposits made with cryptocurrency can be used to play or place a bet anonymously, which is a major benefit of placing bets via Duelbits.

Duelbits Withdrawal Methods

It’s also worth highlighting Duelbits’ withdrawal options. To withdraw funds from the Duelbits casino, go to the Cashier page, click “Withdraw,” and select the appropriate withdrawal method.

Withdrawals from Duelbits may only be paid out in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Solana, Bitcoin Cash, and others. Duelbits payouts are quick, and users are not needed to submit any personal or financial information.

Duelbits Games

Duelbits has dozens of casino games and sports to choose from, and the site is continually being updated to accommodate a wide range of gamers.

Duelbits games are created by a total of 31 different and well-known gaming companies, including Evolution Gaming, Pragmatic Play, Red Tiger, Playson, and others. Players may also categorize their favorite games by rank or alphabetically.

Below is a list of games available on the Duelbits platform:

Duelbits Slots

Duelbits has a variety of casino games to choose from, including live shows and slots. Play’N GO, Relax Gaming, Liquid Gaming, Push Gaming, and Pragmatic Play are some of the most prominent slot game developers.

While gambling on the Duelbits platform, players will never miss out on any of their favourite slot games. They may use their preferred deposit methods, such as cryptocurrency and PayPal, to play slot machines.

In contrast to many other top crypto casinos, Duelbits slots boast a rather high RTP (return to players). The RTP of a slot machine defines how much money a slot should potentially pay out over a lengthy period of time. In general, a higher return to player (RTP) indicates a larger likelihood of profit.

Duelbits Blackjack

Duelbits online casino features live blackjack games from a variety of well-known software developers. Duelbits blackjack tables may be played for as low as $1.

For gamers who want to test out the Duelbits blackjack games, this is a fantastic opportunity. If the traditional BlackJack game has a significant wait period, players can switch to virtual crypto blackjack, which allows them to play immediately and without waiting. Duelbits blackjack accepts all forms of payment, including Visa, PayPal, and cryptocurrency.

Duelbits Live Games and Crazy Time

Duelbits offers a variety of live games, including the renowned Crazy Time, in addition to the crypto slots and blackjack games described above. Crazy Time is a Duelbits casino game that features real-time statistics from Tracksino.

Real-time statistics allow players to follow the results of past Crazy Time spins and guess or anticipate the outcome of future games based on those results. Duelbits’ Crazy Time data may be used to play the game using specialised and required gambling tactics.

Duelbits Crash

Duelbits also offers Crash, a unique gambling game. Players may wager whatever amount they choose, which they can cash out at any moment and benefit from using the multipliers that are presented on their displays. Players cannot withdraw their funds before the rocket falls; if they do, they will lose their whole wager.

This type of game mode is very exciting since the multiplier on the screen might crash at any time. Many gamers reach multipliers of a few hundred and earn large sums of money. Due to Duelbits’ dependable provably fair mechanism, players may verify the randomness and fairness of the Crash multipliers at any moment by visiting the provably fair website.

Duelbits Dice

Duelbits also provides several in-house specialty games, such as Dice, in addition to its standard gaming alternatives, such as slot machines and live performances. The game works by players moving the slider to choose a number between 1 and 99. Next, the player can adjust the multiplier to increase the potential for a higher payout if they win.

If a player thinks the next number will be higher than their current chosen value, they can click Roll Over. If they think the value will be lower, they can click Roll Under. Duelbits added a unique twist to the dice game by adding three new buttons for the dice game:

1. Roll Outside
2. Roll Between
3. Roll Between and Roll Between

Duelbits Dice works the same way as the traditional Over / Under options, however, this version has additional customized sets of numbers. Players can choose both ends of the section to bet on, or they can choose to bet outside that section. The last button lets players choose 2 sections and bet to roll inside either section.

Duelbits Easter Promo

From 4th to 17th April, Duelbits is giving you the chance to win a share of the $250,000 Easter Egg Hunt.

Daily Rewards

To enter, make sure you have deposited at least $50 since 20 March. If you have, head to the Eggs tab, and open today’s Egg of the Day for your Daily Reward!

Each Egg of the Day hides 5, 10, 15, or 20 “Free Spins”, or a bonus in the value of 2 USD, 5 USD, or 10 USD. Also, on the first day of the promotion, the Daily Reward is guaranteed 20 Free Spins on the Eligible Games.

Prize Draw on Easter Monday with a $100,000 Prize Pool

To enter, wager $100 on a single day and collect your ticket on the Claim tab. Every $100 in wager grants you another entry with no daily cap! There will be 153 Cash Prizes to be won:

• 1 x 50,000 USD
• 1 x 25,000 USD
• 1 x 10,000 USD
• 150 x 100 USD

There is also a daily Golden Egg for you to find somewhere on the website. Every midnight (in UTC time zone) they will tweet a clue to help you find the page where the Golden Egg is nested.

Find the Golden Egg before the following midnight, and click on it to prompt a tweet about your finding. Share the tweet for a chance to win $500 every day!

And there’s more, open today’s Egg of the Day, claim your prize draw ticket and check our Twitter feed for the next Golden Egg clue.

Duelbits Country Restrictions

People living in the following countries are restricted from using the Duelbits platform, whilst users in these countries can still access the site, the features are very limited: Aruba, Australia, Bonaire, Curacao, Denmark, France, Malta, Sint Marteen, Singapore, Spain, USA, United Kingdom, The Netherlands

The restriction also extends to all of the above nations’ named territories.

Conclusion

Duelbits is a reputable and professional online casino and sportsbook that is rapidly expanding. The platform is continually introducing new game titles and other casino features, all while keeping a professional, transparent, and fair environment for all users.

This platform is an excellent choice if you want to take advantage of being an early member of a rapidly developing and licensed crypto casino.

 

Dogecoin started as a joke but ended up attracting billions of US dollars and the interest of Elon Musk himself. The cryptocurrency with the Shiba Inu dog as its logo has become an inspiration for many other crypto projects. The most recent example is Cliff, although it hasn’t been designed as a purposeful parody. On the contrary, Cliff, which also has a dog as its symbol, is seeking to help investors secure sizable returns by implementing a deflationary model.

What Is Cliff and How Does It Work?

Cliff is the first token with a true burn function that can directly and instantly boost the price per coin as a result of burning its circulating supply. The burning mechanism makes sure that Cliff keeps eliminating the excess liquidity on a regular basis. Every time it does so, the event pushes the price of each token up by a certain percentage. Besides this, the token’s value also increases as Cliff has exposure to yield-bearing assets with the goal to provide value to token holders.

Thus, Cliff is a token seeking to act as a hedge fund and grow continually thanks to two main mechanisms: burning a percentage of the circulating supply and investing in yield-bearing assets.

Here is how the burn function works:

• Every trade on Uniswap or other DEX comes with a liquidity fee. Currently, the tax is set at 5% for buys, and 8% for sells but it’s subject to change based on the market conditions. After a certain threshold, the smart contract releases fees accrued and injects it into the liquidity (Initial LP tokens have been burned forever).
• When the burn function is triggered (it can occur manually when the team decides or automatically according to the schedule), the contract unpegs a percentage of the circulating supply and sends it to the burn address. Basically, the process is similar to stock buybacks, in which companies purchase their own stock on secondary markets to reduce the circulating share supply available to the public.
• As a result, each token instantly increases in value after the burn.

When it comes to investing, Cliff is getting exposure to various assets that may grow in value over time. Besides the liquidity pool tax, every trade comes with a 6% tax on buys, and 7% on sells which is used for marketing campaigns as well as yield-generating investments. As of today, Cliff is invested in stablecoins used for staking, LAND assets, and other non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Eventually, the generated wealth will be distributed back to the ecosystem members.

Cliff Features

Cliff token relies on a hyper-deflationary model to encourage a never-ending bullish trend. Here are the token’s main features that you should know about:

• Predetermined automatic true burns – one of its unique features is the code that is programmed to unpeg a small percentage of tokens from the pool and burn it on a regular basis, creating a higher price floor over time.
• Manual burns when liquidity is oversaturated – the manual burn is used by the Cliff team to unpeg the excess liquidity, thus pushing the token price higher immediately after the burn.
• Stable liquidity pool – unlike other liquidity pools, Cliff holders are not required to stake their tokens. Instead, every trade incurs a tax that goes to the liquidity pool address to make sure Cliff becomes less volatile over time.
• Anti whale – During the launch phase, the maximum amount a wallet could hold was .1% of the total supply, ensuring a well-distributed supply across the holders.
• Marketing incentives – a marketing tax is applicable on each buy and sell to ensure the team has enough funds for the marketing campaigns as well as to invest and donate to charities.
• Security – the security of the Cliff token is based on the Ethereum architecture itself. On top of that, the smart contract has been audited by CERTIK, which is one of the most recognized platforms monitoring and auditing blockchain and decentralized finance (DeFi) projects. The code is programmed so that the initial burned liquidity can never be pulled, while any new liquidity tokens generated will go straight to a dead address.

Cliff as a Gateway to RED

The Cliff community has the opportunity to get exposure to another great token that will be added to the ecosystem soon. Known as RED, it will act as a governance and yield-bearing asset.

RED will be a valuable asset for Cliff investors, and the only way to accrue it is by staking Cliff. RED holders will be able to submit ideas and vote on investments proposed by the team. RED will also be the token to accrue yield from the invested assets.

Thus, the ecosystem will be fueled by two tokens seeking to provide real value.

 

Image: Pixabay

The barter system, where you trade your cow for someone else’s grains, for instance, is probably older than you think. It has its roots dating back to 6000 BC when Mesopotamian tribes first made exchanges with other groups.

Those methods of exchange worked well before things like the Internet or decentralized technology existed. Trading was necessary not because commodities have financial value or even industrial utility, but because they were necessary for survival. Back then, societies weren’t as worried about gold or silver as they were about grains, milk, and beans.

Today, even though society is living in a time where artificial intelligence, automation, blockchain technology and decentralization are going to make means of exchange far more democratic, and private than ever before, commodities still derive their value from the same things.

Agricultural goods provide us with a means to nourish ourselves and survive. Energy in the form of oil, natural gas etc. allows us to keep the lights on and keep the economy moving, and precious metals provide us with industrial utility and the ability to hedge against inflation.

Here’s the thing. The above commodities are non-fungible. They are not so easy to trade. That means no matter how valuable they are, some of that value is sucked away by old-world value chains. Thus, it remains out of the hands of the everyday individual.

That’s why Comdex is launching a decentralized exchange (DEX) for synthetic assets. So that value can be unlocked and participants all around the world can benefit from such an unlocking event.

What Are Synthetic Assets?

In blockchain, a synthetic asset is a tokenized version of another asset, whether the latter is tangible or intangible. In the case of commodities, blockchain can be used to tokenize physical assets as well as their financial representations, be it oil, gold or silver. Comdex operates a DEX listing synthetic assets representing all types of commodities.

The benefits of synthetic assets are enormous, as they allow users to trade the real-world value of a commodity without the complexities inherent in holding the non-fungible good itself.

Comdex Alleviates the Pain Points Associated with Nonfungible Commodities Exchanges

The Comdex Decentralized Synthetics Exchange allows participants to act as:

• Traders (who engage in buying and selling of cAssets against CMDX using cSwap)
• Minters (who can create and open collateralized debt positions in order to obtain a newly minted cAsset. They must maintain a minimum collateral ratio of 150% to avoid liquidation.)
• Liquidity Providers who provide equal amounts of cAssets and CMDX so that users can facilitate trades and providers can benefit from rewards and transaction fees.)
• Stakers (who can earn CMD tokens using Omniflix and Unagii)

The interface itself is easy to navigate. The team and the project are mission-driven. The whole point of the launch of this product is to alleviate the pain points that come with commodities and digital assets.

Participants get the real-world benefit of on-chain diversification of assets. The benefit from the security and transparency a decentralized synthetic asset exchange can provide. They also don’t have to worry about the cumbersome nature of the logistics and storage that typically comes with investing in physical goods and commodities.

Why Trade Synthetic Assets?

Comdex anticipates that demand on its platform will expand at an accelerated pace given the benefits of synthetics over trading the physical assets themselves. Synthetic assets address multiple risks, including:

• Confiscation or ban risk – the recent decision of US President Joe Biden to ban oil and gas imports from Russia shows that the commodity market may be unpredictable and struggle with uncertainty. Sometimes governments can go even further by confiscating commodities altogether. Synthetics cannot be confiscated and trading cannot be banned as they reside on a decentralized infrastructure.
• Theft risk – storing gold coins under your bed can make you happier, but this is not the safest approach for sure. The risk of theft is considerable, and the problem is that your home insurance policy might cover any sizable investment as most insurance packages stipulate clauses preventing cover on high-value items like gold bars. Elsewhere, synthetics can’t be stolen if you keep your private key safely.
• Third-party risk – even if you give up storing physical items and decide to invest in futures contracts, you will most likely end up storing them with a third-party custodian like a bank or broker. Unfortunately, there is always an insolvency risk associated with any centralized organization, including banks, shipping companies, or brokers. In the case of bankruptcy, you can own your investments partially or entirely. Since synthetics are stored on the blockchain, there is no third-party risk.

On top of that, synths come with great benefits that can help traders have peace of mind about their commodity investments:

• Easy access – with synthetics, you can get exposure to any commodity market without any obstacle. All you need to have is an internet connection and an account with Comdex.
• Costs – if you trade physical commodities or their futures, you have to be ready to pay broker fees, as well as storage, conversion, transportation, withdrawal, and other fees. Trading commodity synthetics reduce the costs to a minimum thanks to the efficient use of resources.
• No Expiry of futures contracts – trading commodity futures may be problematic for investors, as in theory, they are obligated to take delivery of the physical goods once the contract expires. Synthetics function 24/7 with no expiry.

Comdex is striving to revolutionize how people engage in commerce with commodities by merging decentralized technologies with real-world assets. The hybrid approach to this new robust decentralized synthetic asset exchange is going to change the game for good.

The question is, are you ready for it?

 

Image: Pixabay

 

The traditional finance world, or TradFi as we know it, lacks inclusivity. According to the data published and endorsed by the World Bank, only 69% of the world’s adult population has an account. Although financial inclusion is the enabler for seven out of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals, 1.7 billion people are unbanked. Lack of inclusion stems from the entry barriers that the TradFi has itself cultivated in the form of unnecessary documentation needs, involvement of too many intermediaries and approvals in the process, and more.

The current financial structures are rigged, believes Brian Pasfield, CTO of Fringe Finance. In an interview with beINcrypto’s Alexandra Kons, Brian said that his observations held ground for other segments as well, including gold, commodities, silver, metals, energy markets, and so forth. He added that this “gave him a bit of an insight at how things operated at a global and macro scale.” Therefore, Brian believes, the decentralization of financial systems is not an option but a necessity.

A catalyst for decentralization

The 2008 global financial crisis was devastating, as it wiped off $22 trillion from the United States economy. If we distribute these losses to all Americans, they would average at $72000 per citizen. The crisis made it clear that the global financial ecosystem is under the control of a few financial institutions. At a global level, the combined GDP of all countries dropped by 4%, an effect still felt by the world a decade later.

However, amidst this chaos, no solution seemed like it could change the situation until Bitcoin aimed to take the world towards the path of decentralization. Bitcoin, a breath of fresh air, was truly independent, and its value wasn’t linked with the situation in any particular country.

Brian, too, realized the crucial differences between Bitcoin and the rest of the financial system. While talking about Bitcoin, he said to Alexandra Kons that “it represents opportunity. Its decentralization, uncensorability, a limited supply, ushered in a way to transfer value.”

He further added, “Of course, it (Bitcoin) is the first underlying component that will manifest into a truly decentralized and distributed world.” In addition, Brian sees Bitcoin as a perfect option for people to opt in for instead of being forced into by legacy centralized institutions.

The first layer of transfer of value

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have started a revolution that isn’t stopping any time soon. Decentralized Finance, for example, is open and accessible, qualities rarely found in the financial services offered by centralized institutions.

Brian says, “in DeFi, people can take part in financial services, and they do not require any permission, and (it works) in a manner that is uncensorable and (lets them) access the whole host of financial services that otherwise they would not have been able to take advantage of.”

A new era?

The evolution of mechanisms around pseudonymous identity and reputation is a game-changer, believes Brian. He says it’s because “this usher in a new era where individuals and organizations, particularly DAOs, will now be able to undertake dispute resolution in a pseudonymous manner.”

He further adds that “dispute resolution will be based on maintaining users’ reputation because their reputation will be the largest part of the currency of their ability on a continuing and evolving basis within the decentralized domain.”

What this will do, then, is add a layer of force or compulsion, which they can use to enforce rules within the decentralized space. “Reputation will be a key driver for that,” says Brian.

Brian also explains that once these pseudonymous systems are established, people will be able to interact and access services within the decentralized web trustlessly. It will enable DAOs to interact among themselves and with users to hear and adjudicate disputes with real implications for users. The implications won’t be physical per se, but they will impact the reputation that a user will wish to retain.

Real-world example of reputation today

If we look at it from the perspective of an individual, it isn’t as if reputation is not already a part of the traditional financial space because it already is, and it is known as a “Credit Score.” Yes, a credit score is on similar lines to reputation, as it influences the chances a person will be able to avail of loans or not. But, credit scores serve the needs of exclusion rather than being vehicles of entry for a larger population. Reputation in DeFi is enabling rather than being prohibitive. It will open the way to uncollateralized loans and access other services on the web without any permission.

 

Image: Pixabay

Across the proof-of-stake (PoS) industry, a vast number of users and protocols have been long reaping the benefits of the PoS consensus mechanism. It is not only an easy and practical way to secure blockchain networks but also a fool-proof way for users to earn high APYs in exchange for their participation via staking. However, the fact that staked assets remain locked for extended periods of time, limits their usability and deters many users from staking altogether.

This is precisely why liquid staking as a means of unlocking liquidity of staked assets is being explored within DeFi, and leading the charge in this realm is the Tendermint/Cosmos-based Persistence network. Persistence empowers the creation of an ecosystem of products that help make liquid staking the default form of staking. And with the tokens $XPRT and $PSTAKE at the helm of operations to capture the value of this ever-growing ecosystem, the Persistence network is poised to become the epicenter for liquid staking in DeFi.

A Symbiosis Like Never Before

As mentioned before, Persistence is a layer-1 blockchain network that aims to build an ecosystem of products to promote liquid staking in the industry. For the uninitiated, liquid staking is a way of issuing tokenized versions or derivatives of staked assets to unlock their liquidity and allows them to be stored, transferred, used in DeFi, or spent just like any other tokens. In this regard, pSTAKE, the signature product and the cornerstone of the Persistence ecosystem, is the epitome of liquid staking.

It allows token holders to stake their PoS assets via the pSTAKE protocol to receive 1:1 pegged stkASSETs as representative tokens that can be spent or used to generate additional yield with DeFi protocols. The PoS assets staked via pSTAKE are staked with top validators on their underlying networks. This means that users while reaping the full staking rewards for assets on underlying networks, will also have the opportunity to re-use those assets on DEXs and DeFi lending protocols. As such, $PSTAKE is the native governance token of the pSTAKE protocol that gives holders the right to participate in platform governance by staking the token.

Along with this, $PSTAKE is also used to incentivize the use of products and protocols built by the Persistence network to create innovative use-cases for the unlocked stkASSETs. A protocol like this is poised to unlock liquidity of billions of dollars worth of assets staked in DeFi, and by incorporating them into other protocols within the industry, will contribute to the growth of DeFi as a whole.

While pSTAKE is its signature protocol, the Persistence network has plans for an entire ecosystem of DeFi protocols that incorporate the stkASSETs at the core of their operations and create utility for them. And $XPRT as the native token of the Persistence chain is in a unique position to foster the development of these new protocols and capture the value of the ecosystem. Users of pSTAKE and these new protocols will pay user fees and gas fees in $XPRT, which are then partly funneled to $XPRT stakers who are helping to secure the persistence chain.

As such, both $PSTAKE and $XPRT have a unique symbiosis with each other. While one of these fosters the growth of new utilities for liquid-staked assets, the other incentivize their use, ultimately positioning Persistence as the go-to liquid staking platform.

The Next Generation of DeFi

With DeFi’s mainstream adoption underway, the industry is taking strides toward fixing gaps that could potentially hinder its adoption. In this regard, the lack of utility for staked assets is a problem that was glossed over for a long time and only recently has come into full view. Now, with networks like Persistence taking steps towards closing this gap with liquid staking, the next iteration of DeFi will move from mere speculation towards real-value creation, creating a brand new financial infrastructure for users.

 

 

 

An Examination of the Social Cryptocurrency Reveals Numerous Recent Achievements and an Exciting Future

On March 14, 2022, Pi Network celebrated its 3rd anniversary with important announcements and updates. The network defined future plans and shared  progress in terms of technology, product, and community growth since last year’s Pi Day.

Pi Network Growth March 14, 2021 – March 14, 2022

Pi Network had an amazing year of growth filled with accomplishments that fulfilled its roadmap objectives and grew the utility of the network. In the last year, Pi Network launched the Enclosed Mainnet, released three updated Whitepaper chapter drafts and advanced decentralization on the network by growing to over 10,000 active Testnet nodes. Additionally, the Pi Community grew from 15 million to over 33 million engaged users (referred to as “Pioneers” in the community).

In the same period, the Pi ecosystem has undergone evolution with launches and iterations of multiple PI Network apps and features including Pi KYC, Brainstorm, Pi Browser, Pi Wallet, Pi SDK, and Pi Blockexplorer.

Looking forward, Pi Network aims to accelerate the community mass KYC process, migrate its users’ balances to the Mainnet, develop an ecosystem of apps on its platform, and move to Open Mainnet.

Enclosed Mainnet Launch

The Enclosed Network period of Mainnet of the Pi blockchain went live on December 28, 2021. Here, a firewall prevents any unwanted external connectivity to the Mainnet. This Enclosed Mainnet period allows time for millions of Pioneers to pass KYC and the community to build utilities-based Pi apps. The Enclosed Network period also provides an opportunity for the network to test, gather data, and iterate on the Mainnet and the Pi Ecosystem before the future launch of the Open Network.

Updated Whitepaper Draft

Updated Whitepaper chapters were released along with the Mainnet launch. These chapters detail the Pi Network Mainnet roadmap, new mining rewards, and token model. The chapters are in draft form and continue to be updated based on community feedback and data gathered during the Enclosed Mainnet period.

Nodes

In the last year, the network grew to over 10,000 active Testnet Nodes. Additionally, there are tens of thousands of Pioneers operating the Node desktop application each day, on the waiting list to run the blockchain container. While not all Nodes run the Testnet consensus container, they all do provide the network with important data and infrastructure to enable multiple iterations of the Node software and Testnet. Once the Open Network period of Mainnet launches, such Community Nodes will be able to participate in securing the Pi Mainnet blockchain.

Hackathon

The network conducted its first #buildPi2gether Hackathon between June 28, 2021 and September 20, 2021 with thousands of Pioneers participating. Pioneers submitted many projects with a wide variety of use cases. A select few won rewards for their exceptional contributions.

KYC App

Development of the novel Pi KYC App began and continued throughout the year. The app was built to be a decentralized scalable KYC solution that combines machine automation and crowdsourced human verification. This KYC solution optimizes for accuracy and privacy while achieving accessibility, scalability for millions of people, and wide coverage of diverse populations. The team worked on several features and versions between testing rounds such as improved obfuscation algorithms which hide a Pioneer’s data from human validators, liveness checks which verify that a real person is applying, improved processing speed to ensure timely uploading of Pioneers’ documents, and much more. With multiple testing rounds completed, Pi Network has now made the KYC app (see Pi Day Announcements below!) available on a large scale.

Ecosystem Tools

In 2021, Pi Network developed and released a growing ecosystem of apps and features that will support Pioneers as Mainnet further evolves.

The Pi Browser was launched in April 2021 to create a more open and direct Pi Utilities platform for Pioneers and community developers to interact with and build upon. Within the Pi Browser, Pioneers can access the Pi KYC application and other apps being created by community app developers. As the ecosystem develops more and more apps with real use cases and utility, Pioneers will be able to spend Pi on the apps of their choice.

There have been many feature enhancements and additions to the Pi Browser since its launch, such as the addition of notifications and deep linking. New features will continue to be built and rolled out over the coming year.

The Pi Wallet was announced on Pi Day 2021, offering Pioneer’s a noncustodial method to hold their Pi. At release, the Wallet allowed Pioneers to interact with the Testnet blockchain by creating Test-Pi transactions. To help the community transition to Mainnet, the Pi Wallet has been updated so that Pioneers can switch between viewing the Mainnet and Testnet blockchains and get ready to receive their Pi balance on the Mainnet.

The Brainstorm App—a place for Pioneers to propose Pi Apps ideas, join existing projects, and engage with other Pioneers to join their projects—launched just prior to Pi Day, 2021. Throughout the year, the Brainstorm App saw many updates and feature changes to host the large-scale global online hackathon and UI improvements based on community feedback. More updates to Brainstorm will be implemented in 2022, so keep an eye out for some exciting news which will be announced later this year!

The Pi SDK, which enables developers to build applications that integrate with the Pi Ecosystem, was released on Pi2Day (June 28), 2021. This gave developers the ability to communicate with the Pi Blockchain to create payments and with Pi servers to validate consented information from Pioneers. Additional features are being planned for the upcoming year which will give developers increased functionality within their applications.

The Pi Blockexplorer first launched in October 2021 to provide visibility to the Testnet. Since the Mainnet launch, Pioneers have also been able to view transactions, accounts and blocks on the Mainnet blockchain. Pioneers can check their Pi balance, the status of a transaction, and the general state of the Pi blockchain.

Pi Day Announcements

Pi Day 2022 brought some exciting news! The Pi Core team announced the release of two important new features: (1) the long awaited rollout of mass KYC solution, and (2) the new Pi mining mechanism that allows more diverse mining rewards based on lockup settings, app usage, and node hosting.

Pi KYC applications are being offered as they become available, allowing Pioneers around the world to submit applications on a large scale, with the number of application slots expected to ramp up steadily. Pioneers will receive an in-app alert when they receive a slot to submit their application. These slots are chosen randomly and are not being assigned in any order. We understand that all Pioneers desire to submit their application and move to Mainnet, but please be patient as slots become available to all Pioneers to avoid system clutter when processing the millions! Given that machine automation is being scaled as needed, the network KYC speed now primarily depends on how many good human validators there are in each local community to process the human verification step of the KYC solution. So join the workforce of human validators and help speed up the KYC of the network.

The Pi KYC solution combines machine automation and human verification in order to accomplish accurate and efficient KYC for everyone. Machine automation will be responsible for image processing, text extraction, fake ID detection, liveness check and image comparison. The human verification flow, where pre-approved human verifiers check the redacted data of other Pioneers’ KYC applications, has also been released on this Pi Day.

Another major announcement is that Pioneers can now receive new mining rewards that increase individual mining rates resulting from diverse types of contributions to the network such as app usage, Node operations, and Pi lockups, in addition to pre-Mainnet rewards such as security circles and referrals. Locking up Pi while ecosystem utilities and use cases develop, engaging with Pi apps on a regular basis, and hosting a large network of Nodes are all vital to both the security and decentralization of the Pi blockchain and the stability and utility of the Pi Ecosystem.

Coming soon

Over the next few months, Pi Network has several upcoming releases that Pioneers should be aware of.

KYC App

The KYC app is self-sufficient within the ecosystem. It costs Pioneers 1 Pi to process their application. Further, fully KYC’ed Pioneers will soon be able to apply to become KYC validators for their country or region after agreeing with Service Terms of the app, going through a tutorial to train their validation skills, and being peer-vetted by trusted validators on their initial work. Since these validators’’ work is constantly cross-validated to prevent bad actors, providing consistently inaccurate verification will lead to removal from the workforce pool. Good validation work will be rewarded with Pi paid by KYC applicants.

Node Consensus Container

During the Enclosed Network period, the Consensus Container for the Testnet will be opened for all Community Nodes. This will offer Pioneers who want to maintain a copy of the ledger the chance to set up and monitor the performance of a node. Doing so is important for Pioneers to verify that their nodes are able to effectively handle the parameters of the Testnet blockchain. This will help ensure that Pioneers are able to host the Pi Mainnet blockchain with their Nodes once the firewall is removed and Open Network begins.

Further Pi Ecosystem development

Pi Network is ramping up its efforts to grow community app development on the Pi Browser to create real utilities and use cases within the Pi Ecosystem. This will include possible future Hackathons and other developer initiatives to help bring developers onto the Pi Developer platform. There will also be Pi apps developed by the Core Team.

Mainnet Migration

After a critical mass of Pioneers pass KYC verification, the network will begin transferring the KYC-verified Pioneers’ mobile-mined balances to the Enclosed Mainnet blockchain. These Pioneers will then be able to use their Pi within the internal Pi Ecosystem. In order to qualify for Mainnet Migration, Pioneers will need to complete all the steps on the Mainnet Checklist located inside the Mainnet tab in the Pi App. This includes creating a Pi Wallet through the Pi Browser, choosing a lockup configuration, and submitting and passing a KYC application.

Open Network

After mass Mainnet migration occurs and the Pi Ecosystem is sufficiently developed, Pi Network will move to the Open Network period of Mainnet, removing the firewall from the Enclosed Network period. This will allow for external connectivity, e.g., to other networks and to anyone who wants to connect to the Pi Mainnet. Removal of the firewall will allow direct access to the blockchain, and community Mainnet Pi Nodes will be able to run the  Mainnet blockchain.

Pi Network had robust growth and development during the last Pi year. There is excitement in the community about the upcoming Mainnet migration, development of the app ecosystem, and move to Open Network. Unlike other cryptocurrency networks, Pi has had vital community support from the very beginning of its journey. Pioneers helped secure and grow the network as they mined Pi on their phones and have been providing important feedback as the network evolved and iteratively improved on its technology and product. With so much to look forward to, the next Pi year is critical and calls for Pioneers to contribute even more diversely to the network in order to make it a success.

The global blockchain market hit a record high valuation of USD 4.9 billion in 2021, gaining traction across many major industries. Institutional venture capitalists and retail investors are fueling this trend and pumping capital into crypto startups and projects.

By 2028, it is predicted to increase at an annual rate of 82.4 percent and soar to a market value of USD 394.60 billion!

Despite the highs that the crypto sector has achieved and the potential, it holds for transformation, it is nascent and volatile. Due to the lack of regulations and oversight in this space, investors fall prey to fraudulent Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), shitcoins, and pump and dump schemes.

These scams have made investors apprehensive about investing in even seemingly valuable projects. This has also led to difficulties in raising capital for high-quality crypto startups. If this is left unchecked in the long run, it will certainly harm the industry and hinder the widespread adoption of cryptocurrency.

YashaDAO entered the scene to foster a healthy crypto investment ecosystem by solving the twin problems of capital fundraising and vetting genuine projects. But what is it all about? And does it match up to its promises?

Read on to find out!

YashaDAO: A Snapshot Of The Project

YashaDAO is a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol built on the Ethereum network.

YashaDAO appears to have a solid foundation rooted in strong fundamentals of investments and due diligence. Memecoins can often be an extremely risky venture with massive losses, frauds, and exploitations.

One of the largest scams that befell the crypto community was the Squid Game token where investors were rekt from a rug pull of USD 3.4 million in a matter of minutes! In January 2022 alone investors lost over USD 4 million to scam crypto projects and this figure does not include the money lost to hacking attacks. Such is the magnanimity of the situation.

YashaDAO, according to its Whitepaper, is here to “transform the meme coin space forever and for good”. Being built on the Ethereum chain, its purpose is to serve as a vetting and contribution program for bootstrapping high-quality potential new token projects, charities, and not-for-profit organizations that want to raise capital or funds from the community.

YashaDAO itself has undergone a smart contract audit by DeFi contract audit firm, Nebula, to prove its trustworthiness. According to the audit report, YashaDAO’s smart contracts are “well- designed and engineered” with “no critical or high issues” found related to business logic, security, or performance thus providing transparency to its users from the start.

What Segments Does YashaDAO Offer?

The YashaDAO project is divided into three parts: the Yasha Incubator, an incubator for crypto startups, Yasha DAO, the community of investors who also govern the platform, and the YashaPAD, a launchpad that provides safe, handpicked projects for investors.

The YashaDAO platform aims to connect investors and credible startups by offering a healthy, scam-free investment environment in the form of an incubator cum launchpad. Thus, the “IncuLaunch” serves benefits to all stakeholders in the crypto investment space.

How Does YashaDAO Help Crypto Startups And Investors?

From the crypto fundraising front, the team behind YashaDAO has created the Yasha Incubator which is dedicated to evaluating and assessing novel blockchain initiatives and ventures. New projects who wish to list themselves on the YashaDAO platform will submit an application listing all particulars and relevant documentation.

The project then reaches the YashaPAD where they are vetted by the team and community. The launchpad has strict due diligence processes in place such as live recorded video calls, 2FA with phone numbers, watch list checks, and background checks prior to listing. Once these checks are completed, the project moves on to the next phase where the YashaDAO members vote on the project assessing its viability and credibility for it to be listed.

Only if the project passes all of these checks do they get approved to be listed on the YashaPAD and given access to a pool of potential investors or grants. In this sense, YashaDAO has the potential to transform the crypto investments space by offering reliable projects only to be listed and for investors to fund noteworthy projects.

Few projects such as Guzzler, an NFT based car racing game, $CLIFF, a hyper deflationary token have already launched successfully on the platform and are performing well in secondary markets. Further Pochi Inu, a unique metaverse pet token launched on YashaDAO shortly after them.

What Lies Ahead For YashaDAO?

YashaDAO will remarkably propel the DeFi revolution if it achieves its goals. Without being tied to traditional venture capitalists, any protocol, NFT game, or token initiative, the crypto community now has a fighting chance to obtain funding in a way like never before.

With the YashaPAD and incubator segments, crypto-themed companies in the Web 3.0 space can fund their ventures without approaching veteran venture capitalists and raise funds in a community-driven way.

 

The cryptocurrency space has grown immensely throughout 2021. At the beginning of the year, NFTs were just a mere notion. However, as the year progressed, they picked up the pace. The OpenSea marketplace for NFTs saw vast volumes of over $3 billion as NFTs such as CryptoPunks and the Bored Ape Yacht Club sold for millions of dollars apiece. The Metaverse has also taken shape recently, as many giant corporations begin to be interested in this virtual world. There is a need for open-source NFTs that can be used in any Metaverse regardless of the chain. Guzzler is a project that has identified this niche and has rushed to fill this gap. This article will discuss the solutions that Guzzler is bringing to the metaverse and NFT spaces.

What Is Guzzler.IO?

Guzzler is a project that aims to build operable and customizable non-fungible tokens that will be able to operate across different open worlds or metaverses. This will save time, and it will save energy for these rapidly growing worlds. For instance, if you are an explorer of the metaverses and in need of transportation to tour the metaverses, Guzzler can help you have a custom NFT car to take you through the metaverses without needing to exchange or to buy new cars for every metaverse you join.

Guzzler.IO Roadmap

Guzzler project began in November of 2021 with a presale and a launch. The project has been listed on Coinmarketcap and CoinGecko. The project made a huge marketing push on the Twitch platform, which is mainly used by gamers. Phase one and phase two of the Guzzler project have been completed. By December 2021, the project had over 2000 token holders, and they introduced new racecourses and updates into the game. As of December 2021, Guzzler had over 50,000 players. Currently, the project is in phase three, where the developers aim to create an open world or a metaverse, a race track, and delve into Metaverse real estate. The development team also aims to create an in-game NFT marketplace for their cars and auto upgrades. One of the significant sell points of the Guzzler project is the cross-world integration where gamers and owners of car NFTs can use them in more than one metaverse. This will be a game-changer in the metaverse since Guzzler will be the engine for the car that the user will use across all the supported metaverses.

Guzzler.IO Tokenomics

The Guzzler project has a native token- the GZLR token. These tokens can be staked and allow users or holders to gain access to some of the performance auto parts. The native token of the Guzzler ecosystem is an ERC-20 token.

The tokenomics of the GZLR token are simple yet effective. Every transaction involving the GZLR token will be charged a 7% tax. 3% will go to marketing while 3% will go to liquidity pools. The other 1% will be added to reflections for the holders and hence with the GZLR token, holding is benefiting. Users will be able to stake GZLR tokens and earn rewards. These rewards will provide the holders with access to premium NFTs that the general public will not be able to access. These exclusive NFTs will be available to users who compete in the Guzzler games in single-player mode. Alternatively, users who have completed all levels while in single-player mode can sell their NFT car parts and upgrades on the Guzzler NFT marketplace to other players.

Team Behind Guzzler.IO

The team behind Guzzler is more than qualified for the job. Joey Poareo is the founder and the CEO of the project, and he has been working overtime on his philanthropic efforts to help orphans in homeless children.

Fury, who is the chief development officer, is a genius game developer and has extensive expertise in mobile game development and multi-player implementation. He also has experience with smart contracts and blockchain technology and will be a great help to the project. GZLR Token has a maximum supply of 100 billion tokens. The liquidity is locked, and there is a 7% tax.

The Guzzler community can be found on most social media platforms on the internet, including Twitter, Instagram, Telegram, and even Medium. On November 17, 2021, the Guzzler platform was approved to use the KYC identity verification process. This means that your credentials and personal details are safe with the Guzzler team. If you would like to buy some tokens to participate in this exciting ecosystem, you can get the tokens on Uniswap and LBank. The bottom line of the Guzzler ecosystem is to play games, stake tokens, and earn profits. The more you stake, the more parts and upgrades you have. You can sell these performance packs for a lucrative profit on the Guzzler in-game NFT marketplace.

Conclusion

Guzzler is a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make handsome profits and to enjoy yourself while in the process. Apart from this, the prospect of using one of NFT across multiple metaverses is exciting. As web 3.0 is developing, projects such as Guzzler need to begin making progress as we prepare for the new generation of internet and immersive social interaction through the Metaverse.

 

Image: Pixabay

NFTs have seen a steady increase over the last few years, seeing trading volumes in quarter three of 2021 reach nearly $11 Billion. This year has seen just as much success for this new investment class, with an estimated 250,000 people trading NFTs each month on OpenSea.

As the progression of NFTs presses forward, new use cases are found, bringing new utility and functionality to these tokens.

One industry that has adopted NFTs is sports. With the popularity of sports, many new users flock to NFTs, bringing these once niche tokens to the mainstream. Sports NFTs typically depict game moments, players, and more, providing fans with innovative ways to support their favorite teams or players.

Overeality has created a metaverse community bringing together sports fans and NFT users together using its new form of social token governed by DAO technology. Overeality has improved access to the digital economy with its platform, making it easier for fans to support the sport they love.

Overeality has created a metaverse and NFT community that is focused, curated, accessible, and driven by people. Their platform gives everyone involved agency by allowing them to have ‘skin in the game’ and equity in all future endeavors.

New Partnership

Overeality has recently partnered with Vinícius José Paixão de Oliveira Júnior or Vini Jr., a Brazilian professional footballer who plays as a forward for Spanish club Real Madrid and the Brazil national team. This strategic partnership will include a series of exclusive NFTs that will drop on Overeality’s platform.

The collaboration with Vini Jr. has led to the creation of four NFT drops featuring his likeness that will be minted, marketed, and sold. There will also be autographed memorabilia given to a few lucky token holders.

While this is the first partnership made by Overeality that was announced to the public, the project already has plans to partner with many other prominent figures within the sports industry, which will soon be announced.

More on Overeality’s Metaverse & NFT Community

Recently, Overeality launched its curated metaverse and NFT community that encourages those within the digital economy to get involved and explore.

By combining an accessible, easy-to-use platform with sports and NFTs, Overeality looks to build something that mainstream audiences can quickly adopt and use. The platform’s authentic NFTs featuring some of the world’s most prominent celebrities, GameFi experiences, and events for the community will help foster a userbase that will shape the way fans interact with sports, athletes, and celebrities.

The fan-driven marketplace created by Overeality also allows DAOs to pick the next original IP NFTs depicting some of the most ubiquitous names in sports, music, and entertainment to mint. This marketplace will also allow users to interact and join communities surrounding exciting new tokens so they can get involved and keep up to date with the latest and greatest from the industry.

The platform also tends to creators just as much as it does for those looking to purchase new NFTs. Through the marketplace, NFT creators can showcase and launch their new projects to relevant and receptive communities, with the community members themselves choosing which one is greenlit. Each token holder has a say in what NFTs are created with this system, giving them a crucial role in the governance process.

The community-based tokens created by Overeality guarantee token holders sustained equity over time. The powerfully portable technology designed by Overeality is also platform-agnostic and interoperable for other blockchains. Each part of the platform’s design was built to help level the playing field for investors and bring people together, as only the blockchain can do.

One of the most significant ambitions Overeality has is to cultivate unique individual NFT cultures within the metaverse, which will help bring together important cultural hallmarks and iconic brands from the real world into the virtual space.

 

Image: Pixabay

The native token of Verasity, $VRA, was listed on Crypto.com today March 9, 2022. This marks the token’s availability on five of the top ten cryptocurrency exchanges that have a combined daily trading volume of over $13 billion. It includes Crypto.com, Huobi, KuCoin, Gate.io, and Bithumb. The $VRA token is available for trading against all major fiat currencies, besides cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Cronos (CRO), and Ethereum (ETH).

The news about the Crypto.com listing comes after Verasity secured exclusive hosting rights of Axie Infinity’s GalAxie Cup 2022, and that, too, for the second time in a row.

Talking about the progress that Verasity has made in terms of increasing adoption of its native token, $VRA, RJ Mark, CEO of Verasity, said:

“Once again, we prove that we are relentlessly pursuing real-world adoption for $VRA and integration with the leading exchanges and service providers in the blockchain industry.”

He further added, “we are pleased to have passed Crypto.com’s exacting due diligence standards, and we are looking forward to welcoming a new wave of $VRA supporters who join us from the Crypto.com community.”

What is Crypto.com?

Based in Singapore, Crypto.com is one of the major exchanges in the global crypto industry today, with over ten million users and counting. Not only by the user base, but Crypto.com is also among the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in terms of daily trading volume, which was over $3.9 billion at the time of writing.

The listing of Verasity’s native token $VRA on Crypto.com opens new avenues for its users due to the direct fiat off-ramp feature, as it makes way for real-world purchases with $VRA tokens. All a user will require here is a Crypto.com Visa debit card to spend their $VRA tokens to make real-world purchases from both online and offline routes.

What is Verasity?

For the uninitiated, Verasity is a blockchain-based esports and digital content platform. Besides, it leverages its patented Proof of View technology to tackle fraud which is a major cause of concern in the online ads space and NFTs. When it comes to eSports, Verasity aims to bring world-class quality content to its users with cutting-edge blockchain technological capabilities.

 

 

 

A study from Chainalysis shows crypto adoption has risen by 880% in 2021, and it is only set to grow further. The mass adoption of crypto has become a matter of “when” and not “if”. Just as with the early days of the internet, or computers, businesses are a particularly important constituent in the adoption of any new technology. However, with the tremendous growth rate that the industry is witnessing, particularly with DeFi, a seamless experience for businesses to do their invoicing, accounting, and other financial operations in crypto is long overdue.

Enter Request Finance, a crypto finance management platform that is set to change the course of B2B crypto payments by simplifying financial operations for crypto companies, often managing teams of freelancers working remotely around the world. Its vision is to support a future financial system where crypto assets become a norm in our economies.

Accounting is the lifeblood of businesses. Preserving and managing meticulous records of payslips, bills, invoices and records are crucial to keeping a regular check of cash flow, cutting down on redundant expenses, and keeping tabs on all upcoming and pending payments.

Request Finance, from Request Labs, is building an integrated suite of financial tools eventually to help traditional businesses, individuals, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), metaverse projects, freelancers, and other upcoming crypto-native organizations to easily work with crypto assets to manage salaries, pay suppliers, and more.

A Peek into Request Finance — Origin and Vision

Request Finance was formally launched at the beginning of 2021 with the goal of transforming financial operations for enterprises in a new decentralized economy. Since its inception, Request Finance has been building tools using the Request Protocol to enable businesses and individuals alike to send and pay invoices for cryptocurrencies with ease.

The platform lets users track their crypto transactions, and manage payments, expenses, and payroll in a non-custodial manner while ensuring a seamless user experience. The venture aims to deliver products that are free from security threats, enable compliance with tax and accounting regulations, and make them as user-friendly and simple as possible.

The platform is said to have acquired a user base of over 1000+ businesses including major blockchain projects such as AAVE, The Sandbox, Paraswap, and MakerDAO.

Fixing Financial Operations in Crypto

Request Finance’s core products include Crypto Invoicing, Expenses, and Payroll, and Accounting.

With crypto invoicing, users have access to a clean, visual dashboard displaying the current status of all invoices, allowing them to pay hundreds of crypto invoices with a few clicks. It is also compatible with a range of accounting tools like Xero and Quickbooks, and simplifies bookkeeping by automating the generation, scheduling, and settlement of crypto invoices. The payer is charged 0.1% on all transactions with a ceiling of USD 2 per transaction besides the network fee.

Request Finance’s payment mechanism is compatible with several popular cryptocurrency wallets, including MetaMask, Fortmatic, and other wallets that support WalletConnect, including multi-signature wallets like Gnosis Safe. Further, the app’s distinguishing features, such as real-time status updates, payer reputation, and escrow ensure that users enjoy a secure and anxiety-free experience.

Users can manage and track the status of invoices issued through Request’s platform, schedule invoices, highlight delayed and unpaid invoices, and influence the payer’s reputational score. Being on-chain, the platform also features automatic verification of on-chain invoice payments thereby eliminating the administrative hassle of sending follow-up emails.

Another financial tool that Request offers is crypto payroll software, which is currently in beta. This tool will allow users to automate payroll management in cryptocurrency. Users can generate compliant payslips and pay them in crypto with the click of a button. With an increasing number of blockchain ventures and DAOs remunerating their partners and employees in tokens and crypto assets, the payroll offering is set to enable a smooth employer-employee relationship. This also has the potential of ensuring proper labor and HR relations in organizations.

Moreover, Request Expenses is an expense management tool that can be used by businesses to manage employees’ expenses, reimbursements and pay them in crypto. While it is currently in the beta testing stage, it has already been used by the team for some time, and is set to launch in the next quarter. Users that would like to test the feature sooner can enroll in their beta program.

Users can also connect Request to accounting software like Xero or Quickbooks and reconcile all transactions in crypto with their general ledger for easy bookkeeping. With this, Request seeks to increase accounting efficiency and reduce the time and labor cost involved in managing crypto payments for businesses.

What Lies Ahead for Request Finance?

As more businesses foray into blockchain and Web3, the use of cryptocurrency and digital assets in enterprises will only grow. Request Finance aspires to meet the needs of increasingly crypto-native businesses and their remote-first workforce by making it simple and easy to manage their crypto-financial operations. With Request, businesses can automate auditing, salary and loan requests, payroll, and expenses among others. The end goal of Request Finance is to become a hub for all enterprise crypto-financial operations and overcome the clunky interfaces all too common in Web 3.0 today.

ARPA, a security-oriented and privacy-preserving computation network, partnered with Quantum Music, an online marketplace aimed at the $30 billion Asian influencer economy. Thanks to the partnership, Quantum Music will leverage the Web 3.0 and metaverse trends while bringing mass adoption to ARPA’s platform.

Quantum Music provides an online marketplace that connects influencers with brands. It has grown at an impressive pace thanks to the rapid expansion of an influencer culture on social media networks like TikTok. More than 300 influencers have joined the Quantum ecosystem, which now boasts a 70+ million follower base – eight times higher than at the beginning of 2021. Quantum Music is the platform of choice for Asian influencers who want to increase their visibility and boost their fan base to earn extra income. On the other side, brands can improve their precision marketing efforts by hiring influencers for various campaigns.

The partnership with ARPA comes at a time when Quantum Music plans to go beyond its traditional Asian market and adopt innovative technologies, such as blockchain, metaverse, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Quantum Music co-founder and CEO Quan Zhang commented on the partnership:

“I have a Ph.D. in Physics, and innovation is in our company’s DNA. We want to explore experiments in the Metaverse and NFT space with a strong partner like ARPA.”

Quantum Music is focused mostly on micro-influencers, and many of them find it difficult to leverage innovative technologies to their advantage, as the resources have been unevenly distributed among creators. Zhang explained:

“Web3.0 is likely to change the game for micro-influencers drastically. We want to better help these micro-influencers build and capitalize on their true fans with the power of cutting-edge technologies, such as blockchain.”

How Will ARPA Help Quantum Music?

ARPA provides secure computation capability as an off-chain solution that is compatible with most Layer-1 blockchains. For clients looking to implement Web 3.0 solutions, it offers its verifiable random number generator (RNG) known as Randcast. It represents a verifiable, decentralized, low-cost, high-efficiency random number generator designed to empower the creators of the metaverse.

Randomness is an essential element for providing users with a more trustworthy experience. For example, it helps blockchain and Web 3.0 developers and users to generate digital signatures, public and private keys, and block hashes. Elsewhere, online games rely on randomness to make sure that players have a fair chance at winning. The need for pure randomness becomes even more evident in the metaverse.

ARPA co-founder Yemu Xu explained:

“We believe it’ll be a win-win. Quantum Music will set its foot on the Web3.0 wonderland using the best-in-class RNG tool to ensure the fairness of their future tokenized assets. At the same time, Randcast will empower Quantum Music’s global fan base that’ll provide adequate feedback for future iteration from a big sample capacity.”

Quantum Music Raises Funds on Republic

The partnership with ARPA comes after Quantum Music secured a $1 million investment in a seed round. Now it is conducting a public fundraising campaign on Republic, a blockchain-oriented investment platform that helps startups raise funds from communities and institutional investors. Besides regular investors contributing via Republic, the platform secured funds from big names like Chris Bordeaux, who is managing director of LFG Ventures – a venture capital firm with exposure in SpaceX, Bitcoin, Kraken, and BlockFi, among others.

For Quantum Music, this is also an opportunity to promote its online marketplace to the Republic community, which comprises over 1.5 million investors. As of the beginning of March, Quantum Music raised over $68,000, which exceeds the minimum goal by 270%, suggesting positive feedback from the community.

The Republic community is confident in Quantum Music’s future, especially judging by its current growth rate. The platform had a record year in 2021, with the aggregate number of followers to its affiliated influencers exceeding 70 million at the end of December, while total revenue surged 100% year-on-year.

Also, Quantum Music founders have deep experience in consulting, venture capital, and content creation.

Zhang said in an interview with Republic:

“The opportunity of the influencer economy is enormous globally, and the pandemic has expedited its growth. With the ongoing Web 3.0 evolution, I expect the influencer economy to continue rapidly expanding. Thus, at Quantum Music, our current priority is to capture a bigger slice of the new pie baked each year instead of getting too bogged down in competition.”

In the future, Quantum Music is ready to deploy fan tokens and NFTs, which will likely accelerate adoption.

 

Image: Pixabay

Zignaly, a social crypto investment platform, announced on February 22 that it had secured $50 million from GEM Global Yield LLC SCS (GGY), a Luxembourg-based alternative investment group focused on emerging markets worldwide. Zignaly will use the capital to accelerate its global expansion.

The crypto investment platform offers a variety of products and services that aim to make crypto investment accessible to retail investors. Its flagship product is Profit Sharing, which lets users choose from experienced traders and start trading on autopilot by copying their strategies. The concept shares similarities with the copy trading approach popularized by eToro and Robinhood with respect to stock and foreign exchange trading, but it goes one step further by imitating the pro traders’ strategies in real-time on crypto futures exchanges.

The fees are paid exclusively from the profits – a business model that attracts many beginners. So far, more than 400,000 users worldwide have entrusted over $120 million on aggregate to 300+ expert crypto traders vetted by Zignaly. Nevertheless, these figures may not stay relevant for too long, as the platform adds new users at a pace of 100,000 per month.

Zignaly CEO Bartolome Bordallo commented on the financing:

“From the early days of Zignaly, it has been our goal to open up new pathways for regular investors to take better advantage of the crypto economy, by enabling the kinds of managed and high-leverage vehicles that were formerly only reserved for the ultra wealthy. This financing from GEM will allow the company to propel significant new product development and global adoption of the Zignaly platform, so we can empower the masses with a vastly better way to invest.”

The Zignaly platform has all prerequisites to extend its global presence. To begin with, it is built upon the Binance broker program, meaning that it relies on Binance’s technology, liquidity, and market depth. Binance is currently the largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume both in the spot and futures markets. On February 22, Binance’s futures platform saw its trading volume exceeding $55 billion, which equals the volume figures of the next five competitors put together. For Zignaly, this is a ticket to success, considering that it’s the only Profit Sharing platform leveraging the Binance broker program.

Zignaly users can also connect their accounts to KuCoin and BitMex, two other popular crypto exchanges that operate derivative platforms.

Many traders prefer crypto futures – investment instruments that let users speculate on the price fluctuations without owning the underlying assets – because they can maximize potential gains thanks to a feature called leverage. On top of that, futures trading platforms make it easy to go short, i.e., bet on the price decline, enabling traders to seek profits even during bearish markets like the one we have today – Bitcoin has consistently declined since November’s all-time high at over $68,000.

Besides the global adoption plans, Zignaly is also working on new products to make the crypto investment experience more accessible to everyone. For example, it recently launched ZIGPAD, a launchpad-style incubator that enables Zigcoin holders to contribute to the fundraising effort of blockchain projects and cross-chain initial DEX offerings (IDOs) with minimal knowledge of smart contracts.

Zignaly has a multi-chain and multi-exchange infrastructure that supports sales and IDOs on blockchains like Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, Solana, Harmony, and Avalanche, among others.

The $50 million investment from GEM Global Yield LLC SCS comes on top of an initial $3 million private sale round led by Parataxis Capital, an industry-leading multi-strategy investment firm. The round, conducted in March of last year, sought financing for Zignaly’s NFT-based insurance protocol powered through its native token Zigcoin.

 

NFTs are adding complexity and diversity to the blockchain ecosystem, and this new wave of utility is attracting a much wider audience.

The blockchain-cryptocurrency sector is a little more than a decade old and still fighting an uphill battle for widespread acceptance. Those who have closely followed the industry’s rise know its potential to solve the biggest problems plaguing legacy financial systems, but before crypto can go truly mainstream, it must first reckon with some of its own inherent shortcomings.

For starters, crypto-based transactions are considerably slower than conventional payments, with the exception of some cross-border use cases. Faster transactions are possible, but not without a hefty price tag out of reach for many users. This sluggish speed often means long waits for transactions to settle, resulting in network congestion. As we witnessed with CryptoKitties in 2017, scalability is a serious concern for existing blockchains and protocols running on them.

Beyond these technical limitations, myths and misunderstandings abound in the blockchain-cryptocurrency domain, which presents significant obstacles to onboarding. Those skeptical about cryptocurrencies often perceive it as “magic internet money” with little or no value in the real world, or worse, a means for criminals to transact shady business outside of the watchful eye of financial regulators. This is despite the fact that just 0.34% of crypto-based transactions involve criminal activity globally.

Cryptocurrency is also frequently criticized for its gluttonous energy consumption, with the average Bitcoin transaction consuming twice as much energy as a typical U.S. home uses in an entire month. Mass-scale Bitcoin mining operations around the world consume enormous amounts of fossil fuels to power their server farms, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions in our atmosphere. Some companies have begun to partner with energy plants to use excess energy that might otherwise be wasted.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are trying to resolve these issues through innovations like the Lightning Network and Ethereum 2.0. Emerging blockchain platforms are also introducing radical and promising enhancements, but as a whole, mass adoption in the mainstream is still a distant reality.

In spite of these and other obstacles, the burgeoning community of crypto enthusiasts have put tremendous effort into spreading awareness and education—which is steadily coming to fruition. Moreover, as innovators build user-friendly solutions to improve the first-time experience of amateurs, we are gradually moving towards broader adoption. Let’s take a look at some of the major catalysts of this change.

NFT Collectibles

One of the most successful and innovative discoveries to emerge from the blockchain sector in recent memory is non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Although NFTs have multiple applications, the oldest and perhaps the most popular is their role as collectibles. NFTs caught the fancy of crypto enthusiasts beginning in 2017 with CryptoPunks, and have since become cultural artifacts, unfolding one of the most important chapters in blockchain’s history.

NFT-based collectibles are not mere JPEG images sitting idle in their owner’s crypto wallet. People are buying these assets to flaunt them on social media as a sort of virtual status symbol. Realizing the enthusiasm, Twitter has been working to offer users the ability to authenticate their ownership of NFTs and show them off in your profile. NFTs also have the potential to be much more than mere collectibles—fractionalization is possible, for instance, and so are DeFi derivatives.

Torum is one company focused on growing the NFT and Crypto Community and has recently taken investment from KuCoin Labs. Torum’s NFT marketplace is powered by their token XTM, which helps meet the NFT-centric needs of crypto communities. They will be connecting users in a SocialFi (Social Finance) ecosystem where cryptocurrency users and projects can collaborate and, according to their twitter, already have close to 200,000 users.

Another market player lowering the barrier to entry to NFTs among new and existing crypto users is Chronicle, a marketplace creating authenticated digital collectibles for the world’s biggest brands, including for stars of stage, screen, and television. Chronicle makes it easy for users to buy, sell, trade, and gift officially licensed NFT collectibles, even without technical knowledge, with a user-friendly platform that accepts a multitude of payment options including credit and debit cards.

Play-to-Earn (P2E) Games

Blockchain-powered gaming is rapidly becoming a sensation, with the combined market cap of top gaming tokens having peaked at over $52 billion. Traditional gamers are already familiar with the idea of in-game assets, such as weapons, vehicles, or loot boxes, around which entire in-game economies with corresponding real world value have begun to spring up.

By leveraging NFTs and other blockchain-based innovations, decentralized protocols are taking in-game assets (and gaming) to a whole new level. Unlike traditional gaming, where assets are confined to individual games’ worlds, tokenized in-game assets have real monetary value transcending the games’ virtual boundaries, and persist even if the game ceases to exist. This development has given rise to a totally new, user-centric gaming paradigm: Play-to-Earn or P2E.

In our pandemic-ravaged economy, people had to get creative to make ends meet, and P2E games shot to fame in this climate. The prospect of earning real money by playing games is indeed exhilarating, however the focus on the economics of these virtual realms usually comes at the expense of compromised gameplay and visuals. The sector is evolving, though, and quite rapidly, with participatory and people-centric titles like what we are seeing from Iron Sail, Whydah’s GameFi hub that has received $25 million funding from major blockchain ventures.

Running on KardiaChain, Iron Sail’s Mytheria is an NFT trading card game set to release in the coming months that adds a whole new layer to the Play-to-Earn model: Create-to-Earn. This allows artists to submit artwork to the game community and even create games to generate revenue from their work. Thetan Arena is another game from Iron Sail that, in a span of 2 weeks since launch, accumulated a total of more than 5 million users across all platforms. They reported a number of daily active users has reached a peak of 2 million.

User-Oriented Services & Privacy Prioritization

Disrupting user-oriented services like Data Management Platforms (DMP) and Creator Economies is another prominent outcome of leveraging blockchain technology. Blockchain-based solutions can improve these services, providing better security, privacy, and transparency, especially concerning personal and sensitive data. This benefits not only enterprises and content creators, but above all, the end-users themselves. We have already moved beyond ordinary cryptographic encryptions in this regard, thanks to companies like ARPA.

ARPA CEO Felix Xu, who owns more than 3,000 NFTs, attended Art Basel 2021 in Miami to network with NFT artists. Xu said that ARPA’s Randcast technology uses cryptographic methods to provide a secure, fast, and affordable way for projects to generate onchain verifiable random numbers. Verifiable randomness can improve the transparency of minting NFTs, blockchain gaming, generative art, and more.

The Tip Of The Iceberg?

Despite its nascency, the crypto sector has already attained a market cap of $2.57 trillion though it has seen a sell-off around the new year. As blockchain innovations continue to evolve, crypto companies will devise new ways to onboard new users to their platforms. With more investments coming into the crypto industry all the time, companies will eventually adopt people-friendly technologies for mass adoption. By any measure this is an exciting time, and we’re still at the very beginning of the blockchain and cryptocurrency story. As that story unfolds, we may be about to witness an exponential and world-moving technology boom, with echoes of the early days of the internet.

 

Image: Pixabay

The total number of digital asset users was around 295 million, there is still plenty of room for the space to grow before the mainstream accepts it.

To ensure the space’s longevity and push it close to mass adoption, companies like HODLVERSE are coming up with creative, exciting new ways to bring more people into the digital asset world.

HODLVERSE is a global decentralized autonomous organization. The project also develops open-source blockchain solutions to facilitate easy digital asset management. Their platform looks to bridge the wealth gap within the space, giving each user equal opportunity.

The organization is preparing to launch the HODLVERSE, a metaverse and network that includes an ecosystem of decentralized products and services. Some HODLVERSE offerings include $MONEY token, smart contracts, decentralized application, and more.

The HODLVERSE Metaverse & Network

Within HODLVERSE’s metaverse is an interactive digital tokenized world that makes digital asset management easy and accessible. Users can seamlessly manage their digital assets across many popular blockchain networks utilizing blockchain technology. Ethereum, Polygon, Binance, Avalanche, Fantom, and more are currently supported.

The platform is bringing together the most significant sectors of the digital asset space like DeFi, GameFi, and NFTs to make the sometimes cumbersome process of managing these assets and services accessible. This ensures that both less experienced users and enthusiasts are tended to and come together within the immersive experience created to help to manage digital financial wealth.

HODLVERSE’s metaverse is represented by digital cities, each designed after a significant blockchain within the industry, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, and more. The architecture of each city is modelled off of the headquarters of the respective blockchain it is representing, making each city unique. Cities also have over thirty unique digital properties with differing utility and value.

The technology with the metaverse integrates the functionality from some of the most prominent brands within the tech and digital asset spaces like Uniswap, Opensea, Axie Infinity, Sims, and Animal Crossing.

Consolidating all of the most popular trends in finance, blockchain, and gaming into one innovative user experience ensures that users can quickly learn and understand the functions of budding and established spaces to help the network grow rapidly and contribute towards mass adoption.

The Features of their Metaverse

The metaverse provides a slew of different properties, all serving financial functions. The HODLVERSE dApp is also non-custodial, allowing users to connect to popular Web3 wallets to transact using the platform’s native utility token: $MONEY.

Some of the features HODLVERSE’s metaverse and network are:

• Cross-chain decentralized exchanges
• DeFi services like yield farming, staking, lending, borrowing, governance, and more
• NFT Marketplace
• Franchise turnkey functional NFT properties
• Multiplayer competitions and mini-games

Through the HODLVERSE metaverse and network, users will have the chance to interact and learn the newest and already established trends within tech and digital assets. This inventive new platform is bridging the gap between new and experienced users to work towards mass adoption.

DAO Maker, a platform for retail venture investing in equity and tokens, has launched Public Strong Holder Offering (SHO) as its latest service to facilitate fundraising for blockchain and cryptocurrency startups. Through this Public SHO, DAO Maker has opened the floodgates to access an unprecedented volume of market liquidity.

SHOs are a mechanism or service which utilizes certain procedures to choose genuine investors for funding crypto projects. For example, SHOs analyze on-chain data, user activity, liquidity provider (LP) status, and interaction with previous projects. These data sets help in choosing the right kind of investors for a particular startup, building a community around the project. Investors too can apply for a refund if the projects perform poorly and the developer team fails to deliver.

The Public SHO model from DAO Maker is a first-of-its-kind innovation in the crypto investing space.

Facilitating Fundraising With DAO Maker’s Public SHO

DAO Maker makes participation in fundraising procedures accessible and open to a diverse set of crypto holders. Any user who has completed the KYC process and has $2500 worth of crypto in their wallet on EVM-compatible networks can participate. The platform creates a profile on the basis of the user’s wallet activity. Thus, projects can choose investors from designated groups like DeFi, NFTs, GameFi, depending on wallet usage.

The DAO Maker Public SHO is divided into two segments: the ‘Freemium’ and ‘Premium’ services. While the former is ‘free’ to access, premium access requires holding $DAO tokens. Users need to stake at least 2000 $DAO tokens in the DAO Vault to upgrade to the Premium version. Quite obviously, the Premium DAOs have a greater chance of winning bids and a larger allocation of funds. But DAO Maker generally uses a sophisticated on-chain analytics system to decide the winners of the Public SHO.

The protocol calculates a score for each user wallet using certain parameters. These parameters are as follows:

DAO Maker calculates the final score of every user and dynamically chooses the winner of the Public SHO. Winners of the SHO need to pay 30% fees on their tokens.

The SHO is hosting 10% of the $10 million that Hubble recently raised from Three Arrows, Digital Currency Group (DCG), Crypto.com and several others. For platforms like CoinList, the seed to public stage surge is 20-50x, with investors buying 2% of tokens for $2 million. However, DAO Maker SHO claims to provide 2% of the same tokens at a much more affordable price to the investors. Thus, the platform aims to capture the retail investing space with investors getting early exposure to tokens. DAO Maker’s Public SHO wants investors to get the same access to tokens as Binance, DCG and Crypto.com.

SHOs: The Future Of Crypto Fundraising

According to a Galaxy Digital report, venture capital funding in blockchain cryptocurrency startups rose to $32.8 billion in 2021. However, the crypto investment space still faced some major structural problems. It was difficult to get genuine and committed investors who will not abandon a project midway in pursuit of quick profits. On the other hand, there was a risk that the project will dupe genuine investors and not deliver on promises.

Strong Holder Offerings (SHOs) provided a reliable solution for both investors and projects to raise capital for crypto startups. In 2022, crypto adoption and investment will surge from last year’s 880% growth with several startups coming to the fore. SHO protocols from platforms like DAO Maker will contribute towards a robust startup investing landscape with its sophisticated on-chain analytics.

 

 

As the digital asset space grows, new use cases are found for blockchain, the technology behind this investment class. One of the most popular ways this technology has been used lately is with NFTs.

These tokens have become incredibly desirable, with almost $41 billion being spent on the NFT marketplaces in 2021 alone.

The NFT craze continues on its non-stop upwards trajectory as Discovery Inc. throws its hats into the ring with their own collection for the Puppy Bowl, a companion event to the Super Bowl where puppies play football.

Each Puppy Bowl NFT has a distinct design that includes visual tributes to the Puppy Bowl. A portion of the proceeds made from the NFTs will be going to the Orange Twins Rescue, an animal rescue organization founded by mega pop star Ariana Grande and brothers Scott and Brian Nicholson.

More on the Puppy Bowl NFT Collection

The NFT collection consists of 23 exclusive NFTs, and prices range from $20 to $500 per digital playing card. The NFTs also run on a proof-of-stake blockchain to reduce the tokens’ carbon footprint.

The drops are split up into four categories:

• Free Common Cards – As the name suggests, this set was free and kicked off the collection.
• Common Cards – This drop has cards that feature Moby and Dinozzo, the captains of Team Fluff and Team Ruff.
• Rare Cards – This drop has cards featuring puppies in the starting line-up. If you collect all eight puppies from Team Ruff and Team Fluff, there’s an additional bonus card you can unlock.
• Legendary Cards – This drop features virtual pets and is the rarest set. There will only be 10 of each “Fluff 2022 Cryptopuppy” and “Ruff 2022 Cryptopuppy”.

The Puppy Bowl XVIII

The Puppy Bowl has been held every year since 2005 to highlight adoptable puppies that need homes and the rescues and shelters that house them.

This year’s Puppy Bowl XVIII will have 100 adoptable dogs from 33 states playing on Team Ruff and Team Fluff. The event will be held on February 13 at 2 p.m. ET, only a few hours before the Super Bowl airs.

Where Collectors Can Get Puppy Bowl NFTs

Puppy Bowl NFTs are now available on Chronicle, a studio and NFT marketplace built for fans looking to acquire officially licensed collectibles. The platform launched in 2021 and is primed and ready to help users enter the metaverse.

With many of the world’s leading brands already using Chronicle, Puppy Bowl NFTs are sure to garner their fair share of attention from collectors looking for a fun and valuable digital asset worth owning.

Swing, a blockchain startup that enables cross-chain liquidity and liquidity aggregation across blockchains, announced that it has raised USD 6 Million in a strategic funding round from leading investors in the blockchain ecosystem.

Housing several trading, lending, and borrowing protocols, the Ethereum ecosystem dominates the decentralized financial (DeFi) area. This has reverberated across the network, pushing Ethereum to its limits but also speeding up the pace of invention and experimentation. Swing leverages layer 1 and layer 2 solutions like Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche, Solana, Arbitrum, and more to get past and challenge Ethereum’s performance restrictions.

The strategic round of funding was led by Republic Capital and also saw participation from blockchain-centric VCs including Avalanche Labs, Bitcoin.com, Skynet EGLD Capital, Celer, Ascensive Assets, Haskey, Morningstar Ventures, Kane & Rao among others. With this round of strategic funding, Swing has achieved a valuation of USD 60 Million, making it one of the most sought-after projects in the DeFi space.

With this successful fundraiser, Swing aims to fastrack its plans to launch APIs to aggregate major liquidity sources and bridges with the aim of enabling cross-chain liquidity and progress closer to its vision of decentralized liquidity across the DeFi multi-chain ecosystem. The funding will be utilized to propel Swing’s development and expansion of teams.

The Future of DeFi: A Big Stride Towards Cross-Chain Infrastructure For The Internet

The total value locked (TVL) in the DeFi space, a measure of the number of assets staked in a specific protocol, quadrupled in 2021 alone bringing its TVL to USD 201.55 Billion in 2022. The DeFi space has witnessed a boom of decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and protocols, the issue of sporadic liquidity is ever persistent. Further, DEX Aggregators find themselves restrained to connecting liquidity pools on the Ethereum chain thereby, limiting possibilities of multi-chain liquidity aggregation.

While Ethereum is one of the most prominent chains for building protocols, it is no revelation that its network congestion and stark lack of scalability have resulted in high latency and soaring gas fees.

It is vividly clear that blockchain interoperability is the need of the hour to resolve the issue of liquidity fragmentation on DEXs. This is why Swing is building an efficient cross-chain infrastructure for the internet which will compose and aggregate liquidity across blockchains and thereby, move assets across multiple ecosystems with minimum slippage. This is said to become an indispensable part of the DeFi ecosystem.

By enabling cross-chain transactions, the project aims to bring in a new era of decentralized trading. With these features and offerings, Swing aims to be the Stripe for cross-chain transactions. Much like how Stripe enables websites and apps to take payments over their websites, Swing will simplify cross-chain swaps and transfers for developers and businesses with its much-awaited API product.

By enabling cross-chain transactions, the project aims to bring in a new era of decentralized trading. By offering a cross-chain asset exchange and decentralized liquidity protocol that uses Layer 2 chains and major EVM networks, DeFi traders, investors & developers can use Swing to move crypto capital efficiently across blockchains. AMM dexes, yield farms, lending/borrowing and staking protocols will greatly benefit from Swing’s cross-chain bridging solution. Swing navigates across top protocols and exchanges on Layer 1 and 2 chains with its cross-chain bridges and intelligent algorithms to beat and match market swap prices.

Swing is currently compatible with Ethereum, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, Harmony, Avalanche, xDai, Moonriver, and Phantom and is said to expand to Solana, Harmony, Polkadot, Cardano, Optimism, and Near soon.

Concluding Thoughts

The coexistence and interoperability of multiple blockchains is a necessity for the continued growth and survival of the DeFi industry. In this light, the search for an efficient and simple cross-chain trading and liquidity aggregator is more important than ever. This is where Swing’s offering to go the last mile for crypto liquidity has become a critical part of the whole crypto infrastructure.

Swing will be a one-of-a-kind gamechanger to empower developers, investors, and users all over the world to move crypto assets effortlessly using blockchain smart contracts, relayers, and cross-chain bridges.

The future is multi-chain! Think multichain, Think Swing!

 

The race to set up the building blocks of the metaverse is on and many companies are hard at work establishing the world’s first open-source, decentralized virtual universe.

This race has in part been galvanized by the rise of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), whose values have shot up in price in direct correlation with rising cryptocurrency prices.

One of the biggest initiatives out there currently working to establish a metaverse with a play-to-earn gaming model is the SIDUS HEROES project. This is a first-of-its-kind Web Graphics Library (WebGL) and massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) platform set in an outer space metaverse scenario at a time when machines have merged with living things. Inside the SIDUS HEROES universe, life, as we know it, has changed beyond anything we’d recognize today, and the technology, having permeated everyday life, has passed the point of no return.

The game provides players with the adventure of interstellar exploration and a battle royale experience, as well as the opportunity to build social, political, and economic partnerships within the game’s ecosystem. In this metaverse with its play-to-earn economy, players fight for scarce resources that are scattered throughout its universe.

The platform’s economy is supported by a two-token system – one that is used in payment for work or services rendered and the other to enable voting as members of the platform’s decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

What Exactly is SIDUS HEROES?

At its core, SIDUS HEROES is an MMORPG that’s built using the play-to-earn model, which means it incorporates aspects of decentralized finance, NFTs, and blockchain connectivity. By doing so, it hopes to establish a thriving metaverse economy.

SIDUS HEROES is a new type of video game where players get to earn real rewards for their efforts or actions in the game. Thanks to the incorporation of NFTs into its blockchain, each player gets ownership rights over the in-game assets they either earn as rewards or purchase using the platform’s native tokens.

The game’s internal economy is built with tangible value in mind, thereby making a substantial contribution to the leisure economy in which players can earn a living from simply playing games and interacting on the platform.

What’s more, SIDUS HEROES takes the entire concept to an entirely different level owing to an infrastructure that allows players to engage with the platform, without having to download sophisticated applications onto their PC, Android, iOS or Mac devices.

With a simple click of a button, players can begin experiencing the SIDUS HEROES universe using any browser, since the platform comes with a Web Graphics Library (WebGL).

How the SIDUS HEROES Game Works

As mentioned earlier, the game is set in a futuristic universe inhabited by 12 races. There are different communities within the game’s metaverse based on the different races. The features that come with a player’s avatar are determined by the race it belongs to.

Due to the different races, the gameplay involves clashes and battles between the races. Players can form groups with other individuals from different backgrounds to push a common agenda within the SIDUS HEROES game.

Players can build fighting legions, do battles with other players in the Arena or challenge other players to a duel. Other players may instead choose to explore the SIDUS HEROES metaverse and seek out adventures or become outer space pirates who plunder the virtual seas. Explorers traveling through the SIDUS HEROES universe also get to discover hidden gems in the form of monsters and other space creatures that can be tamed, bred, and used in battles. These in-game space creatures are bought as NFTs and can be traded for other digital assets within the platform’s ecosystem.

What’s more, players with a creative bent can become farmers, builders, and creators using the platform’s NFTs infrastructure to mint new in-game assets that can be sold within the platform’s ecosystem.

SIDUS HEROES Tokenomics

The platform’s economic model influences the gaming experience and is tied to its play-to-earn model, which is designed to incentivize players to keep coming back to the platform. The team behind the platform believes that the incentives built into the metaverse are enough to keep each player engaged for at least 3 years, thanks to the earning opportunities they’ve incorporated into it.

Players don’t just earn from fighting, there are rewards to be had from contributing to the labor market through the platform’s supported professions, which depend on where the player prefers to operate. Each profession has an important role in the game’s ecosystem.

For this reason, the SIDUS HEROES platform features a dual-token economy. Its two native tokens are the SIDUS and the SENATE.

Both tokens act as the platform’s internal currency and can be used to make purchases. However, only the SENATE token can be used to buy premium assets such as virtual plots of land and spaceships or station modules within the game. The SIDUS token, on the other hand, is primarily used to purchase wearable NFTs for a player’s avatar, as well as other enhancements and equipment within the game.

When it comes to the platform’s governance and decision-making through the DAO, players holding the SENATE token get to vote on various changes to the SIDUS HEROES universe. Payments for other internal services and platform commissions are made with the SIDUS token.

Both tokens benefit from a deflationary process, which creates positive pressure on the demand for the platform’s in-game assets. The maximum supply of SENATE tokens stands at 300 million and 30 billion for SIDUS tokens.

NFTs in the SIDUS HEROES Metaverse

Non-fungible tokens are a key aspect of building any metaverse and the team behind the SIDUS HEROES project has brought together numerous artists and developers to design a unique NFT concept.

Within the SIDUS HEROES metaverse, every in-game asset, whether it be a spaceship, a character, or a piece of equipment, is an NFT. The platform uses a proprietary blockchain network in addition to WebGL technology, allowing every player to have easy access without the need for additional sophisticated devices or software.

WebGL makes it possible for each player to dive into the game and experience the incredible 3D graphics that make up the SIDUS HEROES metaverse, using only a simple browser. This makes access to the platform’s NFTs very easy, especially for a global audience who is eager for a simplified way to own and trade NFTs.

Not only can NFTs be bought and sold on the platform’s marketplace, but there are also special edition NFTs. Overall, the platform features 3 NFT collections which include the SIDUS NFT HEROES, the SIDUS GENESIS NFTs, and the SIDUS ACADEMY NFTs. The SIDUS NFT HEROES features a collection of 6,000 unique characters and ownership of each NFT from the collection can get a holder an in-game character or a ticket to the SIDUS GENESIS game.

The SIDUS GENESIS NFT collection originates from the SIDUS NFT HEROES collection. This set features a new collection of NFT cards with 3 levels of rarity. Each rare card can give a holder entrance to the game.

Then there is the SIDUS ACADEMY NFTs which are a set of NFTS that will transform into in-game characters giving owners access to the SIDUS HEROES metaverse and game.

SIDUS HEROES Partnerships and Future Outlook

Going forward, the SIDUS HEROES team plans to continue its partner-building strategy with high-profile investors and the most popular YouTube creators. In this way, the project can drum up support with the help of social media influencers and prominent crypto and blockchain VC firms.

So far, the team has partnered with quite a number of notable figures in the blockchain industry, including the fast-growing VC fund Anti Fund, founded by Geoffrey Woo and Jake Paul (the famous YouTuber and entrepreneur).

Apart from Jake Paul’s contribution, the SIDUS HEROES project will also benefit from influencers such as Alex Becker, MrBeast, and EllioTrade, who collectively bring with them an audience of over 120 million.

In the second quarter of 2022, SIDUS HEROES will expand its universe with the addition of new star systems, the launch of a mobile web version, and the launch of a reputation reward system for those loyal to the SIDUS token.

Developments are also underway to establish a launchpad for players, giving them away to raise capital and support for their own in-game projects.

Overall, the SIDUS HEROES team is busy at work building the platform and ensuring that the tokenomics model is stable. The platform’s roadmap envisions a future where NFTs will be used in various ways, including for the purchase of virtual garments, land, avatars, homes, and other items within the game. The intention is to introduce a type of gameplay that’s designed to incentivize players to go beyond seeking entertainment, one that empowers them to become investors and entrepreneurs in their own right.