Quick take:

Tether has entered into a private placement with Bitdeer to purchase 18,587,360 A-shares of Bitdeer at $10.00 per share.

The company also secured a warrant to purchase up to 5,000,000 additional shares.

The announcement comes just weeks after Tether reorganised into four divisions as part of its diversification strategy.

Tether, the issuer of the world’s biggest stablecoin by market capitalisation, USDT has accelerated its diversification campaign with a $100 million investment in Bitdeer, a bitcoin mining platform, which recently unveiled plans to expand its BTC mining hash rate to 11.4.

According to the announcement, Tether has entered into a private placement with Bitdeer to purchase 18,587,360 A-shares of Bitdeer at $10.00 per share. The company also secured a warrant to purchase up to 5,000,000 additional shares, for a total of $50 million bringing its stake in Bitdeer to $150 million.

The warrant is subject to customary anti-dilution provisions reflecting share dividends and splits or other similar transactions, Bitdeer wrote in a press release on Thursday.

This announcement follows Tether’s $200 million investment in biotech firm Blackrock Neurotech, made through the USDT issuer’s newly formed venture arm Tether Evo.

The $100 million BTC mining investment will be made through the company’s Power unit, one of the initial four divisions announced in April.

The Singapore-based Bitcoin miner said it will use the net proceeds from the private placement to fund its data centre expansion and ASIC-based mining rig development. Some of the proceeds will also be used for working capital and other general corporate purposes, the company said.

Commenting on the announcement, Linghui Kong, Chief Business Officer of Bitdeer said in a statement: “This substantial investment demonstrates confidence in our vision and the strength of our extensive global operations. With Tether’s support, we are poised to accelerate our growth and continue our leadership in sustainable and efficient bitcoin mining.”

Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether added: “We regard Bitdeer as one of the strongest vertically integrated operators in the Bitcoin mining industry, differentiated by its cutting-edge technologies, and a robust R&D organization.”

The companies used financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald & Co as the placement agent for the private placement.

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Quick take:

Neynar’s goal is to become the go-to inventory for developing any social protocol.

Most of the developers using its toolbox are currently building on Farcaster Protocol.

Frcaster’s open-source protocol basts over 378,000 users who own and control their data.

Neynar, a Web3 social toolbox for developers looking to build social media protocols has completed an $11 million Series A round led by Haun Ventures with participation from a16z’s CSX, Coinbase Ventures, and Union Square Ventures, Fortune reported.

According to Naynar, most developers that use its tools are currently building on Farcaster, a Web3 social media protocol with over 378,000 users. 

This announcement comes when decentralised social media protocols are gaining popularity. Last week, Farcaster secured a $150 million fundraising, led by Paradigm with a16z and Haun also participating.

Web3 social media protocols allow users to own and control their data, addressing one of the biggest challenges facing traditional social networks.

Developers can the Farcaster protocol to build social applications without seeking permission from the network.

Despite the similarity in the markets that Neynar and Farcaster are targeting Breck Stodghill, a partner at Haun Ventures does not see investing in one as equivalent to investing in the other.

Although most of Neynar’s users are on Farcaster, the company simply chose that strategy because that is where most Web3 social developers currently are. “It doesn’t mean that they won’t expand to other protocols and infrastructure later on,” Stodghill told Fortune.

According to the announcement, one of the key main tools offered by Neynar includes an endpoint that shares immediate data about Farcaster such as the user’s profile information, casts, and follows. There is also a tool that secures the sending of data to the Farcaster protocol, by signing it in with private keys before pushing it to the network.

Describing to Fortune how Neynar works co-founder Rishav Mukherji compared his company to what cloud computing does for internet users, “[providing] a service for remotely storing files, applications, and data, eradicating the need for desktop computers to always be online and providing insurmountable memory.”

Mukherji also believes developers will be able to cut costs significantly given that Neyner essentially runs the hub for them, from $9 per month, compared to hundreds of dollars they would spend using Farcaster Protocol’s “storage units” called “hub”.

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The post Neynar Secures $11M Series A Round to Develop Tools for Web3 Social Networks appeared first on NFTgators .

The number of transactions on the SKALE network reached a new record in monthly terms, surpassing the 47 million mark one day before the end of May, according to data from The Block.

The SKALE chain has been around for about two years and started to gain traction in the summer of 2023.

SKALE is an Ethereum-compatible blockchain network offering zero gas fees, instant finality, and a modular architecture for building all kinds of decentralized applications (dapps). As a sidechain, it combines elements of layer 1 and layer 2.

It positions itself as a hybrid layer 1/layer 2 chain that partially borrows security features from Ethereum while offering performance and decentralization of a Layer 1.

Web3 Gaming Drives SKALE Activity

SKALE has a modular architecture where communities can build and manage hub chains by category, which act as a Web3 services layer. The most popular hub chains are Europe (for DeFi), Nebula (for gaming), Calypso (for NFTs), and Titan (for general apps).

The network also hosts app chains, which are dedicated chains that provide high performance for individual dapps, such as Exorde and Cryptoblades.

As of today, Nebula accounts for the largest share of transactions and users on the SKALE ecosystem, suggesting that the EVM chain is actively used for Web3 gaming.

So far, Nebula has seen over 30 million transactions performed in May, a new record high.

This month, Nebula had over 3.5 million users, which is about 90% of the active user base of the entire SKALE ecosystem.

However, unlike the transaction count, the number of active users on SKALE has been declining since February of this year, when it reached an all-time monthly high of over 7.5 million.

SKALE claims that it has saved over $7 billion in gas fees.

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Quick take:

The fundraising also attracted participation from Bullish Capital, Polychain Capital and others.

Babylon’s Bitcoin staking protocol allows Proof-of-Stake (“PoS”) systems including PoS chains, L2s, Data Availability layers and oracles to acquire staking capital from Bitcoin.

Babylon’s trustless Bitcoin testnet saw over 100,000 stakers within 48 hours following its launch in February 2024.

Babylon Chain has completed a $70 million funding round led by Paradigm with participation from Bullish Capital, Polychain Capital and others. The company plans to use the capital to accelerate its “mission of building a Bitcoin-secured decentralised economy.”

Babylon’s Bitcoin staking protocol allows Proof-of-Stake (“PoS”) systems including PoS chains, L2s, Data Availability layers and oracles to acquire staking capital from Bitcoin. Its trustless Bitcoin testnet saw over 100,000 stakers within 48 hours following its launch in February 2024.

Babylon Chain is expanding the utility of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency by market cap. With over $1 trillion in market cap, Babylon’s scalable staking and restaking features will allow it to unlock more revenue opportunities from the Bitcoin ecosystem.

“Since bitcoin is huge in supply and has been serving as a store of value without much yield, using it as a staking asset can greatly reduce PoS chains’ inflation pressure and enhance its financial utility to holders,” the company wrote in a statement via press release.

Commenting on the announcement, David Tse, co-founder of Babylon, said in a statement: “We are thrilled by the confidence shown by Paradigm, Bullish Capital, Polychain Capital and other investors. This funding will accelerate our mission to make Bitcoin the security backbone of PoS systems. Our team is dedicated to advancing the utility of Bitcoin beyond its traditional roles and enhancing the security of the entire blockchain ecosystem.”

Arjun Balaji, Investment Partner at Paradigm commented: “Trustless staking is a novel and fundamental primitive for bitcoin and the broader ecosystem. We are thrilled to partner with David Tse and the Babylon team, who are among the best researchers and builders pushing at the frontier of Bitcoin innovation.”

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Quick take:

Web3 domain issuer and digital identity provider is launching its first multi-party computation wallet with Fireblocks.

The wallet supports minting domains directly within the Unstoppable Domains workflow, simplifying acquiring and managing digital assets.

Multi-party computation (MPC) technology splits the responsibility of managing private keys across multiple parties, which reduces the risk of compromise.

Unstoppable Domains (UD), the Web3 domains issuer and digital identity provider has collaborated with the institutional-grade digital asset custody infrastructure provider Fireblocks to launch its first multi-party computation (MPC) wallet as it seeks to provide UD users with the ultimate control of their digital assets.

MPC technology has gained popularity over the past two years as more crypto companies move to improve the security of user assets on their platforms. The technology splits the responsibility of managing private keys across multiple parties, which reduces the risk of compromise.

Unstoppable Domains also believes the MPC wallet will simply acquire and manage digital assets as it supports minting domains directly within the UD workflow. The seamless integration of the wallet also allows users to add it at checkout in the transaction process.

The wallet supports a variety of functions, including “domain transfers, messaging, updates to crypto records, and executing transactions across major blockchains, including Polygon, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Base, and Solana,” the company wrote in a press material shared with NFTgators.

Commenting on the announcement, Matt Gould, founder and CEO at Unstoppable Domains, said in a statement: “We want to bring the entire domain industry on-chain. To do that we needed to make a wallet simple enough for the average domain user. Using MPC technology we’re able to offer backup and recovery, enhanced security, and a simple interface for domain owners.”

The Unstoppable Domanains wallet also comes with a range of features that allow users to prevent unauthorised transactions, including the ability to deactivate the wallet remotely, in the event the device is lost or stolen. They are also able to re-establish access using a secure password.

Michael Shaulov, CEO and Co-founder of Fireblocks commented: “We are thrilled to have the Unstoppable Wallet built on Fireblocks’ enterprise-grade infrastructure, providing maximum flexibility, the highest levels of security, and ease of use.”

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Quick take:

The product supports sending and receiving cross-border and domestic transfers across multiple currencies and blockchains. 

The company also unveiled its latest partner, Foxbit as the crypto wallet provider joined its Crypto Credential pilot ecosystem.

Crypto Credentials help verify blockchain transactions between users, eliminating the complexity created by long crypto wallet addresses.

Mastercard has piloted real-world application of its Crypto Credentials product, completing peer-to-peer transactions on selected crypto exchange platforms. 

Described as a set of common standards and infrastructure that will help verify interactions among consumers and businesses using blockchain networks. It provides the assurance that the user has met a set of verification standards and confirms that the recipient’s wallet supports the transferred asset, the company said in a press release.

One of the few uninspiring aspects of cryptocurrency occurs when sending and receiving digital assets, with users having to copy the entire crypto address and provide the network details and the details of the asset being transferred.

This creates complex processes, which can be exploited by attackers. Earlier this month, a crypto user was exploited for $69 million through address poisoning, a tactic that tricks victims into sending cryptocurrency to the wrong address by mimicking the first and the last six characters of the actual address.

According to Mastercard, Mastercard Crypto Credential eliminates the complexity of a consumer knowing which assets or chains are supported by the person they are looking to send funds to, bringing more trust and certainty to these transactions. 

The product is already live on Bit2Me, Lirium and Mercado Bitcoin exchanges while crypto wallet provider Foxbit is the latest to join the Crypto Credential pilot ecosystem.

Mastercard said the product will initially be available in Europe and Latin America, enabling users in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, France, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Uruguay to to send cross-border and domestic transfers across multiple currencies and blockchains. 

Describing the princess of ensuring the security of users, Mastercard said the first thing it does is verify the user under the Mastercard Crypto Credentials standards, after which they are allowed to choose an alias.

The product verifies the recipient alias is authentic whenever a user initiates a transaction, also confirming that the recipient’s wallet supports the digital asset and the chain being used.

If any of those conditions are not met, the sender is notified, and the transaction does not proceed.

Commenting on the announcement, Walter Pimenta, executive vice president of Product and Engineering, Latin America and the Caribbean at Mastercard said in a statement: “As interest in blockchain and digital assets continues to surge in Latin America and around the world, it is essential to keep delivering trusted and verifiable interactions across public blockchain networks.”

The company said the Mastercard Crypto Credential product will initially be offered on a first-come-first-served basis to a select group of crypto wallet users, before rolling out to more than 7 million users across the participating exchanges over the coming months.

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Quick take:

Play AI is backed by leading Web3 VCs including P2 Ventures, Jump Crypto, Alphawave, Zentry, MH Ventures and Tykhe Block Ventures.

The company is building the middleware for AI models and agents in gaming.

Gamers will be rewarded for sharing their data, which PlayAI uses to train AI agents.

Play AI, a Web3 startup building a modular gaming chain powered by artificial intelligence has secured $4.3 million at a valuation of $70 million. The company is building the middleware for AI models and gaming agents as it look to equip developers with high-quality gaming data and tools, which creators can leverage to improve gaming content generation.

The platform is also introducing a new monetisation stream for global gamers, which enables players to be rewarded for sharing their gameplay data.

Commenting on the announcement, PS Ramees, Play AI CEO said in a statement: “Artificial intelligence is the future of gaming and virtual worlds, but the cost and complexity of development has long been a major roadblock to adoption.”

“By making it incentivised, simple, and secure to deploy, we are ushering in a new chapter for gaming, where any developer can easily add AI elements like non-player character (NPC) agents, auto-generated worlds, automated dialogues, and story trees—either by selecting from a range of pre-trained models, or by putting out a request to the network.”

PlayAI is joining a growing list of companies that are looking to bridge blockchain gaming with AI. The platform uses blockchain to create a decentralised network for AI model training and data attribution.

According to Ramees, his company can also use non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to create a new source of earning for gamers, outside of the game economy.

PlayAI has been building its platform in stealth over the past six months but hopes to launch a dashboard soon, to be followed by game launches, VentureBeat reported. Although Ramees is targeting open-world player-versus-player shooter games first, he said the technology could also work with simpler hypercasual games.

“It’s agnostic whether the game is Web3 or Web2,” he said. “We are starting with Web3 games because the team is more familiar with this kind of approach to starting networks. But our relationship with gamers is pretty straightforward.”

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The post PlayAI Secures Seed Funding to Build Modular Gaming Chain Powered by AI appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take:

Solana is the most-used blockchain for stablecoin transfers according to blockchain analytics platform Artemis.

PayPal said the expansion to the Proof-of-Stake L1 will make transactions for PayPal USD (PYUSD) holders faster and cheaper.

Crypto.com, Phantom and Paxos will be the first to provide onramps to use PYUSD on the Solana blockchain.

PayPal has announced plans to launch the PayPal USD (PYUSD) stablecoin on Solana. The global payments giant said Crypto.com, Phantom and Paxos will be the first to provide onramps to use PYUSD on the Proof-of-Stake blockchain.

Solana has emerged as the leading blockchain to run tokenised transactions amid its faster and cheaper. According to the blockchain analytics platform, Artemis, Solana is the most used blockchain for stablecoin transfers.

Jose Fernandez da Ponte, Senior Vice President of the Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and Digital Currency Group, PayPal said launching PYUSD on Solana furthers his company’s goal of “enabling a digital currency with a stable value designed for commerce and payments.”

“For more than 25 years, PayPal has been at the forefront of digital commerce, revolutionising commerce by providing a trusted experience between consumers and merchants around the world. PayPal USD was created with the intent to revolutionise commerce again by providing a fast, easy, and inexpensive payment method for the next evolution of the digital economy,” da Ponte said in a statement.

Sheraz Shere, GM of Payments at the Solana Foundation added: “The Solana network’s speed and scalability make it the ideal blockchain for new payment solutions that are accessible, cost-effective, and instantaneous. Continued adoption from industry participants like PayPal helps realise the next generation of fintech innovation.”

This announcement comes nearly a year following PYSUD’s launch on the Ethereum blockchain last August.

The PYUSD stablecoin has a circulating supply of 399,102,730 worth about $398 million according to data from CoinMarketCap.

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Quick take:

Polygon Labs’ Sandeep Nailwal is taking an additional role in the company becoming its chief business officer.

He will continue to be the Polygon Network developer’s executive chairman of Polygon.

He will also be involved in expanding AggLayer, the company’s decentralised network that connects chains or shared liquidity.

Sandeep Nailwal, the executive chairman of Polygon Labs is taking on more duties at the company assuming the role of Chief Business Officer. The Polygon co-founder will now oversee the company’s strategy for development solutions including the zero-knowledge (ZK) solutions and the Polygon Chain Development Kit (CDK).

According to the announcement, Nailwal will also be involved in expanding AggLayer, the company’s decentralised network that connects chains or shared liquidity, besides continuing with his role as executive chairman, The Block reported.

Commenting on his new role, Nailwal said in a statement: “Polygon Labs is in the midst of building incredible, transformational technology that will provide developers and enterprises with countless opportunities to scale quickly and securely while having access to liquidity.”

Polygon is leveraging zero-knowledge technology to build what it calls an “ infinitely scalable web of sovereign blockchains that feels like a single chain.”

Nailwal co-founded Polygon Labs as Matic Network in 2017 with Jaynti Kanani and Anurag Arjun both of whom have since left to run Mozak and Avail, respectively. 

Polygon boasts the fourth highest number of protocols in its ecosystem with 553, behind Ethereum, BSC and Arbitrum, DeFi protocol tracking platform DeFiLlama shows. However, its total value locked (TVL) of about $973 million currently keeps it out of the top 10, with Avalanche’s $991 taking the spot above it.

Last year, the company announced a change of strategy ending its contribution to the Edge Framework and instead focusing its efforts on developing the Chain Development Kit.

The company also seems to have shifted focus from its previously partnership-centred growth campaign that saw it host blockchain projects of some of the world’s leading brands including Starbucks and Reddit.

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Ether.fi, the largest liquid restaking protocol, saw its total value locked (TVL) reach a new record on Tuesday, hitting the $6 billion mark. The protocol’s TVL started the year at $100 million, and has since soared by 5,900%.

Ether.fi added $2 billion over the last two weeks alone as investors increased their staking bets amid bullish Ethereum trends.

On Thursday, May 23, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) green-lighted the trading of spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The regulator approved requests from CBOE, Nasdaq, and NYSE exchanges to adjust existing rules to enable the trading of Ethereum ETFs and Exchange-Traded Products (ETPs). Individual ETF filings from the likes of VanEck and BlackRock are still in the queue, but this is already a victory for the crypto space.

The market factored in the SEC’s move about a week prior to its decision when the ETH price formed the largest daily green candle.

The staking and restaking ecosystems exploded with the ETH price as more investors are interested in securing ETH rewards.

Ether.fi is a decentralized liquid staking protocol that enables users to aim for higher staking rewards by repurposing ETH that is already staked. The restaking process is done through an underlying protocol called EigenLayer, which has become the second-largest DeFi project by TVL after Lido.

EigenLayer itself reached a new high on Tuesday at over $19.2 billion.

The liquid restaking market, which consists of decentralized protocols that leverage EigenLayer technology while offering liquid restaking tokens to be used in DeFi, has surged to over $13 billion.

Besides Ether.fi, the rest of restaking projects have expanded as well, with Renzo and Puffer Finance reaching $2.8 billion and $1.8 billion, respectively, and EigenPie crossing the $1 billion mark after a threefold increase over the last month.

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Quick take:

Rockwayx was the other co-lead in the round with participation from Solana Foundation, Aptos and StarkWare.

The company is developing On-Demand, an oracle solution that it labels as being fast, permissionless, and customisable.

Switchboard currently boasts $1.75 billion in total value secured according to DeFiLlama data.

Switchboard a blockchain data oracle solutions provider has completed a $7.5 million strategic round co-led by Tribe Capital and Rockwayx. Solana Foundation, Aptos and StarkWare also joined the round with Helius Labs CEO Mert, Joe McCann, Brian Long, Geoff Renaud, DJ Chaudhry, Rooter and theackheavy joining as angel investors.

Switchboard also boasts backing from Mysten Labs, InfStones Global, OtterSec, Ascensive Assets, Bixin Ventures, Breed VC, Block Builders VC and Lemniscap. 

According to a post on the company’s X Account, Switchboard plans to use the capital to accelerate the development of its permissionless and secure oracle solutions for developers and communities.

Switchboard’s main product, On-Demand delivers a fast, permissionless, and customisable oracle solution, linking decentralised applications and real-world data.

According to the product documentation, On-Demand creates a low-latency, secure and cost-effective data solution for decentralised apps.

“Switchboard Oracles are run inside confidential runtimes, preventing the oracle from observing the data they are collecting or operations they perform. Hence, the end-user has the first look advantage via data propagation,” the document reads.

The oracle is also designed with high-fidelity financial systems in mind, allowing users to specify how data from on-chain or off-chain sources is ingested and transformed.

In the announcement, Switchboard said it already has over $1.75 billion in total secured value.

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Quick take:

The fundraising attracted participation from EVM Capital, Mirana Ventures and Mantle EcoFund with Lex Sokolin and Brian Johnson joining as angel investors.

The company will use the capital to develop educational tools for STEM students and ramp up the development of its decentralised infrastructure for AI networks.

GaiaNet is developing an AI-powered chatbot “teaching assistants” for university students taking computer science and other STEM courses.

GaiNet, a decentralised AI infrastructure platorm has announced a $10 million seed round backed by EVM Capital, Mirana Ventures and Mantle EcoFund. Generative Ventures’ Lex Sokolin and Republic Capital’s Brian Johnson joined as angel investors.

According to the announcement, GaiNet plans to use the fresh capital to accelerate the development of its decentralised infrastructure for AI networks and develop educational tools for STEM students.

The company is currently developing an AI-powered chatbot dubbed “teaching assistants” designed to help university students taking computer science and other STEM courses.

This is not the first time the company has collaborated with an educational institution. The process began earlier this year when GaiaNet teamed up with the University of California Berkeley to develop AI-powered teaching assistants for STEM students.

Commenting on the announcement, GaiaNet CEO Matt Wright said in the statement: “With the recent investment, we’re able to take a step further in our commitment to redefining the boundaries of AI, making them more accessible, data bias-resistant, collaborative, and privacy-centric.”

The company is also developing a distributed network of edge nodes controlled by businesses and individuals. According to the announcement, GaiaNet believes it will be able to provide AI users with more private and secure tools that rival what big-tech IA developers are offering.

GaiaNet’s fundraising comes at a time when companies are leveraging blockchain technology to tackle security and privacy concerns created by emerging verticals in AI like generative AI, text-to-speech, voice-generator and image-to-text, among others.

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Quick take:

Anzen Finance offers the USDz stablecoin that is pegged to real-world private credit assets.

USDz is used to collateralise the assets on-chain by staking it across DeFi protocols.

Anzen said it plans to use the capital to expand USDz support across blockchains and protocols.

Anzen Finance has secured a $4 million seed round from Mechanism Capital, Circle Ventures, Frax, Arca, Infinity Ventures, Cherubic Ventures, Palm Drive Ventures, M31 Capital, Kraynos Capital and others.

The company offers a real-world asset tokenisation token USDz backed by a diversified portfolio of private credit assets. The token allows holders to collateralise assets on-chain through staking.

Holders can also trade the token on decentralised exchanges and use it for payments according to information on the company’s website. Anzen leverages LayerZero’s Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) standard to bridge USDz across multiple chains.

According to Anzen founder Ben Shyong, his company is focusing on adoption and new use cases for USDz across partner protocols and multiple chains, The Block reported.

“This means that Anzen users will have plenty of opportunities with many dApps to earn rewards as a USDz holder. For example on Base, there’s a USDz-USDC liquidity pair on Aerodrome where USDz holders can earn Aero incentives,” he said.

DeFiLlama data shows that Aerodrome is the largest protocol on base with TVL of $725 million as of this writing. Many of the other protocols on Base also support other chains.

Crypto staking and real-world tokenisation have emerged as two of the rapidly growing use cases in the industry, popularised by the entry of global asset manager BlackRock’s investment in Securitize and its BUIDL token and EigenLayer’s mainnet launch earlier this year.

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Quick take:

NFT Workx uses its eCommerce platform, mobile app and third-party online shopping platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce to tokenise real-world assets.

The buyer obtains a unique digital collectible representing the transaction and proof of authenticity for every purchase they make.

The company is now launching .WRKX top-level domain (TLD) with Unstoppable Domains, allowing users to navigate Web3 using their unique “Name.WRKX” digital identities.

NFT Workx, a platform that tokenises real-world assets at the point of sale is teaming up with Web3 digital identity and domain issuer Unstoppable Domains to launch the world’s first tokenised identity solution for real-world assets (RWAs).

NFT Workx is launching the .WRKX top-level domain (TLD), which will allow users to navigate Web3 using their unique “Name.WRKX” digital identities.

The company uses its eCommerce platform, mobile app and third-party online shopping platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce to tokenise physical RWAs. According to NFT Workx, its platform issues buyers with a unique digital collectible representing the transaction and proof of authenticity for every purchase they make.

The company said the new platform integrates seamlessly into the secure NFT Workx wallet app, called Asset Workx, allowing users to send and receive crypto and NFTs. They will also be able to create new, secure digital communities on Web3, and act as NFT Workx ambassadors using their branded domain extensions.

Commenting on the collaboration, Sandy Carter, COO of Unstoppable Domains said in a statement: “The genius of NFT Workx is that it provides a simple, seamless value proposition for Web3. By creating Digital Collectibles of products at the point of sale via a range of major e-commerce platforms such as Shopify and WooCommerce, NFT Workx is a compelling demonstration of the power of Web3 to reduce fraud, strengthen consumer protection, and navigate digital identity in the decentralised future.”

Adam Lesse, CEO NFT Workx believes NFT Workx partnership with Unstoppable Domains will help bring tokenised identities to the wider world.

“As experts like Larry Fink have recognized, tokenized IDs are crucial to reducing fraud, money laundering, and corruption. Thanks to Unstoppable, we can now create a list of domains that are associated with trademarks or well-known individuals and prevent these domains from being made available for purchase,” Lesse said.

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The NFT indexes designed by crypto analytics platforms Nansen and CryptoSlam have fallen to their record lows as the NFT market is struggling to recover.

Nansen developed six NFT indexes in January 2022, following record NFT activity in the prior year.

Since then, the NFT market has shown no clear signs of returning to its glory days of 2021.

The flagship NFT-500 index, comprising 500 selected Ethereum-based collections to track broad market activity, dropped further to 213 points on May 26, its lowest level since launch.

The current level suggests that $1,000 invested in the NFT-500 index at the beginning of 2022 would be worth $213 today, down almost 80%.

The index constituents are weighted by market capitalization and represent an average of 85% of the daily market volume since January 2022. The NFT-500 index is calculated daily and rebalanced every 30 days.

The other indexes representing different NFT categories are either close to or at their lowest levels.

For example, the Blue-Chip 10 index, which includes the top 10 Ethereum-based collections by market cap and reputation, has dropped to a record low at 256.

Metaverse NFTs are the biggest losers, with their index falling to a record low of 80 in mid-April 2024, a 92% decline. The index has recovered to 91 points as of this writing.

The Social-100, comprising the top 100 social NFT collections, is at its lowest level of 240, while Art-20 and Game-50 indexes are close to their record lows.

Meanwhile, the Composite NFT-500 Index by CryptoSlam, which tracks 500 collections across 11 non-Bitcoin chains, touched its lowest level on May 19 when it fell to 1,464. This represents a 95% decline from the index launch.

The NFT market has been in free fall since the 2021 hype. The recent recovery attempts since H2 2023 have been mainly driven by Bitcoin NFTs built on the Ordinals protocol.

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Higher swatches, a new NFT collection on Base, has become the top collection by trading volume over the last week. DappRadar data shows that it has generated over $10.8 million in trading volumes over the past seven days, overtaking fantasy.top, another fresh collection making waves these days.  

DappRadar specified that the collection has been added automatically based on on-chain data, and that a human verification of its data integrity is still pending.

Higher swatches are an NFT collection launched in April, being available on several major marketplaces, including OpenSea, Magic Eden, and Rarible.

The collection comprises 7,777 items representing swatches – interactive canvases displaying colors and motions.

https://opensea.io/collection/higher-swatches

The collection’s description reads:

“Each swatch is a unique art piece defined by a 3×3 grid of shapes of distinct color drawn from curated color palettes. The infinitely repeatable interaction begins when the viewer touches a shape, causing it to disappear momentarily as the shape’s color spills across the entire grid.”

The PFP NFTs have been created by X user jvmi, an NFT artist and streetwear designer. However, the collection is more active on Warpcast, the Twitter version of the Farcaster app on Base.

OpenSea data shows that this Friday alone, the collection has generated over 1,900 ETH in volumes, which is the equivalent of over $7 million. Therefore, the latest 7-day volume figures may end up much higher.

Meanwhile, the average price for a swatch has surged to over 10 ETH.

Interestingly, although it’s a new collection, swatches already have a healthy distribution, with 96% of NFTs being held by wallets owning 1 item. This suggests that there are over 6,500 different owners of this collection.

NFTs have been a dormant market compared to the 2021 boom, but some individual collections are showing impressive performance.

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Quick take:

Metalex has just raised $2.75 million in a funding round that values the startup at $27.5 million.

Shapiro wants to address the chaos that crypto projects create in their quest to be fully decentralised through DAOs.

MetaLex is developing what he described as a “business-to-business, crypto software as a services” company that standardises smart contract-based processes for DAOs.

Gabriel Shapiro wants to address the chaos that crypto projects create when they try to achieve full decentralisation. Blockchain technology is touted for its power to decentralise economies, helping distribute wealth and ownership to crypto communities that help drive growth in them. 

However, one major question that has always lurked in some of these communities is —  whether these projects can claim to be fully decentralised when they are being run as centralised entities. 

This is what birthed decentralised autonomous organisations, or DAOs. DAOs allow members to participate in the running of the organisation including voting on key decisions about ecosystem development by using a governance token.

However, as they say, when you have “too many cooks in the kitchen” the outcome is not always a great meal. And that’s what Shapiro wants to fix with Metalex, a “Cybernetic Organisation, or BORG”, that will govern the company’s “approach to participation in research, development, governance, incubation and acceleration of crypto/DeFi/web3 protocols.”

In an Interview with CoinDesk, Shapiro disclosed that his company recently raised $2.75 million at a valuation of $27.5 million.

Described as a cyborg equivalent for legal entities, BORG is a hard-coded construct that will enforce governance rules using smart contracts. 

“What makes them kind of unique is the way they mandate smart contract functionality” in their operations,” Shapiro said. “That makes them ‘cybernetic.'”

Metalex plans to launch an operating system for DAOs as part of its mission to help them BORGiy their governance decision processes that include among others, running grantmaking, emergency shutdowns and venture investments made on behalf of the entity, Shapiro said.

According to Shapiro, crypto projects have already started reaching out for whitelisting, including two “blue chip” projects a layer-2 blockchain and a DeFi DAO.

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Quick take:

Plume will use the capital to accelerate the development of its modular Layer 2 network built on Arbitrum and Celestia.

The project is currently in testnet and about to transition to the next phase.

Plume said it already has 80 RWA and DeFi projects building on its network.

Plume Network has completed a $10 million seed round round led by Haun Ventures. The fundraising also attracted participation from Galaxy Ventures, Superscrypt, A Capital, SV Angel, Portal Ventures and Reciprocal Ventures.

The company is building a modular layer-2 network focused on real-world asset tokenisation. According to the announcement, Anthony Ramirez of Wormhole Labs, Calvin Liu of Eigenlayer, Ezaan “Zon” Mangalji of Initia, Andrew Kang of Mechanism, Jeff Feng and Jayendra Jog of Sei Network also joined the round as angel investors.

The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible is built on Arbitrum’s Orbit network and leverages Celestia Network for data availability. 

Commenting on his company’s decision to use the two technologies for launching its EVM L2, Plume co-founder and CEO Chris Yin said: “This current stack ensures compatibility with the vast majority of protocols in the blockchain ecosystem, RWA chain-level modifications, fast transactions, and the lowest transaction fees.”

The announcement comes ahead of Plume’s transition to public testnet. The company said it already has 80 RWA and DeFi projects building on its network while in private testnet. Some of the projects include those launching digital collectibles, alternative assets, synthetics, luxury goods, real estate, borrow/lend protocols, and perpetual decentralised exchanges, the Block reported.

While some RWA tokenisation platforms have focused on tokenising securities like US treasuries, Plume wants to take the market to the next level, enabling developers to “create markets around things that are yet to exist,” Yin said.

“For example, one of our protocols lets you take out high leverage on RWAs — so you can take out a 50x leverage long on Pokemon cards. That’s not by tokenising every card, but pulling in data,” he said.

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Arbitrum, the largest Ethereum scaling solution by total value locked (TVL), is experiencing a surge in activity amid increased interest in the Ethereum ecosystem as the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is deciding whether to approve the first Ethereum spot exchange-traded fund (ETF).

According to data from growthepie, the number of active addresses on the layer 2 (L2) broke above the 1 million mark for the first time on May 18. The following day, it reached a new record high of over 1.1 million. Thanks to a steady increase in the number of users since the start of May, Arbitrum has surpassed Base and zkSync Era to take the leading position in terms of active users.

On May 19, transaction count on Arbitrum exceeded 3.4 million, which was the third-best day after mid-December 2023, when the daily number of transactions hit 5 million. Arbitrum’s 7-day average transaction count is at a record high, surpassing Base and Optimism.

Over the past month, the most active applications on Arbitrum have been decentralized exchange Uniswap, bridge solution LayerZero, and Xai, a Layer 3 chain for AAA gaming. Transactions involving USDT and USDC recorded the highest volumes.

TVL on Arbitrum has been recovering since the end of April. DefiLlama data shows that the L2 has attracted $3.1 billion worth of crypto, which is close to Arbitrum’s record set on March 13 at over $3.2 billion. The largest DeFi apps on Arbitrum are lending platform Aave, derivatives trading platform GMX, and Uniswap.

Arbitrum and other Ethereum L2s may experience a further increase in activity if the SEC approves the first Ethereum ETF, which may bring new inflows from institutional investors. As of this writing, the SEC discussions on the ETF approval have started, and the final result will be available in a few hours.

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Ethereum futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) volumes surged to record highs on Tuesday, as Ethereum had experienced the biggest daily bullish candle the previous day when its price surged from $3,070 to $3,661.

Data from TheBlock shows that all three Ethereum futures ETFs, EETH (ProShares Ether Strategy ETF), EFUT (VanEck Ethereum Strategy ETF), and AETH (Bitwise Ethereum Strategy ETF), saw record trading volumes on Tuesday, reaching a total of $47.7 million.

EETH, which is traded on the NYSE Arca at a price of about $80 per share, has the largest share of the three. It saw its trading volumes surging from about $1 million on May 2 to over $43 million on May 21.

Meanwhile, Grayscale’s Ethereum Trust, traded on over-the-counter markets with the ticker ETHE, saw its daily trading volume soaring to $687 million, the highest since H1 2021. ETHE’s volume bounced from less than $30 million the previous week.

The sudden in Ethereum futures ETF trading volume has been driven by a spike in the price of Ethereum. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap has outperformed Bitcoin this week amid the crypto market recovery, gaining about 20% on Monday alone.

Investors are growing confident that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will finally approve Ethereum spot ETFs later this month.

On Monday, Bloomberg ETF analysts Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart increased their expectations of spot Ethereum ETF approval from 25% to 75%.  

All eyes are on the SEC, which will decide on Thursday, May 23, whether it gives the green light to VanEck’s spot Ethereum ETF application. While markets were certain that the SEC would postpone its decision for a later date, the regulator’s requirement for VanEck to amend and refile its ETF filing was regarded as a positive sign.

If the SEC approves the first Ethereum ETF tomorrow, the cryptocurrency’s price may continue its bull run to new highs.

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