Quick take:

Analysts predict trading on the two ETH Spot ETFs will begin on Tuesday.

This follows news last week that the CBOE was preparing to list five new Spot Ethereum ETFs.

The NYSE said in a statement Monday it approved the listing and registration of common shares of the two funds.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has approved the listing and registration of the Ethereum Trust Spot ETFs for Bitwise and Grayscale. The NY-based exchange announced the clearance of the two funds on Monday, paving the way for trading of the two ETFs to begin.

Bloomberg ETF Analyst James Seyffart shared that he and his colleague Eric Balchunas anticipate the Spot ETF funds to begin trading on Tuesday.

The NYSE statement comes just days after the Chicago Board Options Exchange  (CBOE) indicated it was preparing for the listing of five new Spot Ethereum Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs).

Grayscale’s and Bitwise’s were on the list, and featured post-waiver fees of 0.15% and 0.20%, respectively.

Coinbase is listed as the custodian of the two ETFs, as per the table shared by Seyffart on his X account.

Source: James Seyffart on X.

Seyffart also expects more Spot ETH ETF approvals for Franklin Templeton, VanEck, 21Shares, Fidelity, Ishares, and Invesco, among others.

It is barely six months since Spot Bitcoin ETFs started trading. With Spot Ethereum ETFs now getting the green light, it paves the way for investors to gain access to two of the largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation.

Now all eyes will be on Spot Solana ETFs. VanEck on June 27 and 21Shares on June 28 are among the first to file for Spot Solana ETFs. The filings are still in the early stages with no fees and tickers revealed yet.

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Quick take:

Other investors include Makers Fund, Hashed, Collab+Currency, Sfermion, Mirana Ventures, Bitscale Capital and Mantle EcoFund.

NPC Labs is a project of three former Coinbase employees CEO Daryl Xu, Viktoriya Hying and Sean Geng.

The trio are building B3.fun an on-chain scaling gaming ecosystem built on Base.

NPC Labs, a Web3 gaming startup co-founded by three former Coinabse employees has raised $21 million across two rounds. Founded in April this year by CEO Daryl Xu, Viktoriya Hying and Sean Geng, NPC Labs secured $18 million in a seed round led by Pantera Capital. The Block reported that the company had also raised another $3 million in a pre-seed round.

Other inventors joining the rounds include Makers Fund, Hashed, Collab+Currency, Sfermion, Mirana Ventures, Bitscale Capital and Mantle EcoFund.

NPC Labs is building a Web3 gaming infrastructure called B3.fun that makes transactions faster and at low gas fees. The Base-based scaling platform also allows users to play games from different networks without bridging or switching networks.

The startup has collaborated with the chain abstraction layer ChainSafe to enable a seamless gaming experience on B3.fun.

“We believe by helping to build the best in class infrastructure for developers and a simple, frictionless onboarding for gamers, we’ll be able to build a lasting on-chain gaming culture and ecosystem,” CEO Daryl Xu said.

Describing B3.fun as “a microservices-like Layer 3 ecosystem”, Xu said he and his former Coinbase colleagues noticed the increasing engagement and utility in gaming and recognised the opportunity to “grow the gaming ecosystem exponentially and push further to create a simple, sticky and fun experience to bring more users on-chain.”

NPC Labs is not exclusive to Web3 builders, the founders believe that Web2 game developers have started to recognise the potential of on-chain gaming “both as a distribution platform and a better way to monetize,” Xu said. 

Because building games on-chain is “still difficult” Xu believes B3.fun can be used as a one-stop shop for game developers.

“For developers, we are contributing to unique infrastructure that gives them full control over everything — from publishing to revenue generation and growth. For gamers, we will meet users where they are at and remove crypto barriers to entry,” Xu added.

Although B3.fun currently supports Base, Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains, there are plans to expand to other networks including Solana.

Commenting on his firm’s leading role in the fundraising, Franklin Bi, general partner at Pantera Capital said the rapid growth of the Base ecosystem is one of the reasons Pantera invested in NPC Labs, which he believes has an exciting vision to elevate the ecosystem with B3.

“B3’s infrastructure and tooling will bring a new dimension to Base by empowering developers to build great games and on-chain experiences for consumers.”

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Quick take: 

Nirvana Labs provides cloud infrastructure services to Web3 companies.

The seed round brings the total raised over the past six months to $5.7 million, The Block reported.

The company plans to use the funds to enhance its “specialized cloud services, providing a web3-specific alternative to conventional cloud providers.”

Nirvana Labs has announced a $4 million funding round led by Castle Island Ventures and RW3 Ventures. The seed round also attracted participation from BitGo Ecosystem Fund, Hash3, Third Earth and Play Ventures.

This fundraising brings the total raised over the past six months to $5.7 million, The Block reported. Nirvana Labs will use the fresh capital to revamp its “specialized cloud services” offerings, which include providing “a web3-specific alternative to conventional cloud providers.”

“Nirvana Cloud is purpose-built to tackle the distinct workload characteristics of blockchains, emphasizing low latency, high throughput, high availability, and customization capabilities, which are starkly different from conventional web2 general-purpose tasks,” a statement on the Nirvana website reads.

The product has already onboarded the likes of Chainlink, BitGo, Goldsky, DeltaPrime, Thirdweb, Airchains and Pairpoint, among others. Nirvana claims its service can help companies both big and small cut cloud-related costs by about 42%.

Commenting on the announcement, Nirvana Labs founder Devin Bandara in a statement: “At Nirvana Labs, we understand the unique challenges faced by companies building on-chain applications within the limitations of general purpose cloud.”

“Our goal is to deliver unparalleled cloud performance and cost savings for our customers, as the new generation of alternative clouds emerge for the web3 space,” Bandara added.

According to its website, Nirvana’s blockchain cloud service supports multiple blockchains and networks including Polygon, Ethereum, Polkadot, Base, Optimism, Neo, BNB Chain, Avalanche and Arbitrum, among others.

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Quick take:

As part of the deal, CryptoManufaktur’s 3-person engineering team led by founder Thorsten Behrens, will join Galaxy’s Blockchain Infrastructure team.

Zane Glauber, Galaxy’s head of the blockchain infrastructure said the acquisition bolsters his company’s position as a leading technical partner to protocols and builders.

CMF originally launched to build core infrastructure for Chainlink’s price feeds but has since expanded to become one of the leading blockchain infrastructure providers.

Galaxy Digital Holdings, the digital asset investment and blockchain services company providing institutions, startups and individuals access to the digital economy has acquired nearly all of CryptoManufaktur’s (CMF) Ethereum assets, according to an announcement on Friday.

This acquisition brings the total number of Ethereum “assets under stake” (AUS) at Galaxy to about $1 billion and the overall AUS to $3.3 billion.

The acquisition will also see CryptoManufaktur’s 3-person engineering team led by founder Thorsten Behrens join Galaxy’s Blockchain Infrastructure team as part of the deal.

CMF originally launched to build core infrastructure for Chainlink’s price feeds but has since grown to become one of the leading blockchain infrastructure providers, expanding to running automated, securing Ethereum proof-of-stake (“PoS”) node deployment infrastructure, as well as supporting other oracle and PoS ecosystems.

This acquisition bolsters Galaxy’s diversified business model as it seeks to solidify its position as a leading technical partner to protocols and builders.

“Galaxy is rapidly expanding its blockchain infrastructure and staking capabilities and capacity to provide enterprise-grade technical expertise and support to strategic corners of the digital asset ecosystem,” said Zane Glauber, Head of Galaxy’s Blockchain Infrastructure team, the unit that oversees the company’s staking and validator services to qualified investors, protocols, and digital asset platforms.

Thorsten Behrens added: “Having worked closely with the talented team at Galaxy, we believe that Galaxy is uniquely positioned to serve as the go-to blockchain infrastructure provider and a leading validator across high-performing blockchains.”

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The total value locked (TVL) in Solana decentralized apps (dapps) is on track to hit the $5 billion mark, potentially by the end of the day. DefiLlama data shows that the metric is at $4.99 billion, the highest level since February 2022. Solana TVL has gained 4% today and 19% over the last week. The blockchain has attracted $1 billion worth of crypto since July 5.

Earlier this month, Solana surpassed Binance’s BNB Smart Chain (BSC) by TVL, becoming the third-largest blockchain in DeFi after Ethereum and Tron.

Since the start of the year, Solana made two more attempts to reach $5 billion. At the end of March, it rose to $4.89 billion, and at the end of May, it hit $4.97 billion.

As of this writing, the metric is only $60 million away from this psychological level, and it seems likely that Solana will achieve it this time, with more dapps gaining momentum.

Raydium TVL Hits $1 Billion

Raydium, the largest decentralized exchange (DEX) on Solana, saw its TVL breaking above the $1 billion mark on July 16, thus reaching the highest level since January 2022.

Recently, we reported that Raydium’s dominance among Solana DEXs was at a record high.

Jupiter Perpetual Exchange Crosses $500 Million

Another major dapp gaining traction on Solana is Jupiter. While the Jupiter DEX aggregator doesn’t have any TVL, its perpetual trading platform saw its TVL breaking above the $500 million mark on July 16, according to DefiLlama.

It solidified its position as the sixth-largest decentralized finance (DeFi) app on Solana. As of this writing, over $519 million worth of crypto is locked with Jupiter, a new record.

SOL accounts for 46% of the TVL on the exchange, followed by USDC with 25%, and ETH with 10%.

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Quick take:

The fundraising also attracted participation from New Form Capital and Chainview Capital.

Truvius offers both active and passive crypto investment options for indices and model portfolios.

The company has partnered with Federally chartered crypto bank Anchorage Digital to provide clients with authorised custody and trading services.

Crypto trading platform Truvius has secured a $3.2 million pre-seed round led by Galaxy Ventures, with participation from New Form Capital and Chainview Capital. The company also announced the launch of its crypto trading platform, which offers products for both active and passive investors.

Truvius allows both individual and institutional investors to explore various crypto sector-specific and size-specific standalone indices and diversified model portfolios for investment opportunities.

Co-founded by CEO Connor Farley and Max Freccia in 2022, the firm traces its roots to quantitative finance, which Farley argues provides them with “a key differentiating edge.”

“We leverage our expertise in fundamentals-driven quantitative investing and institutional portfolio construction and apply it to digital asset markets for sophisticated investor profiles,” Farley told The Block.

Both Farley and Freccia worked at AQR Capital as a product specialist and quantitative specialist respectively, before setting up Truvius.

The company has developed its own separately managed account (SMA) technology stack, which it uses to offer investment strategies, governed by its status as a registered investment adviser with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Our entire platform — from custody and trading to performance reporting to investment offerings — adheres to SEC compliance and regulations,” Farley said.

Although Truvius does not provide non-custodial asset management services, it has partnered with Federally chartered crypto bank Anchorage Digital to provide clients with authorised custody and trading services.

Farley also revealed that the platform has set minimum investment amounts in the range of $15,000 to $50,000 for both passive and active investment vehicles.

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Quick take:

The fundraising also attracted participation from Folius Ventures, Hash Global, JSquare, Mask Network and Bodl Ventures.

Chainbase offers an omni-chain data network that consolidates all blockchain data into a single platform.

The company plans to invest the fresh funding in building crypto communities globally.

Chainbase, a chain-agnostic data network consolidating all blockchain data into a single platform has secured $15 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Tencent Investment Group and Matrix Partners China.

The fundraising also attracted participation from Folius Ventures, Hash Global, JSquare, Mask Network and Bodl Ventures. Tencent Investment Group and Matrix Partners China will have representatives on the Chainbase board as part of the deal.

Chianbase’s data network helps developers easily access on-chain data for building and maintaining applications. 

“Our innovations include a real-time data lake for blockchain-generated data flow and ‘manuscripts,’ the crypto industry’s pioneering data format standard,” Chainbase co-founder and chief operating officer Chris Feng told The Block. 

“Leveraging petabyte-level data within our network, we’re pioneering purpose-designed foundational models for crypto. This initiative transforms static on-chain data into dynamic, intelligent models, unlocking substantial new value and expanding the market’s potential.”

According to Chainbase, its network is used by over 15,000 developers featuring 8,000 projects and managing over 500 billion data calls.

Chainbase’s decentralised version is currently in testnet with whitelisted projects only able to access. However, plans are underway for a mainnet launch at the end of this year, accompanied by the project’s governance token CBT. 

The company plans to use the fresh funding to invest in building local communities across the leading crypto hubs globally. Feng believes such communities are crucial for Chainbase to better engage with developers, users and other stakeholders on the ground, as it seeks to improve awareness and adoption of its network.

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The market capitalization of top security tokens is at a record high of about $1.2 billion, according to data shared via Dune. The increase has been mainly driven by security tokens issued by Ondo Finance, worth $395 million, and BlackRock, valued at $524 million.

Data from the Security Token Market, which tracks over 600 tokens across 35 marketplaces, indicates that the aggregate market cap of security tokens hit a record high of $39.5 billion in June.

https://stomarket.com/charts

Security tokens are blockchain-based digital assets representing ownership of real-world securities that are regulated by financial watchdogs. For example, companies can tokenize their shares and sell these via digital securities exchange venues.

The largest security token by market cap is the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), which was launched in March 2024. BUIDL is issued on Ethereum via Securitize, a leading tokenization platform.

BUIDL has a constant price of $1 and pays daily accrued dividends to holder’s wallets every month. The fund is invested in cash, U.S. Treasury notes, and repurchase agreements. Holders can transfer their tokens only to pre-approved investors.

Meanwhile, Ondo’s flagship security token, USDY, has a market cap of $323 million, also at a record high.

USDY, priced at $1.05, is a tokenized note backed by short-term US Treasuries and bank demand deposits. The token is accessible to non-US investors and is transferable onchain 40-50 days after purchase.

DefiLlama data shows that the total value locked (TVL) in Ondo Finance is at a record high of $566 million, up from $187 million at the beginning of the year.

Security tokens are part of the broader real-world assets (RWA) sector, which includes other tokenized assets that are necessarily regulated.

The TVL in RWA projects has doubled from June 24, being on track to update the record high reached in October 2023.

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Quick take:

Grayscale is launching The Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund LLC to invest in the intersection of AI and blockchain technology.

The fund has already invested in Bittensor, Livepeer, Near, Filecoin, and Render with the latter three being the highest-weighted assets in the fund so far.

The fund will also be targeting opportunities in AI chatbots and generative images, as well as, fixing AI-related challenges like deep fakes, misinformation and authenticating bots.

Leading crypto asset manager, Grayscale has launched the Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund LLC. The new fund targets opportunities at the intersection of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology.

The fund targets three key areas including AI services (chatbots, generative images), fixing problems related to centralized AI use (deep fakes, misinformation and authenticating bots), and developing AI-related infrastructure (GPU computation, data storage, decentralized marketplaces), among others.

The fund has already backed various crypto projects including Bittensor, Livepeer, Near, Filecoin, and Render with the latter three being the highest-weighted assets in the fund so far.

Commenting on the announcement, Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary, Grayscale’s head of product and research, in a statement: “The rise of disruptive technologies has created compelling opportunities for Grayscale’s investors since our 2013 inception, and we believe the launch of the Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund provides an opportunity to invest in Decentralized AI at its earliest phase.”

The Grayscale team feels that because blockchain-based AI protocols align with the principles of decentralisation, accessibility, and transparency, they “can help mitigate the fundamental risks emerging alongside the proliferation of AI technology.”

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Quick take:

Trump says his decision to release another NFT collection is driven by public demand.

Trump believes cryptocurrency is good for the country and wants the US to take the lead before China.

Earlier this week, news emerged that Mainland China may “unban Bitcoin” but the crypto community remains sceptical about the reports.

Donald Trump has urged the US to take the lead in the global cryptocurrency race before China does. The former President of the United States believes the crypto industry, while still in its infancy is good for the country having established a “good foundation”.

The Republican presidential nominee believes crypto is not going anywhere, also hinting that he will release another NFT collection because people want him “to do another one.”

“I did it three times [and] I’m going to do another one because the people want me to do another one.”

This will be Trump’s fourth set of NFTs following the success of three previous collections including last year’s “Mugshot digital trading cards.”

Trump’s call for the US to take the lead on crypto does not come as a surprise. The 2024 US presidential election candidate has been one of the biggest political advocates of crypto in the country.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that Trump, Robert F. Kenndy Junior and several crypto industry leaders will be speaking at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference later this month.

In May, news emerged that Mainland China may “unban Bitcoin” but the crypto community remains sceptical about the reports, but Trump feels otherwise.

“If I throw [crypto] aside, it’s going to be picked up in another country, most likely China — they’re pretty advanced in that sphere,” Trump said in the Bloomberg interview. “So you have to look at it — what I want, again, is what is good for the country.”

Trump’s presidential campaign has received support from multiple crypto industry leaders including the likes of Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss – the co-founders of Gemini, Ark Invest CEO Cathie Woods and Kraken co-founder Jesse Powell, who recently donated $1 million.

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The post Donald Trump Wants the US to Take the Lead on Crypto Ahead of China appeared first on NFTgators .

Symbiotic, a newly launched decentralized restaking protocol, saw its total value locked (TVL) figure surging to $1 billion within a matter of days. DefiLlama data shows that it currently has a TVL of $1.24 billion.

On July 4, over $730 million worth of crypto was locked with the protocol, which remains the highest daily inflow figure.

Symbiotic is a restaking platform that works similarly to EigenLayer, i.e., it repurposes staked Ether and liquid staking tokens (LSTs) to maximize potential rewards while sharing Ethereum’s mainnet security with so-called active validated services (AVS), which can be oracles, data availability services, databases, and payment services, among others.

EigenLayer is currently the second-largest decentralized finance (DeFi) application and the largest restaking protocol, with over $15.5 in TVL. It revolutionized Ethereum staking by introducing the restaking concept.

Symbiotic was launched in June as an alternative to EigenLayer and is backed by Lido, the leading liquid staking protocol with the largest TVL in DeFi.

One of the main differences from EigenLayer is that Symbiotic enables the use of multiple ERC-20 tokens.

Today focuses on Lido’s staked ETH (stETH), but it will soon be compatible with many other protocols.

As of this writing, wrapped stETH (WSTETH) accounts for almost 70% of the total value deposited on Symbiotic.

Similar to EigenLayer, which hosts several liquid restaking protocols like Ether.fi, Symbiotic is expected to host a growing ecosystem of liquid restaking platforms.

Today, Mellow is the go-to liquid restaking protocol for Symbiotic. It already has almost $600 million in TVL, with WSTETH accounting for almost 90% of the three supported tokens. Thanks to its rapid increase, Mellow has become the sixth-largest liquid restaking platform, with Ether.fi leading the sector.

According to Symbiotic, several projects are exploring the use of its restaking solution, including Ethena, Hyperlane, Ojo, Fairblock, and Kalypso.

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The post Symbiotic Challenges EigenLayer, Its TVL Reaches $1.2 Billion appeared first on NFTgators .

LayerBank, a decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol, saw its total value locked (TVL) surpass the $800 million mark on July 16, according to data from DefiLlama. It reached a new record at $824 million, ranking 8th among lending protocols.

LayerBank’s TVL has surged almost 500% from its mid-April low of $140 million.

The lending project, formerly known as Linea Bank, represents a fork of Compound V2 and aims to become a liquidity hub for all major EVM-compatible layers. It was reportedly developed by the team behind Manta, a layer 2 chain, and launched at the end of 2023.

As of this writing, the protocol supports eight scaling networks, including zkLink Nova, Mode, Scroll, Linea, BSquared, BOB, Manta, and Bitlayer.

zkLink Nova Replaces Manta as Leading Chain

Interestingly, while Manta was dominating the LayerBank ecosystem earlier this year, with its TVL peaking at over $500 million, today it only has $10 million in TVL, accounting for less than 2%. zkLink Nova has become the leading chain, accounting for over 50% of LayerBank’s TVL. The layer 3 network is followed by Mode, with $200 million, and Scroll, with over $71 million.

Therefore, LayerBank’s resurgence has been mainly driven by the increasing adoption of zkLink Nova and Mode.

LayerBank added zkLink Nova in March, when its mainnet went live. The layer 3 network’s TVL exploded in May and June.

The lending protocol saw the largest USD inflows in May when it secured over $350 million of crypto in less than a week.  

Interestingly, the three largest tokens on LayerBank are all related to Bitcoin, including BTCT, MBTC, and SOLVBTC.M.

The LayerBank ecosystem has been fueled by its native token called LineaBank (LAB), but it is apparently migrating to ULAB, with tokenomics details to be revealed soon.

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The post LayerBank’s TVL Surpasses $800M to Reach New Record appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take:

The fundraising also attracted participation from Accel, Mechanism Capital, Folius Ventures and SALT Fund.

Mira offers an AI development platform that includes a toolkit with preconfigured instructions that make it easy for developers to launch AI apps.

The workflow instructions are maintained by a community of developers, who are allowed to monetise their contributions.

Crypto AI startup Mira has emerged from stealth with a $9 million seed round co-led by Bitkraft Ventures and Framework Ventures. The fundraising also attracted participation from Accel, Mechanism Capital, Folius Ventures and AJ Scaramucci’s SALT Fund.

The company is building a decentralised machine-learning infrastructure that helps developers quickly build AI apps.

Mira co-founder Karan Sirdesai said the company’s AI infrastructure includes a library of a toolkit with preconfigured instructions for building AI-native apps.

The workflow instructions are maintained by a community of developers, who can benefit by monetising their contributions.

“AI is moving at such a rapid pace that even though we are witnessing innovations flower around us, the average developer is being left behind due to poor infrastructure to be able to consume AI,” Sirdesai told The Block.

Mira encourages community ownership by contributors whilst maintaining a transparent attribution and settlement for value flows in the network, Sirdesai said. “Every stakeholder knows what they are paying for and how they are monetizing.”

The startup has already onboarded more than a dozen projects across both Web2 and Web3 domains, with several set to launch their AI apps in the coming months. 

According to Sirdesai one of the first projects to use Mira, Klock, a crypto chatbot built on 500+ static and real-time datasets has already entered the close beta phase.

With a workforce of about 25 people spread across Singapore and India, Mira plans to use some of the fresh capital to hire at least five more employees to join its engineering team.

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Quick take:

Loka Mining and Hashlabs have launched a new protocol with a decentralised mining pool that provides miners with immediate liquidity.

The protocol allows institutional investors to buy Bitcoin at a discount via forward hash rate contracts from BTC miners.

The contracts are over-collateralised at 110% and tokenised for immediate liquidity in secondary markets.

Loka Mining, a decentralised BTC mining pool that connects investors with Bitcoin miners has announced a partnership with Hashlabs to launch a new protocol that allows miners to sell their future mining rewards to institutional investors at a discount. The permissionless protocol offers investors access to Bitcoin below market prices using forward hash rate contracts from BTC miners.

The contracts are over-collateralised at 110% and tokenised for immediate liquidity in secondary markets, Loka wrote in a press release shared with NFTgators.

“We’ve seen tremendous interest from larger investors seeking better ways to access Bitcoin, and thanks to Hashlabs’ supply of hashrate and access to miners, we’re providing that— with no counterparty risk,” said Andy Fajar Handika, Founder of Loka. “This protocol provides non-custodial, trust-minimized access to Bitcoin that rewards miners for the work they do providing a necessary service for the network.”

Hashlabs, which boasts over 500 petahashes — or ~0.08% of the total Bitcoin mining capacity will support the offering, levering its operation which spans across Ethiopia, Finland and Kazakhstan. 

Hashlabs co-founder Alen Makhmetov lauded the partnership saying it gives investors the “much-needed access to Bitcoin futures.”

“Just as important, we’re able to provide this service by supporting the most sustainable ways of mining Bitcoin worldwide. By ensuring the financial health of miners, we’re simultaneously improving Bitcoin’s environmental well-being.”

Loka uses ckBTC, the 1:1 multi-chain Bitcoin-backed twin powered by the Internet Computer’s Chain Fusion technology to offer “near-instant, low-cost payouts to miners and liquidity for investors.”

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Quick take:

Aethir offers a comprehensive suite of tools and services for developing, testing, and deploying GPU-accelerated applications in AI, cloud computing and edge computing.

The company will now begin the final phase of the development of its compute aggregation software ahead of the mainnet launch of the Aethir Network Protocol.

Aethir’s GPU solution is already being used by publishing platforms like Sequence, MetaGravity, GameSwift, and Magic Eden.

Aethir, the decentralised Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) solutions provider recorded $36 million in its first year of operation, according to a press release shared with NFTgators.

According to Aethir, the growing demand for enterprise-ready compute resources in AI and gaming drove a 10% Month-over-Month revenue growth to Aethir’s Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering.

The company offers a comprehensive suite of tools and services that can be used in developing, testing, and deploying GPU-accelerated applications in artificial intelligence, cloud computing and edge computing.

The revenue milestone sets the stage for Aethir to move to the next phase of its product deployment as it prepares for a mainnet launch of the Aethir Network Protocol.

The company is trying to address one of the biggest challenges of traditional GPU solutions, including high costs, limited scalability and vulnerabilities. Its distributed GPU infrastructure enables more AI use cases for enterprises including “Large Language Model (LLM) Training, VFX and Digital Avatar Rendering, and Multi-Trillion Parameter Models,” Aethir wrote in a press release on Tuesday.

“Efficient resource distribution will be critical for driving innovation and scaling AI and cloud-based gaming and entertainment applications,” said Mark Rydon, co-founder and Head of Strategy at Aethir. “This new milestone indicates the market’s need for more accessible computing resources and the ability for a decentralized, collective resource pool to deliver a more robust, flexible, and accessible infrastructure for GPU-intensive tasks.”

Aethir says its solution has already been adopted by some of the largest telecommunications companies, studios and game publishers over the last 12 months, with its coordinated software layer helping some of them cut GPU costs by up to 60% whilst delivering seamless access to high-quality GPU computing that is secure, performant and stable.

Some of the notable early adopters of Aethir’s decentralised GPU solution include Sequence, MetaGravity and GameSwift. In April, Aethir teamed up with Magic Eden to create a unified Web3 gaming ecosystem that leverages Aethir’s enterprise-grade GPU infrastructure and Magic Eden’s NFT platform.

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Quick take:

Ryan Fang of Ankr, Brian Crain of Chorus One, Jeffrey Feng of Sei Labs and Smokey of Berachain also joined as angel investors.

The fundraising was structured as equity with token warrants, founder and CEO Siddarth Sridhar told The Block.

The USBD stablecoin is minted by Bitcoin liquid staking and restaking tokens as collateral.

Bima Labs has emerged from stealth with a $2.5 million funding round led by Portal Ventures. The seed round also attracted participation from Draper Goren Blockchain, Sats Ventures, Luxor Technology, CoreDAO and Halo Capital, with Ankr’s Ryan Fang, Brian Crain of Chorus One, Jeffrey Feng from Sei Labs, and Smokey of Berachain joining as angel investors.

The fundraising was executed as equity with token warrants, Bima Labs founder and CEO Siddarth Sridhar told The Block.

Bima Labs offers the USDD, a stablecoin backed with Bitcoin, which can be minted by Bitcoin liquid staking and restaking tokens as collateral. The project has plans to accept collateral from multiple chains, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin L2s, Ethereum, EVM-compatible networks, and Solana.

“Users can deposit their Bitcoin liquid staking tokens (LSTs) and liquid restaking tokens (LRTs) from a wide variety of providers to mint USBD from Lorenzo, Lombard, pStake, Bedrock, Acre, DLC.link, ALEX Labs BTC, and more,” Sridhar said.

Once users mint USBD, they can use it for lending, borrowing and swapping, among other use cases. “We envision a world of new credit, debt and hybrid use cases powered by USBD, whether you’re in China, the U.S., Brazil or Europe,” Sridhar added.

This announcement comes at a time when Bitcoin is emerging fast as a major dApp ecosystem, driven by the rising demand for crypto staking and restaking protocols and now stablecoins.

“Whatever was accomplished on Ethereum within 4-5 years is being done on Bitcoin within a span of 4-5 months,” Sridhar said. The Bitcoin ecosystem has a higher total addressable market, more asset utilization in places like Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa, and ultimately more potential to unlock higher yield opportunities.”

Currently in testnet, USBD is planned for a mainnet launch in the fourth quarter of 2024. The project also plans to launch its governance token BIMA before the end of the year, according to Sridhar. 

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The post Bima Labs Joins the Stablecoin Race with Its Bitcoin-Backed USBD appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take: 

Last week, Fileverse unveiled its collaboration document-sharing program dubbed ddocs.

The program brings higher levels of user privacy and several web3 features.

The Web3 startup also boasts backing from crypto VC Factor, angel investor Balaji Srinivasan and blockchain companies Gnosis Chain and Safe.

Fileverse, a Web3 startup developing alternatives to Google products has unveiled ddocs, a blockchain-based collaborative document-sharing program that boasts more privacy and multiple Web3 features.

The company boasts backing from some of the leading Web3 companies and investors including crypto VC firm Factor, angel investor Balaji Srinivasan and blockchain companies Gnosis Chain and Safe.

The peer-to-peer file-sharing startup founder Andreas Tsamados told The Block that the product has been in development since 2022, having completed closed funding rounds via the Web3 crowdfunding platform Gitcoin.

Built on the Gnosis chain, the Fileverse team describe ddocs as a competitor to Google docs and has built it with the easier transition for users in mind.

“Just as people can create new Google docs by writing docs.new into their browser URL search, people will now be able to access the decentralised alternative by typing ddocs.new,” Fileverse wrote in a press release.

Ddocs does not require users to be crypto-native, but it does support multi-sig wallet accounts powered by the Gnosis chain, which enables users to store hashed versions of the documents on-chain.

“It acts as a registry for the content that you’re saving. When you publish a document on IPFS (InterPlanetary File System), you get a hash that represents the information in the document,” Tsamados said, adding, “Whatever happens, you always have a view of your list of documents that exist off-chain in a peer-to-peer network.”

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Quick take:

The fundraising was completed at a valuation of $100 million according to ZAP’s pseudonymous CEO Francis.

The fundraising also attracted participation from Presto Labs and Auros Global with Tradermayne, Bagsy, Luca Netz and Chelsea Jiang joining as angel investors.

The fundraising includes a $900k seed, $2.1M private round and $12.1M in an ongoing vault sale, The Block reported.

ZAP has announced a $15 million funding round co-led by Rarestone Ventures, Cypher Capital and Sharding Capital. The fundraising values ZAP at $100 million and includes a $900k seed, $2.1M private round and $12.1M in an ongoing vault sale, ZAP’s pseudonymous CEO Francis told The Block.

The fundraising also attracted participation from Presto Labs and Auros Global with Tradermayne, Bagsy, Luca Netz and Chelsea Jiang among those joining as angel investors, ZAP shared on their X account.

Source: ZAPonblast on X

According to the announcement, ZAP plans to use the fresh capital to continue to develop innovations that solve key issues in the airdrop and launchpad space. The company also plans to use some of the capital to expand into new geo-locations as it broadens its reach into new blockchain ecosystems, starting with Base.

“These new developments, and our ongoing ones, all serve to further our vision of democratising access to early-stage investments, creating a fairer crypto space, and ensuring that all participants can engage on a level playing field,” ZAP shared.

Founded in November 2023, ZAP offers a reputation-powered token distribution protocol, featuring a questing and airdrops protocol, a no-code token launcher, and curated launches via ZAP Labs.

The no-code token launcher and token launchpad give users access to venture-backed projects, giving them more options to make the most out of their on-chain activity.

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Quick take:

JPMorgan, Standard Chartered and Tamasek also joined the round.

Partior is developing unified blockchain-based interbank payment rails for instant clearing and settlement.

The project is a joint venture between JPMorgan, DBS and Standard Chartered.

Partior, a blockchain-based payment network being built by DBS, JPMorgan and Standard Chartered has raised $60 million in a Series B round led by Peak XV Partners. The fundraising also attracted participation from Valor Capital Group, Jump Trading Group, JPMorgan, Standard Chartered and Tamasek, according to an announcement on Friday.

Partior wants to address the challenges that traditional cross-border payment systems face by establishing unified blockchain payment rails for instant clearing and settlement.

The company plans to use the fresh capital to improve intraday foreign-exchange swaps and cross-currency repurchase agreements, a programmable enterprise liquidity manager, and “just-in-time” multibank payments, the company said.

This is not the first product that JPMorgan has been part of, which seeks to speed up cross-border settlement processes. Onyx, its blockchain subsidiary has handled hundreds of billions of dollars since going live a few years ago, with banking institutions being its main clients.

The Singapore government-incubated startup was founded in 2021 as part of the Monetary Authority of Singapore-led Project Ubin. In May 2024, Standard Chartered completed Euro-denominated cross-border transactions between Hong Kong and Singapore via the Partior network.

Commenting on the successful completion of the transactions, Humphrey Valenbreder, Chief Executive Officer, Partior said in a statement: “The onboarding of Standard Chartered expands Partior’s network coverage to include the Euro, in addition to US Dollars and Singapore Dollars, and enhances connectivity for end clients serviced across major financial centres including Singapore, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, London and New York.”

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Activity on Celo, a layer 1 blockchain supporting decentralized applications (dapps), has been intensifying lately. At the beginning of July, the number of daily transactions crossed the 1 million mark for the first time in 2024. At the end of 2023, Celo experienced a short-term spike in transaction count, surpassing 13 million – the highest level on record.

Meanwhile, the number of daily active users peaked earlier in July at over 716,000, according to data from Token Terminal.

Data from Celo’s official explorer shows that June has been the best month in terms of active users so far, but July might be on track to update the record.

Celo is a layer 1 blockchain network and ecosystem focusing on mobile-first dapps and smart contracts. Besides its mainnet, it also provides various SDKs and tools for integrating its blockchain network, aiming at financial applications.

The network was very active in decentralized finance (DeFi) during its 2021 boom, but it has lost significant traction since then. Its total value locked (TVL) has dropped from approximately $1 billion in October 2021 to about $100 million as of this writing.

The most active DeFi apps on Celo are multi-chain dapps, suggesting that Celo’s native ecosystem is weak compared to other established chains. The top three largest DeFi apps on Celo are Mento, Uniswap, and Curve DEX.

Celo Transitions to Layer 2 to Integrate with Ethereum

To increase its presence in DeFi, Celo is looking for methods to integrate with Ethereum.

On July 7, Celo launched its native scaling solution for Ethereum called Dango. Currently in testnet mode, the layer 2 network will become Celo’s flagship network.

The Celo community voted to gradually transition from its current layer 1 format to a more efficient Ethereum layer 2 network, competing with the likes of Base, Optimism, Arbitrum, or Blast.

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