Contango, a decentralized derivatives exchange, saw its total value locked (TVL) bounce back after a two-month downtrend to reach a new record high of $39.9 million on Friday, September 13. It has managed to beat the previous record of $39.5 million set at the end of July.  

The derivatives platform offers on-chain perpetual contracts. In addition, it allows users to leverage anything on-chain, including staking or restaking positions and farm points.

Thanks to the recent increase, Contango has returned to the top 15 derivatives projects in decentralized finance (DeFi), surpassing Astherus and Synthetix V3.

Contango supports 10 blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Arbitrum, OP, Base, Avalanche, and BSC. With over $20 million in TVL, Ethereum accounts for more than half of the locked liquidity.

The weekly trading volume of its derivatives has been correcting after reaching a record high of $277 million at the end of July.

Weekly active users peaked at the end of July as well, nearing the 1,000 mark. In mid-September, approximately 600 wallets per week interacted with the platform.

Contango uses a unique approach to reduce funding rates and minimal price impact. It builds positions on top of spot and money markets (like Aave and Compound) by automating looping strategies via flash loans. Looping is a form of repetitive supplying and borrowing of an asset on a lending platform that rewards lenders and borrowers with its own token.

When a trader goes long on ETH/DAI by depositing DAI as margin, the protocol gets the remaining DAI from a flash loan, swaps all DAI for ETH on a decentralized exchange (DEX), and lends ETH on a money market to borrow DAI and repay the flash loan.

https://docs.contango.xyz/basics/how-does-it-work

When closing the position, the protocol undoes the described process.

Contango offers up to 14x leverage for its on-chain perpetuals.

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The post Contango’s TVL Rebounds to New High of $39.9 Million appeared first on NFTgators .

DeSyn Protocol, a decentralized crypto asset management platform, crossed the $220 million mark in TVL on Saturday, September 14, reaching a new record, according to data from DefiLlama. The protocol’s TVL has increased by over 70% over the past month and more than 40% in the past week alone. DeSyn itself reports nearly $340 million in TVL.

DeSyn allows users to create and manage customized pool-based portfolios with multiple on-chain assets, including tokens, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and derivatives. The portfolios are created through a smart contract.

The platform currently supports six chains, including Ethereum, Mode, zkLink Nova, Arbitrum, Merlin, and Bitlayer. The latter accounts for nearly 50% of all deposited assets, with over $107 million in TVL. Ethereum and Mode come next with over $35 million each.

The flagship product, DeSyn Liquid Strategy, saw its TVL cross $164 million on Saturday, setting a new record. The product supports three chains, and Bitlayer has the lion’s share with $105 million. Bitlayer-based Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) is the most deposited token, with a share of nearly 67%, followed by MBTC, with 22%.

Interestingly, over half of all WBTC deposits came last Thursday and Friday, pushing DeSyn’s USD inflows to record levels.

Another pool-based product, DeSyn Yield, has a TVL of $15 million, down from a record $88.9 million at the end of July.

DeSyn also provides a restaking product, which has over $37 million in TVL, down from a record $45 million at the end of July. The restaking platform supports Ethereum and Arbitrum, but the former one accounts for 99.9% of TVL.

The most deposited token is Renzo staked Ethereum (ezETH), which accounts for nearly 75% of total deposits. The majority of the ezETH liquid staked tokens were deposited on July 28, when DeSyn’s restaking platform experienced record USD inflows.

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Quick take:

Pipe’s decentralised virtual infrastructure network (DeVIN) uses tokenomics to incentivise people to share their computing power.

This is the same concept used by decentralised physical networks (DePINs), popularised by the likes of Daylight, Uplink and Peaq.

The announcement comes ahead of the testnet launch during the Breakpoint conference in Singapore.

Permissionless Labs, the organisation building the decentralised virtual infrastructure network (DeVIN) Pipe has raised $10 million in a funding round led by Multicoin Capital. The announcement comes ahead of Pipe Network’s planned testnet launch at the Breakpoint conference in Singapore. 

Pipe is using an emerging concept of tokenomics that allows regular people to share resources in exchange for token rewards. The platform offers a content delivery network (CDN) that incentivises those hosting internet infrastructure. 

This concept is similar to the more popular decentralised physical infrastructure networks (DePINs), that have been popularised by the likes of Daylight – which allows users to share excess power via a decentralised network, peaq – which offers a modular DePIN function for the development of multi-chain machine IDs, AI agents and data verification systems, and Uplink which is forecasted on decentralising large enterprise networks like electric vehicle charging networks and telecommunication networks.

Permissionless Labs’ focus is on disrupting the internet infrastructure network, which features the likes of Cloudflare and Akamai. Built on the proof-of-stake Solana blockchain, Pipe Network enables users to rapidly scale up CDN nodes in the places they’re needed most by lending their existing computing power, CEO David Rhodus told CoinDesk.

“Their computers will then help end-users access cached content that might have otherwise been difficult to quickly deliver because of the distance between them and the servers that content lives on.”

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Two lending dapps on Aptos, Meso Finance and Superposition, register record deposit volumes, helping the blockchain’s total value locked (TVL) extend its recovery to the highest level since mid-April 2024. Of the top 15 decentralized finance (DeFi) applications on Aptos, only two have experienced a decline in TVL in the past month. On September 9, Aptos reached the highest level in six months at $436 million.

Meso Finance has become the third-largest lending app on Aptos after surging 720% over the past month to break above the $25 million mark. The dapp, which has been around for less than two months, had only $1 million worth of tokens in its pools at the beginning of August. It is competing for the second position among lending dapps with Echelon Market, which has lost 17% in the past month to $28 million.

Meso has benefited from a rapid increase in APETOS deposits, an Aptos-based meme coin launched in June. APE deposits surged from zero to nearly $6 million within four days.

On September 13, Meso registered the second-best day for USD inflows, reaching $3.7 million. The largest markets on Meso are zUSDC, zUSDT, and stAPT, a liquid staked token (LST) representing Aptos’ native coin staked through Amnis Finance.

Superposition is another lending dapp making waves on Aptos. Its TVL has increased nearly 400% over the month to hit a record $9.16 million.

The growth has been mainly driven by a surge in STHAPT TVL, which exploded from $1 million at the beginning of September to the current level of $6 million, accounting for 65% of total deposits. STHAPT is an LST representing the APT coin staked through Thala.

Besides Meso and Superposition, Joule Finance is another lending dapp showing potential. It launched on September 10 with over $1.2 million in TVL and has increased to $1.85 million. Joule currently supports APT, USDC, USDT, and ETH.

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Quick take:

The court ruled that USDT attracts property rights because it can be the subject of tracing and constitute trust property in the same way as other property.

The UK government recently proposed a new classification for property that specifically covers cryptocurrencies.

The ruling follows a case brought by Fabrizio D’Aloia, who said he was the victim of a cryptocurrency scam.

A UK High Court has ruled that Tether’s USDT stablecoin counts as property following the government’s proposal on Wednesday to introduce a new classification for property that specifically covers cryptocurrencies.

“USDT attracts property rights under English law, ” Richard Farnhill, a deputy high court judge, said in the court filing on Thursday. “It can be the subject of tracing and can constitute trust property in the same way as other property.”

The ruling was on a case brought by Fabrizio D’Aloia, who said he was the victim of a cryptocurrency scam concerning the crypto exchange platform Bitkub, which was named among the seven defendants.

The ruling showed that two unidentified people from Binance were also among the defendants, adding that the case against Binance was settled.

This ruling comes just as more governments across the world continue to work on ways to regulate cryptocurrencies properly. 

On Wednesday, the UK Parliament introduced The Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill, meaning that for the first time in British history, digital holdings including cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) such as digital art, and carbon credits can be considered as personal property under the UK law.

“The Bill will also ensure Britain maintains its pole position in the emerging global crypto race by being one of the first countries to recognise these assets in law,” a press release statement read.

Commenting on the announcement, the UK Justice Minister Heidi Alexander said: “It is essential that the law keeps pace with evolving technologies and this legislation will mean that the sector can maintain its position as a global leader in cryptoassets and bring clarity to complex property cases.”

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Quick take: 

Manifest leverages the global ordering system to enable simultaneous bids and offers, which maximise liquidity.

The platform does not charge trading fees and allows order book penetration by letting users easily new token markets.

The product is currently in devnet ahead of a mainnet launch on Solana.

KS Systems has announced the launch of Manifest, a fee-less order book built on Solana. The product’s key contributors include Maximilian Schneider – the founder of the decentralised exchange platform Mango Markets, Britt Cyr – the CTO of the web3 options platform Dual Finance, and John Kamer – the head of trading at CKS Markets. 

Manifest leverages a global ordering system that enables multiple simultaneous placement of bids and offers, thus maximising liquidity. The platform does not charge trading fees and allows order book penetration by letting users easily new token markets.

The platform is also introducing a data structure called HyperTree, which permits “orders of magnitude more efficient key-value data storage on the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM). A layered architecture allows the core matching engine to be formally verified without compromising on features,” a statement on its Whitepaper reads.

Commenting on the announcement, Kramer said in a statement: “Manifest finishes what Uniswap started – a high-performance, capital-efficient crypto exchange is finally fee-less and fully on-chain.”

The contributors have also made Manifest open-source, making it “a free public good,” which gives all participants equal access and opportunity.

The team believe that making Manifest free and permissionless, creates an opportunity for participants to explore new order book use cases.

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Quick take:

The fundraising attracted participation from Electric Capital, Mirana Ventures, Hashed, Lightspeed Faction and Robot Ventures, among others.

Infinit plans to use the fresh capital to enhance its infrastructure and facilitate a seamless experience for DeFi protocol builders.

The company provides infrastructure tooling to develop DeFi applications including decentralised exchanges, yield protocols, perpetual platforms, etc.

Decentralised finance (DeFi) abstraction layer Infinit has raised $6 million in a funding round backed by Electric Capital, Mirana Ventures, Hashed, Arthur Hayes’ family office, Maelstrom, Lightspeed Faction, Robot Ventures, Nomad Capital, Tangent and Presto Labs.

According to the platform’s website, Infinit’s DeFi abstraction layer enables developers to build different apps including money markets, DEXes, yield protocols, and other DeFi protocols on any chain in just a few clicks.

The company plans to use the fresh capital to advance its infrastructure and facilitate a seamless experience for DeFi protocol builders. The platform already powers more than 12 applications across three chains, including protocols like Ethena and ZeroLend.

“The goal is for coding to eventually become a non-requirement, allowing anyone to build and launch in minutes using the INFINIT frontend,” the team said in a statement on Thursday.

According to a press release, Infinit hit a TVL of $650 million in August, led by Ethena and INIT Capital, which hit a TVL of $270 million within four months of launching.

Commenting on his company’s experience building on Infinit, Guy Young, Founder at Ethena Labs said in a statement: “INFINIT has driven our USDe trading volume and liquidity provisioning on both Mantle and Blast from day one. INFINIT’s support has enabled us to rapidly expand into new ecosystems and set a strong foundation for future scalability.”

Tascha Punyaneramitdee, Founder and Core Contributor at INFINIT commented: “We created INFINIT to revolutionize how DeFi protocols are launched and scaled by abstracting away the complexities. We are committed to becoming the backbone infrastructure for DeFi developers to build the projects that onboard the next million developers and users to DeFi.”

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ICPSwap, a decentralized exchange (DEX) on the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP), is processing record transaction volumes in mid-September. On September 7, trading volume surpassed the $1 million mark for the first time since its 2023 launch. Eventually, the record was broken for three consecutive days, culminating on September 10, when volumes reached $2.17 million.

With over $8.5 million in total value locked (TVL), ICSwap is the second-largest DEX on ICP after Sonic, which has over $10 million in TVL. However, ICSwap is likely to surpass it soon, as its deposits have grown by over 77% in the past month, while Sonic’s have declined by 13%.

Despite the increase, ICSwap’s TVL remains way below its short-lived all-time high of $64 million.

The recent surge in ICSwap volume has been driven by BOB, DCD, and ckUSD, all of which are traded in pools against the ICP token.

BOB (Blockchain-on-Blockchain) is a layer 2 network on the ICP that uses a Proof of Work (PoW) consensus algorithm. It shouldn’t be confused with several BOB meme coins and another layer 2 called ‘Build on Bitcoin,’ all of which use the same ticker.

ICP’s BOB was introduced on September 4, and a few days later it was added to ICPSwap. Since then, it has become the most traded token on the DEX, with weekly volume at over $2.6 million. The BOB/ICP pool’s annual percentage rate (APR) has surged by over 1,200% over the past week. The interest in BOB has fueled its price on ICSwap. BOB soared from $0.1 on September 7 to over $3.1 on September 11 before correcting to the current level of $1.21.

The two other tokens with weekly volumes exceeding $1 million are DecideAI (DCD), an ICP-based artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem focused on Large Language Models (LLMs), and ckUSDC, a stablecoin on ICP.

ICP is a public blockchain network aiming to replace the traditional IT stack and rethink the Internet. Its native coin has a market cap of almost $4 billion.

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The total value locked (TVL) in decentralized prediction markets has reached a record $148 million, according to data from DefiLlama. The sector has surged over 50% since mid-August, when it dipped to $93 million due to bearish sentiment in the broader crypto market.

The increase is mainly driven by Polymarket, which accounts for more than 80% of the total, with a record $121 million in TVL. Total deposits on the largest DeFi betting platform have surged over 1,200% since the beginning of the year.

Politics is the hottest topic on most prediction platforms, including on Polymarket, with the upcoming US election attracting more investors. The Tuesday debate between former President Donald Trump and Kamala Harris propelled TVL figures to fresh records.

On Polymarket, out of the top eight markets by liquidity, six are related to the US elections, including the largest one with $871 million worth of bets.

Another fast-growing prediction platform is Predict Fun. It launched earlier in September and already has over $1.3 million in TVL, joining the top 10 prediction apps by total liquidity. The platform leverages Blast, a layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum, and offers a similar experience to Polymarket. Its markets are also dominated by politics.

Azuro, the second-largest DeFi app in the prediction market sector with $7.6 million in TVL, has been recovering from August lows, though it remains below the record $10 million set in late April. Azuro offers blockchain infrastructure for multiple prediction and gaming apps.

The success of Polymarket is turning investors and developers’ attention to this niche. On September 9, Decrypt, a leading crypto news platform, announced that its parent company was building an on-chain prediction market and digital media ecosystem called MYRIAD.

The upcoming platform will likely put great emphasis on crypto topics besides politics. In addition to crypto bets, users will be able to complete quests and earn rewards.

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Quick take:

The expanded integration will allow users to track transaction flows, analyze DeFi activity, and monitor developments in gaming and NFTs on a single platform.

The integration was done in collaboration with Colourful Notion after they developed a streamlined process for integrating new parachains.

The integration also includes enhanced functionality through the Dune API, allowing users to convert any query into a flexible API endpoint.

Dune Analytics has now integrated the entire network of Polkadot Parachains, enabling support for Moonbeam, which specializes in smart contracts and cross-chain DeFi; Acala, known as Polkadot’s hub for decentralized finance; Phala, which focuses on privacy-first DePIN and AI solutions; and Mythos, a protocol bringing AAA decentralized gaming, among other popular franchises.

This integration was made possible by Dune’s collaboration with Colourful Notion, which helped develop a streamlined process for integrating new parachains. Earlier this year, Dune introduced support for Polkadot and six parachains, but now covers the entire network of more than 50 chains.

Dune users will now be able to explore, analyze, and visualize all on-chain activities across Polkadot in real time, solidifying its position as the leading hub for on-chain research.

Last month, NFTgators ranked Dune as the top blockchain data platform. Last week, the blockchain data, analytics and insights platform introduced “Blockchain Pages”, allowing users to explore data and communities of specific blockchains.

With the expanded integration of Polkadot parachains, users will be able to track transaction flows, analyze DeFi activity, and monitor developments in gaming and NFTs on a single platform.

The integration also includes enhanced functionality through the Dune API, allowing users to convert any query into a flexible API endpoint, giving developers and analysts greater flexibility to seamlessly incorporate Dune’s data into their own applications.

Commenting on the announcement, Dune Analytics CEO Fredrik Haga said in a statement: “Polkadot and its Substrate-based chains form a vast and complex ecosystem. With this integration of 50+ parachains, our goal is to make that complexity easier to navigate. We want to give people a clear, accessible view of what’s happening across the network, so they can focus on innovation and building with confidence.”

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Quick take:

$10 million of the investment was structured as equity with $28 million invested in yield-bearing real-world assets on the Huma platform.

The company plans to use the capital to expand its offerings to Solana and Stellar’s Soroban smart contract network.

The fundraising comes just months after Huma Finance’s merger with cross-border payments firm Arf, earlier this year.

Huma Finance has received a $38 million investment structured as equity and investments in yield-bearing real-world assets. Distributed Global led the $10 million equity round, attracting participation from Hashkey Capital, Folius Ventures, Stellar Development Foundation, and TIBAS Ventures.

The $28 million investment in real-world assets listed on the Huma platform saw Stellar Foundation as the largest participant with a commitment of $10 million. The real-world assets were “multi-tranche bonds of varying maturities wrapped into exchange-traded products issued by Switzerland-based Arf Capital under Swiss DLT laws, Erbil Karaman, co-founder of Huma told CoinDesk.

Huma Finance plans to use the fresh capital to expand its offerings to the Solana blockchain and Stellar’s Soroban smart contract network.

The announcement comes just months following Huma Finance’s merger with cross-border payments firm Arf as part of a strategic shift that will the San Francisco-based platform focus on the tokenisation of real-world assets.

Real-word asset tokenisation is emerging as one of the fastest-growing verticals of blockchain technology. Some of the leading mainstream asset managers like BlackRock through its USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, BUIDL, provide investors with access to yield on assets like US treasuries.

Huma Finance offers a PayFi platform that is designed to address the liquidity needs of trade finance using blockchain technology. The company claims its platform provides a more efficient service compared to traditional banking methods.

“Moving money quickly and cheaply across borders is at the core of what the Stellar network does best. PayFi is providing real-world utility that solves problems for people and companies, and it is the type of project tailor-made for the Stellar network. We look forward to continuing to working with Huma to grow the PayFi ecosystem,” said Denelle Dixon, CEO of the Stellar Development Foundation.

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Lofty, a real-world asset (RWA) project focusing on real estate tokenization, has experienced an increase in its total value locked (TVL), which is at a record $37.6 million as of this writing.

Lofty is a decentralized protocol that facilitates the sale of fractionalized real estate. It leverages Algorand, a blockchain network launched in 2019.

The platform enables users to purchase fractional ownership of rental properties and earn from rent payouts distributed daily. Thanks to the fractional ownership feature, investors can gain exposure to multiple properties, choosing those with the highest potential returns.

Lofty’s marketplace lists over 100 properties with total prices ranging from $40,000 to $2.5 million. Each property is usually split into thousands of tokens representing fractional ownership. The price per token ranges between $20 and $70.

While some properties don’t generate yield and are purchased for price appreciation, the majority offer yields that can reach up to 31% annually.

Each property has a detailed profile on the platform, displaying a chart with the token’s price fluctuations. For example, this $1.1 million home in New Mexico is available for partial ownership via tokens worth $59.30, down from $66 on September 7.

This particular property offers a rental yield exceeding 28%, making it one of the highest-yielding options on Lofty.

Besides the increase in the value of the properties listed on Lofty, the platform’s TVL has been supported by a recovery in the price of ALGO, the native cryptocurrency of Algorand, as investors can buy fractional ownership with USDC or ALGO.

Lofty is currently the second-largest decentralized app (dapp) on Algorand, which has $67 million in TVL, down from a record $293 million registered in February of this year.

However, Algorand’s TVL, as tracked by DefiLlama, excludes Lofty’s liquidity to avoid double counting.

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Quick take:

The fundraising also attracted participation from OKX Ventures, Aptos Labs, Amber Group, Matr1x, Hashkey Capital and Leland Ventures.

Nytro Lab has now raised a total of $25 million according to press material shared with NFTgators on Tuesday.

Nytro Lab’s first game leverages the studio’s “Play and Trade” model which “merges high-quality gameplay with an engaging trading system.”

Nytro Lab, a Web3 games studio using a “play to trade” gaming model to power its games on Tuesday announced an $8 million funding round led by SevenX Ventures. The fundraising also attracted participation from OKX Ventures, Aptos Labs, Amber Group, Matr1x, Hashkey Capital and Leland Ventures.

The fundraising brings the total raised to date to $25 million, according to press material shared with NFTgators.

Nytro Lab plans to use the fresh capital to accelerate the development of its inaugural blockchain game Castile, which entered beta testing on September 10. The beta testing will run through October 10, the company said.

Led by tech and gaming veterans from Facebook’s advertising division, NetEase, Tencent and ByteDance, Castile leverages the Nytro Lab’s “Play and Trade” model which “merges high-quality gameplay with an engaging trading system.”

In the alpha testing phase, Castile ranked first in U.S. TikTok marketing tests achieving a 90.53% user retention and an average playtime of 198.9 minutes, Nytro Lab said.

As part of the beta testing, Castile will introduce new features including a Tarot System, Trading System, League Boss Racing and League Tournament, plus up to 10 million CAST (Castile’s governance token) in rewards.

Castile is built on the Aptos blockchain, whose gaming network includes the likes of READYgg, Eragon, Aptos Arena and the games companion app for upcoming markets, STAN, among others. 

Commenting on his firm’s participation in Nytro Lab’s latest fundraising and the role Nytro Lab will play in the Aptos gaming ecosystem, HC Xie, Ecosystem Manager at Aptos Labs said in a statement: “We’re excited to see how its first title Castile will engage and expand the global gaming community while showcasing the unique capabilities of the Aptos network.”

Arthur Kao, Co-Founder of Nytro Lab commented: “Our ‘Play and Trade’ model is set to empower players to engage in high-quality gameplay while participating in a dynamic game economy. With this investment, we’ll scale our vision, expand Castile with new content, and drive the adoption of Web3 gaming.”

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Quick take:

The fundraising also attracted participation from OKX Ventures, Aptos Labs, Amber Group, Matr1x, Hashkey Capital and Leland Ventures.

Nitro Lab has now raised a total of $25 million according to press material shared with NFTgators on Tuesday.

Nitro Lab’s first game leverages the studio’s “Play and Trade” model which “merges high-quality gameplay with an engaging trading system.”

Nitro Lab, a Web3 games studio using a “play to trade” gaming model to power its games on Tuesday announced an $8 million funding round led by Alexis Ohanian’s SevenX Ventures. The fundraising also attracted participation from OKX Ventures, Aptos Labs, Amber Group, Matr1x, Hashkey Capital and Leland Ventures.

The fundraising brings the total raised to date to $25 million, according to press material shared with NFTgators.

Nitro Lab plans to use the fresh capital to accelerate the development of its inaugural blockchain game Castile, which entered beta testing on September 10. The beta testing will run through October 10, the company said.

Led by tech and gaming veterans from Facebook’s advertising division, NetEase, Tencent and ByteDance, Castile leverages the Nitro Lab’s “Play and Trade” model which “merges high-quality gameplay with an engaging trading system.”

In the alpha testing phase, Castile ranked first in U.S. TikTok marketing tests achieving a 90.53% user retention and an average playtime of 198.9 minutes, Nitro Lab said.

As part of the beta testing, Castile will introduce new features including a Tarot System, Trading System, League Boss Racing and League Tournament, plus up to 10 million CAST (Castile’s governance token) in rewards.

Castile is built on the Aptos blockchain, whose gaming network includes the likes of READYgg, Eragon, Aptos Arena and the games companion app for upcoming markets, STAN, among others. 

Commenting on his firm’s participation in Nitro Lab’s latest fundraising and the role Nitro Lab will play in the Aptos gaming ecosystem, HC Xie, Ecosystem Manager at Aptos Labs said in a statement: “We’re excited to see how its first title Castile will engage and expand the global gaming community while showcasing the unique capabilities of the Aptos network.”

Arthur Kao, Co-Founder of Nytro Lab commented: “Our ‘Play and Trade’ model is set to empower players to engage in high-quality gameplay while participating in a dynamic game economy. With this investment, we’ll scale our vision, expand Castile with new content, and drive the adoption of Web3 gaming.”

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Quick take:

Sources told NFtgators that the acquisition is in the seven-figure mark.

Users of Nansen’s on-chain analytics platform will be able to stake their assets directly on-chain through Nansen.

The service will initially support noncustodial staking for over 20 different assets including Solana, Sui, Celestia, Dydx, Cosmos, and Osmosis.

On-chain analytics firm, Nansen has announced the acquisition of the Singapore government-owned staking service provider StakeWithUs. Sources close to the deal told NFTgators, that the acquisition is in the seven-figure mark.

Backed by SGinnovate, Singapore’s innovative platform established to drive the development of deep tech, StakeWithUS supports staking services across a variety of blockchain networks.

Its integration with Nansen’s on-chain analytics platform will enable users to stake their assets directly on-chain through Nansen.

At launch, the platform will offer users access to non-custodial staking for over 20 different assets, including Solana, Sui, Celestia, Dydx, Akash, Cosmos, Osmosis, Band, Skale, Certik, Persistence, Kava, Celer, Archway, Passage, and Agoric, Nansen said via press release shared with NFTgators.

Nansen wants to establish itself as the premier platform for on-chain investors, and this acquisition aligns with that goal. The firm is consolidating a wide range of tools and services in one place, with the StakeWithUS integration enabling users to stake a diverse amount of tokens supported by the 20-plus blockchains whose data is accessible on Nansen.

Nansen is also making its first foray into validating for a major layer-1 blockchain. The firm is joining the proof-of-liquidity-powered blockchain Berachain as a validator ahead of EVM-compatible blockchain’s upcoming mainnet.

“We are thrilled to welcome StakeWithUs to the Nansen team,” said Alex Svanevik, CEO of Nansen. “This acquisition allows us to provide our users with a streamlined staking experience, further solidifying our commitment to offering unparalleled value and service to onchain investors. By enabling staking within Nansen, we are not only expanding our service offerings but also enhancing our support for the blockchain ecosystems we integrate with. Nansen is fully committed to meeting the highest standards on security and uptime as a trusted brand in this space.”

Michael Ng, Founder of StakeWithUs commented: “This acquisition aligns perfectly with our vision of providing seamless and secure staking services to a broader audience. By integrating our expertise with Nansen’s advanced analytics capabilities, we are setting the stage for a more integrated and powerful user platform. Together, we look forward to empowering investors with the tools and insights required to not only better  navigate but thrive in the digital asset space.”

Nansen is also introducing the NSN points program, a loyalty program designed to reward its community of stakers and subscribers.

Set to launch in 2025, the program will retrospectively reward eligible stakers and subscribers for the time since they started engaging with the Nansen platform through activities like staking, subscribing, and participating in community initiatives.

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Quick take:

Privado ID sees the collaboration as a critical step in its mission to provide state-of-the-art digital identity solutions.

This collaboration comes as the European Union prepared to implement the European Digital Identity Regulation (eIDAS2).

eIDAS2 mandates that each EU Member State must provide Digital Identity Wallets to its citizens and outlines technical specifications and certification.

Telefonica Tech, the strategic digital business unit of the Spanish telecommunications giant Telefonica Group has joined Privado ID as a system integrator according to press material shared with NFTgators.

Privado ID, formerly Polygon ID will leverage Telefonica Tech’s experience in decentralised technology, systems integration and its managed blockchain service TrustOS to develop innovative verifiable credential use cases.

The privacy and security-focused digital identity solutions provider sees the collaboration as a critical step in its mission to provide state-of-the-art digital identity solutions. 

This announcement comes as the European Union prepared to implement the European Digital Identity Regulation (eIDAS2). eIDAS2 mandates that each EU Member State must provide Digital Identity Wallets to its citizens and outlines technical specifications and certification.

The collaboration aims to develop proofs-of-concept for various use cases in digital identity, with one of the first being age verification, which can be used to provide a reliable and secure privacy-complaint mechanism for granting access to adult content and gambling platforms.

Commenting on the collaboration, José Luis Núñez, Global Head of Blockchain and Web3 at Telefónica Tech highlighted his organisation’s experience and expertise in both blockchain-based solutions and systems integration as key element that enables it to drive the future of digital identity, adding that it ensures “privacy, security, and compliance [as it pushes] its adoption not only in the public sector, but also following the TrustOS philosophy in private companies of all sectors, sizes, and technology profiles.”

Once implemented, eIDAS2 will be available to EU citizens, residents, and businesses who want to identify themselves or provide confirmation of certain personal information.

eIDAS2 aims to create a secure and standardised framework for electronic identification making it imperative for businesses and individuals to adopt compliant identity solutions.

“Empowering large companies to reliably integrate innovative technologies, such as our advanced zero-knowledge proof-based digital identity platform, is key to widespread adoption of self-sovereign identity,” noted David Schwartz, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder at Privado ID. “Telefónica Tech’s size and depth of experience will go a long way to bring corporate clients into the Privado ID ecosystem.”

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KiloEx, a derivative trading platform launched at the end of 2023, has been recovering over the last two months after a multi-month period of consolidation. The platform’s total value locked (TVL) is $24.31 million, just shy of surpassing the record $24.45 million set at the end of August. The TVL has gained over 40% in the past two months.

The $24 million TVL has become a resistance level that, if breached, could trigger a new wave of expansion.

KiloEx is a trading platform facilitating the on-chain trading of perpetual contracts, a type of futures without an expiration date. Users can trade Bitcoin and altcoin perpetuals with up to 100x leverage.

The protocol benefits from a multi-chain infrastructure, supporting five networks, including BNB Smart Chain (BSC), Manta, BSquared, Taiko, and opBNB. The latter is a high-performance scaling solution for the BNB Chain, operating optimistic rollups to boost transaction speed and cut costs.

With over $17 million in TVL, opBNB accounts for 70% of the platform’s total liquidity, followed by Manta with nearly $5 million.

USDT is the most deposited token, holding a share of over 83%. The platform uses the USDT stablecoin on Binance’s BNB Chain (BEP-20), Manta, and BSquared.

According to DefiLlama, the average annual percentage yield (APY) paid for BEP-20 USDT deposits is 8.5%, which beats inflation and represents an attractive offer to investors. The interest rate for Manta-based USDT deposits is approximately 9.4%, while potential earnings for BSquared USDT exceed 45%.

On September 6, the platform’s net inflows totaled nearly $1.8 million, marking one of the best days. USDT accounted for 99% of all deposits.

Despite the diverse range of trading products and high leverage, the number of active users has been declining recently, after setting a record high in mid-July at over 25,000.

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The post Derivatives Platform KiloEx on Verge of Breaking TVL Resistance for New Record appeared first on NFTgators .

The real-world asset (RWA) sector in decentralized finance (DeFi) has gained traction over the last two months after a multi-month consolidation period. According to The Block, which tracks DefiLlama data, the total value locked (TVL) hit a record $6.6 billion on August 31 before correcting to $5.75 billion as of this writing. Still, many leading RWA projects continue to increase.

Some of the RWA projects that continue to expand their TVL include Usual Money, Hashnote USYC, and Ondo Finance.

Usual Money Is Top Monthly Performer

On September 4, Usual Money reached a record TVL of $222.5 million. It has gained over 50% over the past month, being the best monthly performer among all RWA protocols. The project started with zero liquidity in mid-July, showing exponential growth following the launch.

Usual is a decentralized fiat-backed stablecoin issuer that redistributes ownership and value through its native USUAL token.

Powered by a multi-chain infrastructure, Usual aggregates RWAs from leading protocols, such as BlackRock BUIDL, Ondo, Mountain Protocol, and Hashnote to back its native permissionless stablecoin, USD0.

Hashnote Surpasses $250M in TVL

Hashnote is also making waves, breaking the $250 million mark on September 3. It had less than $50 million at the end of May. At the beginning of August, we reported that Hashnote had surged over 280% within 3 months to reach $177 million.

USYC is the tokenized version of Hashnote’s Short Duration Yield Fund (SDYF), which is exposed to short-term US Treasury Bills.

Ondo Reaches New TVL Record at $600M

Ondo is the largest multi-chain RWA project. At the end of April, we reported that Ondo hit the $350 million milestone. Earlier this month, it hit a record $603 million.

USDY and OUSG remain Ondo’s two most popular products. The two tokens are exposed to short-term US Treasury Bills. USDY makes up over 55% of Ondo’s TVL.

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Sei, a blockchain platform focusing on speed and EVM compatibility and offering trading infrastructure for decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and other decentralized applications (dapps), is gaining traction in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. The blockchain’s total value locked (TVL) in DeFi has increased by nearly 80% over the past month and reached a new record of $115 million on September 5.

Thanks to its rapid increase over the last few months, Sei has joined the top 40 largest chains by DeFi TVL, overcoming BSquared, Osmosis, Celo, and Fantom, among others.

On September 5, the blockchain registered record daily inflows, with nearly $10 million worth of tokens being deposited on the dapps that it hosts.

Sei’s TVL surge has been mainly driven by Yei Finance, the largest DeFi app on the chain.

Yei is a lending dapp forked from Aave V3, enabling users to lend and borrow crypto assets by connecting their non-custodial wallets.

The total liquidity on Yei is at a record $72 million, increasing by over 25% in the last 24 hours.

The most deposited tokens in Sei pools are wSEI – the wrapped version of Sei’s native coin, USDT, and USDC.

USDT’s share has doubled over the last two days as the Yei platform saw record inflows dominated by Tether’s stablecoin.

Another DeFi app making waves on Sei is SiloStake, a liquid staking protocol for the SEI coin. SiloStake’s TVL crossed the $30 million mark on September 5 to set a new record. The metric has surged over 450% in the past month.

While SiloStake is the second-largest DeFi app on Sei, the blockchain’s TVL displayed on DefiLlama doesn’t include the protocol’s liquidity to avoid double counting.

SEI holders can stake their coins on SiloStake to target an annual percentage rate (APR) of 4% and receive iSEI while staking, which can be used to explore more yield opportunities in DeFi.

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The post Sei Blockchain Hits Record $115M TVL, Driven by Yei Lending App Surge appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take:

Users can easily check how many dashboards a blockchain has accompanied by the number of creators and stars.

Ethereum has the highest number of dashboards created with over 10,000 and has received more than 150,000 stars.

NFTgators recently ranked Dune Analytics as the number one blockchain data platform for on-chain research.

Dune Analytics has introduced “Blockchain Pages”, a new on-chain data exploration interface that improves user experience by displaying data per blockchain. Users can easily check how many dashboards a blockchain has accompanied by the number of creators and stars.

For instance, Ethereum, which has the highest number of dashboards created has more than 8,000 creators and whose ETH dashboards have received over 150,000 stars.

Announcing the new feature via the X platform, Dune wrote: “Introducing Blockchain Pages on Dune — your Source of Truth for all key metrics and insights for any blockchain.“

Introducing Blockchain Pages on Dune — your Source of Truth for all key metrics and insights for any blockchainExplore your favorite blockchain's:– Onchain data– Popular community dashboards– Top creatorsand more,all in one place.https://t.co/T6BCo6fK05 pic.twitter.com/VJTtaeCC0y

— Dune (@DuneAnalytics) September 5, 2024

According to the announcement, users can explore their “favourite blockchains’ on-chain data, popular community dashboards, and top creators,” among others.

The blockchain data research platform followed up the initial post with several others displaying pages of specific blockchains, including Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, Blast Bitcoin and others, alphabetically.

Dune has been one of the leading on-chain research and analytics platforms and was recently ranked the top blockchain data platform by NFTgators. 

With the new feature, users can also search blockchain data based on the time a dashboard was created, trending topics, popularity or content type.

Each blockchain page also features the number of weekly transactions and the change from the previous week, weekly active addresses and change week-over-week, and the total value locked (TVL) on the blockchain and how it has changed from the previous week with DeFiLlama cited as the source.

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