GameFi continues to grow despite crypto winter: DappRadar report
The report seems to show that turbulence in the crypto markets has failed to rattle investments and forward movement of several GameFi and metaverse projects.
The report seems to show that turbulence in the crypto markets has failed to rattle investments and forward movement of several GameFi and metaverse projects.
My geth node was offline for about 9 months and I decided to spin it up and re-sync this week. I updated geth and I had to switch to snap sync, since fast is no longer supported. I remember it took me a few days to sync in fast mode from genesis until about last…
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Magic Eden accounts for over 90% of NFT trading volume on Solana.
Over the last few weeks, the cryptocurrency market has been rocked by extreme volatility. There has been a steep decline in the price of digital assets. Such has been the meltdown in that the entire market cap has fallen under $1 trillion, which surpassed the $3 trillion mark at the peak of the bull cycle. Being a nascent market means high volatility is a common phenomenon at this stage of growth. That said, this volatility has made crypto so attractive to investors and speculators. However, volatility doesn’t always mean just a significant upside but also a remarkable downside. And that’s what we are seeing in this fourth crypto cycle, so all this carnage is not unprecedented. In fact, a 70% to 80% drop in Bitcoin and Ether prices from their all-time highs can be seen as a golden ‘buy the blood’ opportunity to plan for the future with a focus on research and only investing what you can afford to lose. However, we also witnessed this time that the significant drawdown in the crypto prices was exacerbated by the lack of proper risk management practices adopted by some of the biggest names in the industry. Extreme Market Conditions One of the biggest centralized lenders in the crypto space, Celsius Network, was among this torrent of bad news as it abruptly froze customer withdrawals, swaps, and transfers between accounts due to what it said were “extreme market conditions.” This pause in withdrawals resulted in more volatility and raised concerns about Celsius’ solvency. It was a liquidity issue, according to the experts, a classic banking problem. Just late last year, Celsius Network raised $400 million in a Series B funding round at a valuation of $3.5 billion. Back in October, the crypto lender had $25 billion in assets from more than 1.7 million users, which fell to around $11.8 billion as of last month. Besides spooking investors and the market, this is catching the attention of the administration and lawmakers during times of economic uncertainty, including high inflation and global market instability. State securities regulators in Washington, Alabama, Texas, Kentucky, and New Jersey are now investigating Celsius Network’s decision to suspend customer redemptions this week. It is expected the proposed regulations to regulate stablecoins by the President Working Group could extend to the entire crypto space in order to “mitigate the risks of these assets.” The PWG report calls for federal regulatory oversight, restricting institutions from lending customers’ digital assets out, and compliance with liquidity and capital requirements. Need for a Better Solution Much like a bank, the centralized lender Celsius was using the crypto deposits from over a million retail customers and investing them in the crypto market, including DeFi but did not apply proper risk management or provide any safety measures to its users. Thus, the market needs a truly decentralized solution that doesn’t obscure how they deal with their funds. Astra protocol is one such decentralized solution that provides a compliance layer for the Web3 economy. In the DeFi sector, undercollateralized loans have been gaining traction. Still, while they offer the benefit of no central control, they carry considerable risks in terms of a lack of asset liquidity and instant payment. Astra’s truly decentralized project onboards traditional players for funding, allowing for lending on the Astra network, and eliminating the need for these under-collateralized loans. By converging the power of Web3.0 and traditional financial ecosystems, Astra Network aims to create the next iteration of decentralization and become the largest network in the industry. Zurich, Switzerland-based Astra basically allows protocols to comply with society’s numerous regulations without giving up the benefits of decentralization or putting investors at risk. Decentralized Compliance Layer Amidst the mainstream global adoption of crypto and the regulatory challenges coming its way, Astra has designed its network to be the only fully KYC (know your customer) compliant decentralized blockchain ecosystem which is available worldwide with the protocol performing all compliance practices. This regulatory compliance is offered across a vast number of DeFi protocols to reassure users that their investments are completely protected while preserving their anonymity. The Astra network further offers its infrastructure to countries and their treasuries to issue financial products such as regulated and sustainable CBDCs bonds and financial instruments while taking advantage of the incredible yield available through digital assets. To achieve this, Astra has equipped all DeFi smart contracts with a fully decentralized compliance layer, including KYC & AML capabilities, and leveraging the expertise of trusted legal firms to resolve real-world compliance issues. To provide the best KYC/AML services available, Astra has developed a unique Decentralized Legal Network (DLN), an ecosystem that contains major, global legal and audit firms. In terms of consensus mechanism, the system that allows distributed systems to work together and stay secure, Astra is using the environmental-friendly Proof-of-Stake (PoS), which is the perfect fit to build a real-world solution for billions of users through its improved scalability and increased transactional throughput. A Vast Network Compliance is not the only feature offered by Astra. The project provides several other services, including enhanced vetting, a dispute resolution platform, AML, and reporting for process feedback and improved procedures. The demand for these services is increasing rapidly as the crypto market continues to onboard more and more people and capital invested in the sector skyrockets. Not to mention all the challenges faced by the industry, such as lack of certainty for smart contracts, recurring derivative contract disputes, high legal risks in connecting real-world assets to the blockchain, and poor management of claims disputes on-chain. Astra here certainly has the potential to gain market fit with its customizable services that offer security in retrieving incorrect transactions, create secure escrow accounts to prevent unexpected withdrawals, provide a decentralized legal layer for user protection, and equip insurance protocols with an in-built claim verification tool. Overall, with its KYC, KYB, and AML services for decentralized organizations, Astra aims to ensure that all DeFi and crypto platforms keep pace with the ever-changing regulatory landscape. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
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OVER, a decentralized metaverse platform that provides surreal AR/VR experiences, has revealed its partnership with The Sandbox to launch a unique reward program for their communities. This development continues the growing relationship between the two platforms. To recall OVER had enabled a cross-platform experience for its users on the Sandbox ecosystem in April. This update enabled Sandbox users to control their NFTs on OVER and invite their friends to partake in activities without having to leave the OVER app. This latest partnership takes this a step further as Sandbox users can participate in the Hunt by collecting digital assets around Manhattan, New York, from June 20-24. According to the terms of the treasure hunt program, interested participants have to download the OVER app and begin their quests of collecting the Sandbox around Manhattan for rewards. There’ll be a leaderboard that tracks participants’ activities, and the top 5 hunters are eligible for rewards. The rewards range from 2500 $SAND for the highest-paced hunter to 500 $SAND fo the fifth-placed hunter. Furthermore, participants can share their hunting experiences on Twitter and get rewarded via the video contest. The top 3 videos with the most likes will receive 1250, 750 and 500 worth of $SAND, respectively. NFT hunters need to follow OVER and The Sandbox on Twitter to be eligible to receive rewards from the video contest. OVER continues to make significant inroads OVER has become one of the fastest-growing blockchain projects since its launch in 2020. It is a community-owned blockchain ecosystem that allows users to delve into metaverse and experience VR and AR experiences through their smart glasses or mobile devices. What sets it apart from the rest is that it intends to build a new standard for augmented reality in the crypto ecosystem. To achieve this, it has adopted an open-source model where community members contribute to its growth, making it truly decentralized from its creators. Furthermore, OVER uses NFTs to create value for users and serve as a bridge between the physical and digital worlds. Since its launch, OVER has already provided users with immersive activities and treasure hunts for NFTs in unique locations and landmarks within its metaverse. OVER has also positioned itself strategically with its partnership with the Sandbox, one of the largest and most influential metaverses and NFT ecosystems.
Recent news reports have detailed that Russia’s fiat currency, the ruble, was the best-performing currency worldwide and the articles explained that American economists were perplexed by the trend. On Monday, the Russian ruble rose to 55.47 per dollar, which was the highest increase since 2015. While many have dismissed the ruble’s exchange rate, Charles Lichfield, […]
“Selling a portion of our BTC holdings and daily production as a source of liquidity is the best and least expensive method in the current market environment,” said CFO Jeff Lucas.