Vitalik had earlier hinted that the crypto community would welcome a long winter. He said that crypto could benefit from a crash as short term speculative attention is not good in the long run, while builders could benefit from less attention from speculators. Now he has made his strongest statement yet confirming the bear market,…
Read more
“Each shard is a separate blockchain with its own state (account balances, smart-contracts) and transaction history.” Does this mean that users will have to bridge their assets across the different shards in order to interact with different applications? Will it be like moving eth from arbitrum to optimism? submitted by /u/Awkward_Barnacle8854 [link] …
Read more
Intel’s new chips are powered by a high-performance miner to deliver up to 40TH/s in a balanced environment.
Large and smaller hodlers alike are seizing the chance to stack, figures show, as on-chain data hints that the bottom is in at $38,000.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a new medium of artistic expression that gives artists the freedom and the ability to reach a diverse audience, Saudi Princess Reem Al Faisal has said. Decentralized Art According to the Saudi Arabian princess, Reem Al Faisal, NFTs are a natural evolution of art that gives artists the freedom to reach […]
Recently we sat down with Matas Sauciunas, CEO of one of the most exciting DeFi projects of the year: ALF Protocol. Matas and his team have already secured significant Venture Capital funding which they have used to develop a protocol for capital deployment on Solana for the purposes of liquidity provision and yield farming. Alf aims to become the go-to place for blockchain liquidity, initially launching on Solana and then potentially expanding to other chains. Matas is passionate about the Solana ecosystem and how its low fees and extremely high speed give it the potential to be the leading Layer 1 solution, and his team is building out a core piece of the Solana native Decentralized Financial services. I trust you enjoy this conversation as much as I did and I look forward to watching this dynamic team and project go from strength to strength in 2022. Interviewer: Hi Matas, thank you for setting aside the time for this interview. I can imagine how busy everything is at your side, knowing that the development of the protocol is well underway. Please, could you explain in a simple way what is Alfprotocol? Matas: Hi there. Yes, everything is super busy on our side, but anyway it’s great meeting you and speaking with you today. I get this question quite often because of the complexity of the project so my usual reply is that Alfprotocol is a decentralized application built on the Solana blockchain that lets the user supply their tokens to earn interest, borrow some funds for outside use by providing collateral, use our in-house built decentralized exchange & become liquidity providers by supplying tokens to the farms and earn yield rewards and token rewards. What’s unique is that Alfprotocol will provide leverage for users to use to increase their position size while investing in the liquidity provision. Interviewer: The idea that you and your team are building sounds complex but exciting! Could you tell me a bit more about Decentralised Finance (DeFi)? Why is DeFi getting so much hype and what is your personal opinion on the future of DeFi? Matas: Decentralized Finance lets users use financial services like lending and borrowing without centralized intermediaries, it also provides endless opportunities to create different protocols that are providing unique use cases of the decentralized money market. What’s important is that DeFi had a growth of 88x last year and is expected to grow by another 10x this year. Also, DeFi comprises only around 5-6% of the entire cryptocurrency market cap. That statistic alone gives me the insight that we’re still in the early stages of DeFi, and we can lock a decent spot within the ecosystem itself. Interviewer: Thank you for such an explanation. Alfprotocol has chosen the Solana blockchain to work on. Why Solana? Matas: First of all, Solana is experiencing tremendous growth in attention from developers and investors. And that attention comes for a reason. Solana blockchain is super fast and super cheap and next to that the whole ecosystem of Solana is growing rapidly. We chose Solana because we’re building a leveraged protocol, so we need a blockchain that is super fast with the transactions and also cheap to use. Solana can provide that. Also, the DeFi protocols within the Solana are still at the early stages. So we do have a great opportunity to lock a decent spot for the future of Solana and aim to become a homepage for DeFi on Solana. Interviewer: Thank you. Solana is definitely on a massive growth trend as you said. Your and your team’s decision to build on this fast and inexpensive blockchain does make sense. Could you provide the top three advantages of the Alfprotocol? Matas: Certainly. The first advantage would be that users will have an all-in-one place, (a “one-stop shop”) for all DeFi services which at the moment isn’t widely available in the ecosystem, meaning users need to move between different protocols. The second advantage is that those who are risk-seeking investors will have an opportunity to use higher leverage (in some cases up to 200x) for liquidity provision. Of course, the use of high leverage will be highly monitored and will be available for limited farms and users. And lastly, the third advantage is that the entire team building and collaborating on the protocol is transparent and provides regular updates on the development status, educational material, etc. So having a strong and transparent team behind the protocol is a very important aspect. Interviewer: Absolutely. Transparency and regular communication with the community is always necessary. Just a few more questions Matas, at what stage is your project now and who are the backers of the Alfprotocol right now? Matas: At the moment Alfprotocol is at the early development stage. We aim to have our public IDO within Q2 of 2022 and aim to launch a fully working protocol in late Q3, 2022. The MVP release of the protocol is expected to take place in early Q2, 2022. The current backers of the project are Zen Capital, Dust Ventures, DIB Ventures, SRT Ventures, Alpha Hunt and Scorpio VC. Interviewer: Last question for you Matas: how can users participate in the early stage of the Alfprotocol? Matas: Users do have an opportunity to apply an allocation of Alfprotocol tokens at this early stage of the protocol just like Venture Capital firms do. We cal this round a Pre-IDO round and it is available on our website. Alternatively, users can send us an email via invest@alfprotocol.com with the headline of “Pre-IDO round” and our dedicated person will reply and help with the allocation process. Interviewer: Thank you for answering all of the questions! It’s been a great time speaking with you and I would like to wish you all the best for the future of Alfprotocol! Matas: It’s been a great talk with you as well – thank you for your time.
For the most part of recorded human history, finance has been constantly evolving and adapting to the needs of human culture and lifestyle. Fintech (financial technology) has changed the face of the financial industry. From mobile payments to lending and personal finance management, fintech has completely changed how we interact with our money. Importantly, fintech is not just limited to banking and credit. It has also made things like saving, investing and credit scoring easier for the average consumer. Nevertheless, fintech today is largely centralized and is thus unable to accommodate Web 3.0 and other blockchain-based innovations such as DeFi. What Is DeFi? According to many proponents, DeFi or decentralized finance is an evolution of fintech set to take financial markets by storm. With a steadily growing market cap that is currently estimated to be USD 115 billion, DeFi applications are already demonstrating that they can accomplish the objectives of legacy financial systems but in a manner that is faster, cheaper, and better by leveraging blockchain. This has made it an attractive space for investments and funding from venture capitalists. The sector boasts a total locked value (TVL), a metric to denote the value of assets currently locked in, of USD 92.3 billion in January 2022 and a record high funding of USD 17 billion from VCs. DeFi aims to bring the convenience of peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions to its users by harnessing the power of smart contracts (self-executing pieces of code written in a programming language native to the respective blockchain). By removing intermediaries users are able to remain in absolute control over their assets while also accessing a range of powerful financial products and platforms without the involvement of traditional bureaucracy. For instance, Aave, a decentralized shared liquidity platform allows P2P lending and borrowing of money and also earns unparalleled yields on deposits. There also exist decentralized exchanges (DEXs) like Uniswap and Project Serum which let users buy and provide liquidity directly from crypto wallets at minimal costs. Fintech vs DeFi? While many argue that DeFi ushers an end to traditional fintech or that DeFi could never replace the convenience of fintech, the reality is that both industries have qualities that are beneficial to the end-user. Both resolve issues that have long plagued traditional financial markets and they seek to develop applications with easy-to-use user interfaces. Fintech ventures have enabled the sanction of loans in a relatively easier manner and perhaps even send money to anyone across the world with lower fees. But fintech companies still suffer from the centralization of authority in the hands of a few, creating certain qualities of censorship or control that users do not want. DeFi, on the other hand, enables disintermediation and digitization but lacks the safety that comes with knowing someone oversees all the activity going on, therefore reducing the chance of fraudulent activity. Taking out collateralized loans worth millions of dollars in a matter of seconds, trading tokenized stocks 24×7, across 365 days, or sending money instantly to anyone sitting on the opposite end of the world for no fee becomes easier with DeFi applications. Baanx is a UK-based fintech integrating DeFi, digital assets and the utility they provide to bring the best of fintech and blend it with the capabilities of DeFi to formulate a smarter, more efficient, and trustless financial order. Baanx has formed partnerships with crypto industries leaders such as Ledger and Tezos to bring to DeFi all the qualities fintech has to offer along with a strong framework and regulatory approval to ensure that customers are getting a secure product. With DeFi leaders partnering with well-established companies like Baanx, it seems to be a sign of which way the industry is going. Finding The Middle Ground The adoption of DeFi will only increase as trust issues in the traditional financial space persist and yield potential remains stagnant. But with fintechs like Baanx now adopting and building for DeFi, the future seems to look a little more clear: DeFi and fintech can and will co-exist. Despite the crypto and DeFi industry being brand new relative to the history and establishment of fintech, the road ahead seems to be one of cooperation rather than total exclusion. DeFi will enable an alternative financial system that is built bottom-up, completely decentralized, censorship-free, low-fee, and fully automated. When brought together, fintech and DeFi can rapidly accelerate the adoption of Web 3.0 applications and transform financial access forever with more efficient products and services to the end-user.
PRESS RELEASE. On February 17th, 2022, Hoo announced the completion of the first-stage token-repurchase plan on HOO Token with a cumulative total of 423,982.18 HOO repurchased from the secondary market. From January 2022, Hoo had imposed the strategic plan on generating 30% of the income revenue from spot trading (Spot Zone + Innovation Zone) of […]
The investment fund will be the first offered by a bank in the country and is expected to include a type of crypto index and ETFs.
Ethereum extended decline below the $2,800 support against the US Dollar. ETH price is correcting losses, but upsides might be limited above $2,800. Ethereum started a major decline below the $2,880 support level. The price is now trading below $2,800 and the 100 hourly simple moving average. There was a break above a major bearish trend line with resistance near $2,650 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD (data feed via Kraken). The pair could recover, but the bears might remain active near $2,800 and $2,880. Ethereum Price Extends Decline Ethereum failed to stay above the $2,880 support zone and extended decline. ETH broke the $2,750 support level and the 100 hourly simple moving average to move further into a bearish zone. The price even dived below the $2,640 support and traded as low as $2,575. It is now correcting higher and trading above the $2,640 level. Besides, there was a break above a major bearish trend line with resistance near $2,650 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD. Ether price just moved above the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the key decline from the $3,188 swing high to $2,575 low. An immediate resistance on the upside is near the $2,755 level. The next major resistance is near the $2,800 level and the 100 hourly simple moving average. A clear move above the $2,800 might send the price to $2,880. The 50% Fib retracement level of the key decline from the $3,188 swing high to $2,575 low is also near the $2,880 resistance zone. Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com A successful close above $2,880 might start a steady increase. In the stated case, the price could rise towards $3,000 (a major barrier for the bulls). Fresh Decline in ETH? If ethereum fails to start a recovery wave above the $2,800 level, it could start another decline. An initial support on the downside is near the $2,710 level. The next major support is near the $2,650 level. A downside break below the $2,650 could spark another major decline. The next major support is near the $2,580 level. Any more losses might call for a move towards $2,450 in the near term. Technical Indicators Hourly MACD – The MACD for ETH/USD is gaining pace in the bullish zone. Hourly RSI – The RSI for ETH/USD is now above the 50 level. Major Support Level – $2,650 Major Resistance Level – $2,800
