Quick take:

The company plans to leverage Ultimate Wallet’s technology and team to “turbocharge” Jupiter Mobile.

Jupiter is Solana’s leading DEX platform, clearing over $10 billion in volume per week.

Ultimate said it will now proceed with a shutdown of the Ultimate App in the coming months.

Solana-based decentralised exchange (DEX) aggregator platform Jupiter has announced the acquisition of self-custody crypto wallet provider Ultimate Wallet. The acquisition is part of Jupiter’s strategy for expanding to mobile. 

The company wants to use mobile platforms to onboard “tens of millions of users” to its platform. Jupiter is already, the biggest DEX platform on Solana, clearing over $10 billion in transaction volume per week. 

The announcement comes just weeks ahead of Jupiter’s beta release slated for May.

Describing its vision for a mobile version of its DEX platform, Jupiter wrote on X, “Our main focus is a simplified user experience, similar to an automatic car. With Auto-Config, we reduce complexity, such as gas, slippage, or re-trying your transactions.”

The company believes its focus on Solana and Swapping allows it to provide “the best experience possible,” with zero fees.

The company describes Ultimate Wallet as one of the “best DeFi mobile apps,” adding that it will leverage the non-custodial wallet service provider’s technology and team to “turbocharge” Jupiter mobile.

“Jupiter Mobile is a key part of our strategy to accelerate the Meta by getting a critical mass of people to use crypto,” Jupiter wrote on X.

On the other hand, the Ultimate Wallet team expressed its excitement at the acquisition calling Jupiter one of “Solana’s most prolific teams of shippers.”

“Our values align perfectly, thus making Jupiter an excellent future home for Ultimate. Both of our products are laser-focused on providing the most amazing and fastest on-chain trading experience on Solana,” Ultimate wrote on X.

Ultimate Wallet will now sunset the Ultimate App on May 22, 2024, according to a post on X. Users will be able to use the wallet as normal up until then, the company said, also guaranteeing the security of their funds.

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The post Solana DEX Platform Jupiter Ramps Up Mobile Push with Ultimate Wallet Acquisition appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take:

The platform aggregates global compute enabling researchers to collaborate and train “state-of-the-art” AI models through distributed training.

Prime Intellect also allows researchers to share the ownership and benefits associated with the AI models they helped train.

The company will use the fresh capital to accelerate the development of its platform.

Prime Intellect has raised $5.5 million in a funding round backed by Distributed Global, CoinFund, Compound VC, Collab + Currency and Protocol Labs. 

The fundraising also attracted participation from several angel investors including Andrew Kang of Mechanism Capital, Bool Capital from Wormhole, EigenLayer’s Robert Drost, Riva Tez of LayerZero, Worldcoin’s Dcbuilder, Scott Moore of Gitcoin, DCF God and Gmoney, among others.

Prime Intellect is building a decentralised AI infrastructure platform enabling collective ownership and governance of AI models. According to the announcement, its platform aggregates global compute enabling researchers to collaborate and train “state-of-the-art” AI models through distributed training.

Researchers are able to share the ownership and benefits associated with the AI models they help train.

“Through Prime Intellect, anyone will be able to contribute compute, capital and code to collaboratively train open AI models and share in their ownership and benefits. We envision this enabling a new wave of open AI progress, from community-driven language models to scientific breakthroughs,” co-founders Vincent Weisser and Johannes Hagemann wrote in a blog post on the company’s website.

Prime Intellect wants to build a platform that allows anyone to contribute resources including compute, capital and code, and enable globally distributed training across clusters.

According to Prime Intellect’s post on X, its platform is currently live in beta and aggregating supply from leading GPU providers, offering the most cost-effective, scalable on-demand compute.

“We’re preparing to provide access to clusters of 16-128+ GPUs and developing a framework for distributed training across clusters,” a post on X reads.

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The post Prime Intellect Secures $5.5M Seed Round for Decentralised AI Infrastructure Platform appeared first on NFTgators .

Merlin Chain, a new Layer 2 network for Bitcoin, has already attracted almost $1 billion in total value locked (TVL) across the 8 dapps that it supports at the moment.

DefiLlama data shows that Merlin’s TVL has surged to a record $980 million on April 23, up from only $15 million at the end of March.

Merlin is a recently launched Bitcoin layer 2 supporting Bitcoin tokens that leverage the Ordinals protocol and the new Runes protocol. The latter went live last week following the halving event.

Ordinals became popular last year after introducing a mechanism to create non-fungible tokens (NFTs) directly on the Bitcoin mainnet. They had the greatest contribution to the revival of the NFT market. During the last two months, Bitcoin NFTs accounted for over 50% of the total NFT trading volume, according to CryptoSlam data.

https://www.cryptoslam.io/blockchains

Following the success of Bitcoin NFTs, Ordinals have been used for a fungible token standard on Bitcoin. It’s called BRC-20, inspired by Ethereum’s ERC-20.

Merlin plans to bring scalability and efficiency to tokens built on protocols like BRC-20 or BRC-420, which is used for metaverse NFTs. It uses zero-knowledge (zk) rollups to settle transactions off-chain for better efficiency, similar to what Polygon does to Ethereum.

Merlin Secures Over $2B for Token Launch

On April 19, Merlin launched its governance token on BRC-20. To support the fair launch of MERL, the protocol held the so-called Merlin’s Seal event, calling for crypto investors to stake Bitcoin and other tokens to earn M-points, which determined the distribution of MERL.

DefiLlama data shows that Merlin’s Seal secured over $2 billion. Bitcoin accounts for over 80% of the staked crypto assets, which include BRC-20 tokens like STONE, SATS, ORDI, and RATS.

https://defillama.com/protocol/merlins-seal#tvl-charts

Merlin has already become the 10th largest chain by DeFi TVL, surpassing Polygon and OP.

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The post Bitcoin L2 Merlin Sees DeFi TVL Surging to Almost $1B appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take:

Magic Eden is advancing its support for innovation on Bitcoin having been one of the non-BTC native NFT marketplaces to expand to Bitcoin.

This announcement follows the launch of the Runes Protocol last week, a new token standard that makes inscribing NFTs on Bitcoin faster and at lower gas fees.

Magic Eded said its platform will allow users to set up the amount of BTC they want to spend on Runes when making a transaction.

Magic Eden, the NFT marketplace originally based on Solana before expanding to other chains has launched the Magic Eden Runes platform. This announcement comes just days after Runes Protocol, a new token standard for Bitcoin inscription, launched on the day of Bitcoin halving, paving the way for faster inscriptions and lower gas fees.

Magic Eden’s Runes platform launches a day earlier than the scheduled debut date, April 23, according to a post on X.

Source: Magic Eden

Magic Eden co-founder and COO Zedd Yin has hailed the launch as a testament to the company’s commitment to being the “one-stop-shop for all things Bitcoin.” 

“As early supporters and first to build an Ordinals marketplace, it was important for us that we build the best Runes experience possible in this important evolutionary step for Bitcoin,” Yin said.

Magic Eden’s Runes platform, currently in beta, allows users to swap for BTC and buy runes and ordinals using their Magic Eden wallet. The company is advancing its support for innovation on Bitcoin having been one of the non-BTC native NFT marketplaces to expand to Bitcoin.

The platform also has a feature that allows users to set up the amount of BTC they want to spend on Runes when making a transaction.

Last week, Magic Eden collaborated with the NFT project CyberKongz to launch the BTC pre-runes collection Prometheans. The collection has already generated more than 316 BTC in TVL, approximately $20.8 million, Magic Eden Ordinals marketplace data shows.

Magic Eded has recently overtaken the likes of OpenSea, Blur and Tensor to become the biggest NFT platform by Marketplace users. The platform is also dominating in terms of transaction volume, which is largely driven by the number of traders trading Ordinals.

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The post Magic Eden Launches Its Runes Platform Ahead of Schedule appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take:

The company will use the funds to accelerate the development of its abstraction layer for shared security primitive.

The platform allows developers to self-deploy custom computational services over trustless execution environments.

Othentic says its platform enables AVS developers to focus on their core services, thus minimising engineering overheads.

Othentic, a Web3 orchestration and abstraction layer for AVS developers on both EVM and non-EVM blockchains has secured a $4 million seed round co-led by Finality and Breyer Capital.

The Fundraising also attracted participation from Coinbase Ventures, Collider VC, HashKey Capital, Bankless Ventures, Robot Ventures, Everstake, PunkDAO and several angel investors.

Othentic is building a distributed tech stack that allows developers to self-deploy custom computational services over trustless execution environments.

“The Othentic Stack orchestrates and abstracts the shared security primitive, allows AVS developers to self-deploy custom computational services over trustless execution environments and a network of Operators that run arbitrary compute tasks,” the company said in a post on X.

According to the company’s blog post on Mirror, Othentic is introducing what it calls “Stateless Rollups”, which gives AVS (actively validated services) access to decentralized compute scalability, offering “a flexible and secure framework for the execution of off-chain computations.” 

According to Othentic, stateless rollups are compatible with both EVM and non-EVM blockchains and provide their services to other networks and applications. They include coprocessors, relayer networks, decentralized RPCs, oracles, ZK provers, exploit prevention systems, privacy-preserving computations, and other novel services.

“Leveraging a library of production-ready components, AVS developers can focus on their core service, minimize engineering overheads, and abstract away low-level implementations and error-prone infrastructure details,” Othentic wrote on X.

This fundraising comes amid the rise of shared security and actively validated services on platforms like EigenLayer on Ethereum and Babylon Chain on Bitcoin, which have paved the path for the development of decentralised services.

“In the new shared security economy, networks are required to execute diverse on-chain and off-chain computation work that represent unique services offered by AVSs,” Othentic wrote in the blog post, highlighting the important role its orchestration layer will play in the evolving dApp ecosystem.

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The post Othentic Secures $4M Seed Round for Web3 Orchestration Layer appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take:

The company will use the funds to accelerate the development of its abstraction layer for shared security primitive.

The platform allows developers to self-deploy custom computational services over trustless execution environments.

Othentic says its platform enables AVS developers to focus on their core services, thus minimising engineering overheads.

Othentic, a Web3 orchestration and abstraction layer for AVS developers on both EVM and non-EVM blockchains has secured a $4 million seed round co-led by Finality and Breyer Capital.

The Fundraising also attracted participation from Coinbase Ventures, Collider VC, HashKey Capital, Bankless Ventures, Robot Ventures, Everstake, PunkDAO and several angel investors.

Othentic is building a distributed tech stack that allows developers to self-deploy custom computational services over trustless execution environments.

“The Othentic Stack orchestrates and abstracts the shared security primitive, allows AVS developers to self-deploy custom computational services over trustless execution environments and a network of Operators that run arbitrary compute tasks,” the company said in a post on X.

According to the company’s blog post on Mirror, Othentic is introducing what it calls “Stateless Rollups”, which gives AVS (actively validated services) access to decentralized compute scalability, offering “a flexible and secure framework for the execution of off-chain computations.” 

According to Othentic, stateless rollups are compatible with both EVM and non-EVM blockchains and provide their services to other networks and applications. They include coprocessors, relayer networks, decentralized RPCs, oracles, ZK provers, exploit prevention systems, privacy-preserving computations, and other novel services.

“Leveraging a library of production-ready components, AVS developers can focus on their core service, minimize engineering overheads, and abstract away low-level implementations and error-prone infrastructure details,” Othentic wrote on X.

This fundraising comes amid the rise of shared security and actively validated services on platforms like EigenLayer on Ethereum and Babylon Chain on Bitcoin, which have paved the path for the development of decentralised services.

“In the new shared security economy, networks are required to execute diverse on-chain and off-chain computation work that represent unique services offered by AVSs,” Othentic wrote in the blog post, highlighting the important role its orchestration layer will play in the evolving dApp ecosystem.

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The post Othentic Secures $4M Seed Rould for Web3 Orchestration Layer appeared first on NFTgators .

NFT activity on Polygon has gained traction in April. CryptoSlam data shows that the number of unique buyers of Polygon-based NFTs surged on April 18 to the highest level since June 2023. Over 36,000 NFT purchases were recorded on that day.  

Polygon ranks fourth among blockchain networks by NFT trading volume after Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana.

As we reported via X, Dune data compiled by Sealaunch shows that Polygon NFT sales maintained above $1 million for seven consecutive days to April 18.

Weekly volumes recovered to the highest since mid-January of this year, breaking above $15 million.

https://www.theblock.co/data/nft-non-fungible-tokens/nft-overview/nft-trade-volume-by-chain

OpenSea continues to be the most popular NFT marketplace for the Polygon ecosystem, accounting for over 80% of all sales.

https://dune.com/sealaunch/polygon-nft Polygon’s NFT Aggregator Dew Drives NFT Sales

Interestingly, the majority of the NFT sales are conducted via Dew, an NFT aggregator for Polygon that connects to multiple marketplaces. Dew accounts for over 98% of all NFT trading activity on Polygon, according to on-chain data shared via Dune.

https://dune.com/scorz/polygon-nfts

Dew daily volume exploded from a few thousand USD at the beginning of April to over $1 million last week.

https://dappradar.com/dapp/dew

In fact, Dew is also the main driving force behind the surge in NFT sales on Polygon. Earlier this April, it launched an NFT collection called Origin Pass, which gives users access to multiple benefits from Dew and Dew Studio initiatives.

The Origin Pass is now the hottest NFT collection on the layer 2 network, securing over $4.5 million in sales over the last week.

Polygon, Immutable Raise $100M to Support Gaming

The increase in NFT activity follows reports that Polygon and Immutable were joining forces to establish a $100 million fund to support Web3 games, most of which use NFTs. The initiative, called The Inevitable Games Fund, will support early-stage gaming startups.

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The post Polygon NFT Activity Rebounds in April, Driven by Dew appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take:

The company will use the funds to develop its privacy-focused layer-3 blockchain on Shibarium.

The new blockchain will use TREAT as its utility and governance token, according to Shiba Inu.

The announcement comes less than two months after Shiba Inu announced the integration of FHE technology into the SHIB ecosystem.

Shiba Inu has completed a $12 million pre-seed and seed round raised via a token sale. The fundraising attracted participation from leading Web3 companies and investors outside of the US.

Polygon Ventures, Mechanism Capital, Big Brain Holdings, Shima Capital, Animoca Brands, Morningstar Ventures, DWF Ventures and Comma 3 Ventures were among those who participated in the TREAT token sale. 

Shiba Inu plans to use the funds to accelerate the development of its privacy-focused layer-3 blockchain on Shibarium. The new chain will use TREAT as the utility and governance token, becoming the fourth and final token in the Shib ecosystem after SHIB, Leash and Bone.

The TREAT token is yet to be released and will be minted on the Shiba Inu Mint S.A, a corporation registered in Panama, the company said in a statement on Monday.

This announcement comes less than two months after Shiba Inu announced a partnership with ZAMA to integrate a fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) technology into the SHIB ecosystem.

“This advancement offers unparalleled privacy for $SHIB holders, positioning the SHIB community among the first in the Web3 space to enjoy complete on-chain data protection,” the company wrote in a statement,” Shiba Inu wrote in a statement in February.

Commenting on the company’s plans for the new chain, Kusama said: “This new encryption chain aims to address multiple issues in crypto, including privacy and trust for Shiba Inu’s extensive community of tens of millions and the next billion crypto-curious individuals,” adding that the blockchain will be fully compliant with international regulatory requirements.

“By allowing people to both be private yet still gain credentials to verify their identity, our entire system extends security and compliance at the same time.”

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The post Shiba Inu Secures $12M Pre-Seed and Seed Rounds in TREAT Token Sale appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take:

Creators will receive 70% of tips and in-app sales of digital goods and services.

Artists who create stickers will earn 95% of the revenue generated from the sale of their stickers.

Telegram’s crypto wallet will also support USDT following TON Foundation’s partnership with Tether announced at Token2049.

Telegram has revealed the next evolution of its privacy-focused messaging platform with the announcement of creator tips, on-chain stickers and in-app crypto purchases of digital goods and services, according to Decrypt.

At Token2049 in Dubai, Telegram founder and CEO, Pavel Durov said his company will introduce creator tips, allowing content creators to be tipped in Toncoin $TON. 

The company also said it will begin to support in-app crypto purchases of digital goods, again expanding earning opportunities for creators. According to the announcement, creators will receive 70% of tips and in-app sales of digital goods and services.

Telegram is also bringing its signature stickers on-chain, allowing creators to earn 95% of revenue generated from the sale of their stickers. 

Telegram has been on a mission to create the most comprehensive super app for digital creators, prioritising privacy and embracing emerging technologies that empower creators.

As part of its focus on user privacy, in 2022, Telegram introduced Anonymous Telegram Numbers, which allowed prospective users to sign up without requiring a regular phone number. The numbers are blockchain-based and are bought on the Fragment platform.

Recently, anonymous Telegram numbers have experienced a spike, with April alone recording more than $2.5 million in sales volume from more than 3,700 different sales, averaging a daily high of $167,000. Thursday, April 18 recorded a new daily high of 454 sales.

Since the beginning of April, Anonymous Telegram Numbers (@ton_blockchain) saw over $2.5M in sales volume from 3.7K different sales.– Averaging $167K/day– Yesterday was a daily high in terms of sales count, seeing 454 sales, highest since Aug 2023.Data by, @getgemsdotio. pic.twitter.com/QTi6pgkdUF

— NFTgators – Web3 News (@NFTgators) April 16, 2024

Teelgram’s partnership with TON Foundation has been particularly crucial to its integration of Web3 technologies. Last year the two companies collaborated to integrate the TON Space self-custody wallet, which came barely a month after news that the platform was planning to launch NFT usernames.

And at Token2049, alongside the new earnings products announced for creators, TON Network announced a partnership with Tether, the organisation behind the world’s biggest stablecoin by market cap, the USDT in a bid to attract more non-crypto native users to the world of Web3.

The USDT will be integrated into the Telegram crypto wallet and the TON Foundation, boosting Telegram’s crypto exposure whilst also creating a less volatile avenue for new crypto users to join the TON Network.

Telegram, boasts a user base of more than 900 million, according to the company, and this presents a huge opportunity to onboard hundreds of million to the layer-1 blockchain.

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The post Telegram Brings Its Signature Stickers On-Chain, Introduces Creator Tips appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take:

Hedgey has since urged users to revoke all transaction approvals.

The on-chain token infrastructure platform has also launched a refund campaign for those affected by the attack.

Investigations are still ongoing with auditors to understand what happened, Hedgey wrote on X.

Hedgey Finance, the on-chain token infrastructure protocol on Arbitrum has been exploited for nearly $45 million, real-time crypto security alerts platform Cyvers Alerts revealed via a post on X on Friday.

According to Cyvers, its platform detected multiple transactions by a suspicious address on Arbitrum worth $42.8 million of ARB tokens.

Source: Cyvers Alerts

At the time of posting, the attacker had already deposited some of the crypto on the Bybit crypto exchange platform.

Source: Cyvers Alerts

The platform had earlier been hacked for $1.9 million in crypto on the Ethereum network, with the address funded by token exchange platform, ChangeNow. 

Source: Cyvers Alerts

Hedgey has since confirmed the attack, urging users to revoke all approvals while its team investigates the event.

In a security alert statement posted just hours after the first post by Cyvers, Hedgey Finance said the team was “investigating an attack on the Hedgey Token Claim Contract,” urging those who had created active claims to cancel them using the “End Token Claim” button.

“We are actively working with our auditors and team to understand the attack and stop any ongoing attack. We will share more information as we learn more,” Hedgey wrote.

The company has also warned users of clicking any links posted under the thread on X, citing potential scam accounts that might impersonate it.

The company has also started a refund campaign to compensate those who were affected by the attack.

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The post Hedgey Finance Exploited for Nearly $45M as Token Infra Protocol Offers Refunds appeared first on NFTgators .

Linea, an Ethereum layer 2 by Consensys that uses zero knowledge (zk) technology, has pushed the gas pedal down to the bottom. The total value locked (TVL) on Linea apps has almost doubled in April to $234 million as of this writing, according to DefiLlama.

The TVL figure has surged by over 400% since the beginning of the year, initially breaking above $50 million in December 2023.

ZeroLend has the lion’s share of Linea assets locked in decentralized finance (DeFi). The lending protocol has a TVL of $100 million on Linea and an additional $100+ million on four other chains, including Blast, Manta, zkSync Era, and Ethereum. ZeroLend’s TVL on Linea has surged over 8,000% over the last month alone, contributing to the layer 2’s rapid growth in April.

https://defillama.com/protocol/zerolend#tvl-charts

Activity on Linea is also driven by the support of Renzo, the second-largest liquid restaking protocol after Ether.fi. Renzo has a TVL of over $3 billion across seven chains, including $150 million on Linea.

Renzo’s ezETH token accounts for over 53% of all assets on ZeroLend. Investors can deposit ezETH through ZeroLend to aim for an APY of 0.3% and earn Renzo and EigenLayer points.

Other popular DeFi apps on Linea are Mendi Finance, a lending protocol, and Lynex, Linea’s native DEX.

Lynex’s TVL and trading volumes have surged to record levels in mid-April, driven by demand for USDC, USDT, and ezETH.

https://defillama.com/protocol/lynex?volume=true&groupBy=daily

Linea’s daily active addresses and daily transaction figures have surged to record levels at the beginning of April.

On April 1, the layer 2 chain saw over 600,000 active addresses conducting over 4.6 million transactions.

At the time, Linea had more active users than Base, zkSync Era, Arbitrum, and OP.

https://www.growthepie.xyz/fundamentals/daily-active-addresses

Earlier this month, we reported that active users on Arbitrum, OP, and Base had increased to record high levels, suggesting a rapid growth of layer 2s.

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The post Consensys’ Layer 2, Linea, Has Doubled its TVL to Record $234M appeared first on NFTgators .

The number of active addresses on Near Protocol is accelerating. On April 6, 2024, Near saw over 2 million active addresses making transfers, the highest level on record and about 100% higher compared to the beginning of the year.

More importantly, that spike was not isolated, as Near continues to experience an increase in activity, with the 7-day average at the highest level as of this writing.

https://www.theblock.co/data/scaling-solutions/non-evm-chains-stats/number-of-new-addresses-on-near-daily-7dma

The surge in active addresses coincides with an increase in the daily transaction count on Near and a revival of total value locked (TVL) in Near-based decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.

On April 4, daily transactions broke above 10 million for the first time ever before correcting to the current level of 8 million.

https://nearblocks.io/charts/txns

DefiLlama data shows that Near’s TVL figure has surged from less than $100 million at the beginning of the year to over $308 million on April 8, which is the highest level since August 2022.

https://defillama.com/chain/Near DeFi & Stablecoins Are Key Drivers

The rapid increase in activity on Near is likely driven by stablecoin transactions.

For example, judging by TVL share, Burrow Finance is the most popular DeFi app on Near, with about $200 million in TVL or 65% of Near’s DeFi ecosystem. At the beginning of 2024, its TVL was less than $65 million.

The lending protocol enables users to deposit popular stablecoins, such as USDC and USDT, and earn an annual percentage yield (APY) of 27% and 26%, respectively. For comparison, supply APY on Aave is over 13% for USDT and 6% for USDC.

Since these high APY figures are available for Near-native USDC or USDT, many investors migrate from Ethereum or other chains to leverage higher interest rates.

In mid-March, the FRAX stablecoin also launched on Near and eventually landed on Burrow, contributing to the increase in activity on the layer 1 chain.

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The post NEAR’s 7-Day Active Addresses at a Record High Amid DeFi Revival appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take:

The round was completed at a post-money valuation of $70 million.

OKX Ventures, Mirana Ventures, ParaFi Capital, Manifold Ventures and Arche Fund also joined the round.

The company said it will use the funds to integrate its products with other top protocols across DeFi, NFTFi and more.

Thruster, a decentralised exchange platform built on Ethereum Layer-2 network Blast has raised $7.5 million in a seed round led by Pantera Capital. 

The fundraising also attracted participation from OKX Ventures, Mirana Ventures, ParaFi Capital, Manifold Ventures and Arche Fund, with Frax founder Sam Kazemian, Pendle’s TN Lee, Alex Lin of Stacked, Renzo’s Kratik Lodha and Axelar’s Georgios Vlachos among those who joined as angel investors.

Thruster’s pseudonymous contributor 0xFri told The Block, the fundraising was structured as a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) with token warrants at a valuation of $70 million. 

Thruster is a yield-earnings DEX platform that uses an integration-first approach to boost yield for liquidity providers. Within less than two months of its launch, the platform has grown to become the second-largest on Blast with a TVL of nearly $320 million, behind Juice Finance, $358 million according to DeFiLlama.

Thruster also claims to have already facilitated more than $2 billion in transactions from more than 100,000 users.

Commenting on the announcement, 0xFri said: “We saw Blast as an exciting new ecosystem to build on based on its yield and incentive-first model. In DeFi, yield and incentives are what drive attention. With Blast creating a system through which greater and more sustainable yields can be achieved, more users and builders should flock to that chain over others.”

Although currently comprised of just 10 team members, Thruster has plans to expand its team, secure more partnerships and integrate with more protocols as it looks to improve user experience to the level of centralised exchanges.

“This fundraise will help us continue to work with leading builders to integrate Thruster products and liquidity into other top protocols across DeFi, NFTFi and more,” 0xFri added.

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The post Pantera Leads $7.5M Seed Round for Blast-Based DEX Platform Thruster appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take:

The platform will leverage Bervan Howard’s financial markets expertise and experience to guide institutions in the digital asset space.

The company is also collaborating with Boston Consulting Group to help implement the solutions.

The companies hope to globally grow tokenised asset liquidity with Aptos Ascend.

Aptos Labs has teamed up with some of the leading technology and finance companies including Microsoft, Brevan Howard, SK Telecom and Boston Consulting Group to build Aptos Ascend, a digital asset management platform targeting financial institutions. 

The layer-1 blockchain company joins a growing list of L1s that have tapped mainstream organisations to develop digital asset platforms for institutions. Aptos said its plans for Aptos Ascend are to help institutions expand their services to decentralised finance and globally grow tokenised asset liquidity.

Aptos Ascend will leverage technologies and expertise from all parties to provide a suite of tools and solutions that will guide financial institutions in expanding their services to the digital asset space.

According to the announcement, the platform will be powered by Microsoft Azure and Azure OpenAI Service, SK Telecom’s Web3 infrastructure for Wallet-as-a-Service and Brevan Howard’s financial markets expertise. Boston Consulting Group will play a key role in the implementation of the solutions, Aptos said in a press release.

Commenting on the partnership, Aptos Labs co-founder and CEO Mo Shaikh said in a statement: “Global institutions require superior levels of compliance, security, trust, and innovation to service customers, operate across borders, and adhere to regulations at every level.”

“In collaboration with SK Telecom, Brevan Howard and Microsoft, Aptos Ascend will provide the world’s financial institutions, banks and tech-forward money markets with a performant, compliant, secure and scalable gateway to decentralized finance on Aptos that will evolve for years to come,” added Shaikh.

In December, Aptos collaborated with SK Telecom and Atomrigs to develop a self-custody Web3 wallet. Last August the layer-1 blockchain infrastructure provider said it was teaming up with Microsoft to advance its digital payments, pounce on tokenisation opportunities and the intersection of AI and Web3.

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Quick take:

The grant program will operate on a milestone basis measured against key performance indicators.

The company will also be hosting ongoing hackathons with prize pools of up to $100,000 per event.

Nibiru is also introducing a reward mechanism that allows developers to earn a portion of the transaction fees.

Nibiru Chain has launched Nibiru Builder Grants, a long-term initiative that will see the security and scalability-focused smart contract platform back developers with more than $15 million.

The company said the grant program is part of an initiative to supercharge ecosystem growth. According to the announcement, Nibiru will dedicate $5 million of the grant money to the Asia region.

The program will operate on a milestone basis measured against key performance indicators, which the company believes will ensure developers’ engagement and sustainability towards the overall chain.

Commenting on the announcement, Erick Pinos, Ecosystem Lead at Nibiru said in a statement: “The Nibiru ecosystem is excited to stand behind the passionate developer community, empowering builders to become catalysts for positive Web3 transformation. The grants initiative will supplement ongoing aid in partnership pairings and access to mentors, industry experts, and experienced developers.”

Commenting on the $5 million allocation to the Asian region, Brandon Suzuki, Head of Growth at Nibiru said “Understanding Asia is a hallmark priority.” 

“With KPI-based milestones to provide aligned interest between the broader network and the grant recipients, the grants initiative will further fuel for acceleration,” Suzuki added.

The program also allows ecosystem partners an opportunity to receive additional funding from VCs backing Nibiru, including Tribe Capital, ArkStream, NGC Ventures, Master Ventures and others.

In addition to the grant program, Nibiru will also be hosting ongoing hackathons with prize pools of up to $100,000 per event, offering accelerator opportunities across multiple dApp segments including Real-World Asset (RWA) tokenization, Web3 gaming, DeFi, and SocialFi.

The company’s developer-focused ecosystem will also see it introduce a reward mechanism that allows developers to earn a portion of the transaction fees every time their smart contract is executed. There are also plans to introduce more reward structures based on other metrics like total value locked (TVL), airdrops and bounties for building out requests for protocols (RFPS).

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Quick take:

The rapid growth is driven by the platform’s decision to focus on bitcoin Ordinals with 61% of its users trading Ordinals.

OpenSea still had the highest marketplace users over the past 12 months, with nearly 1 million, but Magic Eden is closing fast with nearly 800k.

Magic Eden also boasts the highest transaction volume with a 30-day trading volume of $14 million, with OpenSea a distance second with $3.7 million.

Magic Eden has become the biggest NFT platform by marketplace users based on data compiled by the NFT analytics platform NFTpulse. The Solana OG marketplace boasts a transaction volume of more than 230k, over the past 30 days, surpassing OpenSea’s 170.9k, which is placed second and Tensor’s 113.4k coming in third. Overall, the industry had 633k marketplace users over the last 30 days.

Source: nftpulse.org

Looking back twelve months, OpenSea was still the biggest NFT marketplace with nearly a million users, but Magic Eden is closing in fast, with almost 800k NFT traders using its platform in the past year.

According to the data, 62% of Magic Eden users are reportedly trading Ordinals according to the NFTpulse data. This comes as Ordinals continue to experience a spike in transaction volume amid the upcoming Bitcoin halving event. 

According to a Dune Analytics dashboard by obchakevich, the Ordinals market BTC volume for Magic Eden has already surpassed $690 million in 2024.

Source: @obchakevich, Dune Analytics

Bitcoin continues to the the top chain by the number of users with nearly 178k over the past month, followed by Solana 159k while Ethereum 108k has slipped to third and Polygon 46k is now in fifth below Coinbase’s Base 81k.

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Quick take:

The NFTs will be airdropped to the top 1,000 most active Banksters users to be vested for 60 days after the game launch.

The EduTech platform is also providing 2,000 Minting Scroll NFTs for sale on Magic Eden.

The company is also planning a token sale on leading launchpads on April 24.

EduTech simulation platform Banksters is airdropping NFTs worth a combined value of $100,000 to the most active players in its 2-week campaign. The campaign, which ran from April 3 to April 17 grants players an opportunity to win exclusive NFTs ahead of the platform’s official game launch.

After the end of the contest, players will be rewarded based on their activity in the game, with the top 1,000 eligible for the airdrop. According to the announcement, the NFTs will be vested for 60 days following the game launch.

The EduTech platform also said it will provide 2,000 Minting Scroll NFTs for sale on Magic Eden, “providing additional opportunities for players to engage with the platform and enhance their gaming experience.”

Highlighting the nature of the contest, Alexandru Carbunariu, CEO and CMO at Banksters said in a statement: “To succeed in the airdrop contest, a different strategy is essential: actively engage in Invest Runs, level up avatars, utilise the Banksters Academy for NFT minting, including the upcoming Minting Scroll on Magic Eden, stay involved in the community, and leverage your Banksters Unique abilities and skills for victory.”

“Banksters is more than a game; it’s an educational journey into the world of cryptocurrency. The airdrop contest along with the Minting Scroll on Magic Eden, present unique opportunities for players to acquire new skills and empower their characters,” Carbunariu added.

This announcement also comes ahead of Banksters’ planned $BARS token sale, which will take place on April 24. The event will take place on BullPerks, Games Pad and other leading Launchpads, Banksters said in a statement, highlighting the important role the token sale will play in the company’s development and expansion within the crypto and gaming sectors.

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The post Banksters Airdrops 100K USDT Worth of NFTs Ahead of the Official Game Launch appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take:

Digital asset market maker and multi-stage Web3 investment firm, DWF Labs is backing the fund.

The fund will focus on developing wealth-generation infrastructure, the company said at Token49 in Dubai.

Zignaly offers a social trading platform for digital assets, allowing traders to copy trades from professionals.

Zignaly has launched ZIGChain, a layer-1 blockchain built on the Cosmos network. The company also announced a $100 million ecosystem development fund, backed by the digital asset market maker and multi-stage Web3 investment firm, DWF Labs.

The announcement also comes on the heels of Ziganaly securing a crypto license in South Africa for discretionary financial service provision.

Commenting on the launch of the ecosystem fund at Token49 in Dubai, the team behind Zignaly said the fund will focus on developing an easy-to-use wealth-generation infrastructure.

The company is expanding its ecosystem of digital asset investing, which currently includes a social trading platform that allows traders to copy professional traders.

Commenting on the announcement, DWF Labs Managing Partner Andrei Grachev said in a statement: “ZIGChain will allow builders to concentrate on doing what they do best: building, with wealth managers forming a layer of power users and then acting as a conduit between the protocol and its user base. This rare confluence of developers, wealth managers, and users has never been attempted at this scale and in a decentralized manner.”

Zignaly is on a mission to make crypto investing for all users as easy as pressing a button. Social investing, sometimes copy-trading, allows novice investors to profit from copying the trades of professional investors.

Zignaly said it wants to create a world where everyone regardless of digital asset knowledge can engage in decentralised finance.

Torben Jorgenson, a partner at UDHC, which also participated in the round added: “The wealth-management layer within ZIGChain shall allow a truly effortless user experience by building a wealth management service on top of any DeFi protocol, no matter how complex it is.”

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Quick take:

CyberKongz, one of the original Ethereum NFT projects believes it can usher in a new era of NFTs on Bitcoin like it did with the Banana token project.

The company combined ERC-721 with ERC-20 standards to create the $BANANA token on Ethereum.

The company just inscribed the 7th largest ever file on Bitcoin, the Prometheans artwork.

CyberKongs, one of the original NFT projects on the Ethereum network has launched a BTC pre-runes NFT collection on Bitcoin, “Prometheans”. Runes is a new token standard on the Bitcoin network that makes transactions on the network faster and more cost-efficient. The Runes protocol was created to address critical inefficiencies of the BRC-20 standard and has been one of the most discussed topics in the NFT space.

A pre-runes collection delivers runes to holders of the digital assets when the Runes Protocol goes live at Bitcoin halving.

CyberKongz Prometheans will be among the first Runes collections, which it says demonstrates its values of technological innovation, experimentation, and storytelling.

The project launched the $Banana token project on Ethereum, which combined both the popular ERC-20 standard with ERC-721 standard as part of its strategy of bringing new utility to Web3.

“Almost three years ago we changed the Ethereum NFT landscape forever by pioneering the combination of ERC-721 with ERC-20. The launch of $BANANA set the standard for utility in the web3 space. Paving the way and setting the playbook for many projects,” CyberKongz wrote in a post on X when announcing Prometheans.

Introducing: PrometheansA Pre-Rune collection by CyberKongz.Almost three years ago we changed the Ethereum NFT landscape forever by pioneering the combination of ERC-721 with ERC-20.The launch of $BANANA set the standard for utility in the web3 space. Paving the way and… pic.twitter.com/5aKr0ZRfng

— CyberKongz (@CyberKongz) April 12, 2024

Describing the collection ahead of the launch, the company wrote: “Prometheans are the highest entity in the CyberKongz universe, symbolizing the pinnacle of evolution that draws from the transformative nature of Bitcoin.”

The “Prometheans” artwork, which as of its inscription was the 7th largest ever file inscribed on Bitcoin is inspired by a rich tapestry of elements featuring both the lore of CyberKongz and the profound impact of Bitcoin culture, the company wrote.

The collection will prioritise holders of the CyberKongz NFTs and the core Ordinals, community, which Web3 researcher wale.moca things is “a good playbook for other NFT projects.”

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The post CyberKongz Launches BTC Pre-Runes Collection “Prometheans” appeared first on NFTgators .

Blast, the Ethereum layer 2 that recently launched its mainnet, continues to gain traction despite a more competitive market. Its total value locked (TVL) figure has surged to $1.7 billion on April 11, before correcting to the current level of $1.4 billion. Weekly volumes are at a record high.

Blast was developed by the same team behind Blur, the NFT marketplace that overcame OpenSea and now accounts for 80% of all NFT trading volume.

The new layer 2 uses optimistic rollups, but it has caught investors’ attention by offering native yield. Users can simply hold certain tokens, such as ETH or USDC, and become eligible for passive income.

Blast is about to launch its own token next month.

Blast Projects Thrive

One month after the launch of its mainnet, Blast has already secured a 1.65% of market share in decentralized finance (DeFi), surpassing established chains like Avalanche or Polygon.

https://defillama.com/chains

The most popular DeFi apps on Blast are Juice Finance, a yield farming protocol for Ethereum, and Thruster, a decentralized exchange (DEX). The TVL on each of the two projects has surged to over $320 million.

Some smaller DeFi projects have expanded at a fast pace. For example, TVL on yield platform Hyperblock Finance and leverage trading protocol Particle has increased by over 1,600%, and 2,000%, respectively, over the last month.

RiskOnBlast’s Rug Pull Deteriorates Blast Reputation

Blast is starting its journey on the wrong foot. Shortly before the launch of its mainnet, a Blast project, RiskOnBlast, rug pulled by exiting with about 500 ETH and closing its X account.

The crypto community has been disappointed that RiskOnBlast was backed despite its team being completely anonymous.

While many have been questioning Blast’s security measures, the new layer 2 has had a strong start and continues to win market share.

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