Magic Eden has emerged as the largest NFT platform by marketplace users, according to data from NFT analytics platform NFTpulse. The Solana OG marketplace recorded a transaction volume of over 230k in the past 30 days, surpassing OpenSea's 170.9k and Tensor's 113.4k. In the past year, Magic Eden has seen nearly 800k NFT traders use its platform, closing in on OpenSea's nearly 1 million users.

The platform's rapid growth is attributed to its focus on bitcoin Ordinals, with 61% of its users trading Ordinals. Amid the upcoming Bitcoin halving event, Ordinals have seen a surge in transaction volume. Data from a Dune Analytics dashboard by obchakevich shows that the Ordinals market BTC volume for Magic Eden has already surpassed $690 million in 2024.

In terms of blockchain usage, Bitcoin remains the top chain with nearly 178k users in the past month, followed by Solana with 159k. Ethereum has slipped to third place with 108k users, while Polygon is fifth with 46k users, below Coinbase’s Base with 81k.

EduTech simulation platform Banksters is rewarding its most active players with NFTs worth a total of $100,000 in a two-week campaign. The top 1,000 players will be eligible for the airdrop, with the NFTs being vested for 60 days following the game's official launch. In addition to the airdrop, Banksters is also selling 2,000 Minting Scroll NFTs on Magic Eden to enhance player engagement and gaming experience. The platform's CEO, Alexandru Carbunariu, emphasized the educational aspect of the game, stating that it offers unique opportunities for players to acquire new skills in the world of cryptocurrency. This announcement precedes Banksters' planned $BARS token sale on April 24, which will take place on BullPerks, Games Pad, and other leading launchpads.

Digital asset social trading platform Zignaly has launched ZIGChain, a layer-1 blockchain built on the Cosmos network. The company also announced a $100 million ecosystem development fund, led by digital asset market maker and Web3 investment firm DWF Labs. The fund aims to develop an accessible wealth-generation infrastructure.

Zignaly recently secured a crypto license in South Africa, expanding its digital asset investment ecosystem. The platform enables traders to copy trades from professionals, simplifying crypto investing.

DWF Labs Managing Partner Andrei Grachev commented on the launch, stating that ZIGChain will allow developers to focus on building, with wealth managers acting as a bridge between the protocol and its user base.

Zignaly aims to democratize access to decentralized finance, enabling users with varying levels of digital asset knowledge to engage in the sector. UDHC partner Torben Jorgenson added that the wealth-management layer in ZIGChain will provide an effortless user experience by building a wealth management service on top of any DeFi protocol.

Ethereum layer 2, Blast, has seen a surge in its total value locked (TVL), reaching $1.7 billion on April 11, before settling at $1.4 billion. The layer 2 solution, developed by the team behind NFT marketplace Blur, uses optimistic rollups and offers native yield, attracting investors' attention.

One month post-mainnet launch, Blast has secured a 1.65% market share in decentralized finance (DeFi), surpassing chains like Avalanche and Polygon. Popular DeFi apps on Blast include Juice Finance and Thruster, each with a TVL exceeding $320 million.

However, Blast's reputation took a hit when RiskOnBlast, a project on its platform, performed a rug pull, exiting with about 500 ETH. Despite this setback, Blast continues to gain market share and plans to launch its own token next month.

PayPal has revised its buyer and seller protection policies for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The global payments giant will now exclude NFTs from its Purchase Protection Program due to "uncertainty around proof of order fulfilment and other variables." NFT transactions exceeding $10,000 will also be excluded from protection against false claims and chargebacks. However, transactions equal to or below $10,000 will be protected if the buyer claims it was an unauthorized transaction and meets all other eligibility requirements. These amendments will take effect from May 20, 2024. This policy update follows PayPal's announcement in March to stop protecting some NFT transactions.

Binance US is ramping up its compliance efforts following a $4.3 billion penalty from the SEC last year. The crypto exchange recently announced the appointment of Martin C. Grant, former Chief Compliance & Ethics Officer at the New York Fed, to its board of directors. Grant's role will include overseeing financial reporting processes and internal controls. This follows the appointment of Lesley O’Neill, former Chief Compliance Officer at Prove Identity, as Binance US's Chief Compliance Officer in January. Both O’Neill and Grant bring extensive experience in regulatory compliance, anti-money laundering, and risk assessment. The appointments reflect Binance US's proactive approach to regulatory compliance in the crypto industry.

Homium, a real-estate equity mortgage lending and securitisation platform, has launched on Avalanche, marking its entry into the rapidly emerging industry of tokenising real-world assets. The launch was accompanied by a $10 million Series A funding round co-led by Sorenson Impact Group and Avalanche’s Blizzard Fund. Homium's platform allows homeowners to secure loans by committing a portion of their home's price appreciation, which is then tokenised.

Investors receive a tokenised asset that tracks the price appreciation of a pool of securitised price appreciations for home loans. The platform is currently live in Colorado, with plans for expansion. Homium CEO, Tommy Mercein, stated that the company is creating a valuable new asset class for institutional investors, offering a new source of uncorrelated, inflation-protected return.

This development is significant in the context of the growing interest in tokenising real-world assets, a market predicted to reach $10 trillion by 2030. Homium's approach of tokenising home equity loans could potentially revolutionise the real estate and blockchain sectors.

Ethereum-based liquid restaking protocol Puffer Finance has secured $18 million in a Series A round co-led by Brevan Howard and Electric Capital. The fundraising was executed via a simple agreement for future tokens (SAFT), valuing the protocol at $200 million. Notable participants included Coinbase Ventures, Kraken Ventures, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, Mechanism Capital, Lightspeed Faction, Consensys, Animoca, GSR and Lemniscap.

The funds will be used to accelerate Puffer Finance's mainnet launch on Ethereum. The platform, powered by EigenLayer, currently has a total value locked (TVL) of more than $1.1 billion according to DeFiLlama. Puffer Finance aims to expand validator participation within Ethereum's ecosystem, enhancing its decentralisation. The company believes that by reducing the entry requirement to just 1 ETH for validators and enhancing their earnings, it sets a new standard for innovation in the liquid restaking landscape.

BIT Exchange has launched the EigenLayer Points Program, becoming the first centralized exchange platform to offer spot trading for EigenLayer Points (ELP) against selected cryptocurrencies. This move allows early adopters to engage with the EigenLayer ecosystem ahead of the Token Generation Event. For every 1ETH restaked, adopters are rewarded with one ELP every hour. The protocol is currently averaging over 107 million daily points emissions and has allocated over 3.9 billion staking points to date.

The points will be used as eligibility criteria for the upcoming EigenLayer Airdrop, where holders could receive valuable rewards. Decentralized exchange platform Whales Market, which already supports ELP trades, clarified that the tradable points are not a tokenized version of EigenLayer points, but the rights to EigenLayer points when they launch. This comes as EigenLayer is emerging as a leading player in crypto restaking on Ethereum, with the platform recently crossing the $15 billion total value locked (TVL) following its mainnet launch.

BIT has stated that when EigenLayer releases its Airdrop, ELP holders on its platform will receive the new token based on the official conversion rate. The launch of the EigenLayer Points Program is seen as a significant milestone for BIT and the broader crypto community.

Web3 gaming studio Avalon, founded by veterans from Microsoft, Sony, Capcom, Infinity Ward, and Ubisoft, has raised $10 million in a funding round co-led by BITKRAFT Ventures and HASHED. The round also saw participation from Coinbase Ventures, Spartan Capital, Foresight Ventures, LiquidX, and Momentum6. The funds will be used to accelerate the development of Avalon's debut blockchain gaming title, AVALON, a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game that allows players to carry in-game assets between worlds.

The game, founded in 2021, is designed to appeal to both Web2 and Web3 gamers. Avalon empowers players by enabling them to create, share, play, and take ownership of their experiences. The game leverages AI gaming technology from Didimo and Inworld AI to create an ever-evolving gameplay with user-generated worlds.

AVALON is currently being developed for both PC and cloud streaming and is scheduled to release its closed early access before the end of the year. The upcoming NFT collection will introduce AI-powered avatar NFTs, adding another layer of innovation. Avalon's vision for a limitless and cohesive online experience was highlighted as a key reason for the funding round's success.

Gaming-focused blockchain Oasys is set to expand its ecosystem with interoperable gaming support as part of its 2024 Dragon Update. The company has partnered with LayerZero, an omni-chain interoperability protocol, to enhance interoperable gaming across its ecosystem. The integration will initially be implemented on Oasys’ Layer 2 HOME Verse, before expanding to the L1 Hub-Layer and other Verses. LayerZero's Omnichain Non-Fungible Token (ONFT) standard will allow users to mint and transfer NFTs across all supported chains, enabling the Oasys gaming ecosystem to carry gaming assets between networks. The integration of LayerZero’s ONFT technology in Ubisoft’s upcoming game, Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles, marks a significant step in the quest for interoperable blockchain gaming experiences. Oasys and LayerZero believe that interoperable cross-chain blockchain gaming will foster a richer and more inclusive gaming experience for all.

Ethereum layer 2 networks, Arbitrum, OP Mainnet, and Base, have seen a surge in activity with weekly active users hitting a record 3.7 million in mid-April. Base, a Coinbase-backed layer 2 network, has emerged as the biggest winner with a 400% increase in weekly active users since the start of the year. It also accounts for about 50% of newly listed tokens on decentralized exchanges (DEXs).

Base's total value locked (TVL) has crossed the $5 billion mark, including $1.57 billion of bridged value and $3.7 billion in natively minted assets. The rise in activity on Base is attributed to the growing interest in meme coins, which dominate trading on Base DEXs.

Currently, Ethereum layer 2s have a total valuation of approximately $28 billion. However, a recent report from VanEck predicts that the market cap will surge to $1 trillion by 2030, considering factors like transaction costs, developer and user experience, ecosystem size, and trust assumptions. Despite Ethereum's transition to Proof of Stake (PoS), layer 2s like Arbitrum, OP, and Base are expected to remain relevant due to their higher throughput and improved transaction performance.

Japanese mobile and blockchain gaming company Extra Mile has partnered with Tokyo's TV Asahi Group to launch a Web3 accelerator program focused on blockchain games. The program aims to support Web3 game developers through incubation, publishing, community marketing, and token support. TV Asahi also plans to assist game developers in liaising with licensors and anime production committees owning IP for music, video, and other multimedia. The program will also provide post-launch support through mentorship and advisory services. The first project to benefit from this initiative, Neobred, an NFT horse racing and breeding game, is set to launch soon. More details about the blockchain gaming venture will be revealed at the TEAMZ WEB3 / AI SUMMIT 2024 on April 13-14.

Shiba Inu, the developer of the $SHIB meme coin, is partnering with the Content Distribution and Security Association (CDSA) to address security concerns in the AI sector. This move comes on the heels of SHIB's integration of Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) technology to bolster security and user privacy. Shiba Inu believes that blockchain technology could mitigate issues faced by researchers in AI model training. The collaboration with CDSA, a nonprofit providing best practices for entertainment, software, and IT delivery and storage since 1998, will allow SHIB to extend its ecosystem to a new segment of the media and entertainment industry. Shiba Inu lead developer Shytoshi Kusama expressed anticipation for offering a unique, blockchain-first perspective to CDSA's work.

Shiba Inu, the developer of the second-largest meme coin by market capitalisation, $SHIB , has partnered with the Content Distribution and Security Association (CDSA) to address security issues in the AI sector. This move comes on the heels of SHIB's integration of Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) technology to bolster security and user privacy in its ecosystem. Shiba Inu, initially known for its meme coin $SHIB , has expanded its universe with the addition of $LEASH and $BONE tokens and the launch of an Ethereum-based layer-2, the Shibarium PoS chain. The collaboration with CDSA, a nonprofit providing best practices for the delivery and storage of entertainment and IT since 1998, will enable SHIB to extend its ecosystem to a new segment of the media and entertainment industry.

Blockchain infrastructure firm Alpen Labs has raised $10.6 million in a funding round led by Rabbit Capital, with participation from Castle Island Ventures, Geometry Research, Village Global, Stillmark, Paxos, Robot Ventures, Axiom, and others. The company is developing a programmable layer on Bitcoin using zero-knowledge proofs, a technology that it believes can expand Bitcoin's utility.

Alpen Labs' programmable layer is designed to power applications for on-chain payments, custody, stablecoins, and verifiable credentials. The company has been working on its zk-proofs-based scaling layer for the past two years, aiming to leverage zero-knowledge rollups to introduce new applications on Bitcoin.

The emergence of Alpen Labs comes as Bitcoin is evolving into a more diverse ecosystem, expanding from a simple blockchain supporting the world's largest cryptocurrency into a burgeoning decentralized app (dApp) network. This evolution has been gaining traction since the launch of Ordinals Market, which brought NFTs to Bitcoin, and the subsequent growth of multiple Web3 startups launching DeFi protocols and new token standards like BRC-20 on the Bitcoin Network.

Sapien AI, a firm developing a blockchain infrastructure for AI model training, has secured $5M in a Series A funding round. The round saw participation from Primitive Ventures, Animoca, Ravikant Capital, and Yield Guild Games. The funds will be used to expand the team and accelerate the innovation of its AI training models with gamified data labelling powered by blockchain technology. Sapien's platform allows users to tag text, images, and other data types with labels, enabling machine learning models to learn from the data. The firm's unique approach to data labelling has attracted companies from various sectors, including healthcare, web3, and education.

Thesis, a venture studio focused on the Bitcoin ecosystem, has raised $21 million in a Series A funding round. The round was led by Pantera and included participation from Multicoin Capital, Hack VC, ParaFi Capital, Nascent, Draper Associates, Primitive Ventures, and Asymmetric Ventures. Thesis also announced the launch of its Bitcoin layer-2 platform, Mezo, which allows Bitcoin holders to earn yield from their deposits.

Mezo distinguishes itself from other L2 platforms by promoting a “circular Bitcoin economy” and enabling users to access applications that facilitate the use of Bitcoin tokens. The platform has introduced a points-based program called “Proof of HODL” that rewards Bitcoin holders based on the length of time they hold their deposits.

CEO of Thesis and founder of Mezo, Matt Luongo, stated that the platform aims to benefit both the Bitcoin network and individual Bitcoin holders. Mezo plans to use the funding to expand Bitcoin use cases with applications that bring real-world utility to the cryptocurrency.

Blockchain startup Monad Labs has secured $225 million in a funding round led by Paradigm, with participation from Electric Capital and Greenoaks. The company aims to build a high-performance layer-1 blockchain that rivals Solana and Sui, focusing on enhancing execution speeds to handle up to 10,000 transactions per second. Monad's platform is fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), enabling developers to transfer their projects from Ethereum to Monad. The startup aims to address Ethereum's shortcomings, such as high gas fees during network congestion. The funding comes amid a surge in crypto fundraising, with startups raising over $1.1 billion last month.

Decentralized crypto exchange platform, 1inch Network, has partnered with Baanx to develop a Web3 debit card powered by Mastercard. The card, which will be available both physically and virtually, is part of Mastercard's ongoing efforts to bridge traditional finance with the world of crypto. The 1inch Web3 debit card will allow crypto users to easily convert their crypto assets into fiat, enabling them to shop online or in person and withdraw fiat currency at supported ATMs. Baanx, which has previously worked with Ledger and Tezos to develop similar cards, is on a mission to marry the traditional and crypto world.