The third iteration of the market-leading decentralized exchange Uniswap is coming this spring, according to new details of the so-called v3 launch published Tuesday. Last week, Hayden Adams, Uniswap’s founder, captured what was perhaps the spirit of anticipation around the long-sought details of v3 in a tweet: "If I have to go another week without publicly announcing details of Uniswap v3 I might go insane." Adams was far from alone. Across the industry, market pundits have been pondering over the improvement features of v3 over v2, the current iteration. The new details published Tuesday are set to be implemented in May.
More on The Block• 2021-03-23
Around 3,500 gorillas have been adopted by Reddit's WallStreetBets (WSB) community in six days. The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, a charity for the protection of endangered mountain gorillas, has also received more than $350,000 (£252,000) in donations. Its president Dr Tara Stoinski has thanked the Reddit community for the adoptions. She said: "They've truly made a difference for our world." The subreddit WallStreetBets gained prominence earlier this year after its users invested in the computer game retailer GameStop and boosted the share price.
More on BBC News• 2021-03-19
Terraform Labs just launched Anchor, a long-awaited protocol for lending and saving that the Seoul-based firm expects to drive enough demand for its stablecoin, TerraUSD (UST), to top DAI’s circulation. Like DAI, UST maintains its peg to the U.S. dollar in a decentralized manner, but at $1 billion, its market capitalization is only about a third of its rival’s. To enhance the stablcoin’s allure, Anchor aims to offer returns that outperform other decentralized finance (DeFi) offerings with a combination of sheer yield and predictability. It’s all driven by validation rewards (the equivalent of freshly minted bitcoin (BTC, +0.47%) awarded to that currency’s miners) from Terra’s own blockchain, and will eventually pool such rewards from other chains.
More on CoinDesk• 2021-03-17
The Ethereum blockchain has had a “scalability” problem for years. Crushed under the weight of its own success, the network now lumbers along at about 15 transactions per second while a single transaction can cost over $20. This bottleneck prevents the network from growing and gives developers a reason to look elsewhere. Competitors like Polkadot and Avalanche already offer thousands of transactions per second and negligible fees. And if a faster rival should suck up all the talent, Ethereum—and ETH—will fade into obscurity.
More on Decrypt• 2021-03-15
Ending weeks of stagnancy, Bitcoin today shot up in price, hitting new all-time highs of $60,000. This is about $1,750 higher than Bitcoin’s previous all-time high, $58,258, which the coin set on Sunday, February 21. Following that record, Bitcoin crashed to lows of $46,437 on February 23 and then to $43,527 on February 28. Then Bitcoin came back swinging. At $60,000, its market cap hit $1.1 trillion. The coin’s price has increased by 23% in the past week and 5% in the past 24 hours.
More on Decrypt• 2021-03-13
Popular digital artist Beeple's 5,000-day collection has sold for $60.25 million dollars, making it one of the highest art auction sales ever. Christie's website shows that the auction concluded with a $9 million premium, which is a percentage of the final (or "hammer") price. The sale, hosted by British auction house Christie's, received a total of 353 bids.
More on The Block• 2021-03-11
Crypto payments project MobileCoin, advised by Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike, has raised $11.35 million in Series A funding. The round was backed by Future Ventures and General Catalyst, MobileCoin announced Tuesday, without disclosing an investment figure. TechCrunch reported the amount, citing a source familiar with MobileCoin. Founded in 2018, MobileCoin is aimed at providing fast and easy payments to mobile. The project has designed a cryptocurrency called MobileCoin to be used as digital cash on a phone for "near-instantaneous transactions."
More on The Block• 2021-03-10
The decentralized finance exchange DODO announced Tuesday that attackers stole $3.8 million by exploiting bugs in DODO’s V2 Crowdpools smart contracts. There were two seemingly independent agents in this attack, which is different from the typical solitary attacker seen in major exploits like Harvest Finance or KuCoin. Ultimately, a total of $3.8 million was stolen from DODO. According to an update, the exchange recovered $1.89 million, comprised of about 1,140,000 USDT and 411 ETH, and plans to return the funds to affected parties.
More on The Block• 2021-03-09
Aker ASA, a $6-billion Oslo Bors-listed holding company, is set to begin investing in Bitcoin. According to a press release issued on Monday, Aker has created a new company called Seetee AS whose mission is to invest in Bitcoin (BTC). The newly formed Seetee will also delve into the Bitcoin mining arena while looking to forge useful partnerships with major players in the crypto space. Indeed, Seetee has reportedly entered into a collaborative agreement with Blockstream.
More on Cointelegraph• 2021-03-09
Swiss fintech firm Taurus Group has integrated the decentralized finance (DeFi) Aave Protocol into its asset infrastructure, allowing banks and exchanges to deposit and borrow digital assets. In an announcement, Taurus Group said it has integrated the Aave Protocols’ version 1 and 2 into its end-to-end digital asset infrastructure. Aave is a DeFi protocol used for both retail and institutional clients, providing users with a decentralized backend infrastructure for lending and borrowing. The Aave Protocol is being used in the Taurus Group custody product “Taurus-PROTECT.” as well as its smart contract issuance and interaction platform “Taurus-CAPITAL,” allowing institutional clients to deposit, withdraw and borrow assets, and stake AAVE tokens, said the firm.
More on CoinDesk• 2021-03-08
PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL) today announced that it has agreed to acquire Curv to accelerate and expand its initiatives to support cryptocurrencies and digital assets. Curv is a leading provider of cloud-based infrastructure for digital asset security based in Tel Aviv, Israel. In October 2020, PayPal announced its commitment to help shape the role that digital currencies will play in the future of financial services and commerce. To drive sustained growth and innovation in this area, the company recently created a business unit focused on blockchain, crypto and digital currencies. Curv will join the newly formed group, with its strong team of technologists adding technical expertise to PayPal.
More on PayPal• 2021-03-08
Meitu, a technology company headquartered in China’s Fujian province, today announced that it has bought $40 million in cryptocurrencies—$22 million in Ether (ETH) and $17.9 million in Bitcoin (BTC). Meitu, a smartphone manufacturer and selfie app software company that has been listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since 2016 and has a market cap of $11.76 billion, disclosed that it has bought 380 BTC and 15,000 ETH.
More on Decrypt• 2021-03-07