The surge in capital locked on-chain is primarily attributed to the renewed enthusiasm surrounding Bitcoin and the recent launch of spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in January.

According to DefiLlama, a prominent data provider for DeFi statistics, the global TVL in DeFi protocols reached $100.1 billion, accompanied by a trading volume of over $10 billion in the past 24 hours at the time of writing. 

Although these figures fall short of the previous record of $189 billion set in November 2021, they mark a significant achievement for the DeFi ecosystem.

Staking Platforms Lead Charts in Terms of TVL

Leading the charts in terms of locked value is the liquid staking protocol Lido, with an impressive $38.7 billion locked on-chain. 

Following closely behind are the staking ecosystem EigenLayer and the Aave protocol, with over $11 billion locked in each, respectively.

The surge in DeFi TVL beyond the $100 billion mark is a momentous occasion, as it represents the first time in nearly two years that the sector has reached such heights. 

This growth can be attributed to the positive sentiment that has returned to the crypto markets since the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs.

The institutional demand for Bitcoin ETFs has been instrumental in driving the price of the cryptocurrency to new all-time highs, surpassing $70,000 on March 8.

A recent research from BitMEX reveals that assets in Bitcoin ETFs reached a staggering $28 billion on that day. 

Notably, this analysis excludes assets from Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust, which underwent a conversion from an over-the-counter (OTC) product to an ETF in January.

[1/4] Bitcoin ETF Flow – 08 March 2024

All data in. $223m positive net flow for thew day

The assets of the ETFs excluding GBTC are now over $28 billion, this is now larger than GBTC's assets for the first time pic.twitter.com/5BlBTu4WLn

— BitMEX Research (@BitMEXResearch) March 9, 2024

OTC Trading Platforms Face Shortage of Bitcoin

Rumors have circulated on social media platforms about OTC trading platforms facing a shortage of Bitcoin and resorting to public exchanges to fulfill client orders. 

OTC desks typically cater to large-volume traders, including institutional investors. 

Consequently, several centralized crypto exchanges, such as Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, and Bybit, experienced outages due to the surge in trading volume when Bitcoin surpassed $60,000. 

To manage the increased demand, Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek revealed that the exchange had hired 480 additional customer representatives.

The soaring price of Bitcoin has also triggered a surge in memecoin prices. 

Memecoins like Korra (KORRA) saw a staggering 577% rise in the last seven days, followed by Ribbit (RIBBIT) with a 235% surge and PUG AI (PUGAI) with a 232% jump. 

Notably, popular tokens such as Shiba Inu and Pepe recorded gains of 168% and 165%, respectively. As a result, the market capitalization of memecoins currently stands at $61 billion.

Furthermore, the memecoin trend has propelled Dogecoin and SHIB into the top 1 tokens by market capitalization, with $26 billion and $20 billion, respectively.

The post Bitcoin Surge Propels DeFi TVL Past $100 Billion Milestone appeared first on Cryptonews.

According to DeFi TVL aggregator DeFiLlama, Solana DEXes recorded over $2 billion in trading volume over the past day, up by 153% in the past week. 

Currently, Solana is the third largest blockchain network in terms of DEX volume, trailing behind Ethereum and Arbitrum.

Ethereum, which hosts the largest DeFi ecosystem, registered around $4.7 billion in trading volume in the past 24 hours, with a positive weekly change of 54%.

On the other hand, Arbitrum DEXes saw $2.1 billion in daily trading volume, up by 85% over the past week. 

Solana’s DeFi Thrives

The surge in trading volume on Solana can be attributed to various factors, one of which is the increasing number of on-chain transactions taking place. 

The influx of users and the resulting congestion on the Solana network have contributed to the heightened trading activity. 

The impressive growth in Solana’s DEX trading volume also reflects the platform’s ability to handle large-scale transactions and showcases its rising prominence in the blockchain industry. 

Solana’s high throughput and low transaction fees have attracted traders and investors looking for a seamless trading experience without the bottlenecks typically associated with other networks.

Solana’s surge in popularity comes at a time when the overall cryptocurrency market is experiencing heightened interest and increased demand.

On Monday, Bitcoin reached a new lifetime high above $69,000, fueled by investors pouring money into U.S. spot exchange-traded crypto products and the prospect that global interest rates may fall.

Solana has also witnessed a remarkable uptick, surging 12% in the last week and an impressive 35% in the past month, showcasing a robust bullish trend in the cryptocurrency market. 

Solana Boasts Over 2,500 Active Developers

The Solana ecosystem now boasts more than 2,500 monthly active developers, according to the Solana Foundation. 

The foundation highlighted that the network has maintained a consistent range of 2,500 to 3,000 monthly active developers throughout the past year, a testament to the ecosystem’s ability to attract and retain talent. 

The increased developer activity comes as Solana continues to make waves in the crypto community, achieving several significant milestones.

The network has surpassed Ethereum (ETH) in 7-day stablecoin trading volume for the first time ever. 

As reported, the value of stablecoin transfers on Solana reached a staggering $103 billion in the first week of January, outperforming all other networks. 

Ethereum secured the second position with $90.9 billion, followed by Tron with $82.3 billion and BNB Chain with $14.6 billion.

In addition to stablecoin trading volume, Solana also surpassed Ethereum in NFT trade volume for the month of December.

The post Solana DEX Trading Volume Reaches Record $2.85 Billion, Up Over 150% in Past Week appeared first on Cryptonews.

Injective inEVM loading

A groundbreaking Ethereum rollup for hyperscaling multi VM development is nearly here.

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░ 98%

— Injective (@injective) March 4, 2024

In a post on X, the derivatives trading platform describes inEVM as a “groundbreaking Ethereum rollup designed to facilitate hyperscaling multi-VM development.” 

Despite Ethereum’s scaling challenges and relatively high trading fees, it is a popular choice among developers, especially in bull markets. 

The inEVM will bridge the gap, linking the low-fee and highly scalable Injective Protocol to Ethereum, empowering traders to swap at a fraction of the cost. From the platform’s main page, the average transaction cost is less than $0.01.

Moreover, connecting with Ethereum will allow developers to deploy their solutions on Injective Protocol. The inEVM merges the high performance in Injective with the depth of developer tools present in Ethereum.

By enabling multiple virtual machines, inEVM can process transactions faster and handle more users. This enhancement is key because Injective Protocol aims to take on centralized exchanges like Bybit and Binance. The decentralized platform supports, among other features, margin trading and perpetual swaps.

With the launch of inEVM, the number of Injective Protocol users is expected to surge, translating to more transactions. As of early March 2024, Injective reported processing approximately half a billion on-chain transactions.

Nearing half a billion on-chain transactions https://t.co/ObrfGbMVuP

— Injective (@injective) March 3, 2024

Injective Protocol Token Rallied Over 500% in 2023

Over the past few months, INJ, the native currency of the protocol, has been one of the top performers. Tracking the performance of Solana (SOL) and some of its meme coins, INJ rose from around $8 to peak at $45 in late December.

The price boom propelled the coin to the top 50 by market cap. Currently, INJ is changing hands at around $40, up 10% in the last 24 hours, as per Coingecko data. 

The post Injective Protocol’s inEVM Nears Completion, Bridging Ethereum and Low-Fee Derivatives Trading appeared first on Cryptonews.

Blast, an optimistic rollup blockchain scaler, offers users up to a 4% annual return on deposited Ethereum (ETH) and 5% on stablecoins held on the network, generated from staked ETH and United States Treasury Bills (T-Bills) managed by MakerDAO.

Ethereum Layer 2 Chain Blast Releases Official Mainnet

Blast 메인넷이 출시되었습니다.

얼리액세스 사용자는 메인넷으로 브리지하고 다른 곳에서는 찾아볼 수 없는 Blast 네이티브 Dapp을 사용할 수 있습니다 pic.twitter.com/BPBnxMxWbt

— Blast (@Blast_L2) March 1, 2024

Blast’s total value locked (TVL) has now fallen to $520 million after the launch with nearly $1.8 billion withdrawn, according to DeFiLlama data.

Assets on the platform include roughly 479,000 ETH, 78.5 million USDC, 68.3 million USDT, 148,000 stETH, and 31 million DAI, according to a Dune Analytics dashboard.

Blast, which claims to be the “only Ethereum L2 with native yield,” attracted considerable attention with its deposit-only bridge announced in November. This bridge quickly accumulated over $2 billion in deposits, with depositors receiving Blast “points” for holding their ETH.

The assumption was that these points could eventually be redeemed for a token airdrop, prompting traders to engage in “points farming” to accumulate them.

Crypto protocols use airdrops to give out tokens to early users and contributors, typically aiding in decentralized governance as well. Blast is looking to make an impact in the crowded Ethereum scaling market—which includes networks like Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base—by incentivizing users with both native yield on staked cryptocurrency and a share of tokens via airdrops.

With the network now live, traders holding Blast Points have the option to redeem their deposits and may seek better opportunities elsewhere. Given that the price of ETH has appreciated greatly since Blast opened to depositors late last year, from around $2,000 to about $3,450, some traders may be looking to capitalize on profits.

Blast Network Hits $2 Billion TVL Milestone Amid Controversy and Alleged Exit Scam

Blast, backed by Paradigm, initially faced criticism, with concerns raised about its one-way bridge and the optics of soliciting deposits while still under development.

Despite this skepticism, Blast became one of the most active layer-2 networks in terms of deposits even before the mainnet launch, attracting $2.3 billion in deposits from 181,000 users and generating an annual yield of $85 million.

There was a sharp outflow of deposits from Blast immediately after the launch of the main network. TVL falls sharply – Defilama data pic.twitter.com/OLBFSsAQ8r

— NekoZ (@NekozTek) March 1, 2024

Airdrop hunters have been actively farming the blockchain in hopes of receiving a Blast token, which the team has announced will be distributed in May.

The network also experienced its first alleged exit scam on February 26, when a gambling protocol called “Risk on Blast” disappeared with 420 ETH, equivalent to around $1.25 million at the time, collected from user funds for its marketed RISK presale token.

In November 2023, Dan Robinson—Head of Research and General Partner at Paradigm, the VC firm that co-led Blast’s $20 million seed round—wrote that the firm thought the “announcement this week crossed lines in both messaging and execution.”

He further criticized the decision to lock up funds for months and said that “much of the marketing cheapens the work of a serious team.” Blast founder Pacman admitted that Paradigm asked them to “make changes” to the launch plan, but he said that it was ultimately Blast’s own decision to make.

Despite these early challenges, Blast has garnered support from several projects, including NFT platform Zora and pricing oracle provider Pyth, both of which announced their integration with Blast on Thursday. Moreover, developers creating decentralized apps (dApps) on Blast are set to receive 50% of the upcoming airdrop allocation, further enhancing the ecosystem’s appeal.

The post $400 million in ETH Withdrawn from Blast L2 Network Following Mainnet Launch appeared first on Cryptonews.

A report sent to Cryptonews by Web3 app and antivirus solution De.Fi noted that $82,287,101 was lost, with just $1,325,932 recovered.

The biggest DeFi security exploit in February happened in the Ethereum-based Play-to-Earn game PlayDapp, causing a loss of $32.3 million on Ethereum.

PlayDapp faced a major security breach with compromised private keys, resulting in the unauthorized minting and theft of 1.79 billion PLA tokens. The attacker added a new minter to PlayDapp, converting tokens into $32 million USD, then proceeded to disperse stolen funds across various addresses.

Major DeFi Exploit! @playdapp_io Loses $31M in Token Mint Attack.

A critical exploit on PlayDapp resulted in the minting of 200M $PLA tokens, causing a -12% price drop and a $31M loss! This represents a significant increase in circulating supply, impacting the price.

The… pic.twitter.com/dkSSLxRvFb

— Olympix (@Olympix_ai) February 9, 2024

Access Control Issues Leading Cause in DeFi Exploits

Access control issues dominated the past month, accounting for $72,823,472 in losses across four cases.

“Proper access control mechanisms are essential to ensure that only authorized users can perform sensitive operations, thereby preventing unauthorized access or manipulation of funds,” De.Fi said in its report. “The cases impacted by access control issues emphasize the importance of comprehensive security audits to identify and rectify potential vulnerabilities in the system’s access control protocols.”

Ethereum and Bitcoin Heavily Affected

The gaming/metaverse sector recorded the biggest losses, with PlayDapp’s losses being the main contributor. Decentralized Exchanges were also popular targets, with FixedFloat, which lost $26.1 million on Bitcoin, being the largest contributor.

Borrowing and lending platforms were the third most-impacted category, losing over $1.3 million last month.

#FixedFloat hacker continues laundering stolen funds using mixers. Today 43 #btc were sent to an unknown mixer.#hack #exploit #cryptocurrency pic.twitter.com/NxpbryJWb6

— Evgenii| BLIN Analytics (@CryptoEvgen) February 24, 2024

Ethereum was the chain with the highest losses at $40.1 million, with Bitcoin ($26.1 million), BNB Chain ($4.77 million), and Ronin ($9.7 million) also experiencing major losses.

De.Fi concluded that DeFi platforms have to embrace stringent security measures to protect against phishing and other exploits.

“To navigate these challenges, platforms must prioritize comprehensive security audits, embrace robust access management practices, and foster community education to empower users against phishing and other social engineering attacks,” De.Fi said. “As DeFi continues to mature, the collaboration between platforms like De.Fi, security researchers, and users will be paramount in safeguarding the ecosystem and fostering its sustainable growth.”

The post DeFi Exploits in February Cause Losses of $82 Million With Just $1.3 Million Recovered: Report appeared first on Cryptonews.

DeFi is Resilient, TVL On The Rise

The total value locked in decentralized finance (DeFi) has surpassed $80 billion. It’s the first time it has breached this threshold since the infamous fall of the Terra stablecoin nearly two years ago.

According to DefiLlama, TVL is currently $90.113 billion. The last time it stood at this level was May 2022.

An increase can be seen starting October 2023, picking up speed in January 2024.

Between October 28, 2023, and February 28, 2024, TVL has increased by 108.3%.

Blockchain platform Swarm Markets’ co-founder Timo Lehes commented that,

“The end of the Crypto Winter has led to an increase in investor confidence, which has filtered through into the DeFi market. We expect this trend to continue, especially if the prices of well-known crypto assets continue to rise.”

He noted that the DeFi sector is susceptible to “the vagaries” of the wider market as most other sectors are.

However, the above-mentioned increase proves that the DeFi sector is also resilient.

Furthermore, DeFi projects added more than $42 billion in assets over the past few months. This fact “proves the doubters wrong,” Lehes argued.

Therefore, DeFi will only expand in numbers and size in the coming years, he concluded.

Plenty to Be Excited About

Barney Mannerings, DeFi expert and Founder of Vega Protocol, a decentralized exchange for futures and perpetuals, said that we’re witnessing a growing interest in DeFi again.

In a comment shared with Cryptonews, he argued that there is a new wave of experimentation and innovation in the sector.

This is the result of the introduction of new primitives to the network, Mannerings explained. They are primarily based around Ethereum’s staking and yield functionalities.

Also, the recent gains in the crypto market seem to be “funneled back into protocols.” We commonly see this as a bear market turns bullish, Mannerings said and added:

“The fact that ETH, which many are speculating could be packaged into a new spot exchange-traded fund (ETF), is rising so dramatically is only supercharging this trend. But, the impressive showing of Ethereum Layer-2’s (like Mantle and Gnosis) over the past week is showing that growth is happening in interesting places, too.”

As reported earlier this month, wealth management firm Bernstein suggested that Ethereum may be the only digital asset after Bitcoin to secure a spot ETF approval.

Moreover, United States investors’ activity has led to ETH price hikes in recent weeks. A significant reason is investors’ anticipation of spot Ethereum ETF approvals.

Meanwhile, the “considerable growth” of new DeFi primitives like Pendle are providing more reasons to be excited, the Founder argued.

Coupled with the arrival of modern derivatives exchanges, like Vega, “it’s looking like a very exciting time for DeFi, and it will be interesting to see what 2024 brings.”

____

Read more:

• John Paller, Founder of ETHDenver, on Present State of ETH, and Future of DeFi, DAOs, and NFTs
• DeFi Protocol Tranchess Launches New Staking Products Offering Fixed and Leveraged Returns
• More Institutions Will Look to DeFi for Regulated Solutions in 2024
• Ethereum’s TVL Breaches $50 Billion as DeFi Activity Ramps Up

The post Expert Take: Rising DeFi TVL is Silencing the Doubters appeared first on Cryptonews.

The two talked about ETHDenver setting the main themes for the year and what we may see in 2024.

The founder further explained how investing in UI, UX, and specific tools leads to greater DeFi and DAO adoption.

In this interview, Paller discussed:

• shifting regulatory dynamics in the US and how crypto can influence it;
• evolving public sentiment of crypto post-FTX and Terra;
• preparing the Web3 community for the impending bull market;
• Web3’s focus and capital allocated to infrastructure needs to return to users;
• predictions for DAO 2.0, DeFi 2.0, NFT 2.0

Read a portion of what Matt and John chatted about below, and listen to the full episode above.

Super Bowl of Crypto

ETHDenver 2024 has started on February 23 and will last until March 3, boasting a number of events and speakers.

Paller noted that over the years, ETHDenver became two things.

Firstly, it’s the Super Bowl of crypto. There are family and friends reunions, and the community gathers.

Secondly, it’s a menu of topics to be discussed during the year. This is the first major event following the holidays in the US, so many are curious to see what will be placed on stage, what and how it will be talked about – that is, what the year’s main topics are.

The event often sets the main themes, movements, trajectories, players, etc.

Per Paller,

“I think what ends up happening is ETHDenver becomes sort of the distiller for that narrative for the year. […] The narrative gets formed and then walks into the rest of the year as a sort of fairly big thing.”

The team behind ETHDenver gets a lot of input about what goes on their stage – and there are bound to be changes to the narratives and themes throughout the year – “but we’ve been pretty consistently successful at [setting the year’s themes] over the past six years.”

As for 2024, we’re going to see some finality around Layer-2s, Paller argued. The “protocol wars” will end. There will be no more fights, we will “just use it.”

Also, Paller opined that the industry has already solved many of its issues. And while there is plenty left on that list, all of these will eventually be crossed out.

Investment Leading to Mass Adoption

Paller noted “a huge opportunity” for investment into user-facing tools, be it user interface (UI) or user experience (UX) in general, governance tools, tooling for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), or anything else.

There is a clear difference in the amount invested currently. If you look at the dollar-for-dollar investments in protocols versus just DAO tooling or UI/UX, “it’s like a thousand to one,” said Paller, and added:

“Imagine if we had put in that kind of money to UI/UX, where we would be with adoption.”

Therefore, Paller’s prediction is that we’ll see “a huge effort from” the community to improve UI/UX and crypto products, which is how we compete with Web 2 products.

You don’t win acknowledging a trade-off in crypto, Paller warned. For the past five-six years, the industry has been making excuses about trade-offs that we have to make around security, privacy, and transaction costs, among other things. Something is always sacrificed.

At the same time, we must accept the truth that the average user will never use the products as we make them because it’s not convenient and fast enough – simply put, it’s not better than what they’re currently using.

And while some people are willing to, most do not want to go through “eight layers” of a decentralized finance (DeFi) product to figure out how to “stake their damn tokens.”

This is not getting the industry where it wants to go. It proved not to be durable. Also, we don’t really have a product market fit for DeFi, Paller argued.

Furthermore, most people, “let’s be honest,” said Paller, don’t currently care about owning their self-sovereign data.

What they do care about is using something easy, fast, and better than what’s already out there.

“Now, if we can give them fast, easy, better, and sovereignty, will they take it? Yeah, they will.”

Therefore, be it DAO tooling or DeFi products, investing in usability and UI/UX is the key.

“I think the 2.0 on the back of all of this stuff is the application of better user accessibility,” Paller opined.

And though he supports making money, all that these products are currently doing is just making money. That’s a problem. It only showcases the opportunistic side of what this technology can do.

Per Paller,

“If that’s all we do, then we’ve already failed, and it won’t work.”

We’ve got to have more than just making money as the goal. We’ve got to make what we’re creating widely accessible, transparent, permissionless, secure, and convenient for all to use.

The DAO That’s Got It All Figured Out

DAOs are going to make a comeback, John Paller said.

He couldn’t say when exactly, but as other aspects of the industry improve, the DAOs will rise. These aspects include user experience and user interface technologies, which will make DAOs more functional, usable, and configurable.

But DAOs have so far been just “grand experiments.”

Therefore, what’s missing is “a use case to point to that says, here’s the recipe [that] can be used to replicate the success in various contexts of the world,” Paller argued.

We don’t have that yet, and it’s a key ingredient.

Until we get it, we’ll continue to see a lot of experimentation. We’ll be seeing fidelity, development, and tooling enhancements.

“And then one of these days, it’s going to be slow and steady, and then all at once, you’re going to see this big narrative pop up where there’s this DAO that’s got it figured out.”

And who’s that going to be, Paller couldn’t say yet.

What he could say with near certainty is that,

“It’s got to be something people genuinely need, not just what they choose to want.”

This will create a natural demand for this and similar DAOs.

Paller noted that the industry needs to keep working methodically on user experience and abstraction technologies, not compromising security, privacy, data, and identity – but also making it cheaper, better, and faster for people to use “so that we can find these use cases to plug-and-play.”

One of these days, such a DAO will appear.

__________

About John Paller

John Paller is a US-based blockchain entrepreneur, inventor, and futurist. He is the Founder and Executive Steward of ETHDenver, the world’s largest Web3 and Ethereum-based innovation festival.

Paller is also the Founder and Executive Steward of Opolis, a digital employment cooperative for independent workers.

Prior to discovering Ethereum in 2015, Paller spent more than 15 years in talent acquisition, HR Technology, and employment systems, building multiple successful enterprises.

He brings a breadth of experience in fundraising, investor relations, community outreach, and crypto economies, guiding his vision of democratizing employment and growing decentralized communities.

In 2014, Paller was awarded “40 Under 40” by the Denver Business Journal for his contribution to shaping the future of business.

The post John Paller, Founder of ETHDenver, on Present State of ETH, and Future of DeFi, DAOs, and NFTs appeared first on Cryptonews.

The initiative has several goals. These include fostering open-source scalability for the exchange, promoting collaboration across multiple blockchain networks, and helping the protocol stay up-to-date with the crypto industry’s developments.

Per the announcement shared with Cryptonews,

“The team is proposing to roll out an “Affiliate” initiative whereby DeFi protocols can fork PancakeSwap on blockchains where it is not currently deployed.”

The team will invite and approve – on a case-by-case basis – forks of PancakeSwap onto any chain that doesn’t already have the exchange and platform deployed on it.

The team aims to partner with at least three DEXs on three chains this year. Each of these would be in the top ¼ by trading volume on their respective chains long-term, it said.

The proposal is now open for community feedback.

PancakeSwap is working to finalize it for official voting in the coming weeks. This event will follow “comprehensive feedback collection and analysis” by the team.

Scaling PancakeSwap with Protocol Growth

The “Affiliate” initiative encourages forks onto numerous blockchain networks.

The primary motivation for this is that the team wants to “scale the growth of the PancakeSwap protocol exponentially to new blockchains faster, supporting strong DeFi teams that can rely on the unique and improving PancakeSwap all-in-one DeFi product suite.”

Introducing the "Affiliate" Initiative

DeFi protocols will receive recognition from the Kitchen to fork PancakeSwap on blockchains where we're not deployed on

Our user-friendly interface & multichain capabilities aim to expand access & opportunities in DeFi

Join the… pic.twitter.com/mhZkRp4HUT

— PancakeSwapEveryone's Favorite DEX (@PancakeSwap) February 23, 2024

Protocols aiming to fork the platform must align with and adhere to the protocol’s core principles and tokenomics model. This “ensures value accrual to PancakeSwap and CAKE token holders, who benefit from the success of affiliate forks,” the team said.

Those who adhere to the initiative’s principles will receive official recognition as PancakeSwap affiliates. Furthermore, they will have ongoing technical support.

Affiliate Advantages

The team noted that the initiative will give PancakeSwap users access to a broader range of native tokens across different blockchains.

Also, veCAKE users will receive affiliates’ native DEX tokens.

The team will also allocate a portion of the trading fee revenue to burning CAKE.

Moreover, the announcement noted three other key advantages of the proposed system:

• mass adoption: the number of blockchains and the interest in DeFi are both growing; the initiative aims to utilize the platform’s user-friendly interface and multichain capabilities to facilitate broader adoption of digital assets in daily transactions;
• seamless integration: developers and protocols can use the platform’s backbone to build DEXes;
• branding: receiving official recognition from PancakeSwap will provide projects with branding opportunities and ongoing support as part of the PancakeSwap ecosystem.

Chef Mochi, Head of PancakeSwap, commented that “by open-sourcing the PancakeSwap DEX, developers and protocols can leverage its technical foundation to build their own DEX effortlessly, accelerating innovation without starting from scratch.”

The post PancakeSwap Reveals ‘Affiliate’ Initiative to Enable Forks Across Blockchains appeared first on Cryptonews.

Froehlich previously served as the global head of digital asset solutions at Fidelity International, where he led the company’s exploration of cryptocurrencies and tokenized assets for seven years.

Froehlichr Highlights Protocol’s Innovative Approach to Decentralized Exchanges

Layer N is a Layer 2 network built on Ethereum that’s focused on supporting decentralized exchanges designed to replicate their centralized counterparts.

In an interview, Froehlich expressed his motivation for joining Layer N’s advisory board, citing the protocol’s ability to address the fragmentation in financial technologies. He highlighted the project’s architecture, which introduces a network of customizable virtual machines capable of seamless communication and liquidity sharing, overcoming the siloed nature of traditional systems.

“By introducing a network of customizable virtual machines that can communicate and share liquidity seamlessly, Layer N overcomes the often siloed operation of traditional systems,” he said.

Froehlich emphasized Layer N’s utilization of zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) to address the need for transaction confidentiality in traditional finance. By enabling verification without disclosing transaction content, the project meets regulatory and competitive requirements while ensuring confidentiality. He asserted that blockchain technology is now poised to challenge the outdated infrastructure of traditional finance, signaling a significant shift in the industry landscape.

Layer N Unveils Nord Roll-up Testnet, Poised to Revolutionize Decentralized Exchanges

Layer N has unveiled plans to deploy a public testnet for its Nord specialized exchange roll-up, which promises significantly improved throughput and latency compared to existing scaling solutions. The Nord roll-up is expected to offer performance comparable to centralized exchanges like Binance and Coinbase, allowing decentralized exchanges to achieve similar levels of efficiency.

During testing on a closed testnet, the Nord Engine demonstrated the capability to handle high trading activity, reaching a peak of 120,000 transactions per second. While sustaining a rate of 20,000 transactions per second over an extended period, Layer N confirmed the roll-up’s robustness and scalability. Layer N’s mainnet is expected to go live sometime this month. 

Layer N’s CEO and co-founder, Dima Romanov, outlined the vision of launching multiple optimized roll-ups, including a version of the Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible with the Nord Engine. Developers leveraging the platform will be able to build native integrations, empowering them to create applications directly on top of decentralized exchanges.

One of Layer N’s key technologies is EigenDA, which efficiently stores batched transaction data, reducing costs compared to storing data directly on the Ethereum mainnet. In September 2023, the project secured $5 million in a seed funding round led by Founders Fund and dao5, with participation from investors such as Kraken Ventures, Mirana Ventures, GSR, and Amber Group.

Layer N recently announced its expansion into the Asian market through a strategic investment from BlackPine and a partnership with VSFG. These initiatives aim to bolster its Web3 offerings in the region, further solidifying its position in the evolving financial technology landscape.

The post Former Fidelity International Executive Luc Froehlich Joins Layer N Advisory Board appeared first on Cryptonews.

In an X post, the Ethereum-based wallet said in addition to Ethereum, its MetaMask Security Alerts would now be available on Linea, BNB Smart Chain, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Avalanche.

Privacy-focused MetaMask Security Alerts from @blockaid_, initially added in October, are now default for all Extension users and coming to Mobile under "Experimental". Be sure to opt-in on Mobile!

Our commitment to keeping your assets secure just got stronger pic.twitter.com/5n9WoCke3V

— MetaMask (@MetaMask) February 20, 2024

MetaMask Security Alerts

MetaMask Security Alerts proactively notifies users during transactions when they interact with a recognized threat. MetaMask Security Alerts simulates the requested transaction, identifies potential malicious patterns, and provides warnings to users if the transaction is anticipated to lead to a loss of funds.

Developed in collaboration with its security partner Blockaid, the feature’s effectiveness was demonstrated during the notorious phishing scam in September 2023 when Vitalik Buterin’s X handle was compromised, as users who had enabled the feature earlier were able to steer clear of the scam.

According to MetaMask, Blockaid’s systems identified the malicious decentralized application a full 24 hours before the hack occurred, resulting in users saving $100,000 worth of assets. The alert system also played a crucial role in signaling the security breach when Uniswap founder Hayden Adams’ Twitter account was hacked later in October.

Senior Product Manager at Metamask Bárbara Schorchit told Cointelegraph that the alert feature played an important role in helping users save over $1 million during the recent Ledger Connect Kit incident in December.

“Nearly 100 front-end DApps were compromised, yet every MetaMask user who opted into the security alerts powered by Blockaid were protected, preventing what we estimate to be ~$1.15 million worth of assets from being stolen,” Schorchit said.

Crypto Wallet Sees Surge in User Numbers

The introduction of the new security features coincides with substantial user growth for the wallet, approaching its peak in 2022. Monthly active users surged from 19 million in September 2023 to 30 million in January 2024.

Two weeks ago, MetaMask announced a partnership with popular trading platform Robinhood, according to MetaMask developer Consensys.

The collaboration will allow MetaMask users to buy digital assets with Robinhood’s order flow. Simultaneously, Robinhood account holders can fund and transfer their crypto assets to their MetaMask wallet.

The post MetaMask Launches Real-Time Security Alerts on Major Chains appeared first on Cryptonews.

According to a recent blog post by Susa, the platform intended to improve the efficiency and reliability of decentralized trading by leveraging Layer N’s technology. This collaboration sought to narrow the performance gap between decentralized and centralized exchanges.

1/ Introducing Sushi's most exciting and ambitious project to date, @susa_ex — the most powerful perpetuals exchange in crypto.https://t.co/IGMDvhnX3U

— Sushi.com (@SushiSwap) February 13, 2024

Susa and Layer N’s Nord Engine

Susa’s approach to enhancing decentralized trading hinged on the integration of Layer N’s Nord Engine, which was specifically designed to address the scalability and speed issues commonly found in DeFi platforms.

“Sushi is excited to partner with Layer N, as we fully embrace the spirit of decentralized finance (DeFi) by combining our expertise to develop superior products,” said Sushi’s Head Chef Jared Grey.

“Layer N’s modular approach to rollups unlocks greater capital efficiency and deeper liquidity, all while leveraging the security of Ethereum,” said Grey. “With perpetual DEXs comprising a small share of the market, introducing Susa highlights our drive for innovation.”

Utilizing the StateNet architecture from Layer N, Susa planned to offer developers the ability to build everything from basic smart contracts to extensive rollups. It was designed to cultivate a dynamic ecosystem surrounding Susa.

“Sushi has been one of the core DeFi protocols for years, and we are thrilled to support them in their next chapter,” said Layer N co-founder and CEO Dima Romanov. “We are excited to see Susa be one of the first rollup nodes to launch on Layer N.”

“Susa is poised to become one of the largest perpetual exchanges in decentralized space and build one of the largest ecosystems,” said Romanov.

Sushi and ZetaChain Introduced Native Bitcoin Trading

In November 2023, Sushi partnered with ZetaChain to introduce native Bitcoin trading, allowing seamless Bitcoin swaps across 30 networks without traditional wrapping into ERC-20 tokens.

ZetaChain’s layer 1 blockchain enabled the efficient cross-blockchain transactions with its Omnichain Smart Contracts, supporting a wide array of digital assets. The collaboration signified a leap towards DeFi 3.0, offering a permissionless trading experience for native Bitcoin.

The post Sushi’s Decentralized Derivatives Exchange Susa to Launch on Layer N appeared first on Cryptonews.

2021 was the year DeFi went from underground to mainstream, shattering records left and right, with wallets ballooning and the DeFi Pulse Index skyrocketing by 154%.

“2021 outperformed 2020 at every moment,” says the crew at ConsenSys.

And the numbers? From a cozy $9 billion in TVL (total value locked) to a whopping $179 billion by November 2021. But what’s fuelling this financial upheaval, and what market trends can we identify right now?

Keep reading to unlock the secrets of DeFi, and find out why analysts believe this will become a $18.28 billion financial ecosystem by 2027.

A $18.28B Advance Is Expected In Revenue Within The DeFi Market By 2027

The latest figures from Statista show that the DeFi market revenue will continue to see significant and steady increase year after year for the foreseeable future.

Revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2024-2028) of 9.07%, resulting in a projected total of $37 billion by 2028.

In 2023, the market recorded $17.74 billion in revenue. This was a substantial increase (226.7%) from the winter conditions of the year prior which had seen only $5.43 billion.

Moving forward, however, 2024 is projected to record a 47.5% revenue increase to $26.15 billion. By 2025, this number is expected to grow to $31.54 billion, concluding the first half of this decade on a strong note.

Statista forecasts the following two years to be successful as well. 2026 is projected to see its revenue increase to $34.15 billion, followed by $36.02 billion in 2027. Therefore, between 2023 and 2027, DeFi market revenue is projected to rise to $18.28 billion, representing a 103% increase.

The average revenue per user in the DeFi market amounted to $1,064 in 2023. This year, the number is projected to rise to $1,378, and it could hit $1,650 by 2027.

Asked why there is such significant growth in the DeFi market, Vijay Marolia, the Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Regal Point Capital and a money manager with over 20 years of capital markets experience, commented that inflation is the original motivation and it continues to be a major demand driver.  He added:

“But hidden fees, red tape, and time wasted are also reasons why DeFi solutions should continue to see growth.”

TradFi is working against itself, Marolia suggested.

• the US Federal Reserve utilizes data that is too old, while dual mandates are self-defeating,
• insurance companies are making many of their products unaffordable,
• borrowing costs are up significantly across the board,
• administrators are the fastest growing cost for organizations, and usually the least productive.

Meanwhile, Marolia said, “software continues to eat the world. Finance won’t escape it.”

Why is DeFi Growing So Fast?

According to Statista data, the DeFi sector is currently experiencing significant growth and innovation.Several factors are contributing to this, including:

• increasing demand for DeFi services that are more accessible, transparent, and inclusive than traditional finance (TradFi),
• individual’s and entity’s ability to create new financial instruments and services, thanks to blockchain’s programmability and flexibility,
• the rise of decentralized exchanges (DEXs),
• the emergence of yield farming,
• the integration of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), enabling new ways to collateralize assets.

Per the analysts, the DeFi market will continue to grow. Major growth drivers include:

• the ongoing development of new DeFi use cases and applications,
• the increasing adoption of crypto by mainstream investors,
• the continued emergence of new DeFi platforms and protocols.

Aaron Rafferty, the CEO of StandardDAO and Co-Founder of BattlePACs, a subsidiary of Standard DAO, stated that revenues in DeFi are predicated on asset transactions. He further noted that,

“Derivatives trading and asset tokenization are two products that are in their infancy still in crypto, however, with big institutional money coming into the space, these are the two areas that represent the biggest opportunity over the next 3 years.”

These are two of the biggest markets in the world and by comparison, their representation in DeFi is less than 1%. Exchanges like Coinbase are pushing hardest to bring – primarily US – users in, and now that they have a DeFi alternative, we should see significantly more inflow, Rafferty said.

95% More Americans Will Utilize The DeFi Market By 2027

The DeFi user increase will be seen globally – but not equally. The top 5 countries leading the race by 2027 will be the USA, the UK, Russia, Germany, and Canada, respectively.

From a global comparison perspective, the USA is projected to keep the throne over the next three years, doubling its 2023 DeFi user base.

More specifically, it will rise from 8,673,000 in 2023 to a whopping 16,920,000 in 2027. This is a 95% increase.

In 2024, the number of DeFi users in the US is predicted to rise to 12.53 million, followed by 14.99 million in 2025 and 16.15 million in 2026.

Though just one place behind the US, the UK’s user base is substantially smaller. In 2023, it saw 780,300 users. That said, among the top five countries, it is also projected to experience the highest jump. The number of DeFi users in the United Kingdom is predicted to jump 144% by 2027 to 1,904,000.

Commenting on the large gap between the UK and the US in the number of DeFi users, Ramy Bekhiet, Senior Advisor and Commercial Partnerships Coordinator at PDX, said, “a big contribution to that is the approval of the Bitcoin ETF and the upcoming approval of the Ethereum ETF around May/June” in the US.

Meanwhile, the next three countries on the list are close in numbers. Though having more modest user bases than the US, they are set to experience the same or larger ascent over the next three years.

The number of DeFi users in Russia will jump 95% between 2023 and 2027, from 717,500 to 1,399,000.

Germany is projected to see a rise from its 2023 number of 695,500 to 1,357,000 in 2027: a 95.1% jump.

Finally, Canada’s DeFi users will see their group balloon by 127.5%, going from 581,600 to 1,323,000.

In the DeFi market, users worldwide are expected to reach 21.83 million by 2027.

User penetration was 0.22% in 2023. It will be 0.25% in 2024 and is expected to hit 0.27% in 2026, where it will stay in 2027 as well, rising again in 2028 to 0.28%.

According to Vijay Marolia,

“As central banks around the world continue to lose the trust of their citizens, most of whom are struggling with inflation, demand for decentralized solutions will continue to grow. Regardless of the price of Bitcoin, blockchain technology is here to stay.”

Regulatory and Security Threats on the Horizon

It will likely not be smooth sailing for the DeFi over the next few years. Between 2023 and 2027, the market is expected to face significant challenges. These primarily include:

• regulatory uncertainty
• security concerns.

Bekhiet argued that,

“Security is a huge concern. Malicious actors eager to steal users’ funds can exploit smart contracts that have very weak coding by the development team.”

Per Vijay Marolia, “the federal government, regulators, and entities around the world will all try to legislate their way out of the problems they perceive.” But Mariola argues their attempt will be futile, saying: “Absent a shock to the electrical infrastructure, blockchain technology can’t be stopped.”

Conclusion

Revenue in the DeFi market is projected to reach $26.15 billion this year and $36.02 billion by 2027.

Therefore, between 2023 and 2027, DeFi market revenue is forecasted to advance by $18.28 billion. Meanwhile, the USA will maintain its position as the country with the most DeFi users globally.

Between 2023 and 2027, 95% more Americans will turn to DeFi solutions. The top 5 list includes the UK, Russia, Germany, and Canada.

Analysts have found that DeFi is currently experiencing significant growth and innovation.

The driving factors include the increased development of decentralized applications (dApps) and use cases, increasing demand for DeFi services, growing adoption of crypto by mainstream investors, the ability to create new financial instruments and services, blockchain’s programmability and flexibility, as well as DeFi’s enhanced accessibility, transparency, and inclusivity when compared to TradFi.

Meanwhile, regulatory uncertainty and security concerns could impact DeFi’s growth in the coming years. All that said, and given the continuing growth in the industry, as well as the upcoming Bitcoin halving which is almost certain to push the entire crypto industry upward, analysts expect clear skies ahead for DeFi.

The post DeFi Market Forecast: A $18.28 Billion Explosion by 2027 appeared first on Cryptonews.

This marks the highest level since August 2022, according to data provider DeFi Llama. 

The recent increase in TVL can be attributed to the rally in Bitcoin, driven by the launch of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States.

DeFi deposits surged from $17.3 billion in January 2021 to nearly $178 billion in December of the same year, only to drop below $40 billion in December 2022, as per data from DeFi Llama.

Daily Trading Volumes on DeFi Projects Increase

Daily trading volumes on DeFi protocols have also surged, reaching as high as $7.3 billion in early January, the highest since March 2023.

The market capitalization of DeFi-linked crypto tokens has risen from $72 billion to $77 billion since the beginning of December, according to CoinGecko.

The anticipation of lower interest rates in the United States has further fueled the appeal of DeFi protocols.

Investors can deposit their crypto tokens in these protocols and earn yields, often at higher rates than those offered by the U.S. Treasury.

Michael Rinko, an analyst at Delphi Digital, told Reuters that “for the first time in a year or so the rate that you can get in DeFi is higher than the U.S. Treasury rate.”

This has attracted capital to flow into DeFi, with investors seeking better returns.

DeFi TVL Comes With Surging Crypto Prices

The recent rise in DeFi deposits coincided with the increase in prices of Bitcoin and Ethereum in early January, primarily driven by the launch of American spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs.

As the prices of these cryptocurrencies soared, investors gained greater liquidity, prompting them to explore riskier assets such as DeFi tokens.

However, both Bitcoin and Ethereum (ETH) have since given up most of their gains, with minimal increases of 0.2% and 0.5%, respectively, which has led to a decline in the prices of many DeFi tokens.

Despite the price fluctuations, some market participants believe that the current surge in DeFi activity could be more sustainable.

Solana (SOL), one of the most popular DeFi chains, has quadrupled in price over the past six months, outpacing Bitcoin and Ethereum.

This suggests that the interest in DeFi may persist even if the prices of major cryptocurrencies experience volatility.

On the other hand, there are concerns about the future of DeFi, as financial markets push back expectations for interest rate cuts.

For one, Katie Talati, director of research at asset manager Arca, has said that it may take some time to observe the impact of rate cuts on DeFi activity.

DeFi is an emerging financial technology based on secure distributed ledgers.

It aims to replicate investment, borrowing, and trading processes in a decentralized environment, where peer-to-peer transactions are executed through smart contracts on the blockchain, without the need for intermediaries such as banks or brokers.

The post DeFi TVL Reaches $60 Billion, Highest Level Since August 2022 appeared first on Cryptonews.

The nearly tenfold increase since January 26 is due to the launch of the Frames feature across Farcaster’s protocols. Much of the excitement occurred on its Twitter/X-esque client Warpcast.

Frames enables users to take any post, aka ‘Cast’ in the protocol’s terminology, and turn it into an interactive application, allowing them to superimpose polls, live feeds, mint NFTs, play games and perform many other interactions, according to Farcaster documents.

The feature taps the EdDSA authentication system. This is a cryptographic digital signature algorithm that eliminates “wallet drain risk,” says Farcaster co-founder Dan Romero.

The launch and sudden spike in traffic was not without a hitch. On Sunday, Romero tweeted that there was “degraded performance” on the Warpcast application.

Protocol Farcaster brings social media on-chain.

Two executive Coinbase alumni, former Vice President Dan Romero and ex-Senior Director Varul Srinivasan, co-founded Farcaster in 2020.

It’s a decentralized protocol that powers a number of clients, including the microblogging app Warpcast, which is by far the most popular.

It accounts for 44.8% of Farcaster’s current user base. Although people often confuse the two, Warpcast is a centralized protocol built on top of Farcaster. Recently, the latter was touted by Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin for its security features.

The advantages of Farcaster’s decentralized structure include user ownership over their data and censorship-free content.

The majority of Farcaster users link their Ethereum wallets to access the full suite of features across Farcaster’s applications. However, basic in-app features don’t require constant transactions.

One of the biggest divergences between Farcaster and its competitors is the concept of storage, according to X crypto guru Cygaar (@0xCygaar).

He explained in a thread on Sunday that to send posts and messages on Farcaster, users must rent storage space. While this may not sound appealing, the utility is to help reduce clutter like spam and bot activity.

Farcaster adoption has been skyrocketing lately, but many people still don't understand what it is.

Farcaster is not just a Twitter replacement – it's a whole decentralized protocol that can power a huge range of apps.

Here's a simple introduction to @farcaster_xyz : pic.twitter.com/sAxGjGnrQr

— cygaar (@0xCygaar) February 4, 2024

The post Farcaster Records Surge in Daily Users with Frames Launch appeared first on Cryptonews.

Larsen’s Accounts Hacked

“Yesterday, there was unauthorized access to a few of my personal XRP accounts (not @Ripple) – we were quickly able to catch the problem and notify exchanges to freeze the affected addresses,” Larsen posted to X. “Law enforcement is already involved.”

Before Larsen’s clarification, X user ZachXBT posted data detailing the hack, which totaled more than $112.5 million worth of stolen XRP.

“So far the stolen funds have been laundered through MEXC, Gate, Binance, Kraken, OKX, HTX, HitBTC, etc.,” ZachXBT posted.

It appears @Ripple was hacked for ~213M XRP ($112.5M)

Source address
rJNLz3A1qPKfWCtJLPhmMZAfBkutC2Qojm

So far the stolen funds have been laundered through MEXC, Gate, Binance, Kraken, OKX, HTX, HitBTC, etc pic.twitter.com/HKGYsLQeMv

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) January 31, 2024

XRP Dips in Value

Following news of the hack, the price of XRP plummeted by more than 5%. The token’s value was able to course correct slightly, however, with the cryptocurrency down by 4% as of late Wednesday morning.

It appears as though Ripple users’ accounts have been untouched by hackers at the moment.

Despite this, not everyone on social media was pleased with Larsen’s statement regarding the hack.

“So if Zach never reported it,” one X user wrote in response, “you wouldn’t tell the public?”

“Totally completely separate entities… *wink* *wink*,” ZachXBT replied.

Crypto Hacks–A Recurring Problem Beyond Ripple

News of Larsen’s accounts being hacked is part of an ongoing security issue, with Immunefi statistics revealing nearly $127 million went into the hands of hackers and fraudsters across 19 specific incidents in January 2024 alone.

The number marks a drastic increase in crypto losses year-over-year, with January 2024’s total six times the amount taken illegally in January 2023. DeFi has been the primary target for hackers and fraudsters throughout the first month of 2024.

Just three weeks ago, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) X account was hacked shortly before the federal agency approved spot bitcoin ETFs, prompting further scrutiny from the crypto community.

“I do think the chair of the SEC, Gary Gensler, is a political liability in the United States,” Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse told CNBC. “And I think he’s not acting in the interests of the citizenry, he’s not acting in the interests of the long-term growth of the economy, and I don’t understand it.”

Ripple and the SEC have experienced gridlock with each other before, with a judge partially ruling in favor of Ripple’s argument that XRP is not a security during a lawsuit brought forward by the federal agency in July 2023.

“I think at some point there will be a new chair of the SEC, and I think that will be a good thing for the American people,” Garlinghouse stated.

The post Ripple Co-founder Hacked of Over $112 Million Worth of XRP appeared first on Cryptonews.

Popular Ethereum-based decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol Abracadabra Money fell victim to a platform attack on January 30.

Announcing the incident on its official X (formerly Twitter) handle, the DeFi protocol stated that it is aware of an exploit on its platform that involved ‘certain cauldrons on Ethereum.’ Its engineering team is investigating the situation, they noted.

We are aware of an exploit involving certain cauldrons on Ethereum.

Our engineering team is triaging and investigating the situation.

To the best of its Ability, the DAO treasury will be buying back MIM from the market to then burn.

More updates are coming.

— (@MIM_Spell) January 30, 2024

The Financial Impact on Abracadabra Money

In an effort to mitigate the impact of the crypto theft, the Abracadabra decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) treasury will be buying back its Magic Internet Money (MIM) tokens from the market for burning.

While the platform has been forthcoming about the platform hack, it did not disclose how much in funds were stolen by the malicious actor.

Providing further details on the hack, Cyvers Alerts revealed on social media that the perpetrator managed to abscond with $6.5 million in crypto assets. This resulted in over 2,740 Ether tokens being illicitly withdrawn from the Abracadabra Money platform’s wallet address.

Around $4 million out of the pilfered loot was then transferred to a new Ethereum-based wallet address.

ALERTOur AI powered system has detected multiple suspicious transactions with @MIM_Spell (Ongoing)

Based on our first investigation, attacker was able to gain around $6.5M.

Attacker was funded by @TornadoCash. Around $4M already transferred to a new EOA at… pic.twitter.com/41tJtKh97Q

— Cyvers Alerts (@CyversAlerts) January 30, 2024

According to blockchain security and analytics firm Peckshield, the hacker executed the cyberattack using an initial 1 Ether funded through the US-sanctioned crypto mixing protocol Tornado Cash.

Crypto Thefts Dipped 54% in 2023

Abracadabra Money is a non-custodial stablecoin DeFi lending protocol that enables users to deposit various crypto assets as collateral and receive its MIM token in return.

Subsequently, users can trade or lock up these DeFi tokens on other decentralized application (dApp) platforms to generate passive income.

The recent hack on the platform is not an isolated event but rather part of a trend in the crypto industry, particularly within the DeFi sub-sector.

Since its launch in August 2020, smart contract-backed financial systems have consistently been targeted by various cyber threat groups.

In 2021 alone, DeFi projects incurred losses exceeding $3.2 billion, primarily within the blockchain-based financial system.

While the total losses in 2022 decreased to $3.1 billion, the trend has continued to decline in the past year. According to a Chainalysis annual report, total crypto losses in 2023 amounted to $1.7 billion, indicating a considerable 54.3% drop from the previous year.

Funds stolen from crypto platforms in 2023 fell 54.3% to $1.7 billion. This is mostly due to a drop in DeFi hacking, which drove the increase in stolen crypto that we saw in 2021 and 2022. However, there still were several large DeFi hacks in 2023. pic.twitter.com/s8Ix982HR2

— Chainalysis (@chainalysis) January 24, 2024

Despite the drop in fiat value stolen, the report highlighted a slight increase in the number of cyber threats compared to 2022. In 2022, there were 219 cyber threats, which rose to 231 in 2023, according to the blockchain security firm.

The report also delves into the role of bad actors, with the North Korea-backed Lazarus Group notably standing out. Chainalysis revealed that this cyber threat group accounted for $1 billion out of the $1.7 billion total losses and launched a record number of 20 attacks.

Value lost in DeFi hacks declined by 63.7% YoY. @mgimenezaguilar at @HalbornSecurity shared potential reasons behind this decline, citing DeFi security improvements, but also the overall drop in DeFi TVL, which may have reduced funds available to steal.

— Chainalysis (@chainalysis) January 24, 2024

Giving reasons behind a lower loss ratio, Chainalysis stated that better security measures and lower amounts of digital assets in the DeFi space played important roles.

The post Abracadabra Money in Crisis as $6.5 Million Crypto Theft Sends Shockwaves Across DeFi Community appeared first on Cryptonews.

Commander turned director

Known for his role as Commander William Riker in Star Trek, Frakes has a bevy of directing titles under his belt, including Burn Notice, Roswell, and two Star Trek films. Garzik, who previously worked as a prominent developer of Bitcoin Core and, opened NextCypher in 2022.

“I launched NextCypher to capitalize on the appetite for innovative, high-quality genre entertainment,” Garzik told Deadline. “I’m glad to see the market aligning with our vision of producing smartly budgeted, and exceptional content for a global audience.”

“Hope, romance, and resilience in the face of adversity”

Originally published in 1986, Deathlands takes place in a post-apoclyptic world and follows a group of survivors who must band together as they utilize telportation techynology to traverse their unforgiving landscape.

“With a series that is gritty, suspenseful, and action-packed, with a sense of hope, romance, and resilience in the face of adversity, I cannot imagine anyone better to bring Deathlands to the screen than visionary director, Jonathan Frakes,” Altman told Deadline. “I couldn’t be more thrilled to have him onboard to ensure the series will be appointment television for viewers everywhere.”

Currently, shooting is scheduled for this spring in Bulgaria. Garzik is serving alongside Thomas P. Vitale as executive producer, with Mark A. Altman as both showrunner and executive producer. International sales are being Tai Truesdell and Bertrand Reignier of Rogue Wave Entertainment, with casting by Christine Sheaks.

“One of the things that I find so compelling about Deathlands is that it’s a series about hope and the chance to build a better world,” Frakes told Deadline. “I’m excited about the opportunity to bring this show, combining feature-level action and compelling character drama, to the world.”

There’s more action-packed series to come from Garzik

Yet, Deathlands is just the tip of the iceberg for the Web3 production studio. NextCypher is also developing another sci-fi series about a woman who loses her memory on a quest to “save the outcasts of society from a deadly conspiracy that threatens to destroy the future.”

“Deathlands is an ideal launchpad for us, especially considering the success of similar post-apocalyptic series based on successful IPs like The Last of Us and the eagerly anticipated Fallout,” Garzik said. A release date is yet to be announced.

The post Star Trek’s Jonathan Frakes Set to Direct Series for Jeff Garzik’s Web3 Production Studio: Deadline appeared first on Cryptonews.

Why companies are combining crypto with AI

Jacqueline Burns-Koven, head of cyber threat intelligence for Chainalysis – a blockchain analysis firm – told Cryptonews that Chainalysis has started thinking about ways to use AI to make compliance, risk, investigations and growth products better for customers. “Like any business, we stand to benefit by utilizing AI to improve how we work across the business; by making it faster and more efficient,” Burns-Koven said.

Crypto tax software provider ZenLedger also recently announced a partnership with april – an AI-powered financial company – to use AI to simplify the tax filing process for users. Pat Larsen, co-founder and CEO of ZenLedger, told Cryptonews that ZenLedger’s new product will leverage april’s technology to route taxpayers through a single flow, combining federal and state, and then deciding which question to ask next. “This is in contrast to traditional tax filing software that asks questions of the user in the order the forms are completed, and then parses out federal and state forms into separate sections, often duplicating the same questions in each,” Larsen said.

Daniel Marcous, CTO and co-founder of april, told Cryptonews that AI has been instrumental to april’s ability to build a tax product covering many common tax scenarios, including income from crypto and digital assets. According to Marcous, april uses a process called “tax-to-code” in which large language models (LLMs) have been trained to read tax documents and then turn those into software code which is then reviewed and edited by a team of tax engineers.

AI is also helping power a number of decentralized finance (DeFi) use cases. Nick Emmons, co-founder and CEO of Upshot – an AI infrastructure company – told Cryptonews that Upshot is building a decentralized network where different AI models can learn from each other. According to Emmons, having models learn off each other will create a meta intelligence across an AI-powered network. In turn, this will make networks more performant and intelligent compared with individual models being used.

Emmons explained that Upshot’s AI model is powering a number of DeFi use cases. For example, he explained that AI can create efficiencies for price feeds for long-tail crypto assets, or digital assets that don’t often trade but exist in liquid settings. He said:

“AI becomes a useful tool for being able to produce more frequent price updates based on different information, not just an asset changing hands. This means that we can now start to bring a much larger universe of assets into the DeFi design space.”

To put this in perspective, Emmons explained that Upshot will soon introduce “watch perps” generated by AI-enabled watch feeds. He said:

“An individual watch is incapable of producing a real enough time feed to build a market around it. AI models can process a lot of information at once, so you can start to produce highly accurate and high frequency price feeds to turn digital assets into on-chain, tokenized representations. This will expand the universe of digital assets.”

Additionally, Emmons pointed out that AI-powered DeFi vaults are coming to fruition. A DeFi vault acts as a pool of funds with an auto-compounding strategy that manages and performs tasks based on predefined on-chain conditions. Yet Emmons noted that this is problematic given that most on-chain activity is limited when it comes to compute power. “As such, the yield a user can generate is limited,” he said.

In order to solve this problem, Emmons noted that AI models can be applied to make sense of information more efficiently. “AI can be used to codify strategies that can be brought on-chain in the form of vaults. This can then be used for market making and more.”

Although this use case is still in its infancy, RoboNet is an AI-powered DeFi protocol for long-tail and fungible asset markets. RoboNet is powered by Upshot and allows for the creation of on-chain vaults managed by machine learning models that generate yield through automated liquidity optimization strategies.

Challenges combing AI with crypto

While AI can help crypto products perform more efficiently, there are still a number of challenges to consider. For example, Emmons pointed out that when AI is leveraged for building DeFi protocols, the creators behind those models need to be trusted, otherwise a number of issues could occur. He said:

“Bias and manipulation can arise, which is why it’s important to reimagine the AI stack in decentralized form factors. Different models can keep other models in check to create less bias and a more transparent source of intelligence.”

Emmons explained that ZK proofs can also help verify machine learning models. “Upshot recently released a product like this where we verified the output of our flagship price prediction model inside a ZK circuit. This provides assurance and computational integrity for permissionless protocols.”

Marcous added that he believes generative AI working alongside tax experts and engineers mitigates risk since a human is involved. “At april, we conduct a rigorous testing process on the entirety of the product and have to pass tests with the Internal Revenue Service and state authorities before launching,” he said.

While these tactics may be helpful, the lack of regulations around the use of AI will likely present ongoing challenges. For instance, understanding whether or not AI is being applied for the best interest of users versus investors or the creators of machine learning models remains difficult to determine.

Due to this, certain countries have started to establish organizations to enforce AI regulations. For example, the president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, recently issued a law to establish the Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council (AIATC). An announcement from the Abu Dhabi government noted that, “the council will be responsible for developing and implementing policies and strategies related to research, infrastructure and investments in artificial intelligence and advanced technology in Abu Dhabi.”

United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler also recently warned about the dangers that AI could pose to the traditional financial sector. Given this, more regulatory clarity around AI will likely be implemented in the U.S. in the future.

All of these developments are important, as Emmons believes that AI will eventually be incorporated into every critical function of society. In the meantime, he pointed out that the crypto sector will likely incorporate forms of AI that have already been implemented in traditional financial systems. He said:

“This is because crypto is a financial innovation, so this type of AI can be more conducive with financial applications. Also, classical types of machine learning models are more attractive and compatible with these verifiable form factors, so cryptographic tooling that can be built around those will be able to come online faster than generative AI models.”

The post Crypto Companies Leverage AI Despite Ongoing Challenges appeared first on Cryptonews.

The expert further shared interesting insights into major themes that will define 2024, non-fungible token (NFT) use cases leading to increased interest, the US SEC Chair’s disinterest in the crypto industry’s opinion, and more.

Read on to learn what he told us.

Investors are Enthusiastic, But Cautious

Investor sentiment in the cryptocurrency space is not easy to predict as it’s ever-changing. That said, Stadelmann shared that for most retail investors, enthusiasm is driven by the potential of crypto. At the same time, caution persists due to market volatility and regulatory uncertainties.

When it comes to institutional investors, he said,

“I think the approval of the first spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US has created a wave of optimism and signals growing confidence that crypto will only gain more momentum over the next few years.”

Stadelmann noted that the crypto market’s short-term trends remain tied to macroeconomic factors. These significantly influence investor sentiment.

Speaking of hard-to-predict areas: crypto market’s price trends and news events. However, Stadelmann said there are some possible themes to consider.

As said, the US Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) finally approved the first round of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in January. Per the CTO,

“Although the initial hype around this news has since faded, major investments from institutions are only beginning.”

Therefore, throughout February and the rest of 2024, we’ll see more of these large players from TradFi start to enter the crypto space.

Therefore, we’ll soon see to what extent institutional investors and ETFs factor into the market’s price movement.

Finally, it is important to note the anticipation building around the next Bitcoin halving, expected in April.

Halvings typically signal the start of a new bull market cycle for BTC – but also for altcoins. It will be interesting to see, Stadelmann said, if BTC and/or altcoins can reach new all-time highs post-halving.

DeFi Market Poised to Grow Again

Things have significantly changed for DeFi between 2022 and 2024. And the shift goes beyond crypto market prices.

The bear market of 2022 brought numerous challenges to many DeFi projects, Stadelmann said. This includes vulnerabilities, smart contract exploits, and regulatory uncertainties.

And these remain major concerns in 2024.

Also during 2022, DeFi’s total value locked (TVL) went from more than $150 billion to less than $40 billion. However, as of January 2024, TVL has rebounded to $55 billion at the time of writing.

The CTO opined,

“The space appears poised to grow once again.”

Another noteworthy shift since 2022 has been the maturation of Layer 2 (L2) blockchain networks, which has increased scalability and reduced transaction costs. DeFi applications on these networks are now usable from a cost perspective, said the expert.

Also, cross-chain interoperability developments have contributed to a more united DeFi ecosystem.

Major Themes for 2024

We’ve already noted the potential future movements in crypto prices, investment sentiment, and DeFi markets.

But 2024 has much more to offer. Stadelmann listed the year’s major themes. He said these will gain more importance even beyond 2024 as the crypto space matures.

First and foremost, he said, is the interoperability among different blockchain networks.

“As the blockchain space diversifies, the need for users to trade across blockchains will only continue to increase.”

In the CTO’s opinion, more users will turn to peer-to-peer (P2P) bridge solutions, like the one offered by Komodo Wallet.

Next: L2s will continue to grow and witness accelerated adoption. More users are moving into the DeFi space and are using decentralized apps (dapps) more frequently. Hence, it is critical to alleviate Layer 1 congestion and reduce transaction costs by processing a significant portion of transactions off-chain.

Stadelmann said that,

“The ongoing development and adoption of L2 solutions signify a crucial step towards achieving mainstream scalability for blockchain technology.”

Gary Gensler is Not Interested in Crypto Industry’s Opinion

The central theme for 2024, Stadelmann said, is the pursuit of regulatory clarity. And greater certainty will, hopefully, create a catalyst for accelerated market growth.

Governments and regulatory bodies globally are increasingly engaging with the crypto industry.

Speaking of which, Stadelmann recently wrote an open letter to SEC Chair Gary Gensler. Asked if Gensler is interested in hearing the crypto industry’s opinions, Stadelmann replied that he doesn’t think so.

One positive move from Gensler’s administration was the approval of new ETFs. And yet,

“After years of delays, the main factor for approval was likely political pressure from capital-rich institutions.”

Meanwhile, we have seen very little movement to protect investors or make crypto more accessible to investors, he said.

Furthermore, SEC enforcement actions against Ripple, Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken have stunted the potential growth of the crypto industry. And while the agency has clear evidence against FTX and “other industry players that have blatantly hurt investors,” argued Stadelmann, Gensler decided not to focus on these issues.

3⃣Fraudsters continue to exploit the rising popularity of crypto assets to lure retail investors into scams. These investments continue to be replete w/ fraud- bogus coin offerings, Ponzi & pyramid schemes, & outright theft where a project promoter disappears w/ investors’ money.

— Gary Gensler (@GaryGensler) January 8, 2024

NFT Use Cases Wil Result in More Interest

Finally, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), despite discussions of their decline, are here to stay.

Stadelmann said,

“I am optimistic about their future in 2024 and beyond. The NFT market has undergone a major shift in focus, expanding beyond digital art to include gaming, virtual real estate, and metaverse-related assets.”

Industries will continue to adopt NFT technology. Subsequently, use cases will diversify and lead to renewed interest.

“I predict we’ll see NFT become more integrated with real-world assets, which will provide unique experiences that go beyond simple digital ownership,” the CTO opined.

#BitcoinOrdinals Debate: : Innovation or Disruption? Bitcoin Ordinals Have Proven So Controversial It Could Tear the Bitcoin Industry in Two, writes @KomodoPlatform CTO Kadan Stadelmann. Don't miss this! #Bitcoin #BitcoinNFTs #NFTs https://t.co/mhEvCDxnPR

— AlexaBlockchain (@AlexaBlockchain) December 30, 2023

Why Don’t We Have DeFi Simplicity Yet?

It’s been said for years that simplicity and ease of use are the answer to DeFi’s adoption issues. Stadelmann argues that achieving this goal has proven to be a difficult task.

The biggest obstacle is the inherent complexity of DeFi processes involving smart contracts, liquidity pools, and yield farming.

“Balancing user-friendly interfaces with the intricacies of blockchain technology presents a non-stop challenge.”

There are some potential solutions:

• enhance user education through comprehensive tutorials; e.g. users taking the time to learn about the fundamentals of blockchain technology and how to use specific DeFi platforms;
• simplify the DeFi onboarding process for crypto newcomers.

Komodo Wallet, for example, recently added a fiat on-ramp, lowering the barrier to DeFi market participation. Users can directly buy crypto with fiat instead of signing up for a centralized exchange account and learning how to transfer assets on-chain.

Year of the Dragon Brings New Roadmap

Stadelmann couldn’t share any specific Komodo’s plans for 2024, but said that it will focus on enhancing blockchain interoperability to unify the DeFi space.

“We plan to release our 2024 roadmap on Chinese New Year, which falls on February 10, 2024, as it marks the beginning of the Year of the Dragon.”

Meanwhile, in December, the platform added the above-mentioned fiat on-ramp to Komodo Wallet (web) that supports providers Ramp and Banxa, which support bank transfers, Apple Pay, Visa/Mastercard cards, etc.

NFT wallet support is live on Komodo Wallet!

We have integrated ERC721 and ERC1155 token standards.

Supported chains include @ethereum, @BNBCHAIN, @0xPolygonLabs, @avax, and @FantomFDN.#crypto #cryptonews #DeFi #Web3 #NFT $KMD

https://t.co/Xp0MJuQDd6 pic.twitter.com/mKvwHfjYsU

— Komodo (@KomodoPlatform) December 26, 2023

It also implemented the KMD burn program, and it launched an NFT feature on Komodo Wallet, which allows web app users to send, receive, and view the transaction history for their NFTs on Ethereum, Polygon, BNB Chain, Avalanche, and Fantom.

Check out an earlier insightful chat with Stadelmann on the Cryptonews Podcast:

The post Komodo CTO Exclusive: Large TradFi Players Will Be Entering Crypto This Year, DeFi Poised to Grow Once Again appeared first on Cryptonews.

The Web3 Music Accelerator program offers endorsements from WMG and Polygon Labs, strategic advice, networking opportunities, and marketing and promotion support, and it is backed by blockchain infrastructure developers like CertiK, Coinflow, and Tatum.

Over 120 applications were submitted for the program, and the selected projects were chosen based on various criteria, including nurturing artist-fan communities, decentralized music production and distribution systems, ticketing solutions, collectibles and merchandise, and integrating music with interactive technology and gaming.

According to WMG, the first recipient is MITH, a fan engagement platform that enables artists to unlock AI-driven insights and analytics while maintaining ownership of their first-party data on audiences. It aims to provide a comprehensive view of each fan, enhancing the connection between artists and their audiences.

The second recipient is the Muus Collective, which develops fashion-centric experiences, including mobile games, entertainment, and digital collectibles. This project explores the music industry’s convergence of fashion and digital experiences.

Jilian Rothman, Vice President of New Business and Ventures at WMG, emphasized the importance of providing meaningful ways for artists and fans to connect and enabling fans to express their fandom. He said,

“MITH and Muus Collective are the perfect platforms to launch with WMG and Polygon Labs’ Web3 Music Accelerator because of their fan-first approaches to building communities across music and fashion. Providing meaningful ways for artists and fans to connect, and fans to express their fandom are at the core of WMG’s mission. We’re looking forward to seeing these companies grow, and exploring mutually beneficial innovation.”

Brian Trunzo, head of business development for North America at Polygon Labs, expressed excitement about witnessing decentralized innovation moving toward mainstream adoption. He said,

“We’re excited to see how quickly decentralized innovation is moving toward becoming fully mainstream, with forward-thinking projects uniting artists and creators with their numerous fans in never-before-seen ways. Both MITH and Muus Collective are best-in-class platforms redefining what’s possible in fan community engagement, and we are thrilled to welcome them as part of the Web3 Music Accelerator program.”

Polygon Accelerates Web3 Music Platform Development with Warner Music Group Partnership

Last June, Warner Music Group (WMG) and Polygon Labs launched a pioneering music accelerator program, setting the stage to propel and co-support promising developers who are building the future of the music industry on Polygon protocols.

The Polygon ecosystem introduced a Developer Support Cohort to bolster this initiative, strategically designed to enhance accessibility to critical blockchain infrastructure, products, and services for select accelerator projects. This exclusive cohort consists of infrastructure and service providers committed to supporting the endeavor by offering special benefits such as discounts, vouchers, and premium services.

Polygon looks primed to become a hub for music-related Web3 projects. On December 6, the global entertainment giant Warner Music Group partnered with Polygon Studios and e-commerce and interactive platform builder LGN.io to build a Web3 music platform called LGND Music.

LGND Music, launched in January 2023, was designed to be a music and collectibles platform that supports “digital collectibles from any blockchain in a proprietary player,” enabling users to play their digital collectibles on the go. Around the same time, Polygon collaborated with Mastercard to initiate a Web3 accelerator program for musicians seeking to enter the space.

Web3 music platforms could disrupt the music industry and unlock new opportunities for creators and artists to innovate and monetize their content. Goldman Sachs forecast that the global music industry could be worth $131 billion by 2030, and a significant portion of that could be integrated into Web3 environments.

The post Polygon Labs and Warner Music Group Accelerate Web3 Evolution in Music appeared first on Cryptonews.