💡 Bitcoin has fallen below $26k amid a bearish outlook on the cryptocurrency market. Additionally, Bitcoin mining difficulty has reached an all-time high. DeFi's total value locked (TVL) is currently lower than it was after FTX's collapse. SUI and HBAR are also experiencing a drop in value ahead of their latest token unlocks. In other news, Pepe has confirmed that former team members stole $15 million from a multisig wallet. Finally, Stargate has been deployed to Kava Chain, unifying Cosmos-Ethereum liquidity.
Bitcoin has been caught in a tight range between $25,800 and $26,000 over the past 24 hours, remaining stuck in a lower price bracket since it crashed two weeks ago. The world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization fell 0.7% over the past 24 hours to $25,700.Current market signals suggest investor anticipation of spot bitcoin ETF approvals is wearing thin in the short term. On Thursday, the SEC extended its decision deadline on seven ETF filings by 45 days, frustrating investor hopes of a short-term recovery. Bitcoin has backtracked on all gains made after Grayscales win against the SEC last Tuesday, when BTC peaked at $28,100.
Bitcoin's spot trading volumes for the current quarter have amounted to $721.10 billion. Over the past two months, Bitcoin registered trading volumes of $345.89 billion and $354.84 billion, respectively. If September's volumes mirror those of July and August, it will signify the lowest trading volumes for a quarter since Q1 2019, as quarterly volumes consistently exceeded $2 trillion between 2019 and 2023.
In comparison, the previous quarter's total trading volumes were $1.25 trillion, indicating a potential 14% decrease month over month if conditions remain stable, with September's volumes hovering around $350 billion.
Turning to Ethereum, in July and August, ETH recorded trading volumes of $232.06 billion and $212.92 billion, respectively. Should Ethereum's September trading volumes approximate $220 billion, the cumulative quarterly trading volume for ETH would slightly exceed $650 billion, a level not observed since 2019. In Q4 2019, the total spot trading volumes for ETH amounted to $740.64 billion.
Lido Finance, a liquid staking solution, currently represents approximately one-third of the total Ethereum (ETH) staked, raising concerns within the Ethereum community. Some members worry that Lido's growing influence is eroding the decentralized nature of Ethereum.
Over the past year, the staked ETH has surged by nearly 95%, from slightly over $22 billion to approximately $41.6 billion. Notably, Lido holds a substantial portion of this staked ETH, accounting for 32.7% of all staked ETH in the market. This dominance is significantly greater than the second-largest staker, Coinbase, which holds only 8.7% of the staked ETH.
On September 4, 2023, the XLM exchange rate experienced a significant increase of 4.57%. This surge coincided with a cryptic announcement from the Stellar blockchain development team, stating, "Something cool is coming in 10 days." The nature of this announcement remains undisclosed, but it had an immediate impact on the price of Stellar's native token, XLM, causing it to rise from $0.1185 to $0.126 within a day. Over the last six months, XLM has appreciated in value by nearly 50%.
XLM ranks among the top 25 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, as reported by CoinGecko. Notably, many other altcoins such as XRP, ADA, SOL, MATIC, and AVAX are currently experiencing negative price trends.
Approximately 600,000 wallets have conducted over 700,000 transactions on the Shibarium network in the week following a problematic launch. Token withdrawals from the Shibarium bridge are now available after initial software bugs caused issues. Despite the recent activity, the total value locked in Shibarium is only $1.26 million, a fraction of the total value locked in the broader crypto ecosystem.
Moreover, an anonymous holder of SHIB tokens moved nearly $38 million worth of tokens in an unusual transaction. This movement could have implications for traders, signaling potential selling pressure or growth for specific DeFi protocols. Currently, SHIB's value has decreased by 1.12% in the last 24 hours.
In other news, Stargate, the leading omnichain liquidity layer and native asset bridge with over $18 billion in lifetime transaction volume, has deployed on Kava Chain, the Cosmos-Ethereum interoperable Layer 1.
This appchain is a pivotal component of the overarching "Endgame" plan, which aims to enhance MakerDAO's governance and foster greater self-sustainability within the protocol. The initiative has been in progress since May 2022, with the ratified "Maker Constitution" earlier this year. Endgame itself is structured into five phases, culminating in Phase 5, where a new chain, now referred to as "NewChain," will be deployed to serve as a hub for the backend tools supporting MakerDAO.
If the MakerDAO community were to endorse this proposal, Christensen has proposed the establishment of a "symbiotic relationship" between MakerDAO and the existing Solana community. This collaboration could take the form of maintaining an autonomous client or offering financial support to the Solana ecosystem.
In the summer of 2023, BitGo led the way with a staggering $100 million fundraising round. Following closely behind were Flashbots, Futureverse, and Gensyn, all securing significant investments. These funding rounds highlight the strong investor confidence in blockchain, emerging technologies, and innovative solutions, promising exciting developments in these fields.
DeForm is a revolutionary tool that goes beyond ordinary form builders, empowering marketers in exciting ways. With DeForm, you can validate digital assets on the blockchain, ensuring the utmost security and transparency for your data. Not only that, but the platform also enables you to track social media engagement with ease, so you can keep tabs on the success of your marketing campaigns.
In addition, DeForm allows you to organize NFT giveaways, engaging with your audience in new and exciting ways. You can even create web3 surveys to gather valuable insights from your community, without needing coding skills. Analyzing community insights has never been easier, thanks to DeForm's user-friendly interface and advanced analytics tools.
All of these features make DeForm an indispensable tool for modern marketers. Whether you're looking to secure your data, engage with your audience, or gather valuable insights, DeForm has got you covered. So why wait? Sign up for DeForm today and take your marketing efforts to the next level!
The company plans to utilize the funds to expand their operations and to release the liquid staking token on the Ethereum mainnet.
Stroom, a financial protocol between the Bitcoin Lightning Network and EVM-based blockchains such as Ethereum, is led by CEO Rostyslav Shvets and CTO Slava Zhygulin. This protocol allows users to earn Lightning Network revenue without having to lock up their BTC or maintain their own node infrastructure.
By depositing staking tokens, users can receive tradable liquid tokens in return. The DAO-controlled smart contract then stakes tokens with staking providers chosen by the DAO. Users' deposited funds are controlled by the DAO, and staking providers never have direct access to the users' assets.
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Tako Protocol is a promising project that seeks to revolutionize the world of Web3 social networks. Its main objective is to create an open infrastructure that allows for social recommendations in a decentralized manner. By doing this, Tako Protocol will enable developers to create powerful dApps that feature recommendation algorithms, advertising systems, curation mechanisms, and referral economies more efficiently than ever before.
This innovation is particularly important because it will allow users to participate in decentralized social networks and generate, share, discover, and match value like never before. With Tako Protocol, users will have the ability to explore new content and connect with other users in a more meaningful way.
To achieve this goal, Tako Protocol has fostered strategic collaborations with major Web3 social networks like Lens Protocol and Farcaster. Together, they are working to create a more open and accessible social network environment for everyone.
In the coming months, Tako Protocol will initiate product testing in partnership with each of these social networks. This is an exciting opportunity for users to experience the power of Tako Protocol and see how it can change the way they interact with social networks. By testing these products, users will have the chance to provide valuable feedback and help shape the future of Web3 social networks.
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Sei Network is an open-source Layer 1 blockchain built on the Cosmos technology stack, designed for decentralized exchange trading.
The blockchain employs a modified asynchronous protocol called Tendermint Core and the Cosmos SDK framework. The architecture of Sei Network allows for parallel transaction execution.
Protocol-level developers have implemented order matching mechanisms, operation batching, and front-running protection. These tools collectively enhance the system's throughput, reduce latency, and optimize it for specific use cases.
The claimed blockchain throughput is 20,000 transactions per second, with a finalization time of 600 milliseconds. Developers position the project as the "fastest L1 network."
Sei Network's mainnet was launched in August 2023.
The project is backed by Sei Labs, founded by Jeffrey Feng and Jaiendra Jog in 2022. In August of the same year, the team closed a $5 million seed funding round.
Multicoin Capital was the lead investor, and they were joined by Delphi Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, and others.
In April 2023, the developers raised $30 million in a Series A round. Participants included Jump Capital, Distributed Global, Multicoin Capital, Asymmetric Capital Partners, Flow Traders, Hypersphere Ventures, and Bixin Ventures. Following this, the company was valued at $800 million.
In the same month, Sei Labs announced the creation of an ecosystem fund worth $120 million. A portion of the funds, $50 million, was provided by the venture firm Foresight Ventures, with the remaining amount secured from existing project investors.
The Sei Network team identifies three main problems that the project aims to address:
Sei Labs believes that DeFi sector participants can be divided into two categories: protocols built on general-purpose networks and applications operating within app chains.
The team positions their project as a "golden mean": remaining a Layer 1 blockchain, Sei Network is oriented towards the exchange trading sector and optimized for relevant tasks.
To address the identified issues, the Sei Labs team has integrated a range of specific developments into the project, including at the consensus level.
Twin-Turbo Consensus:
Sei Network utilizes a combination of modified Tendermint Core and Cosmos SDK, which the developers refer to as Twin-Turbo Consensus.
Tendermint Core is an asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) protocol that employs a Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm. This system ensures the network's normal operation even in cases where some validators are deemed unreliable.
Cosmos SDK is a framework that allows for the creation of customized blockchains based on Tendermint.
In the implementation of the project, the Sei Network team integrated two significant modifications that change the block propagation (Intelligent Block Propagation) and block processing (Optimistic Block Processing) models.
Intelligent Block Propagation:
Sei Network allows validators to send data about proposed blocks in a compressed format, containing only hashes of all relevant transactions. This enables them to generate blocks "locally" since most participants in the process typically already have the necessary messages for their reconstruction in their mempools.
If a validator doesn't have a transaction in their mempool, they can wait for the arrival of a detailed proposal without compression. This approach enhances the system's throughput and reduces latency.
Optimistic Block Processing:
Within the established Tendermint standard consensus process, validators receive a block proposal, verify it, and then proceed to preliminary voting. The latter is not instantaneous and takes some time.
In Sei Network, validators, in parallel with preliminary voting, also start processing transactions from the first proposed block. This decision is aimed at improving network performance and reducing delays.
Parallel execution of operations:
The Cosmos SDK framework allows for the configuration of specific processes within the context of network state updates. Sei Network developers leveraged this feature to integrate parallel transaction processing into the protocol.
Instead of executing operations one after another, the system isolates independent transactions and processes them simultaneously. This solution increases the blockchain's throughput.
Order matching mechanism:
Sei Network offers Layer 1 blockchain functionality. Users can exchange assets and deploy their own smart contracts, enabling the launch of applications like DEXs.
Additionally, at the protocol level, developers have implemented an order matching mechanism. Teams can create central limit order book (CLOB) systems, which are commonly used in CEXs (Centralized Exchanges).
In certain cases, CLOB systems can be more efficient compared to the commonly used automated market maker (AMM) algorithm in the DeFi sector. However, developers can also design more traditional AMM systems.
Sei Network does not impose additional fees for the use of the described mechanism. However, the developers do not rule out the possibility of introducing such fees in the future.
The technical documentation also states that DEXs built on the protocol may charge their own trading fees. The technology stack allows for their setup and configuration at the smart contract level.
The order matching mechanism includes other important elements, which we will now examine in more detail:
$SEI is the native token of the Sei Network blockchain. As of the time of writing, the cryptocurrency is used in the following scenarios:
Developers have capped the SEI token supply at 10 billion tokens. At the network's launch, the assets were distributed as follows:
48% of the supply has been allocated to the ecosystem reserve, which includes pools for staking rewards, grants to ecosystem participants, conducting airdrops, and other incentive programs.
To support the development of the Sei Network ecosystem, the Sei Foundation has allocated 9% of the supply. The development team received 20%.
Within private sales, 20% of the supply was distributed, and 3% was allocated through the Binance Launchpad campaign.
At the time of writing, a significant portion of SEI is under vesting with specific unlocking schedules:
It is anticipated that by August 2030, the majority of tokens (over 94%) will be in circulation.
The main Sei Network was launched in August 2023. The developers will continue to develop the project by integrating new technical solutions.
In particular, the project team plans to implement an auction model that allows ecosystem participants to receive passive incentives from MEV returns. Sei Labs also intends to optimize the consensus algorithm and the parallel execution of operations mechanism.
Conferences are a great opportunity to grab the attention of the whales in the crypto industry, spread the word about your project and win some funds! A quick line-up of the upcoming conferences below!
Nordic Blockchain Conference 2023👥 Conference🌐 Langelinie, Denmark📆 Date: 06 Sept 2023
TradeTech FX 2023👥 Conference🌐 Paris, France📆 Date: 12 Sept 2023
MoneyLIVE Asia👥 Conference🌐 Singapore, Singapore📆 Date: 12 Sept 2023
Global InsurTech Summit USA👥 Conference🌐 New York, United States📆 Date: 26 Sept 2023
Global RegTech Summit USA👥 Conference🌐 New York, United States📆 Date: 28 Sept 2023
SmartCon 2023👥 Conference🌐 Barcelona, Spain📆 Date: 02 Oct 2023
CoinAgenda Global Conference👥 Conference🌐 Santa Monica📆 Date: 03 Oct 2023
Blockchain Economy Dubai Summit👥 Conference🌐 Dubai, United Arab Emirates📆 Date: 04 Oct 2023
ETHMilan👥 Conference🌐 Milano, Italia📆 Date: 05 Oct 2023
