Bitcoin open interest surges as price hits two-week high. HBAR Rallies on FedNow Addition of Hedera-Based Dropp. Layer 2 Base exceeds optimism on number of daily active users amid surging popularity of Friend.Tech. The Immutable platform has launched a zkEVM test network. SEI Network Launches Sei Token and Announces Tokenomics, Allocating 3% to Launchpool
On Tuesday, Bitcoin (BTC) rose 3.6 percent after weeks of trading inactivity, surpassing the $30,000 mark for the second time in a month. As a result, Bitcoin hit a 16-day high above $30,200 by the end of the day. However, it later retreated 2%, falling to $29,345. Towards the end of the day, the US Federal Reserve revealed plans to introduce a "novel activities supervision program" for cryptocurrency activities of US-regulated banks.
Tuesday’s total aggregate open interest (OI) for BTC futures ballooned by more than $1 billion from the day prior to $14.53 billion, marking the largest increase in more than a month.Derivatives activity across CME, a barometer of institutional trading, saw little change in OI, suggesting the move was retail focused.
The robust performance was accompanied by a sharp increase in the aggregate stablecoin OI, which leaped by a considerable 12.6% to $8 billion in just under ten hours.
Hedera Hashgraph's HBAR token rose over 15% on Monday, and is now trading at $0.07, following the announcement that FedNow, the U.S. Federal Reserve's instant payments platform, added Hedera-based micropayment platform "Dropp" as a service provider.
According to a FedNow press release, Dropp is an alternative to credit card payments that allows merchants to accept low-value digital purchases without hefty transaction fees. Dropp enables micropayments in HBAR, U.S. dollars, and Circle's USDC.
Today's increase brings HBAR's growth since mid-June to nearly 50%, and the token's market value to over $2.1 billion.
Hedera Hashgraph describes itself as a uniquely structured blockchain compared to others, due to its use of consensus hashgraph. According to the company, Hedera is the only public distributed ledger to utilize this method, and notes that Hashgraph is able to achieve over 10,000 transactions per second, completing them with low latency of just a few seconds.
The activity surrounding Friend.Tech, a social network platform built on Coinbase's layer 2 blockchain Base, has driven daily active users to a record high of 136,000. In just a few days since its modest public release, Base has surpassed Optimism in terms of daily active users and is now closing in on Arbitrum's total of 147,000, according to tokenterminal data. The platform has seen a total of $175 million in cryptocurrencies transferred since its inception, with almost 580,000 transactions recorded on Thursday. Much of this growth has been attributed to Friend.Tech, a new social network that allows users to buy or sell shares tied to popular Twitter figures. Despite being in beta mode and only accessible with a valid sign-up code, the platform has already generated significant attention. A grayed-out section at the top of the app suggests that the platform will release a token, which has spurred a flurry of activity as users attempt to farm a potential airdrop by sharing referral codes. The platform's servers briefly experienced downtime on Thursday due to a surge in sign-ups. Base, an Ethereum layer 2 blockchain incubated by Coinbase and built using the Optimism software stack, is poised for continued growth and success.
Immutable, a gaming platform, has announced the public testing launch of the zkEVM network in partnership with Polygon Labs. The zkEVM network, which incorporates zero-disclosure proof-of-concept technology (zk-rollup) and the Ethereum ecosystem's capabilities, is believed to enhance transaction security and reduce developer costs. More than 20 companies, including TokenTrove, GameStop, and Kongregate, have partnered with Immutable to develop the network. Developers can port their projects to the new blockchain with minimal modifications since it is fully compatible with Ethereum applications.
The zkEVM network will be launched as an extension to Immutable X, the next-generation Ethereum network protocol created with StarkNet, which is the seventh largest L2 project in terms of L2Beat data. The IMX token is used to pay for gas in the zkEVM network.
To the other news, SEI Network, a Layer 1 blockchain, has launched its Sei Token, which has been highly anticipated by the community. The token launch comes with innovative tokenomics, promising a generous 3% distribution to its Launchpool.
Sei is a decentralized blockchain that uses the "Proof of Stake" mechanism, with its newly launched SEI token serving as its force. It is the platform used to cover transaction fees, ensuring seamless operations on the Sei blockchain.
The Sei Token launch and its unique tokenomics are just the beginning for SEI Network, as its team is committed to continuous innovation. It plans to introduce more features, partnerships, and integrations in the coming months.
The token is already trading on major centralized exchanges, including Bitfinex, Binance, Upbit, and Kucoin.
The most essential Fundraising news:
Spearbit is a decentralized network of security experts that provide consulting services to clients in web3. Company aim is to create an environment that nurtures new security researchers and develops experienced experts.The long-term goal is to decentralize its governance functions and become a full-fledged DAO. This will give security researchers a more formal way to steer Spearbit's development. Spearbit is also exploring other forms of security-related risk management as future offerings, in addition to security reviews.In the past few months, Spearbit has had the opportunity to work with major clients such as OpenSea, Nouns DAO, and Polygon.The near-term goal is to launch two products: Cantina Managed Service and Cantina Guilds. The Cantina Managed Service aims to assist solo auditors in obtaining deal flow and performing smart contract audits. Cantina Guilds, on the other hand, will host their services as a "guild" on the platform and specialize in specific sectors, providing small-to-medium audit shops the opportunity to thrive.
Affine is a groundbreaking cross-chain investment and savings app that aims to broaden economic opportunity for all. Affine are committed to providing access to innovative investment products that enable sustainable wealth growth and personal potential maximization. Company goal is to enhance the financial system by introducing a new range of financial products that generate opportunities for all, regardless of account size, and contribute to a more productive world.
Cube3 was founded in response to the increasing number of smart contract exploits. The company's goal is to become the leading firewall network in the Web 3 space. The founders bring extensive domain expertise, having previously built two successful firewall companies for Web 2 and gained extensive experience in Web 3.
Using machine learning and pattern matching, Cube3.ai assigns newly deployed smart contracts a risk score. Criminals frequently deploy new contracts from new wallets that may propose malicious transactions against a target contract moments later, leaving little time to evaluate new contracts for malicious intent.
Worldcoin was founded in 2019 by Sam Altman from Open AI with the aim of creating a cryptocurrency that could be distributed to the largest possible number of unique users, ideally to every individual.
Altman believes that this would increase the efficiency of coin usage compared to competitors with more centralized distribution. In the future, such a cryptocurrency could help establish a fair income-sharing system derived from AI and automation through a Universal Basic Income (UBI).
However, due to the growing capabilities of AI and the pseudonymous nature of cryptocurrencies, distinguishing a real person from a bot or a Sybil attack, and thus fairly distributing value, has become challenging. Moreover, verifying a person's identity has become a global issue, as AI's advancement makes it increasingly difficult to determine whether an interlocutor, content creator, or other digital entity is real or an algorithm.
To address this challenge, Worldcoin has developed the concept of Proof of Personhood and a verification system that utilizes biometric data. Therefore, Worldcoin is not just another payment token but a complex platform with multiple technical modules:
Important: World App stores two sets of keys — one, the classical one, for interacting with the Ethereum blockchain, and the other for the World ID Protocol. This latter key is responsible for generating ZK-proof of identity, so a leak of the Worldcoin private key equals a leak of World ID usage data (biometric data is not disclosed in this process).
All of this was originally built on the Ethereum network (identity verification smart contract) and Polygon (ID registry), but prior to the launch of Worldocoin, it migrated to Optimism. The WLD token itself is available on both networks, although users receive rewards only on the OP Mainnet.
Now let's understand how this whole system looks in action. So, to obtain your World ID and claim the WLD drop, the user must:
Such a model theoretically provides a secure verification mechanism, as:
Technically, it's an ERC-20 standard token available on the Ethereum and Optimism networks. It's positioned as a governance token with the prospect of being used as a value transfer tool.
Originally, the core of Worldcoin was WLD, which was meant to become a highly efficient cryptocurrency due to its fair distribution. However, over time, the project shifted its focus to World ID, and WLD became somewhat of a marketing tool – it was the token drop that attracted most users to the platform, rather than the opportunity to obtain World ID.
The governance functions of WLD are not yet implemented, although it's planned that in the future, token holders will be able to make decisions regarding the development of Worldcoin, including verification rules and the pace of new token issuance.
Essentially, at this moment, WLD only holds value as a speculative asset distributed for iris scanning. Notably, according to data from the Dune dashboard, out of 941,000 wallets (counting after the transition to the OP Mainnet), only 243,000 continue to hold WLD. This means that 75% of users sell their coins after receiving the reward.
The total supply of WLD is 10 billion tokens. This amount is divided among the Worldcoin community, the Tools For Humanity team, and early investors:
From the portion allocated to the Worldcoin Foundation (the organization currently managing the protocol), an allocation will be made for operational expenses and ecosystem development. The approximate distribution of tokens to the community will be as follows:
Now let's move on to the supply, but it's important to clarify that there is a Circulating Supply and an Unlocked Supply:
The Circulating Supply refers to WLD tokens on the market that are not subject to any restrictions.
At the time of launch, the Circulating Supply was 105 million (although the whitepaper planned for 143 million). This includes user rewards for verification prior to launch and tokens borrowed to market makers to ensure WLD liquidity:
Unlocked Supply — includes the Circulating Supply + unlocked tokens that have some restrictions on their sale.
At the start, the Unlocked Supply was 500 million WLD, and according to the whitepaper, it will increase predictably through clear unlock schedules and anticipated user growth rates. The first investor unlock is planned for July 24, 2024. Up until then, the entire Unlocked Supply consists solely of community tokens:
During the first 15 years, the token's inflation rate will be 0%, meaning the WLB supply will remain constant. After that, the community will be able to vote for an increase in the inflation rate, but no more than 1.5% per year and only if it's necessary for the project's sustainable development.
Worldcoin was founded in 2019 and gradually expanded its presence in various cities and countries since 2021. Throughout this time, the project wasn't in stealth mode and periodically attracted media attention. However, the public launch and listing of WLD simply ignited the market. There are several reasons for such a reaction:
Worldcoin is a large-scale and ambitious project aimed at solving the issue of identity verification in the digital space inundated with algorithms and bots. The project's team has managed to create a secure platform utilizing blockchain, physical devices, and ZKPs to preserve user confidentiality while confirming their uniqueness through biometric data.
The project has successfully passed its testing phase and launched publicly with spheres in 20+ countries. However, its status in the US, UK, and EU remains uncertain. Additionally, there are organizational and technical risks associated with user verification.
It seems that the crypto community's attention is not solely focused on the World ID technology but also on the successful launch of the WLD token and the name of Sam Altman among the founders. The queues at Orbs are likely driven by the free 25 WLD tokens.
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!
Web3Conf India 2023👥 Conference🌐 Goa, India📆 Date: 11 Aug 2023
2023 Blockchain Futurist Conference👥 Conference🌐 Toronto, Canada📆 Date: 15 Aug 2023
Istanbul Blockchain Week 2023👥 Conference🌐 İstanbul, Türkiye📆 Date: 21 Aug 2023
Coinfest Asia 2023👥 Conference🌐 Bali, Indonesia📆 Date: 23 Aug 2023
Korea Blockchain Week 2023👥 Conference🌐 Seoul, Korea📆 Date: 04 Sept 2023
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
