Arbitrum
TLDR
NFT Marketplace OpenMeta has launched on Arbitrum
Arbitrum DeFi project, Factor, has raised $4M on the first day of its token offering
OpenMeta NFT Marketplace Launches on Arbitrum
Multichain NFT Marketplace OpenMeta has been deployed on Arbitrum. Available on BNB Chain, Ethereum, Polygon, zkSync, and now Arbitrum, OpenMeta bills itself as a one-stop gas-free NFT Marketplace incubated by MDEX.
OpenMeta joins the competitive NFT marketplace landscape on Arbitrum which currently includes OpenSea, tofuNFT, Gumball Protocol, Trove, Shift, and Agora.
Factor Raises $4M on First Day of Token Offering
Factor on Arbitrum’s Camelot launchpad has attracted over $4.3 million from traders in less than 12 hours after going live.
Factor, which is offering 10 million FCTR tokens on Camelot, says its product will provide the middleware infrastructure that will allow developers to aggregate decentralized finance (DeFi) products and spin up on-chain asset management services.
The value accrual mechanism for Factor’s native FCTR tokens is creating hype, and value, for the tokens among traders. Factor will take a percentage of the deposit, withdrawal, transaction, vault management, and performance fees and redistribute 50% to FCTR stakers, and 50% to its decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
Camelot is a suite of decentralized contracts built to support Arbitrum native builders, offering trading, initial coin issuance, and lending services to users and developers.
Avalanche
TLDR
Platypus Protocol suffered an $8.5M flash loan attack which depegged its stablecoin USP
Independent e-sports and live-streaming platform, Loco, is building out a suite of web3 offerings on a custom Avalanche Subnet
The $8.5M Hack On Platypus Protocol
Two weeks after launching its new stablecoin USP, Platypus Protocol suffered an $8.5M flash loan attack. In less than 24 hours, community collaboration has allowed Platypus to recover almost a third of the funds.
The attacker took advantage of a flaw in the USP solvency check mechanism. They used a flash loan to exploit a logic error in the USP solvency check mechanism in the contract holding the collateral.
As a result of the hack, the Platypus USD stablecoin became de-pegged from the U.S. dollar, dropping 52.2% to $0.34 at the time of writing.
Loco to Create Next-Generation Fan Experiences on Avalanche
Loco, a leading independent e-sports and live-streaming platform is building a suite of Web3 products that will bring innovative fan experiences utilizing a custom Avalanche Subnet. Loco recently raised $42 million, among the largest Series A rounds in Indian and South East Asian gaming history. The platform has partnered with gaming publishers like Krafton, Activision Blizzard, and Riot Games.
Recently, Chinese technology giant Alibaba and Japanese gaming trailblazer GREE each announced Avalanche initiatives. Like GREE, Loco will run its own Avalanche validators, reflecting a deep commitment to securing and building on the network.
BNB Chain
TLDR
A recent Reuters report has suggested that Binance moved $400M from a secret account to its U.S subsidiary, Binance.US
How Binance Moved $400 Million To CZ-Owned Trading Firm
According to a recent report from Reuters, crypto exchange Binance moved $400 million from a “secret” account linked to its U.S. subsidiary, Binance.US, in 2021. The funds were allegedly sent to a trading firm owned by the crypto exchange’s CEO, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao.
The trading firm is called Merit Peak and is supposedly managed by CZ. The firm was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands in 2019 when the firm invested $1 million into the recently created Binance subsidiary Binance.US.
The report attempted to challenge the public perception that Binance and Binance.US are not financially intertwined and independent of each other. According to the report, the transactions between the entities hint at Binance international having control over the U.S. subsidiary’s finances.
A Binance.US spokesperson cited by Reuters, Kimberly Soward, denied the report and claimed it is based on “outdated information.” Soward said that only Binance.US has access to this exchange’s account.
Ethereum
TLDR
Ethereum developers have identified and fixed a critical bug found on test-net Zhejiang ahead of the Shanghai-Capella upgrade.
A former Amazon and Starbucks executive has released the “Yelp” of NFT collections on Ethereum and Polygon.
Ethereum Devs Found Critical Bug Ahead Of Major Upgrade
Marius VanDerWijden, a core developer at Ethereum’s upcoming Shanghai-Capella upgrade, reported a bug found on test-net Zhejiang.
The goal of the Zhejiang testnet is to stress test withdrawals and BLS, a digital signature scheme used to prevent forgery.
Ethereum is on the verge of the expected Shanghai-Capella upgrade, improving its computation, transactions, and validation of new blocks. Still, most importantly, it will allow validators to withdraw their ETH locked on the “Beacon Chain,” the Proof-of-Stake blockchain launched in 2020.
Former Amazon, Starbucks exec launches Yelp-like platform to review and discover NFTs
An NFT-focused startup has recently launched to help users discover new collections. Ben Straley, former VP of global digital products for Starbucks and founder of Thred, describes it as “Like Yelp, Tripadvisor or Zillow of the space”.
Thred’s platform combines automated machine learning and algorithms to rank NFT collections on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains and then ranks the desirability of every NFT collection and combines it with collector, consumer, and community content.
Users can search, read and share reviews of any NFT collection to help buyers understand the collections better and know which ones are “trustworthy or unclear and maybe sketchy.” Thred is compatible with Ethereum- and Polygon-based NFT collections and wants to expand to Bitcoin and Solana.
Polygon
TLDR
Polygon has set March 27th as the date it will release its new Layer 2 scaling solution, zkEVM.
Germany-based technology company Siemens has issued its first digital bond on the Polygon blockchain.
Polygon Sets March Date for zkEVM Mainnet Beta to Go Live
Polygon plans to release a new Layer-2 scaling solution, zkEVM, in a main-net phase on March 27th.
zkEVM will be a zero-knowledge or ZK-Rollup that performs off-chain computations on a secondary layer for faster and cheaper transactions while prioritizing security. The aim is to expand the Ethereum network's scaling capabilities further.
Polygon claims its zkEVM will be equivalent to Ethereum's Virtual Machine, meaning the network is expected to support the same code as Ethereum. Developers will be able to onboard apps from Ethereum and use them on Polygon's zkEVM network without making significant changes.
zkEVM has been in development for over a year and has undergone two third-party security audits. Over the past year, Polygon zkEVM, Starknet, zkSync, and Scroll have fiercely competed to develop a functioning ZK-based Layer 2 supporting Ethereum apps. None of these have yet released a product for public use.
Siemens announces issuance of 1st digital bond on Polygon
Germany-based technology company Siemens has issued its first digital bond on the Polygon blockchain to reduce paperwork. Siemens is the third largest publicly traded company by market cap in Germany, and this isn’t its first experiment with blockchain technology.
The EUR 60 million bonds issued on the Polygon blockchain have a maturity of one year, and the company has not disclosed the interest rate.
Siemens officials cited by the same source revealed that paper bonds make paper-based global certificates and central clearing unnecessary. Moreover, the bond can be sold directly to investors without having to rely on the intermediary services of a bank. Siemens’ corporate treasurer revealed that, by moving away from paper and toward public blockchains for issuing securities, the company can execute transactions faster and more efficiently than when issuing bonds in the past.
In December 2021, Siemens worked with JPMorgan Chase to develop a blockchain-based payment system. At the time, Siemens officials said the improved automation was needed to process the greater number of payments expected due to the growing popularity of payment models such as pay-per-use.
Terra
TLDR
The Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) has filed charges against Terraform Labs and Do Kwon for their role in the stablecoins collapse in 2022
SEC To Sue Terraform Labs for Fraud
Nearly a year after the demise of Terra and its UST stablecoin, the SEC has officially charged Terraform Labs and Do Kwon with “orchestrating a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud” through the algorithmic UST stablecoin and surrounding securities.
In a statement included in the press release, Securities and Exchange Commission head Gary Gensler claims that Kwon and Terraform Labs “failed to provide the public with full, fair, and truthful disclosure as required for a host of crypto asset securities, most notably for LUNA and Terra USD.”
“Terraform ecosystem was neither decentralized, nor finance. It was simply a fraud propped up by a so-called algorithmic “stablecoin” – the price of which was controlled by the defendants, not any code.” Director of SEC Division of Enforcement, Gurbir S Grewal
Solana
TLDR
Helium has announced it will fully migrate to the Solana blockchain by the end of March.
Parcl is a new Solana protocol allowing traders to access derivatives tracking the residential real estate market.
Helium to Fully Migrate to Solana Blockchain by March 27
The price of SOL has seen a resurgence as the upcoming migration of the Helium network to Solana grows closer. The migration is expected to happen next month on March 27.
Established in 2019, Helium is a decentralized network of devices called “hotspots” that provides long-range connectivity for the internet of things (IoT) devices. The network runs on the eponymously-named blockchain.
“With the ability to power thousands of transactions per second, combined with its massive ecosystem of developers, applications, and integrations, Solana has the speed and scale necessary to take on the blockchain responsibility,” read a recent blog post on the merge event.
Solana’s Newest Protocol to offer exposure to Real Estate
Solana recently confirmed that a new protocol called Parcl is launching on its network. The protocol is a real estate derivatives protocol and is the first of its kind to grace the Solana blockchain.
Parcl will allow derivatives traders to trade derivatives tracking the real estate market. The Parcl Protocol allows you to get exposure to the residential real estate market, with digital assets called ‘Parcls’. Each Parcl is tied to a price feed powered by the blockchain, which tracks the average price per sq. ft in popular neighborhoods.
This introduces the possibility of fractional purchases plus the benefits of not having to purchase the underlying assets.
The protocol is currently only accessible to the top 5,000 holders of SOL and USDC that have been granted access through a SOLmate NFT, issued by Parcl.
Boom or Bust?
TLDR
An Australian cocktail bar has launched an NFT membership program promising exclusive access and privileges to holders.
Australian cocktail bar launches NFT membership program
Australian cocktail and NFT connoisseurs have a new venue in Sydney to haunt that allows holders of its NFTs access to additional privileges at the bar.
The Sydney-based cocktail bar, Bar Lulu, launched on Feb. 21, along with an NFT members club bar named Cryptolulu.
Based in Sydney, patrons must buy the NFT member club bar on NFT marketplace OpenSea on the Ethereum network to access certain privileges.
Three tokens are available for purchase ranging from 0.45 ETH ($1000 AUD) to 2.26 ETH ($5000 AUD). Each NFT represents a different tier to their membership which will unlock unique and incremental rewards, priorities, and benefits.
Token Holders can attend various Web3 networking events and educational sessions and be granted access to exclusive private lounges and dinners, among other things.
Bar Lulu claims the NFT membership program to be an Australian first.
The bar added that the launch comes after months of seeing how similar experimentations worked out overseas in the hospitality sector.