DeFi Telegraph (eng) ( ICO reviews)

2021-12-22 19:11:01 Communist Party of China mouthpiece unexpectedly approves NFT

Xinhua , the Communist Party of China's (CPC) news agency, announced that it would release a set of non-negotiable tokens (NFT) later this week as part of a "meta-universe" move.

While the media publishing NFTs is not really considered news at this time, this is incorrect in the case of the CPC's mouthpiece, especially since Beijing has spent the last few months denouncing NFTs.

Chinese tech giants have even avoided the term "NFT" because of its crypto connotation, stepping on eggshells and instead calling their offerings "digital collections" and "digital collectibles."

But Xinhua reported in a statement that the agency will release a "special collection" on Dec. 24 that will include an "introduction of NFT blockchain technology" for what it claims will be "China's first digital news collection." Open / Comment

2021-12-22 16:29:02 First ever SMS sold as NFT

Aguttes in France auctioned the world's first SMS message as a non-exchangeable token (NFT) for 132,680 euros.

The message with the text Merry Christmas was first sent by programmer Neil Papworth to the head of Vodafone operator Richard Jarvis on December 3, 1992.

The name of the buyer is not disclosed. The proceeds from the sale of NFT are planned to be sent to the UN refugee agency.

Earlier, an unknown person bought the NFT of the first version of Wikipedia for $750,000. Open / Comment

2021-12-21 19:15:11 Elon Musk criticizes the current state of Web3

Elon Musk has published his views on the current state of Web3 and the metacommuniverse movement. Musk is skeptical about the validity of the Web3 movement right now, saying that in his opinion, it "now seems more like a marketing buzzword than reality."

Web3 and the metaworld encompass a group of concepts that aim to create a reality alternative to the one in which we live. This concept, which originated a long time ago, has been revived by Meta. Meta wants to help shape the meta-universe with its own designs.

Musk is more optimistic about the future and what it could bring to consumers. Musk emphasized:

"Given the almost unimaginative nature of the present, what will the future be? I just wonder what the future will be in 10, 20 or 30 years. 2051 sounds crazy futuristic!" Open / Comment

2021-12-21 17:28:02 Anyswap rebrands to Multichain and raises $60 million in investment

Multichain (Anyswap before rebranding) plans to use capital from the seed funding round to develop its teams and ecosystem. The company will also strengthen its ties with Binance Smart Chain and other cryptocurrency platforms. For example, Binance Smart Chain will promote the protocol and recommend it as one of its bridges.

Shortly after rebranding from Anyswap to Multichain, the company behind the interconnect protocol raised up to $60 million in a seed funding round. Specifically, Binance Labs, the venture capital arm of Binance, led the round. Other participants included Circle Ventures, Tron Foundation, Sequoia China, IDG Capital, Primitive Ventures, Three Arrows Capital, DeFiance Capital, Hypersphere Ventures, Magic Ventures and HashKey.

Multichain plans to follow the Web3 routing mission. Open / Comment

2021-12-21 15:05:06 Etherium developers launch Kintsugi test network for transition to PoS

One of the leading developers of Ethereum 2.0, Tim Beiko, announced the successful launch of the Kintsugi test network, which will help better refine the transition to Proof-of-Stake and Ethereum 2.0.

Tim Bako wrote on Twitter that the development team has been "working tirelessly" over the past few months on the process of transitioning to Ethereum 2.0. Once the Kintsugi test network is launched, users will be able to begin prototyping on that network.

"We recommend connecting and starting testing and prototyping on Kintsugi in order to detect possible problems as soon as possible," Beiko stressed.

After testing on Kintsugi, the developers plan to launch another series of test networks. All existing test networks will then be upgraded to Etherium 2.0 and, after the upgrade is worked out, the main Etherium network will also be switched to Proof-of-Stake. Open / Comment

2021-12-20 19:02:02 Avalanche makes progress amid Ethereum stagnation

Avalanche, a digital asset of the blockchain project, did not succumb to the trend that bitcoin has been setting in the past few weeks, pulling back from its local highs. Over the past seven days, altcoin has jumped in price by 23%, while bitcoin has fallen in price by 7.4% and Ethereum by 6.1%.

As you know, bitcoin has been in strong correlation with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Wall Street indices since this fall, while Ethereum fluctuates more than half the time in unison with the #1 cryptocurrency. Against this background, the Avalanche phenomenon is quite remarkable.

Together with Solana (SOL, #5 in terms of capitalization), Avalanche is breathing down Ethereum's neck, seeking to expand its influence in the DeFi sphere more and more.

The average daily number of transactions on the Avalanche blockchain is constantly increasing, it has crossed the level of 700 thousand and thus updated another historical maximum. Open / Comment

2021-12-20 17:10:08 Defi Grim Finance users lost $30 million in an exploit

Fraudsters stole $30 million in cryptocurrency from the decentralized project Grim Finance. This was reported by the developers of the platform on Twitter. All wallets and deposits of users were under threat.

Hackers hacked the wallet using a malicious contract and a "re-entry exploit." According to Grim Finance, the attacker ran five re-entry cycles. While the platform was processing the first request, the hacker forged five additional deposits into the wallet.

The attackers transferred about $30 million in Fantom tokens (FTM) to third-party accounts. Most of the funds were redirected to other decentralized exchanges on the Fantom blockchain - AnySwap and SpookySwap. The fraudsters then exchanged the stolen tokens for USDC Stablecoin.

The project developers froze all wallets to prevent further losses. Open / Comment

2021-12-20 15:17:02 BitDAO announces DAO incubator for student crypto initiatives

BitDAO, one of the world's largest decentralized organizations backed by Peter Thiel, Pantera, Dragonfly, Bybit and others, has announced a new DAO incubator.

The project, called EduDAO, will reportedly raise $11 million annually to sponsor student projects. The partners of EduDAO will be Harvard and Oxford University, Tsinghua University in China and the University of California at Berkeley. It remains unclear, however, which educational institutions will have access to EduDAO grants.

At launch, EduDAO will receive $33 million in venture capital investment for early-stage projects to support the next generation of blockchain networks and Web3-based technologies. It is expected that EduDAO could later expand to hundreds of institutions, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania. Open / Comment

2021-12-18 18:11:02 Binance hires former top Intel executive

The U.S.-based bitcoin exchange Binance announced the appointment of Sidney Majalaya as director of risk management.

Majalaya will report directly to Binance.US President Brian Schroeder. The latter took over the division in September 2021.

"Binance.US is deeply committed to regulatory compliance, and our priority is to maintain and grow the compliance and risk management organization," Majalaya said.

The specialist previously led profile departments at Oracle and Uber. Since 2019, he has served as vice president of legal affairs and director of compliance at Intel Corporation.

Join us in welcoming Sidney Majalya as Chief Risk Officer.

"He'll join the team next month as part of our commitment to expand our world-class risk and compliance organization." Open / Comment

2021-12-18 14:19:02 Genius Yield raised $118 million through ISPO in the first 48 hours

On December 15, Genius Yield (GENS), a decentralized automated market maker and liquidity management protocol based on the Cardano blockchain (ADA), announced the launch of its initial share pool offering, or ISPO.

One of the four GENS pools was almost completely filled in just two days.

The fundraising will continue for six months until June 15, 2022. At the time of publication, more than 95.8 million ADAs, worth about $118 million at the time of writing, have been delegated to betting pools.

These funds will be used in part to create a solution that will allow users to use advanced algorithmic trading strategies and yield optimization on the Genius Yield platform. Open / Comment