Author: NBTC

The Blockchain for Good Alliance (BGA) announced its official launch on April 15 at the Blockchain Life Dubai event. Describing itself as a collaborative network of organizations, projects and individuals committed to using blockchain technology to solve global social, environmental and economic issues, BGA partners with blockchain-based organizations of virtually every stripe. These include Bybit Web3, Solana Foundation, Aptos, Moledao, Harvard Blockchain Club, ICP.Hub UAE, American University of Sharjah (AUS), Coineasy, Libera, Edu3Labs, Alchemy Pay, Bu Zhi DAO and XueDAO. According to the website, the newly created organization will act as an incubator for blockchain technology. This will provide networking…

Liquid restaking protocol Puffer has raised $18 million in a Series A funding round, the company said Tuesday. The round was led by Brevan Howard Digital and Electric Capital, with investments from Coinbase Ventures, Kraken Ventures, Lemniscap, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, Mechanism, Lightspeed Faction, Consensys, Animoca and GSR, the company said in a press release. The fresh round of capital will be used to help launch Puffer’s mainnet. Prior to this, Puffer raised $5.5 million in a funding round co-led by Lemniscap and Lightspeed Faction. Puffer is the second-largest liquid restaking protocol behind Ether.Fi, and is part of a class of…

According to CoinGlass, an eye-popping $963 million worth of crypto has been liquidated over the past 24 hours alone. This is the biggest amount of liquidated crypto since early March. Back then, more than $1.1 billion was liquidated in the span of a single day after BTC tumbled 10% shortly after reaching new highs. Long positions have accounted for the vast majority of this massive wipeout ($772 million). On Saturday, the price of Bitcoin flash-crashed more than 8% due to growing tensions in the Middle East. Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel in a retaliatory attack. The…

EigenLayer’s LRTs face liquidity scrutiny as deposits soar and presence in DeFi grows. The landscape of liquid restaking tokens (LRTs) depends on how liquid those assets are, according to a report by crypto research firm Kairos Research. After EigenLayer officially enables withdrawals of LRTs, the whole ecosystem will rely on how liquid restaking protocols manage to keep those tokens liquid. Liquid restaking consists of allocating Ether (ETH) or liquid staking tokens (LSTs) into an infrastructure of shared security, and users receive a proxy token representing the deposited amount to keep operating in the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. In EigenLayer’s example,…

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has announced its decision to file a temporary appeal in its ongoing case with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The appeal will question the SEC’s authority to classify digital asset transactions as investment contracts. If the appeal is granted, the original hearing proceedings will be suspended pending a decision by the Second Circuit Court. Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer, explained the company’s stance in a recent statement. “Today, Coinbase filed a brief asking the Court for permission to file an interlocutory appeal in our SEC case on this fundamental question: whether an ‘investment agreement’…

Avalon, a rising crypto gaming studio, has secured a successful $10 million funding round co-led by venture capital giants Bitkraft Ventures and Hashed. This investment fuels the development of their flagship title, a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) simply named “Avalon.” Avalon’s development team boasts veterans from prominent web2 gaming companies, leveraging their expertise to craft an immersive gaming experience. The studio has also partnered with industry leaders Didimo and Inworld AI, pioneers in artificial intelligence, to further enhance the game. “The Avalon universe prioritizes an unforgettable gameplay experience,” said Sean Pinnock, CEO and founder of Avalon, in a press…

Bitcoin is front and center again, and orange coin lovers everywhere have plenty to be excited about: new all-time high prices, the upcoming halving, rising demand for Ordinals—and soon, something totally new called Runes. And while Runes won’t hit Bitcoin until the halving, when the supply of newly minted BTC is once again cut in half by slashing miner rewards, the project is already getting a lot of hype and attention. Here’s what you need to know. What are Runes? Runes is a new protocol from the mind behind Ordinals, Casey Rodarmor. With Ordinals, the Bitcoin developer made it possible…

As geopolitical tensions sent crypto markets into a tailspin last weekend, the Curve Finance community was again forced to consider the risks posed by founder Michael Egorov. Egorov came close to liquidation on his highly leveraged CRV positions, which total over $150 million, with CRV dipping below $0.38 on Saturday, according to data from CoinMarketCap. On-chain analyst EmberCN identifies five addresses that have current open positions of $93 million worth of stablecoins borrowed against 372 million CRV (worth $162 million at time of writing). It was also noted that the 20 million CRV position on Silo did briefly fall below…

Digital ruble rollout plans could cost the Russian banking sector a total of $536 million per year, financial analysts have claimed. Per Forbes Russia, the nation’s retail sector could be in for a windfall if CBDC adoption plans go ahead as planned. Experts said the retail market could expect to see annual profits rise to the tune of $857 million once the CBDC becomes widespread. Digital Ruble Rollout Plans in Motion The Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina last week confirmed that the digital ruble will roll out “no earlier” than 2025. This comes after the Finance Ministry suggested that “all”…

According to the analyzed onchain data, some major cryptocurrency whales have made significant transactions in recent hours. A whale identified by the short wallet address 0x8f9f withdrew an impressive 6 million ENA (equivalent to approximately $8.58 million) from Binance and staked it all just an hour ago. This action made the whale among the largest stakers in the ENA contract. Remarkably, this whale had staked 8.96 million USD a month ago. Despite the general decline in the market, ENA has shown a significant increase of 12% in the last 24 hours. This increase coincides with a period when a total…