Bitcoin Price: US$ 29,201.35 (-1.15%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 1,792.23 (-7.74%)
Arrakis’s Growth, Wolf Game Returns, DeFi in Volatility
- Arrakis Finance, previously Sorbet Finance, is a Uni-V3 Automated Liquidity Management protocol that aims to deploy active Uni-V3 strategies to manage liquidity and maximize yield.
- Arrakis Finance has amassed ~$800M TVL even as DeFi TVL has suffered over the past month. To put it in perspective, Arrakis has grown by 68%, while TVL across crypto has dipped by 48%.
- This is possible as Arrakis’s main vaults consist of mostly stablecoin pairings unaffected by market movements. Though it is still surprising given that there is no liquidity mining on Arrakis yet.
- Arrakis Finance’s token, $SPICE is currently being distributed to the Gelato ($GEL) community if they decide to lock their $GEL for 3 months. 3% of $Spice supply will be distributed to users who locked $GEL.
- $SPICE will be the veToken of Arrakis, which will allow vault depositors to boost $SPICE yields, earn protocol fees, and direct $SPICE emissions.
- Through Oasis.app, users and degen farmers can gain easy access to 50x leverage on the Gelato DAI-USDC pool because it is supported as a MakerDAO collateral type.
- Some say that Wolf Game single-handedly sparked off a meta-narrative around on-chain Play-to-Earn games, leading to tens of forks launching on every chain. It was a brutal battlefield — none of the forks have survived today, except for the original Wolf Game. While the first version of the game is no longer running, there are 2 mini-games in progress while the full game is under development. After 7 months of effort, the time is near — the full game is expected to launch in June 2022.
- The recent UST depeg and LUNA’s collapse were devastating; the event sent shock waves across the industry. Secondary effects rippled across other blockchains, severely affecting Kava, Lido, and other protocols which had exposure to Terra and/or UST. Decentralized and centralized exchanges alike were stress-tested to their extremes. But it’s during these periods of extreme volatility the robustness and resilience of DEXs became even more salient.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Ethereum
- Ethereum is the only major protocol building a scalable unified settlement and data availability layer
- Rollups scale computation while leveraging Ethereum’s security
- All roads lead to the endgame of centralized block production, decentralized trustless block validation, and censorship resistance
- Innovations such as proposer-builder separation and weak statelessness unlock this separation of powers (building and validating) to achieve scalability without sacrificing security or decentralization
- MEV is now front and center – numerous designs are planned to mitigate its harm and prevent its centralizing tendencies
- Danksharding combines multiple avenues of cutting edge research to provide the scalable base layer required for Ethereum’s rollup-centric roadmap
SAND is now listed on Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange
- Leading cryptocurrency exchanges around the world continue to add SAND, The Sandbox utility token, to their listings. We recently announced that Coincheck became the first Japanese exchange to list SAND, making it more easily accessible for Japanese users.
- Today, we’re pleased to share that SAND is now listed on Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States by trading volume. Being listed on Coinbase increases access to SAND not just in the U.S. but in over 100 countries where Coinbase is active. Coinbase has approximately 98 million verified users worldwide.
Cathie Wood’s Ark and 21Shares refile for spot Bitcoin ETF
- ARK Investment Management, an investment firm founded by veteran investor Cathie Wood, is taking another try to launch a spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States.
- ARK Invest submitted on May 13 yet another application for its physical Bitcoin ETF, the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The application includes a proposed rule change from the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) BZX Exchange.
- According to Bloomberg ETF analyst Henry Jim, the latest deadline for approval or disapproval of the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF is January 24, 2023.
Former Binance executives launch $100 million venture fund
- Multi-strategy blockchain investment fund Old Fashion Research (OFR) has completed its first close. Led by several former executives from Binance, OFR invested in over 50 blockchain projects in its first year.
- According to an announcement, Old Fashion Research is now coming out of stealth mode, in which it has been operating since its foundation in late 2021. Since that time, OFR put money in more than 50 companies in different markets, such as WOO Network, Genopets, Metaverse Magna, MetaDerby and ZetaChain.
- The fund was founded by Ling Zhang, the former vice president of mergers and acquisitions, and investments at Binance; and Wayne Fu, former Binace head of corporate development. Jiang Xin “JX” who led Binance Labs’ and Launchpad’s major investment deals, is heading OFR’s venture arm. Zhang said:
- We are keen to seek founders who share the same long-term vision and passion for the crypto industry, and we are determined to grow with them together.”
Exchanges back ‘Terra 2.0 revival plan’ via airdrops, listing, buyback and burning
- The fall of Terra shook the entire crypto market. However, the project has no plans to stay down, having secured backing from crypto exchanges to help it rebuild.
- In an announcement on Thursday, Terra provided details on an upcoming airdrop of the new native token for its new blockchain dubbed Terra 2.0. The distribution of tokens will proceed on Friday, and holders of Terra Luna Classic (LUNC), TerraUSD Classic (USTC) and Anchor Protocol UST (aUST) who are eligible will receive new tokens
- Crypto exchanges Binance and FTX noted that they are working closely with the Terra team regarding the upcoming airdrop. Binance stated that it aims to help affected users on the platform by helping Terra with the recovery plan.
- FTX announced that it will support the airdrop and temporarily halt LUNA and UST markets during the migration. The Terra team said that in addition to Binance and FTX, it’s also working closely with more partner exchanges that will support the airdrop.
- Apart from the airdrop, many crypto exchanges, like KuCoin, also expressed support for Terra 2.0 by supporting the migration, listing and trading of the new Terra tokens on their platforms.
WEF 2022: Metaverse should be developed from children’s perspective, says Lego VP
- The Metaverse and Web3 dominated discussions on the fifth day of the ongoing World Economic Forum (WEF).
- The panel discussion “The Possibilities of the Metaverse” featured Philip Rosedale, co-founder of High Fidelity; Pascal Kaufmann, founder of Mindfire Foundation; Peggy Johnson, CEO of Magic Leap; Hoda AlKhzaimi, assistant research professor at New York University, Abu Dhabi; and Edward Lewin, vice president of Lego Group.
- The main discussion revolved around the building blocks and prospects of the Metaverse. The panelists discussed the technical aspects, security and role of human sentiments in building a sustainable, augmented reality-based digital world.
- Responding to a question about developments around the Metaverse, Johnson said that the building blocks are in place. “It is in the early stage, but innovation is certainly progressing towards a digital future,” she said.
- Johnson went on to cite the use of augmented reality in the medical field and predicted that the Metaverse would make complex jobs easier across different areas of work.
- Lewin talked about building a future for children in the Metaverse. He said:
- “One in three people using the internet are young adults and children, so I would really focus on building from kids’ perspective, given they are the future users.”
- Terra 2.0 is nearly here. As a community-owned network, Terra will have its native staking token, LUNA, airdropped to its community, as described in Proposal 1623.
- Upon Genesis on May 27th, 2022, eligible holders of LUNC, USTC and aUST will be airdropped LUNA on the new chain. The full distribution schedule can be found below.
- The amount of LUNA you will be eligible to receive will be determined by the types of tokens you held on the Terra Classic chain, the time-period that you held these tokens (based on Pre-Attack and Post-Attack snapshots), and the quantity of tokens held.
- Date of first airdrop: Genesis — May 27th, 2022
- At Genesis, 30% of the LUNA airdrop will be immediately available to Pre-Attack users with wallets that had less than 10k LUNA (including staking derivatives) or deposited UST in Anchor, and Post-Attack users with any quantity of LUNA (including staking derivatives), UST, or both.
