Your future at stake: Uni of Wyoming allocates $4M to staking three coins

Published at: April 29, 2021

The University of Wyoming is allocating $4 million to running nodes and staking at least three cryptocurrencies.

The news was shared to Twitter on April 28 by Caitlin Long, a Wyoming Blockchain and Fintech Select Committee appointee and founder of Avanti Bank & Trust — a local bank servicing the digital asset sector.

NEWS NOT REPORTED YET: State of #Wyoming appropriated $4m for nodes/staking in at least 3 cryptocurrencies, run by Univ of Wyoming. This kickstarts program where gains from this pool, if matched by private donations, go to fund UWyo! @rothfuss https://t.co/LDul3iGtS4 pic.twitter.com/KxFVm5YhLp

— Caitlin Long (@CaitlinLong_) April 28, 2021

The documentation posted by Long notes the University appropriated $4 million from the state’s strategic investments and projects fund to establish, operate, and maintain “nodes and staking pools for no less than three publicly tradable cryptocurrencies."

The revenues generated by the University’s staking pools will first be mobilized to cover operational costs, and then to repay the $4 million to the state’s investment fund. Once the investment has been repaid, profits from the University’s staking will be distributed “to support blockchain programs and activities at the university and community colleges throughout the state.”

The expenditure of profits generated through staking is conditional on the University matching every $1 appropriated from the investment fund with at least $2 in either private donations or from the campus’ reserve accounts.

Chris Rothfuss, the senate minority leader of the Wyoming Legislature and Chairman of the state’s Blockchain and Fintech Select Committee, praised the committee’s “herculean effort” in getting the legislation passed.

Herculean effort by Blockchain Select Cmte Reps @itsmikeyin @JaredSOlsen and @CyrusWestern getting this across the finish line and on the books! pic.twitter.com/2aXlF2cz8M

— Chris Rothfuss (@rothfuss) April 28, 2021

Many Twitter users have responded to Long’s post with speculation that Cardano (ADA) may be one of the assets the University is intending to stake.

One commenter shared a link to information on a staking pool identified by CardanoStaking.info as being operated by the University of Wyoming’s Advanced Blockchain Lab. As of this writing, the pool has minted less than 10 blocks, and has pledged roughly $60,000 worth of ADA.

In February 2020, IOHK, the company behind Cardano, donated $500,000 worth of ADA to the university’s blockchain lab to advance its research.

Tags
Altcoin
Business
Cardano
Proof-Of-Stake
Universities
Wyoming
Related Posts
Cardano's real competition is not who you'd expect, says new Cardano Foundation CEO
Frederik Gregaard, the incoming CEO of the Cardano Foundation, shared with Cointelegraph his perspective on fintech's competitive landscape and major technology trends. Discussing competition, Gregaard said that the protocol's biggest opponents do not come from within the blockchain space: “I think the biggest competitor, it's really the largest technology companies today around, the large tech platforms such as Google, Amazon, Tencent, Alibaba, those kind of players”. Gregaard believes that social-media-based big technology providers have morphed from supplying their customers with meaningful tools to essentially owning and manipulating their users. He went so far as to call them “an addictive, mental, …
Altcoin / Sept. 30, 2020
Chance of a price crash increases as Cardano (ADA) futures near $1B
The impressive 816% gain of Cardano's ADA coin in 2021 catapulted the smart contract platform's market capitalization to $61 billion. To fully grasp how far this third-generation protocol has gone, the absolute leader, Ether (ETH), held the same valuation just six months ago. As AD's price evolves, so do its derivatives markets, and the nearly $1 billion in futures open interest poses both an opportunity and a threat for the price. Cautious investors will now question whether the $200 billion in potential liquidations are around the corner, drawing similarities to the 23% crash that occurred on April 17. DeFi is …
Markets / May 14, 2021
Blockchain folk hero Nandy Martin hopes to build a better community for Haitians in Miami
Haiti, a Western Caribbean country torn by a tragic past, natural disasters, poor leadership, and ineffective foreign aid, is not a country that comes to people's minds when they think of blockchain adoption. For years, Haiti has been among the world's poorest countries in terms of GDP per capita, as per data from the World Bank. But Haitian-Canadian entrepreneur Nandy Martin, colloquially known as Captain Haiti for wandering the streets of his community in his superhero attire and signature shield prop, has ambitious goals to change that. Operating from the sunny domains of his humble abode in Miami's Little Haiti, …
Adoption / Dec. 10, 2021
No Bitcoin: Mozilla will only accept Proof of Stake crypto donations
The company behind the Firefox internet browser Mozilla is attempting to appease its environmentally-conscious community by accepting only Proof-of-Stake (PoS) crypto donations. The company initially halted all crypto donations in January, but has now opened them back up after a review period to assess community sentiments and to conduct research on crypto energy usage. An update to our policy on accepting cryptocurrency donations. We got it wrong, we heard you, and we've evolved. https://t.co/0bSThVJsCC — Mozilla (@mozilla) April 7, 2022 PoS blockchains consume less than 1% as much electricity as Bitcoin, although they vary among themselves in efficiency as demonstrated …
Altcoin / April 13, 2022
Terra to burn $1.4B UST and stake 240M LUNA to ‘stop the bleeding’
The Terra rescue story continues to unravel. In a tweet thread, the Terra Money Twitter account went into greater detail regarding the CEO of Terraform Labs, Do Kwon’s, rescue plan for UST. The thread sheds light on Proposal 1164, Do Kwon’s initial strategy for Terra from May 11. The proposal would better balance the algorithmic stablecoin Terra USD (UST) by expanding the base pool for the currency. The proposal has received 220,000 votes, at over 50%. The tweet thread also explains that there is a “supply overhang” of UST which explains Terra’s (LUNA) “dilution,” or price depreciation. As a result, …
Blockchain / May 12, 2022