Moralis, a platform that powers decentralized applications, or dApps, announced Thursday that it has received a $13.4 million investment from EQT ventures. The company said that it expects to use this seed capital for product development and corporate expansion. Moralis seeks to provide the blockchain space with a unique user-friendly interface solely for front-end development, while the company and its developers handle the entire back-end. The software can also provide complex services such as node management, authentication, and transaction indexing — which are needed for cross-chain networks, layer two solutions, and Web 3.0 applications. Moralis, which has been active since …

Bitcoin (BTC) was the first cryptocurrency, originating back in 2009. By offering a set-in-stone monetary policy combined with "permissionless-ness" and radical openness, Bitcoin presented an alternative opt-in financial system -- one where economic freedom reigns. The crypto space has since expanded far beyond Bitcoin. Largely driven by smart contract platforms like Ethereum (ETH), users now have access to an entire decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, on-chain programmable art (in the form of nonfungible tokens, also known as NFTs), crypto-based games, and much much more. Given that less than 5% of people globally own Bitcoin, we can consider the cryptocurrency to still …

Is anyone doing it yet? ArpaChain, a secure computation network compatible with blockchain, uses an MPC protocol that creates ways for multiple entities to collaboratively analyze data and extract data synergies while keeping each party’s data input private and secure. Earlier this year, Arpa joined the commission on Blockchain technologies and the crypto economy of Russia. The development team also engaged in a large-scale test for preserving privacy. ARPA’s team is currently focused on architecture design for Randcast. The project proposes a blockchain-based secure computation network of multi-party сomputation (MPC). ARPA cryptographically enables private smart contracts, unprecedented data-at-use privacy protection, …

New research by analytics platform DappRadar has revealed the extent to which decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible token (NFT) markets have grown this year. In its Thursday “Value Flow Report,” DappRadar reported that recent trends have seen sizable growth in NFTs and blockchain gaming but that DeFi is also still generating substantial value. “Although the value flows to some extent from DeFi to NFTs, it appears that both categories are generating value independently.” The research delved into Ethereum-based DeFi, which is still the dominant force in the sector despite the emergence of rival networks such as Binance Smart Chain (BSC), …

Blockchain platform Algorand has today announced the launch of the Algorand Virtual Machine, or AVM, a layer-1 protocol upgrade designed to enhance decentralized app scalability for developers and organizations, enable instant transaction finality and sustain a negative carbon output. In addition to these advancements, the AVM will also give developers program tools to write smart contracts in Python or Reach, a format similar to the multi-paradigm web page language Javascript. Cointelegraph reached out to Algorand's Chief Product Officer, Paul Riegle for his perspective on upgrade: This AVM upgrade allows for the development of complex smart contract based applications in DeFi, …

Solana has been a trending topic due to the successive weeks of price increases seen by its SOL token. At the time of writing, SOL traded at around $207, which is an 11,400% surge from less than $2 back in January. At its present worth, Solana sits among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization with about $60 billion, claiming the sixth spot from Dogecoin (DOGE), according to Cointelegraph Markets. One of the likely catalysts of this bullish momentum is funding from investors led by Andreessen Horowitz and Polychain in June. Solana secured $314 million, which will be used to …

Chainlink is the leading oracle provider, and the project has onboarded over 281 crypto projects in 2021. Some of these include heavyweights, like Huobi's ECO Chain, the Hedera Governing Council and Alchemix. Launched in October 2020, Chainlink's verifiable randomness function, or VRF, has also gained notoriety among decentralized applications (DApps). VRF provides an automated source of randomness to ensure that prizes and rewards are issued in a verifiably fair fashion. For example, on Aug. 13, Arbitrum — a layer-two Ethereum scaling solution — launched a beta mainnet service integrated with Chainlink's oracle data feed and intends to add a "Proof …

The blockchain industry market size was estimated by some to reach more than $21 billion by 2025. The market capitalization of the cryptocurrency market as a whole already reaches over $1.9 trillion. An ecosystem that was once defined by its tight-knit community and exclusivity now reaches governments, businesses, institutional investors and individuals who are all becoming more positive about the evolving space. With this new popularity, a crossroads has emerged. We have reached the stage of adoption where the amount of users utilizing decentralized technology has exceeded the functionality of the technology itself. This has resulted in regularly congested networks …

Leading decentralized exchange Uniswap has become the first decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol to generate more than $1 billion worth of platform fees for liquidity providers. On Tuesday, Lucas Outumuro, head of research at crypto data aggregator IntoTheBlock, shared a chart on Twitter showing that the combined fee revenues of Uniswap’s v2 and v3 Ethereum mainnet deployments have surpassed $1 billion. Including the fees generated by both Uniswap v1 and its v3 deployment on Optimism, Outumuro noted that roughly $1.02 billion has been distributed to Uniswap liquidity providers since the protocol’s creation in November 2018. By contrast, IntoTheBlock’s data shows that …

Long stuck in the shadows of Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) finally took hold of the market in 2020 during the decentralized finance summer. Designed to recreate traditional financial systems with fewer middlemen, DeFi is now being used across lending, borrowing, and the buying and selling of tokens. The majority of these decentralized applications (DApps) are run on Ethereum, which saw activity on the network increase during 2020. This activity also trended upwards due to yield farming, also known as liquidity mining, which enables holders to generate rewards with their crypto capital. But as activity on Ethereum increased, so too did …

Binance has fully integrated the Polygon (MATIC) mainnet onto its platform, according to a press release. From now on, Binance traders can deposit and withdraw MATIC through their Binance accounts while also interacting with decentralized applications, or DApps, like Sushiswap, Balancer, Aave, and more. This integration is meant to ensure that traders can utilize said DApps cheaply and efficiently without using the existing Polygon bridge. Related: Polygon announces scalable data availability infrastructure Avail While this announcement specifically focuses on the MATIC mainnet token, Binance also intends to support ERC20, BEP2, and BEP20 MATIC associated tokens. Binance marks Polygon’s latest integration, …

Avalanche (AVAX) is replacing its months-old Avalanche-Ethereum Bridge, or AEB, with the aptly named Avalanche Bridge, or AB, according to a Medium post from the company. This newer bridge is allegedly fives times cheaper than the previous one and will act as a “growth engine” for the project’s future. The post notes that the AB is available to developers and users right now, and all previous assets from the AEB should carry over. This upgrade is occurring alongside the network’s wallet and explorer upgrades to bring “next-generation improvements” to all of its aspects. Related: Neon Labs deploys cross-chain Ethereum Virtual …