Blog

Venom Foundation in Partnership With Iceberg Capital Launches $1 Billion Venom Ventures Fund

Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, 11th January, 2023, Chainwire

Venom Foundation, the first Layer-1 blockchain licensed and regulated by the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), and Iceberg Capital, an ADGM regulated investment manager, officially announce that they have partnered to launch a $1 billion venture fund called Venom Ventures Fund (VVF).

The blockchain-agnostic fund will invest in innovative protocols and Web3 dApps, focusing on long-term trends such as payments, asset management, DeFi, banking services, and GameFi. It aims to become the leading supporter of the next-generation digital technologies and entrepreneurs.

Venom Ventures Fund (VVF) will leverage Iceberg Capital’s network, expertise, and capabilities to offer incubation programs and access to an extensive industry network. Furthermore, it will assist the investee projects with marketing, exchange listing, technical, legal, and regulatory support.

The fund’s leadership team consists of some of the world’s most experienced traditional finance and blockchain professionals; including Peter Knez, ex-CIO at BlackRock and Mustafa Kheriba, a seasoned and well-known investment professional with an impressive track record in the MENA region. Mustafa has served on the Board of Directors of several financial services and insurance companies in the Middle-east and Europe.

Operated by Iceberg Capital, the fund will be investing in projects and teams from pre-seed to Series A rounds. It will strive to accelerate the adoption of blockchain, DeFi, and Web3 while generating long-term value for investors.

Mustafa Kheriba, the Executive Chairman of Iceberg Capital, said “We are thrilled to partner with Venom Foundation, launching their new $1 billion fund. Even though the blockchain industry is witnessing a steep correction in prices, we believe that builders will continue to build and innovate. With Venom Ventures, we will be providing financial, technical, and marketing support to the most promising teams and projects in Web3 space to help them bring their visions to life.”

The Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) is an international financial center and free zone that provides market participants with a world-class legal system and regulatory regime. Established and operated by ADGM regulated entities, Venom Ventures Fund (VVF) will be transparent and will adhere to the regulations.

Peter Knez, Chairman of Venom Ventures, said, “I am delighted to be a part of the launch of our new Venture Capital fund here in Abu Dhabi. I am excited to work with a team of experienced investment professionals and talented people from the crypto industry, and we are ready to allocate strategic investments in the most innovative web3 start-ups that are poised for mass adoption. Our mission is to transform digital asset management and make a lasting impact on the industry. Venom is the ideal platform for us to achieve this goal.”

Venom Ventures Fund (VVF) leads the $20 million funding in Nümi Metaverse

The fund has made its first investment, leading Nümi Metaverse’s $20 million funding round. Nümi Metaverse is a universal platform for creators, innovators, and followers. Nümi will launch its ‘Visual Novel’ in 2023, a mini-game experience with a range of special prizes for players.

Nümi will also launch VR metaverse by the end of this year, followed by a PC and mobile version in 2024. The Nümi investment showcases the fund’s investment strategy. Developers and builders working on innovative Web3 projects are invited to apply for funding through the Venom Ventures Fund website.

About Iceberg Capital

Iceberg Capital Limited is regulated by FSRA as a Prudential Category 3C investment manager based in ADGM. Iceberg Capital is a fast-growing alternative asset management company that provides diversified investment management platforms that includes direct and private equity, venture capital, technology, and virtual assets. Iceberg Capital also offers traditional asset management services such as investment portfolios in local and international markets, financial instruments (equities, ETFs, commodities, derivatives, etc), as well as specialized platforms for securities, and blockchain technology.

For more information about Iceberg Capital, visit: Website | LinkedIn

About Venom Foundation

Venom is the world’s first regulated blockchain. The decentralized network operates under the jurisdiction of the ADGM, with a license to issue utility tokens. The ADGM is an oasis for investors and financial services firms, positioning Venom as the world’s first compliant blockchain, affording authorities and enterprises the freedom to build, innovate, and scale.

A portfolio of in-house dApps and protocols has been developed on the Venom blockchain by various companies. It now harbors the potential to become a bridge for the adoption of CBDCs in the Middle East, North Africa, and worldwide.

For more information about Venom Ventures, visit: Website | Twitter

For more information about Venom Foundation, visit: Website | Twitter

Contact

Adam Newton
pr@venom.ventures

January 11, 2023
Bybit Partners With Copper.co to Improve Custodial Services for Institutional Investors
Key highlights:
- Bybit, a popular cryptocurrency trading platform, announced a partnership with Copper.co
- Bybit has pursued a series of strengthened compliance, security, and custodial enhancements lately, its integration with Copper.co marks the latest
- Bybit seeks to strengthen custodial services for institutional investors via its connection with Copper’s ClearLoop
Bybit, a leading cryptocurrency exchange, has enhanced its growing portfolio of digital asset products and services with an off-exchange custodial service, all thanks to its new collaboration with Copper.co.

According to an official announcement from earlier today, Bybit has signed a new partnership with Copper.co, a renowned institutional digital asset custody, and trading solution provider. This marks the newest and latest development from Bybit in its efforts to build a more enhanced and efficient platform. Lately, Bybit has reportedly been on a relentless hunt for a series of strengthened compliance, security, and custodial enhancements and support for its users.

The partnership between Bybit and Copper.co deems perfect as it appears that both companies share a similar commitment towards improving asset security and user experience. Also, they both seem to set higher standards for the crypto industry.

The CEO at Copper.co, Dmitry Tokarev, acknowledged this in his statement:

“We’re excited to join forces with Bybit, who share our commitment to asset security, user experience and to setting higher standards for the crypto industry to reach its full growth potential.”

Per Tokarev’s statement, there are concerns that the recent events within the crypto ecosystem indicates that the crypto market structure needs to evolve to mirror traditional finance. However, the company believes that the key element to achieving this is an off-exchange settlement, which is the leading reason for the partnership.

Bybit strengthens custodial services for institutional investors

According to the announcement, the partnership will see Bybit providing custodial and settlement services for its institutional clients. It has planned to achieve this by leveraging Copper’s market-leading ClearLoop service.

Although the announcement did not note any specified date Bybit would deploy the stated mechanism, the company revealed that it expects to integrate into the ClearLoop service in the first quarter of 2023.

Following Bybit’s incorporation Copper.co, the institutional clients of the platform will now have the opportunity to deploy capital while executing instant trade on the platform. Meanwhile, they can continue to maintain their assets off-exchange in independent custody, all thanks to the deployment of Copper’s pioneering ClearLoop technology.

In addition to this, users of the platform will also be able to increase allocations, mitigate counterparty risk, and optimize capital efficiency using the ClearLoop infrastructure.

In a bid to explain the motive behind the company’s latest moves, Ben Zhou, the co-founder and CEO at Bybit, said, “Our aim is to ensure maximum trust and flexibility for our clients, and provide the reassurance institutions and sophisticated investors demand and expect.”

Zhou further noted that the firm’s partnership with Copper reflects its commitment to always listen to its customers, care about their concerns, improve Bybit services and expand its portfolio, while also collaborating with necessary firms to provide even higher levels of excellence and commitment for its retail and institutional clients.

Open Bybit Account
January 11, 2023
Taunt Battleworld Sees Humans and Old Gods Fight for Earth’s Control, while the World Watches

Taunt Battleworld is a digital collectible game with an integrated social platform that taps into the large traditional gaming market through free-to-play and esports while offering the benefits of player-owned assets.

Humans and Old Gods

Modeled after all-time great fighting games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, Taunt Battleworld is easy to learn but difficult to master.

In Taunt Battleworld, players are transported to a future version of Earth where the “Old Gods” have declared war on humanity and sent their fighters to do battle. To defend against these threats, humans send their own fighters to Battleworld, a realm where they can fight for supremacy. This is the setting of the game, where players can engage in epic battles and determine the fate of the world.

Innovative Gameplay

One-on-one fighting games have been a popular attraction in the gaming industry for decades, with titles ranging from classic arcade games to the latest console releases. Taunt Battleworld aims to offer the same excitement, but with added features that set it apart from other games in the genre. In addition to incorporating GameFi and NFT elements, Taunt Battleworld uses a patented method of engaging players and non-players alike. Instead of controlling characters and participating in battles directly, users simulate fights using the game’s engine and focus on other tasks like strategy, training, and resource management. For those who prefer to watch the action, the Watch-and-Earn mode allows them to earn rewards just by watching battles. Additionally, anyone can participate in the Predict-and-Earn mode and win prizes for free.

Digital Collectibles and Black Magic Collection

All fighters in the game are unique and represented by their own NFTs. 5,000 warriors from each of the five races mean that the game has a total of 25,000 NFTs. Taunt Battleworld also has several commitments from the world’s top combat sports athletes to be in the game as playable characters. The “Black Magic” Collection will be available on Magic Eden on January 14th and will feature rare playable characters such as Floyd Mayweather Jr, Cris Cyborg, and Andy Ruiz Jr. In addition to these world champions, the collection will also include a selection of other warriors, totaling 1,000 pieces. You can learn more about the collection here.

Noticed by Industry

With a diverse and experienced team that comes from the biggest gaming and blockchain sector, the Taunt Battleworld team takes the best of their expertise to build a robust and engaging game that will deliver hours of entertainment, both to players and others who just want to watch the action and predict.

The game’s potential has not gone unnoticed, with big names such as Rainmaker Games, Polygon Studios and AU21 backing the development.

$TAUNT Launch and Airdrop

The upcoming release of $TAUNT is planned for late Q1 2023. Confirmed launchpads include BSCpad, Wepad, and Spores.

In parallel with the Black Magic Collection launch, you can earn free airdropped tokens by voting for $TAUNT to be a community-based launch on top launchpad DAO Maker on January 17th. $TAUNT will be used for in-game utility and to power the Taunt Live platform.

Players can vote here to earn their free tokens.

January 11, 2023
Coinbase to Reduce Its Workforce by 20%, Stock Price Surges +13% After the Announcement
Key takeaways:
- Coinbase is reducing its headcount by 950 workers, 20% of the entire workforce
- The exchange is making cuts to weather the crypto winter and broader economic downturn
- Coinbase stock gained 13% after the announcement
Coinbase to lay off 950 workers as it shifts to “operational efficiency” to weather poor economic conditions

In a letter to its employees on Tuesday, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said that the exchange is meeting the broader macroeconomic downturn with a 25% reduction in operating costs, which includes laying off 950 workers, about 20% of the entire workforce.

Armstrong assured Coinbase employees and shareholders that the recent events (collapse of FTX, crypto and macroeconomic downturn) would end up benefiting the company in the long term.

“Coinbase is well capitalized, and crypto isn’t going anywhere. In fact, I believe recent events will ultimately end up benefiting Coinbase greatly (a large competitor failing, emerging regulatory clarity, etc.), and they validate our long term strategy.”

Armstrong added that the exchange needs to have the “appropriate operational efficiency” so it can leverage any potential opportunities that may arise in the future. However, he doesn’t discredit the possibility of “further contagion” within the crypto market and global economy.

The CEO also noted that Coinbase had undergone several crypto bear markets before the latest one, to which it always responded by tightening its operational expenses.

Due to the reduced headcount, Coinbase will be shutting down several projects and decreasing the number of people on multiple other projects. The full details of what this entails will become available to the public in the exchange’s Q4 earning call next month.

The market responded to layoff news with a bullish move as Coinbase stock (COIN) grew an additional 13% on Tuesday to increase the 5-day green candle to 25%.

It is worth noting that the tech sector has been making severe job cuts in the past couple of months, with the likes of Meta, Amazon, Twitter, Tesla, and Google laying off 150,000 workers.
January 11, 2023
Building Blocks Event for Web3 Startups Announced for ETH TLV With Collider, Fireblocks, and MarketAcross

DATE, Tel-Aviv – Building Blocks 23, a web3 builder-focused event, will be hosted in central Tel Aviv on February 7, 2023. Hosted by top Israeli companies as part of ETH TLV, the one-day Building Blocks event will bring together Ethereum developers and communities.

A series of workshops, panel discussions, and informal events will take place across Tel Aviv throughout ETH TLV. Building Blocks 23 organizers Collider, Fireblocks, and MarketAcross, in conjunction with StarkWare, will guide delegates through the art of creating a successful web3 business.

“On the global stage, Tel Aviv plays an out-sized role in innovative startups with proven track records,” said Idan Ofrat, Co-founder and CTO at Fireblocks. “With the emergence of web3, we are excited to co-host Building Blocks 23 and to support the city’s forward-thinking startup culture, bringing together the best collective experiences and insights that the country has to offer.”

Building Blocks 23 will form a day-long event for the foundations of web3 entrepreneurship. Founders and builders will share personal knowledge and experience of the industry’s ups and downs. The lessons, mistakes, and success stories of successful web3 builders will be recounted for the benefit of those whose web3 journey has just begun.

A series of talks will cover lessons and experiences of building in web3, mastering leading protocols, and staying on course in the face of market turbulence. Topics will also include fundraising, finding product market fit, building a security-first organization, growing a community, and building teams and culture in a distributed setting. In addition, a series of practical workshops will cover such matters as treasury management, developing sustainable tokenomic frameworks, and effective marketing and branding.

“Israel has always been a builders’ hub,” said Itai Elizur, COO of MarketAcross. “Innovation is part of our DNA. Naturally, the narrative has shifted from Israel being a startup nation to a web3 nation. Tel Aviv is an ideal host as it continues to be a tech engine for a top-notch community of developers.”

Eylon Aviv, Principal at Collider, said: “We’re excited to finally be hosting a global web3 conference in Tel Aviv. Our partners from abroad have been asking us for years when we’ll be bringing an event to the city, and we’re thrilled to be able to make it happen. We can’t wait to bring together experts from around the world to share their knowledge and insights with the vibrant and dynamic blockchain community in Tel Aviv.”

Guest speakers confirmed for Building Blocks 23 include blockchain skeptic and Ethereum expert Udi Wertheimer, SSV Network CEO Alon Muroch and a wide range of representatives from The Graph, Safe, Avalanche, AAVE and Solidus Labs.

About Collider VC

Founded in 2018, Collider is a venture capital fund focused on digital assets and early-stage startups to support the next generation of companies, protocols, and products that are building the digital native economy.

Learn more: Website | Twitter | LinkedIn

About MarketAcross

Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, MarketAcross is the world’s leading blockchain PR and marketing firm. It provides a complete end-to-end marketing solution for blockchain firms across the globe.

MarketAcross has helped many of the industry’s largest exchanges and blockchain projects, including Polkadot, Solana, Binance, Polygon, Crypto.com, Huobi, and eToro, build their brands among cryptocurrency and blockchain audiences.

Learn more: Website | Twitter | LinkedIn

About Fireblocks

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 1,500 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $3 trillion in digital assets and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. Some of the biggest trading desks have switched to Fireblocks because it’s the only solution that CISOs and Ops Teams both love.

Learn more: Website | Twitter | LinkedIn

January 11, 2023
Cointelegraph has launched an Accelerator program for innovative Web3 startups

New York, United States, 10th January, 2023, Chainwire

The program aims to help Web3’s rising stars boost their media presence, community growth and brand awareness in exchange for project tokens.

The Web3 space is growing rapidly and new startups are emerging daily, with investment into Web3 projects skyrocketing to $30 billion in 2021 and around $36 billion in 2022.

While many Web3 founders have great ideas and a strong value proposition to bring to the space, this is a challenging field riddled with competition and a lack of trust from the broader audience.

Founded in 2013, Cointelegraph has grown to become a world leader in the digital assets, metaverse and emerging technologies media space, with over 20 million readers worldwide.

The company is now looking to help other rising stars reach their full potential and is delighted to introduce its Accelerator program — a startup booster leveraging the company’s capabilities as a strong media and strategic partner, including content, branding, network, marketing, investor relations and much more.

What is the Cointelegraph Accelerator program?

Cointelegraph Accelerator will leverage the expertise of the global Cointelegraph team, which consists of over 150 professionals working across and developing global media products in 11 different languages.

The program focuses on decentralized finance, nonfungible tokens, GameFi, Web3 social, cross-chain and layer 2 solutions, as well as other segments of the broader Web3 industry. It has already onboarded over a dozen companies and publicly opened the application process for new candidates.

While many accelerator programs focus on advisory, followed by monetary investments, Cointelegraph takes a different route. Participants will be able to receive contributions from Cointelegraph in the form of media products available in our ecosystem including advertorials, individually tailored special projects, educational materials, native content integrations and much more.

One of the program’s key features is that it will be run by a separate commercial arm independent of Cointelegraph’s editorial team. Startups will be able to participate in the program in exchange for their projects’ native tokens or equity, subject to specific conditions. By doing so, Cointelegraph will align its interest in the project’s success and growth in token value with supported teams.

Strategic support in the program will typically run from nine to 24 months and will be based on the participating startup’s roadmap milestones, marketing and strategic goals. With long-term success in mind, Cointelegraph will leverage its vast partner network to offer a comprehensive, 360-degree marketing strategy to support the program’s portfolio of projects.

This support comes in various shapes and forms, depending on each individual project’s needs. Cointelegraph can offer support in marketing, branding and introductions to investors, exchanges, mentors, market makers, technological partners and online and offline events.

Paul Solntsev, Head of Cointelegraph Accelerator, said: “We are excited to expand our product suite with the Accelerator program, bringing more knowledge and education to our worldwide audience, especially regarding emerging tech startups and evolutions in Web3.”

Paul continued: “We welcome companies with strong convictions and innovative projects to apply for the program and join our partner network to bring long-lasting value to the industry.”

How to participate

Cointelegraph is looking to support projects in their early stages of development that have already designed a product ready for market, usually between pre-seed and Series A stage. A well-outlined roadmap and project documentation with clearly defined utility for the token are also required.

To become part of the Cointelegraph Accelerator program, projects should visit the official Accelerator program website, where they can familiarize themselves with Cointelegraphs offers as a recognized media leader and brand establishment partner. From there, they can also apply.

For more information or additional comment, please contact:
accelerate@cointelegraph.com

Contact

Alexandra Kay
alexandra.kay@cointelegraph.com

January 10, 2023
Polkadot Ends 2022 as One of the Most Active Web3 Ecosystems
Key highlights:
- Nomination pools and native staking have resulted in a rapid increase in the number of DOT stakers
- Astar, one of the important protocols of the Polkadot ecosystem, collaborated with Japan’s largest mobile operator provider NTT Docomo for 4 billion dollars.
- Following the SEC’s token conversion guidelines, the DOT can no longer be considered a security
Polkadot, the most innovative multi-chain platform in the blockchain world, continued to develop its ecosystem in the last quarter of 2022 despite the bad market conditions. Nomination pools have greatly reduced the barrier to entry for native staking as the number of teams creating a use case-specific parachain continues to grow.

Nomination pools, a new feature of the Polkadot staking algorithm, was released on November 1, 2022. By increasing the scalability of the network as users pool DOT tokens on-chain to nominate validators and receive rewards, the system not only helps keep Polkadot decentralized and secure, but also enables DOT holders to earn competitive DOT rewards.

Moreover, thanks to this system, staking has now become accessible to a much wider audience, as the minimum staking amount has decreased from 200 DOT to 1 DOT. This allowed 3,475 pool members to connect 854,495 DOT using native staking until the end of 2022.

Astar’s Partnership with NTT Docomo

Astar Network, a smart contract platform on one of the Polkadot parachains, has entered a partnership with Japan’s largest mobile operator provider NTT Docomo on the mass adoption and implementation of Web3. The two organizations will work together to accelerate Web3 adoption, and NTT Docomo will fund up to $4 billion in decentralized technologies.

Parachain Migrations Start from Kusama to Polkadot

The first move, representing the full migration of a parachain located in Kusama to Polkadot, came from the KILT Protocol. The first example to migrate within the ecosystem, KILT Protocol is a self-governing blockchain protocol that issues verifiable credentials and decentralized identifiers (DIDs). The interest of large-scale enterprises in the protocol was effective in the migration decision.

DOT Is No Longer a Security

The Web3 Foundation announced that the ecosystem’s native token DOT has turned into a non-security after three years of relationship with the SEC. The foundation enabled the token morphing vision set by the SEC to be addressed by establishing communication guidelines and business processes comparable to a publicly traded company. DOT holders can rest assured that the token is legal.

Polkadot Leads Development Activities in Q4

According to data provided by Electric Capital, 1,128 weekly active developers generated 13,934 weekly commits in the ecosystem in Q4. No other Web3 project beat Polkadot in the number of weekly commits in the same period. Located in the ecosystem, Manta Network made history as the largest Trusted Setup in the history of zero-knowledge technology, with more than 13,000 participants from 177 countries.

In light of these developments, Polkadot ends 2022 with the largest ecosystem of use-case-specific layer-1 blockchains and applications. Polkadot hosts 74 parachains and more than 300 new unstoppable apps in 2022, with 550 projects launched or in development so far.
January 10, 2023
5 New Tokens Worth Watching in 2023

Token generation events represent an excellent opportunity for investors to gain early access to some of the most promising new assets in the cryptocurrency industry.

These events, also known as “token launches” or TGEs, refer to the creation of a new blockchain-based digital asset that acts as a utility token for a specific project, and are often used as a way of raising funds. As such, TGEs generally take the form of an initial coin offering, initial Dex offering, private sale or public sale. They’re designed to boost visibility of new projects and attract investors by offering the tokens at a low entry price.

New TGEs happen all the time in the crypto industry but only a few new projects offer real value to investors. Many new tokens fail to live up to their promise, but there are a number of projects set to launch TGEs in 2023 that could well prove to be an exception to that rule. Without further ado, here are five hot new TGEs to look forward to in the New Year.

Central Bank Digital Currencies

Most countries have accepted that crypto is here to stay and as a consequence of that, many are looking to digitize their own fiat currencies with the creation of a “central bank digital currency” or CBDCs.

In reality, CBDCs are not true decentralized cryptocurrencies – rather, they can be considered as a digital version of fiat, meaning they’re controlled by that nation’s monetary authority, which is usually a central bank.

At present, just two nations have gotten CBDCs up and running – the Bahamas with its Sand Dollar that launched in 2020, and Nigeria with the e-Naira, which debuted in October 2022. However, those early trend-setters could be joined by a number of bigger nations in the coming months.

One of the front runners is China, where local reports say the People’s Bank of China is on track to launch its e-CNY digital currency in February. Pilot tests of the new asset have already taken place in cities such as Changsha, Dalian, Shanghai and Shenzhen, with the tokens being used to pay bills, transportation fares, buy and sell goods online and offline.

Kazakhstan is another country that’s taking a keen interest in CBDCs and it has tentative plans in place to launch its own national token sometime in 2023. A number of banks and local financial firms are said to be involved in pilot projects, and one of the aims is to give the Kazakh government greater regulatory control of the local economy, officials have said.

Elsewhere, Brazil is going ahead with its own plans for a pilot project for a digital reais, with an official launch slated for 2024.

Perhaps the most exciting token launch in 2023 will be the United States’ digital dollar. Although no concrete launch date has been announced, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Innovation Center said in November it will kick off a 12-week proof-of-concept pilot for a CBDC in the new year. The pilot is designed to explore the feasibility of an “interoperable network of central bank wholesale digital money and commercial bank digital money operating on a shared, multi-entity distributed ledger” and will involve banks including BNY Mellon, Citi, HSBC, Mastercard, PNC Bank, TD Bank, Truist, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo

Pendulum

CBDCs are often compared to stablecoins such as USDT and USDC, because, like those tokens, they’re pegged to the price of national currencies. Stablecoins serve a key role in the crypto industry, especially in areas such as DeFi, as they enable investors to quickly exit their positions in almost any kind of cryptocurrency to store their funds in a stable asset. It’s for this reason that we’re particularly intrigued with the upcoming launch of a new asset known as PEN.

PEN is the native token of Pendulum Chain, a smart contract-based blockchain network that aims to connect fiat rails to the decentralized financial economy. The project is centered around the idea of bridging compliant, fiat-pegged tokens from networks such as Ethereum, Polkadot, Solana and other blockchains into vibrant DeFi ecosystems in order to satisfy the demand for fiat liquidity.

SatoshiPay, the creator of Pendulum, is looking to construct the missing link between fiat and DeFi via its fiat-optimized blockchain. It promises to create on-chain utility for a number of fiat currencies, as well as multiple new fintech services. It will provide a simple way for traditional financial services such as trade financing, FOREX and savings accounts to integrate seamlessly with DeFi applications such as yield farming and lending protocols. In this way, Pendulum can emerge as a key element of Web3’s infrastructure, unlocking DeFi opportunities for numerous fiat currencies.

Pendulum’s TGE is scheduled for the first quarter of 2023 and will become an integral cog in Pendulum’s wheel, serving as a utility token that’s used for transaction fees, staking and on-chain governance. Transaction fees must be paid to use the network’s services and will be applied to any transactions on the protocol.

Flare Network

Big things are expected for the growth of blockchain interoperability in 2023 and one project that will play a key role in its development will be Flare Network. Flare is a layer-1 blockchain that aims to connect every kind of blockchain such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, metaverses, and even traditional networks. In other words, it can be thought of as the interoperability protocol that “connects everything.”

The main purpose of Flare is to enable blockchains to connect to any kind of data source, and to date the project is already partnering with Metropolis World, enabling it to bridge assets to and from other metaverses such as The Sandbox and Decentraland.

Flare’s native token FLR launches early January, when 58.3% of its total genesis supply will be allocated to the community via its initial public token distribution, cross-chain incentives and its ecosystem support program. As Flare’s utility token, FLR is what powers web3 interoperability. The unique ability to wrap FLR in smart contracts with detachable voting power will give FLR token holders the chance to participate in the Flare Time Series Oracle that delivers reliable and decentralized data to applications on Flare. By participating in FTSO, FLR holders will have the opportunity to earn risk-free yield as a reward for enabling accurate price feeds. The utility of FLR also extends to protocol governance, providing collateral for third party decentralized applications built on Flare, and network transaction fees.

Banger Games

Banger Games is not a video games developer in the traditional sense. Rather, it’s attempting to build what it calls the “Internet of Games”, with a gaming platform that utilizes blockchain to share profits between games publishers, intermediaries and players. Banger Games promises to put the PLAY into “play-to-earn” with a platform for supercharging high-level video games with blockchain benefits.

The project already has a number of titles in the works, including Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. CS:GO, as it’s known, is the latest edition of the popular Counter Strike video game franchise and brings innovations such as SMART tournaments that rely on smart contracts to pay out rewards to the best players. It will enable the best Counter Strike players to earn real-life rewards for their sharpshooting skills and elevate the game to another level.

What’s great about Banger Games is that it provides an easy way for any video games developer to add a play-to-earn element to their games, enabling new ways to create a more inclusive community and new revenue streams.

Key to all of this is Banger Coin, which is set to launch its TGE early in 2023. Banger Coin is envisioned as a global gaming currency that will enable video games players to monetize the time they spend playing games, earn rewards, improve their skills, buy in-game assets and enter tournaments. It will underpin a new economic system that rewards players of every level, and will be easily exchangeable with other kinds of digital asset.

SubQuery

Representing a possible game-changer for the DeFi industry is SubQuery, which is a decentralized data aggregation, indexing and querying layer for Layer-1 blockchains such as Polkadot, Ethereum and Avalanche. The project bills itself as a kind of data-as-a-service provider that gives dApp developers a simple way to query blockchains, rather than build a complex, customized back-end for processing and extracting blockchain data.

SubQuery provides a solution to one of the biggest challenges in blockchain today, which is the problem of querying blockchains for data extraction. With existing tools, it can take days to process a simple query on Polkadot or Ethereum, which stifles a number of exciting use cases in DeFi and other blockchain segments.

For instance, a decentralized insurance application that’s able to pay out drought-stricken farmers can only work properly if it has a timely way to process public weather data that’s hosted on the blockchain. This is where SubQuery can shine, providing a powerful solution for querying and aggregating public blockchain data in seconds. SubQuery has built a developer toolkit that includes an API for organizing and querying blockchain data, as well as an open-source data indexing tool that can quickly organize the data it queries. As a result, developers can create dApps that can quickly ask questions of blockchains and receive accurate answers within seconds. SubQuery’s native token SQT will be the key asset that powers this decentralized network when it launches in the first half of 2023. SQT will be used to pay transaction fees for each query, and will also serve as an incentive for participants to act as a medium of exchange in the network. In addition, SQT holders will be able to participate in the running of the protocol, proposing changes and voting on them, in line with the project’s goal to devolve governance to a decentralized autonomous organization.

January 10, 2023
Metacade presale passes $2 million – only $690k remaining before it sells out

London, United Kingdom, 10th January, 2023, Chainwire

Metacade has exceeded expectations as investors flocked to its presale to purchase MCADE tokens, raising over $2 million for the GameFi project.

The beta stage of the presale saw $1 million pour in over a matter of weeks and momentum has continued despite the 25% increase in token price. There is now only $690k remaining of the token at $0.01 before the price rises 20% in the next round.

$MCADE is available to buy on the official Metacade website.

Metacade is the world’s first community-run play-to-earn (P2E) arcade built on blockchain. The Ethereum-backed metaverse project will offer a thriving GameFi hub for gamers and crypto enthusiasts alike. It will be a place to earn, learn and connect with like-minded individuals while playing some of the hottest P2E games that GameFi space has to offer.

Built to last, the Metacade roadmap showcases the project’s ambition and longevity. Beyond its stellar blockchain game offering, the platform will host leaderboards, trending games, GameFi alpha, and much more to keep the community engaged. To further show its support to the gaming community the platform will launch a jobs board to help people new roles in Web3 and a Metagrants initiative to support game developers keen to build on the platform.

MCADE, the platform’s native token, will power activity and transactions on Metacade. Players will use it to access pay-to-play games and be rewarded for their gaming efforts in MCADE. There will be further earning opportunities through competitions and tournaments, sharing gaming alpha, and writing reviews. Staking will also be an option for MCADE holders wanting to top up their income.

MCADE has a fixed token supply of 2 billion tokens, with seventy percent of these being made available during the presale. The other thirty percent of these tokens have been reserved for development, liquidity provisions, competition pool funding, and exchange listings.

MCADE will soon be listed on Bitmart, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, which is ranked 21st in the CoinMarketCap exchange rankings. Metacade signed the terms with the Singapore-based digital asset exchange in December 2022 and shared the news on its Twitter account. This is just the beginning for the MCADE token as the team has revealed they are in talks with other crypto exchanges and have a top 10 exchange listing announcement coming soon.

Head of Product for Metacade Russell Bennett said: “The Bitmart listing will give millions of people easy access to the MCADE token in a secure and safe trading environment. The public listing will propel awareness of Metacade and help the project gain further traction and following. With another popular exchange announcement soon to be revealed, we’re thrilled by the spectacular welcome Metacade has received from the GameFi space.”

The P2E GameFi platform has the stamp of approval from leading blockchain auditing firm Certik. Metacade joins the ranks among Polygon, ApeCoin, and BNB Chain as a trusted platform in the crypto space. Certik employs cutting-edge technology and mathematics to analyze and evaluate the specification and code of blockchain projects. The auditors also carried out a full KYC of the Metacade team to ensure they are genuine and provide further transparency of the project. The full audit results are available on the Certik website.

The Metacade presale has now sold over $2 million worth of tokens in under 7 weeks and at the time of publishing has under 25% remaining.

About Metacade
Metacade is the premier destination for gaming in the metaverse. As Web3’s first community arcade that allows gamers to hang out, share gaming knowledge and play exclusive P2E games. The platform offers users multiple ways to generate income, build careers in Web3, and connect with the wider gaming community.

Leading investing site Invezz has called Metacade: “A place where GameFi and the Metaverse intersect, with the potential to be one of the biggest names in its space, and potentially the industry overall”.

Metacade will be the one-stop destination for users to play, earn, and network with other passionate gamers worldwide. Once the project reaches the end of its roadmap, Metacade will be handed over to the community as a full-fledged DAO. After all, Metacade wants you to have a hand in shaping the GameFi world of tomorrow.

Links
Website | Whitepaper | Socials | CertiK Audit

Contact

Head of Product
Russell Bennett
Metacade
pr@metacade.co

January 10, 2023