CoinCheckup

Blog

  • Community Gaming Receives $2.3M in Seed Funding, Led by CoinFund, to Build Automated Esports Tournaments

    Community Gaming Receives $2.3M in Seed Funding, Led by CoinFund, to Build Automated Esports Tournaments

    New York, NY, 1st July, 2021,

    New York, NY, July 1, 2021 — Community Gaming, a gaming startup working to automate the organization and payouts of esports tournaments, today announced the completion of a seed round for $2.3 million, led by the blockchain-focused investment firm, CoinFund and major crypto ecosystem players, including Dapper Labs, Animoca Brands, Multicoin Capital, 1kx, Warburg Serres, and Hashed. Venture funds and angels from the gaming scene also contributed, including Kevin Durant’s and Rich Kleiman’s Thirty Five Ventures, Marc Pincus’s WorkPlay Ventures, Play Ventures, WhaleShark, and GenG Esports and Rally Network founder Kevin Chou. The seed investment follows an earlier pre-seed investment by ConsenSys.

    Community Gaming is a platform that delivers a seamless tournament experience using cutting edge blockchain technology for the distribution of rewards. The inspiration for the project comes from the experience of its founders hosting LAN tournaments in New York City since 2017. Across 200 events, the team saw firsthand the challenges in producing grassroots gaming tournaments stemming from lagging payment methods and convoluted tournament software. CommunityGaming.io was born to address these pain points and launched in late 2019.

    Community Gaming provides a web app for registration, tournament bracket management, and player payments facilitated by distributed ledger technology. Credit card integration facilitates fiat-to-crypto onboarding with the entire experience designed to be as seamless and beginner-friendly as possible. Tournament organizers can create a tournament in less than 5 minutes by first connecting an existing MetaMask wallet, or alternatively, generating a new non-custodial wallet with a single click. 

    Organizers can then designate the tournament format, along with rules and payout methods; the platform automatically manages the bracket for them. Likewise, participants can create their CommunityGaming.io account, connect or generate a new self-managed wallet, and join one of the active tournaments. Currently, tournaments can be deployed on the Ethereum mainnet, Binance Smart Chain, and Polygon with fees as low as 1/50 of a penny. Payouts are immediately and automatically sent to the winners’ connected wallets at the conclusion of the tournament.

    The investment round will help Community Gaming expand its presence into Latin America and South East Asia as the first comprehensive blockchain-enabled payment solution in the gaming space.

    The platform’s eventual rewards program will enable highly engaged users to increase their earnings potential by completing weekly quests. The recent investment will also allow for rapid development of this rewards program as well as more complex smart contracts for league play.

    “We are excited to have obtained support from major players in both the blockchain and gaming industries as we seek to bring web3 payment technology to millions of gamers worldwide and help accelerate the shift towards Play2Earn gaming ecosystems.” said Chris Gonsalves, CEO of Community Gaming.

    “Community Gaming has created a valuable platform for esports that enables the community to thrive,” said Jake Brukhman, Founder and CEO of CoinFund. “The team has taken the world’s renewed interest in gaming to new heights and improved on challenges facing online gaming. We are eager to support their continued success in making esports tournaments seamless and enjoyable.” 

    About Community Gaming

    Community Gaming is the all-in-one platform offering esports infrastructure to all key stakeholders in the industry. Through its seamless UX and highly scalable blockchain payment technology, the platform equips players, organizers, and game developers with the tools they need to create, facilitate, and participate in esports tournaments.

    Contacts
    • Dan Edelstein
    • PR@marketacross.com
  • Coinbase Continues To Add More Digital Assets To Its Platform

    Coinbase Continues To Add More Digital Assets To Its Platform

    Crypto exchanges have cemented their role as the go-to platforms when traders want to exchange between digital assets. While there is an impressive list of crypto exchanges that are available across the globe, United States-based Coinbase has cemented its place as one of the leaders in this aspect. The crypto exchange made a massive leap in April, becoming the first cryptocurrency exchange to go public in the U.S. stock market.

    Coinbase has listed more tokens since the beginning of this year

    In the past, Coinbase was very conservative about which tokens they listed on their platform, which is evident from their listing pattern across the years. But since the beginning of 2020, Coinbase has moved swiftly to increase the number of tokens listed, adding a total of 21 digital assets for that period. In the first half of this year, the company has further increased its number of supported tokens, adding popular crypto assets such as Dogecoin and Polkadot. Judging by previous records, the number of listed tokens in the first half of this month is the highest by far since the inception of the crypto exchange. Also, the company only recently listed Dogecoin, despite the company’s employees floating the idea already a few years ago.  

    Asides from Coinbase’s cryptocurrency trading services, the company’s custody arm of the company has also stretched its list of supported tokens to a total of 134 after adding 74 tokens since the start of 2021. 

    Many cryptocurrency traders and investors are familiar with the “Coinbase effect”, which refers to the price spikes that cryptocurrencies tend to experience right after Coinbase announces a listing. This phenomenon has helped make a Coinbase listing one of the most desirable milestones for projects and investors in the crypto and blockchain industry. 

    Following the company’s public debut, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, noted that the exchange would continue to add as many digital assets as possible in the future.

  • Glassnode Report Says Institutional Investors Interest in Bitcoin Is Declining

    Glassnode Report Says Institutional Investors Interest in Bitcoin Is Declining

    Even though some investors are still bullish on Bitcoin despite the major price dips that have happened since April, a new report has shown that institutional investors may be losing interest in Bitcoin. 

    According to a report by Glassnode, the demand for Bitcoin from institutional entities is suffering a downturn. Noticeably, the institutional demand for the asset was one of the major factors that pushed the asset over its current all-time high at over $64,000. 

    In the report, Glassnode pointed out that even though institutional investors are still showing signs of having more than enough money to invest in assets, they might no longer be too enthusiastic about Bitcoin.

    Giving a typical example, the company pointed to the Bitcoin Trust held by Grayscale (GBTC). In its review of the GBTC, Glassnode mentioned that the product has been trading at a discount to its net asset value (NAV) since February this year. While this is now a trend, it was not usually so as GBTC has historically traded at a big premium to NAV. However, it’s worth mentioning that the discount has decreased from a record -21.2% in May to about 7% at the moment.

    The report also mentioned that two of the highest trading Bitcoin ETFs in Canada have traded at a meager rate. The Purpose and QBTC Bitcoin ETFs have recorded a combined outflow of of 8,037 Bitcoin in the last month. 3IQ’s QBTC ETF has witnessed a massive decline of 10,483 Bitcoin in the last two months. 3IQ CEO Fred Pye has commented that this trend shouldn’t be a cause for concern. According to Pye, the decline shows that investors are seeing gains and are willing to cash out their profits.

  • Upland Is Celebrating 1 Million NFT Properties Minted in the Metaverse

    Upland Is Celebrating 1 Million NFT Properties Minted in the Metaverse

    Upland has just hit a major milestone in their platform, and for the NFT landscape as a whole. Being one of the world’s fastest growing digital metaverses, Upland’s users have recently minted the millionth NFT property on the platform.

    Not long after being featured on CBS/Paramount Plus’ 60 Minutes+, Upland, the property trading metaverse, has reached a record-breaking milestone by surpassing over one million NFT properties minted in just 18 months since its inception. Upland is one of the world’s fastest growing blockchain games, with an active community of tens of thousands of daily active players flipping properties and growing their net worths. The millionth property NFT was officially minted on June 15.

    Upland is an NFT metaverse mapped to real world addresses, where people around the world can buy, sell and trade virtual properties. The cities which are live in Upland include San Francisco, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Fresno, Oakland, Bakersfield, Staten Island, and most recently Chicago, with the release of Cleveland right around the corner, but can be played by anyone across the world. Each property in the Upland metaverse is a non-fungible token on the EOS blockchain, giving the users true ownership of their properties.

    The game’s user base has been rapidly growing their in-game net worth, and flipping properties left and right. Players have been seeing incredible returns after putting some time and strategy into their property investments. When asked how players’ net worth has changed over time, a player named BEN68 responded with: “From 4,000UPX when I started in January 2020, to 64,500,000UPX in June 2021” representing an astonishing 1,612,400% increase in net worth! GreenTurtle, another Uplander, reported only investing $5 into the platform and realizing gains of over 100,000%.

    It’s not uncommon to see these types of stories in the metaverse, as the number of players and cities continue to increase quickly.

    1,000 UPX is equivalent to 1 USD, and with the Property-to-USD feature that was recently introduced to Upland, more players are taking full advantage of Upland’s Play-to-Earn gaming model and cashing out their gains to real U.S. dollars. This gaming model allows players to have true ownership of their in-game assets, with full command over how they want to manage those assets. 

    Upland’s free market economy-focused approach will soon mean players being able to start their own businesses, continuing to flip property NFTs, and seeing their in-game investments turn into real dollars. Real laws of supply-and-demand are already taking hold in Upland, and it will continue to grow as more features, partnerships and collaborations develop.

    To register for Upland, visit this link for a 6,000 UPX starting bonus to get your property portfolio off to a strong start. Upland is available on iOS, Android and the Web. It can be played from anywhere in the world. To stay up to date on all things Upland, follow the project on Twitter and join their 24,000-strong Discord here.

  • The 1inch Foundation Revamps Governance

    The 1inch Foundation Revamps Governance

    The move will facilitate active community participation in improving 1inch protocols by establishing a straightforward and transparent process for considering and adopting proposals.

    The DeFi is built by the entire community, not by individual projects. And the 1inch Foundation has always acknowledged that the involvement of developers and regular users in improving protocols is vital.

    Back in December 2020, the 1inch instant governance was launched, enabling 1INCH token stakers to vote for protocol parameters. For more information about instant governance, see this post.

    Now it is time to take it up a notch, complementing instant governance with the 1inch Network Governance, a system similar to that of many other leading Ethereum-based projects.

    The 1inch Network Governance will offer a clear and user-friendly process for proposing protocol improvements and voting for them. Unlike instant governance, which is focused on protocol parameters, the 1inch Network Governance will be focused on major improvements that would make a difference for the entire 1inch ecosystem and, possibly, for the DeFi space at large.

    How it works

    To participate in the 1inch Network Governance, go to the DAO category of the 1inch Forum and select one of the subcategories for your proposal – Aggregation Protocol, Liquidity Protocol, Limit Order Protocol or General proposals. The proposal process consists of three stages.  

    The 1inch Network Governance process

    Stage 1. Discussion

    At this stage, a user makes a post describing their proposal in detail, with the tag “stage-1”. Subsequently, community members engage in discussing the proposal. Valuable feedback from the community will help users to streamline their proposals, increasing chances of adoption. There is no timeline or specific requirements at this stage.

    Stage 2. Formalization

    At stage 2, proposals are formally submitted using the 1inch Improvement Proposal (1IP) template. Tag your proposal with “stage-2” and use the prefix “[1IP-#]” in the title (replace # with the lowest available proposal number). Each section of the proposal template should be completed and the poll should be set to 5 days.

    Subsequently, users will speak out for or against the proposal. To progress to stage 3, the majority of votes within a 5-day period should be in favor of the proposal.

    Stage 3. Snapshot 

    At the snapshot stage, off-chain voting for the proposal will be facilitated. Unlike instant governance, which is available only to 1INCH stakers, all users holding 1INCH tokens on Ethereum or Binance Smart Chain (BSC), including those who have staked their tokens, can participate in voting. 

    Once a proposal has received approval at stage 2, the author changes the tag to “stage-3”, and a 7-day vote period starts. Proposers are responsible for making snapshot polls. For a proposal to be adopted, it needs to collect 4 mln 1INCH tokens in votes. 

    Now that you’ve read about the 1inch Network Governance process, go ahead and submit your proposal. Let’s build the DeFi future together!

  • Will Central Banks Create Their own Cryptocurrency

    Will Central Banks Create Their own Cryptocurrency

    Central banks around the globe continue to consider the implications of implementing a digital currency. Among the most well-known is China which has put forth efforts for a homegrown electronic payment system similar to bitcoin. The U.S. has also faced discussion on the concept of a digital dollar. The public can expect to see these digital currencies hit the market soon. If currencies are not released, they may lose the “cryptocurrency race” to bitcoin as more eCommerce platforms adopt the currency.

    Central bank digital currencies (CBDC) provide a unique outlook on the future of finance. With many similarities to current cryptocurrency leader bitcoin, it is no secret that the coin has become a model when considering the risks and rewards for creating new cryptocurrencies.

    CBDC’s vs. Bitcoin

    The world knows bitcoin as the most popular digital currency. It is currently unlike any other money that users currently carry. Users can also buy the currency on a Bitcoin Exchange or through an ATM. The public now knows the currency as an online program that allows any two people to exchange value across the internet. Following bitcoin’s lead, other cryptocurrencies have gained popularity for their lack of regulation. The Covid-19 pandemic has acted as a catalyst in shifting from physical cash to digital. Unfortunately, these currencies have been created without regulation, so as these currencies gain popularity, a larger threat to the policy makers’ ability to transmit monetary policy will exist.

    A secondary appeal is that bitcoin’s price is still quite volatile. Therefore, the currency continues to be seen by many as an investment. Investors continue to purchase the asset with the hope that the value will climb and they will be able to sell. Unfortunately, these hiked prices have given some appeal for luxury items and slightly less for small everyday payments. The central bank digital currency could effectively monitor the prices and ensure that the digital currency could pay for products or services with confidence in the price.

    An additional benefit is that some find that bitcoin’s anonymity means anyone on the internet can download the software. Unlike opening a bank account, central banks won’t need any information to start a cryptocurrency account. While users like keeping their information private, this also makes it difficult for authorities to track, trace and crackdown on fraudulent behavior.

    Benefits of central bank digital currencies

    Banks creating their own digital currencies come with a seeming host of benefits. A few include:

    Greater transparency

    First and foremost, having greater transparency will give central banks more insight into the movement of money, ensuring that fraudsters impact no innocent parties.

    Access to unbanked nations

    Secondly, many unbanked nations may have the opportunity to access more financial services since they won’t need the typical information to create an account. Among the reasons why this unbanked group exists in America is:

    • Lack of money to meet the minimum balance
    • Lack of trust in banks
    • No personal identification
    • Former problems with bank accounts
    • Bank locations are far away or difficult to get to
    • Banking fees are too expensive

    The introduction of a CBDC would address the majority of these concerns.

    Quick distribution of financial aid

    Cryptocurrencies have gained popularity for bypassing the middleman. A cryptocurrency created by the central bank would be no different. Through a CBDC, banks could directly send digital currencies to a users’ online wallet without going through a bank or any other financial middleman. Having no middleman also means that when households require stimulus money or small businesses are awaiting aid, they could receive funds significantly faster to get back on their feet. Without intermediaries requiring payment, governments will pay less for overall transaction costs.

    How soon can we see CBDC’s?

    Although the public still believes central bank currencies are still on the brink of release, Central banks continue to face many difficult tasks. Among them are determining how the currency will operate and building the infrastructure to get the cryptocurrency up and running.

  • TeraBlock partners with Binance Cloud to bring industry

    TeraBlock partners with Binance Cloud to bring industry

    Tortola, British Virgin Islands, 30th June, 2021,

    TeraBlock, a cryptocurrency trade automation exchange, is excited to announce its partnership with Binance Cloud, an infrastructure solution for customers and partners to launch digital asset exchanges leveraging Binance’s industry-leading technology, security and liquidity. 

    Binance Cloud will be handling TeraBlock’s exchange technology development and maintenance, user registration, security and liquidity.This partnership enables TeraBlock to focus on its business development and operations. Also, TeraBlock will not struggle with liquidity issues, as many new exchanges experience. Partnering with Binance Cloud will bolster Terablock’s security infrastructure to ensure safe trading at all times.

    TeraBlock founder and CEO Shivam Tandon predicts TeraBlock will boost cryptocurrency adoption amongst newbies entering the crypto space. “After announcing the successful completion of our recently conducted IDO on BSCPAD, our users will benefit directly from the Binance Cloud partnership. The upcoming TeraBlock exchange, powered by Binance Cloud, enables our users to experience better trading depth, security and transaction speed,” he said. “We hope to bring a renewed interest and experience like never before to the crypto space,” he added. 

    About TeraBlock

    TeraBlock is a cryptocurrency trade automation exchange that offers an easy-to-use interface to manage and trade digital assets with high-end technology. TeraBlock’s mission is to be the one-stop solution for newcomers to the crypto ecosystem. Empowered by machine learning, TeraBlock provides tools to aid inexperienced and advanced traders to manage their crypto assets. 

    Learn more www.terablock.ai

    About Binance Cloud

    Binance Cloud is an all-in-one, open-platform solution that enables cryptocurrency exchanges to build and launch quickly. It leverages Binance’s superior technology, liquidity, and security to provide the necessary infrastructure to digital asset exchanges. In addition, Binance Cloud enables partners to focus on business development and operations.

    Binance Cloud mirrors the core functionalities of the Binance exchange. It brings the trading risk controls, robust matching engine, big data security system, market depth, and liquidity of Binance to other digital asset exchanges.

    Learn more about Binance Cloud at https://cloud.binance.com.

    Contacts
    • Shivam Tandon
    • shivam@terablock.ai
  • Nexo Initiates Cardano Integration with Exchange, Borrow & Earn for ADA

    Nexo Initiates Cardano Integration with Exchange, Borrow & Earn for ADA

    London, United Kingdom, 30th June, 2021,

    Nexo, the leading institution for digital assets has initiated the integration of ADA, the native asset of Cardano, to its full suite of financial services. The initial launch includes buy and sell services for ADA on the Nexo Exchange, yields of up to 8% interest, and the option to borrow against the asset at 6.9% APR.

    The ADA integration comes following extensive demand from both Nexo’s existing clients and the wider Cardano community. It further adds another top tier cryptocurrency to Nexo’s Earn on Crypto & Fiat suite and the Instant Crypto Credit Lines™, bringing the total assets available for services on the platform to 20.

    This is Nexo’s second asset integration wherein the company launches all its services for an asset but without withdrawal and deposit features which require time-consuming blockchain integrations. This new approach allows Nexo to add new currencies to its suite of financial services and cater to clients’ growing needs efficiently while confirming demand for these new coins before investing development resources into a full blockchain integration. With the rising popularity of blockchain technology, the space is seeing a noticeable scarcity in development resource – an issue Nexo’s new approach to asset integration will help ease.

    “Blockchain organizations like Nexo and Cardano have a lot of potential to give each other a serious leg-up in digital finance and it thrills me to see that happening. Nexo’s business creates added utility for ADA, reducing selling pressure, boosting its value, and creating an influx of users, including people who might just be starting out in crypto. Reciprocally, Cardano broadens our total addressable market and expands existing clients’ options when investing funds via our platform,” commented Antoni Trenchev, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Nexo.

    Romain Pellerin, CTO of IOHK, said: “Interoperability is essential to further mainstream adoption of blockchain and cryptocurrency and our partnership with Nexo is another step towards that journey. This partnership will not only allow ADA holders to manage their portfolio, but will let users purchase ADA directly with fiat or with crypto on the Nexo Exchange. Bringing Nexo into our growing ecosystem will give the Cardano community even more options and fluidity for ADA. Working together with Nexo to make this process user-friendly for those who are new to crypto will encourage wider adoption of Cardano.” 

    Cardano’s progressive proof-of-stake mechanisms, consistently growing blockchain and expanding community will boost Nexo’s client base, increase the assets the crypto lender manages, and ultimately expand usage of both the ADA coin and the Nexo platform. A full blockchain integration of Cardano on Nexo is underway and will become available to users in due time.

    About Nexo

    Nexo is the world’s leading regulated digital assets institution. The company’s mission is to maximize the value and utility of cryptocurrencies by offering tax-efficient Instant Crypto Credit Lines™, a high-yield Earn on Crypto & Fiat suite, an instant Exchange service, and sophisticated trading and OTC capabilities, while providing the top-tier custodial insurance and military-grade security of the Nexo Wallet. Nexo has processed $30+ billion for 1,500,000+ users across more than 200 jurisdictions.

    Official website: https://nexo.io

    Contacts

    PR Manager

    • Magdalena Hristova
    • Nexo
    • pr@nexo.io

    Director of Media and Public Relations

    • Rod Alexander
    • IOHK
    • media@iohk.io
  • Dexlab Raises $1.44M to Develop Solana Gateway and Token Launchpad

    Dexlab Raises $1.44M to Develop Solana Gateway and Token Launchpad

    Seoul, South Korea, 30th June, 2021,

    Token minting platform Dexlab has completed a private funding round to create a gateway to the Solana ecosystem.

    $1.44 million was raised with the aid of grants from Solana and Eco Serum and the participation of leading blockchain VCs. Dexlab is the developer behind the Minting Lab, a turnkey solution for token issuance, management, and deployment of smart contracts.

    Parataxis Capital, Genesis Block Ventures, CMS, NGC Ventures were among the investment firms to support Dexlab’s vision of a decentralized exchange and token minting framework on Solana. Other backers include Ledger Prime, Arca, Bixin, DFG, Sonic Capital, members of Race Capital, VTG, Evernew Capital, Genblock, Rok Capital, Dragon Roark, 499Block, Cryptomeria Capital, Axia8 Ventures, M6, and PetRock Capital. 

    “I’m grateful to all our investors for seeing the same potential in Solana as us, and for believing that Dexlab is the best team to turn this into a reality,” said Dennis Lee, Founder and CEO of Dexlab. “We’re excited for the future of decentralized finance on Solana and for helping projects use the Minting Lab as their jumping off point for exploring the many possibilities for token issuance and smart contract creation. 

    Leslie, co-founder of GBV, added: “Dexlab’s ‘Decentralized Finance as a Service’ platform is tailored for the Asian market, which is also where GBV has its roots. With its Serum integration, Dexlab becomes a strong “lego” towards making financial services more equitable globally.”

    In addition to providing the investment for Dexlab to build out its token issuance solution, many of the startup’s backers will provide mentorship focused on business development, hiring, treasury, and financial management.

    The Dexlab team, which is based in Korea, will be focused onboarding new projects to Solana within the Asian region. In driving down the barriers to entering the Solana ecosystem, Dexlab provides a vital onramp for developers seeking to create new defi primitives anchored by native tokens with strong fundamentals. This will strengthen network effects and align incentives between users.

    Dexlab allows users to easily interact with Solana’s CLI by providing an intuitive GUI with beautiful UX/UI. This grants users the ability to coinage, manage, and list SPL tokens and NFTs with a simple one-click solution, completely bypassing the need for coding.

    About Dexlab

    Dexlab is a decentralized exchange where anyone can mint and list SPL tokens. It incorporates an array of powerful defi tools coupled with an advanced GUI that facilitates the creation of SPL tokens. The Minting Lab allows users to manage all aspects of token issuance as well as deployment of plug-and-play smart contracts.

    Learn more: https://www.dexlab.space/

    Contacts
    • Press
    • Info@marketacross.com