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A conversation with Nick Jones, the co-founder and CEO of digital-assets infrastructure platform Zumo, on how being accepted to a blockchain accelerator and COVID-19 workplace changes influenced their choice to establish and remain in Scotland.

Digital asset manager Grayscale added the Lido protocol’s LDO token to its DeFi Fund, making it the second-heaviest component.

Grayscale’s DeFi Fund is now weighted to include Uniswap (UNI) at 45.46%, Lido (LDO) at 19.04%, Aave (AAVE) at 11.53%, MakerDAO (MKR) at 10.82%, Curve DAO Token (CRV) at 7.03% and Synthetix (SNX) at 6.12%.

“In accordance with the CoinDesk DeFi Select Index methodology, Grayscale has adjusted the DeFi Fund’s portfolio by selling certain amounts of the existing Fund Components in proportion to their respective weightings, and using the cash proceeds to purchase Lido (LDO),” Grayscale said in a company release. “No tokens were removed from the DeFi Fund.”

Lido is a decentralized liquid staking protocol that allows users to keep staked tokens liquid via a stand-in token, or stToken.

Grayscale redefines the composites of its funds quarterly.

 

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s change of heart on bitcoin could make it easier for fellow Wall Street executives to embrace cryptocurrencies, but experts warn that his favored financial instrument – the exchange-traded fund, or ETF – is an investment vehicle that’s categorically different from the core idea behind digital assets, and could push the industry in the wrong direction.

Shardeum, a Layer 1 blockchain deploying dynamic state sharding, has raised $5.4 million in fresh strategic funding.

The firm intends to use the raise to bolster its ecosystem as it prepares to launch its mainnet by the end of 2023. Participants in the round include Amber Group, Galxe, J17 Capital, TRGC, Jsquare, Bware Labs, Tané Labs, Hyperithm Group and Luganodes.

A Shardeum representative told The Block that the firm’s most up-to-date valuation is $248 million.

“This raise allows us to continue to prioritize decentralization through growing our community of participants worldwide through education and other key initiatives,” Shardeum Chief Growth Officer Kelsey McGuire said in a statement.

Past funding rounds

In March, Shardeum raised $5 million in strategic funding at a $250 million valuation, after having raised $18.2 million in seed funding from Spartan Group, Big Brain Holdings, Jane Street, Foresight Ventures and others in October 2022.

Shardeum was co-founded by Nischal Shetty, who also founded the large Indian crypto exchange WazirX. 

 

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

STORJ, the native token of the crypto-backed, cloud storage platform, rose 15% on the week, far outdistancing bitcoin and ether, among other digital assets.

USDC issuer Circle blacklisted three wallet addresses that received a significant outflow of funds from the cross-chain bridge platform Multichain in its potential security breach.

Security firm PeckShield noted that about $63 million in USDC, part of the assets involved in the alarming outflow, has been frozen.

The incident saw $126 million worth of crypto assets mysteriously transferred from Multichain’s bridge deployments on Fantom, Moonriver and Dogechain to various third-party wallets.

Following the incident, Multichain tweeted from its official account, “The Multichain service has currently stopped, and all bridge transactions will remain stuck on the source chains. There is no confirmed resumption time. Please refrain from using the Multichain bridging service for now.”

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Most noise surrounding the NFT market has recently been dominated by headlines and data that paint a particularly dire picture of the sector. But Solana Labs says there are still people interested in joining the fray and is working on a new AI tool to help them make the leap.

“One of the challenges right now … [buyers] need to go figure out a lot of different data points,” Solana Labs Head of Product Tal Tchwella told The Block while discussing just how hard it can be to enter the market from scratch.

Among efforts to make it easier to select the perfect initial collection, Solana Labs is working on an AI took that will help users identify and buy the non-fungible tokens best suited to their wants and needs.

“Some of it is a lot of hype as we’ve seen with certain NFT collections,” Tchwella added. “But some of it is about the genuine connections that people are creating through this and this is where AI can come in and make that data accessible for a normie, for somebody new coming into [web3] to discover what are the things that they care about.”

Finding the best NFT community

Tchwella said Solana may soon be able to unveil AI-powered applications that can assist first-time NFT buyers determine not only what collections are “trending” but also choose the communities that match their profile.

“We’re seeing interest in learning more … and learning who you want to be associated with, especially [from] newcomers to this space,” added Tchwella.

While NFTs minted on the Solana blockchain tend to be considerably less valuable than digital assets on Ethereum, like high-priced Bored Ape Yacht Club and Azuki NFTs, Solana has in recent months made progress in terms of growing its ecosystem.

In May, Solana added 6.7 million new digital wallet addresses, followed by another 3.3 million in June, according to The Block Research data. Ethereum added 2.3 million addresses to its network in May followed by 2.5 million in June, the data also showed.

Solana Labs’ co-founder and CEO Anatoly Yakovenko also recently discussed how AI could aid the development of web3 and crypto when he said in May that artificial intelligence will make Solana “more usable and understandable.” The comments came as the blockchain company announced its release of a ChatGPT plugin.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

A July 7 report from Teneo, the hedge fund’s liquidator, described the potential claims.

Australian officials directly sought out current and former employees of Binance’s operation there this week, demanding copies of internal communications and data from their personal devices, according to a person familiar with the government’s move against the leading crypto exchange, which marked the latest in a pile-up of legal troubles facing the company.

Bitcoin was hovering just above $30,000 on Friday, amid multiple signals that more rate hikes could be in store this year.  

The world’s biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization rose 0.2% at 12:40 p.m. in New York, according to CoinGecko. 

“Wage growth and the unemployment rate will concern the hawks at the Fed and that means we’re not out of the woods when it comes to hikes,” Nexo co-founder Antoni Trenchev told The Block. “But, even in the face of the hawkish news bitcoin bulls kept their nerve and held their ground.”

A new jobs report on Friday and private sector data released yesterday reinforced investor belief the Federal Reserve will resume rate hikes at its meeting later this month.

U.S. stocks opened lower on Friday after the news.

Bitcoin trading range

Trenchev said bitcoin needs a fundamental driver to break out of its current range, “as it is unlikely to pierce its 13-month high on the back of the jobs report.”

Ahead inflation data expected Wednesday, investors are aligning their positions.

“If the CPI data is lower than expected, Bitcoin could potentially reach $35,000,” Trenchev said. “However, a higher CPI might cause Bitcoin to fall below $30,000 as investors withdraw some funds,”

 

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.