FreeCryptoCurrency.Me

Debates in crypto are increasingly polarized and politicized, as a recent CoinDesk story about a controversial mining plant in New York shows.

The crypto bridging service Multichain is coming under the microscope from Binance and other important outposts.

Nike’s .SWOOSH NFT drop was filled with missteps, while a Bitcoin NFT collection topped the charts and NFT lending is gaining momentum with Binance and Astaria entering the market.

Lybra Finance was launched last month and uses liquid staking derivatives to offer an interesting-bearing stablecoin.

May proved to be a significant month for Ethereum’s Layer 2 networks, as the costs for publishing data and security proofs back to the main Ethereum network climbed to a new all-time high of 9000 Ether (ETH), equivalent to $16.2 million, even with a few days left in the month.

This development marks a five-fold increase from the total fees paid by L2s in January 2023, according to data from The Block.

In the Layer 2 landscape, Arbitrum emerged as the leading contributor in mainnet publishing fees, incurring costs of 4260 ETH, or approximately $7.6 million. Meanwhile, zkSync’s Era mainnet, a product of ZK-Rollup technology, followed closely with 2250 ETH, equivalent to $4 million, securing its place at the second position.

Notably, zkSync Era surpassed Optimism, another well-known Layer 2 solution, in performance for the first time. It’s noteworthy that Optimism has consistently held a position within the top two regarding fee collection since the previous year. The recently observed fee structure represents a new peak in Layer 1 publishing costs across all three of the most widely used L2 networks.

This data fees spike is attributed to the rising transaction fees on the Ethereum mainnet during the month. “The fees paid by L2s for publishing data to Ethereum have already hit a new high in May. The rise in gas costs we’ve seen has made publishing more costly,” Rebecca Stevens, research analyst at The Block, noted.

In May, Ethereum’s average transaction fees hit levels last seen the previous year. In this context, Layer 2 solutions, which are based on rollup technologies, are particularly useful. They process transactions off the main Ethereum blockchain, thereby providing a more affordable method for transaction execution.

These rollups are required to publish security proofs and other metadata to the Ethereum mainnet, using revenue generated from users’ transaction fees. However, the publishing fees incurred would still be significantly cheaper compared to those on the mainnet.

© 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.

Newly-minted non-fungible token marketplace giant Blur launched its peer-to-peer lending and borrowing platform earlier this month, and the venture, dubbed Blend, has already facilitated nearly 16,000 loans for a total of 123,500 ETH, or $225 million, according to a report from Nansen.

After Blur’s launch in October of last year, and then the rollout of an aggressive incentive program that attracted many traders to its platform, the marketplace quickly usurped OpenSea to become the top platform by trading volume. Nansen estimates that success has contributed to Blend’s popularity with NFT lenders and borrowers.

“Blend’s rapid growth is no surprise since Blur is arguably the go-to NFT platform for crypto-natives and NFT degens,” Nansen said in the report. “Their bidding and listing points system for blur [token] airdrops to incentivize liquidity has also contributed significantly to the marketplace’s rapid success.”

Nansen said it had identified lending and borrowing on behalf of “1,200 unique borrowers and 1,600 lenders.”

Blend offers loan options for high-end NFT collections like CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club. One feature helping Blend distinguish itself from other peer-to-peer lenders is its offer of “zero protocol fees for both borrowers and lenders,” according to Nansen.

This week, Binance announced plans to get into the NFT lending space when it introduced a new feature that allows customers to borrow cryptocurrency using non-fungible tokens as collateral.

 

© 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.

The joint venture between Gulf Innova and Binance aims to offer crypto services in the country starting later this year.

More than 9.3 million tokens will be unlocked Sunday, representing 1.2% of AXAX’s total supply.

Tsuyoshi Chino added that Binance J.apan may be still “a long way off” its business and activities being properly understood in gaining regulatory acceptance