Liquid Staking Protocols Strike Gold As Market TVL Surpasses DEXs

The rising popularity of liquid staking protocols in the lead up to the Shapella upgrade comes as no surprise, and its continued hype post-Shapella means these protocols now have more value locked collectively than decentralized exchanges (DEXs). According to crypto analytics platform DefiLlama, the protocols surpassed DEXs by a slight margin of 0.15 billion, and that is only expected to grow as more users stake ETH tokens on these platforms.

Bitcoin Grows In Dominance As US Banks Flounder In The Wake Of Financial Instability

As the banking crisis in the United States continues and the dollar weakens, Bitcoin continues to see its dominance rate rise from 42% to 48.5% at the time of writing. The dominance rate picked up noticeably upon news of Silicon Valley Bank becoming insolvent in March, and has seen a steady upward growth to near 49% since. The quantitative easing and slide in bank stock value has also lent itself to rumors of a weakening dollar.

Bitcoin-Based Cryptocurrencies Explode In Value With A $137 Million TVL

The rising interest in Bitcoin standard tokens have first brought Bitcoin Ordinals to the forefront, followed by an exponential growth in the value of BRC-20 tokens to $137 million according to Ordinals builder Ordspace. Most BRC-20 tokens are currently in the category of memecoins with the likes of PEPE and OG tokens, and the standard differs from ERC-20 since it still lacks the capability to interact with smart contracts. BRC-20 currently only allows script files to be stored in Bitcoin and attribute tokens to satoshis.

Buying Cryptocurrencies Create More Interest In Other Investment Avenues, Says FINRA Report

The United States’ Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) recently released a survey compilation of the state of investors in 2022, and it found that purchasing cryptocurrencies could generate more interest in other financial instruments amongst holders, such as investing in the stock market. Over 465 participants in the US were surveyed, and other findings include word-of-mouth being the key reason for holding cryptocurrencies, and social media being a key source of information for crypto holders.

Deloitte Partners With Polkadot Parachain For Digital Identity Verification

Deloitte, the leading provider of international professional services, has opted to integrate the KILT blockchain to boost its current know-your-customer (KYC) and know-your-business (KYB) processes. The latter, which is a blockchain identity parachain on the Polkadot ecosystem that issues on-chain credentials, will create reusable identity information that are stored only within the users’ wallets. At the same time, Deloitte will also offer browser extension wallets to store these details for financial services and identity verification.

Synthetix Launches Nine New Markets For Futures Trading

Decentralized derivatives liquidity protocol Synthetix recently increased the number of assets available for leverage trading through their perpetual futures platform, Synthetix Perps. The nine new perpetual markets include SHIB, CRV, and LDO to name a few, and this opens more leverage trading options on Synthetix. Prices will be derived from the decentralized off-chain Pyth Network oracle.

Iguverse Introduce New Socialize-To-Earn Engagement For Community

Iguverse, a novel decentralized social network and Gamefi-focused platform, recently launched a new form of engagement activation to boost activity within the community with Pet IDs. Their socialize-to-earn platform tasks allow users to interact and socialize while earning from their efforts, and other upcoming features such as PvP bonuses and NFT evolution are due to be released soon.

EOS EVM Compatibility Is Key Focus In EOS Network’s Q1 Highlights

Amidst the team’s renewed vigor in their efforts to build a vibrant ecosystem, the EOS network released its first quarterly report of 2023 to its community. One of its key milestones was the launch of its Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility which was one of its most anticipated developments. The EOS EVM mainnet went live on April 14th, and it will open the EOS ecosystem to a barrage of new projects and blockchain users from the Ethereum network.

Conflux Network Drives On-Chain Activity With Three Developments Within The Week

Layer-1 blockchain Conflux network, which utilizes a Tree-Graph consensus to improve its scaling capabilities, has seen a flurry of activity within the week with three announcements and developments. The network recently collaborated with Web3 content aggregator Trend3 to provide users with an enhanced information display. Asides that, the network also welcomed one of its first decentralized exchanges, vSwap, on its chain, and the team has also successfully listed its native CFX token onto the OKX centralized exchange for trade.

Improved User Experience On TON DEX Clears The Dust On Its Pending Upgrades

One of the main decentralized exchanges (DEXs) on The Open Network (TON) has successfully completed its launch of the second iteration of its platform. DeDust.io has included a number of new user experiences and improvements, mainly allowing users to swap tokens with less slippage and lower transaction fees while allowing them to earn the DEX’s native token by adding liquidity to the platform’s liquidity pools.

TON Foundation Collaborates With Chainalysis To Implement Crypto Incident Response

The TON Foundation, which oversees the development and advancement of The Open Network (TON), has recently entered into a collaboration with blockchain analysis company Chainalysis to implement the latter’s Crypto Incident Response. The program is a rapid response service that aims to recover lost funds in the event of a network hack or compromise, and the foundation seeks to protect its users while improving the integrity of the network.

Staking On TON Just Got Easier With Tonkeeper’s Staking Upgrade

Tonkeeper, one of the key non-custodial cryptocurrency wallets within The Open Network (TON) ecosystem, has enabled direct staking functionality within the wallet itself. This allows TON users to easily participate in the proof-of-stake consensus under one of the network validators to earn staking rewards. The newly-implemented function will also allow users to see the status of their staked assets in real time, and they can also be unstaked and withdrawn after each 24-hour validation period.

Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as financial advice. It is essential to conduct research before making any investment decisions.

Join BIT’s Premium channel for more insights into crypto!