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Bitcoin DeFi takes center stage

A wave of new projects and innovations is bringing increasing utility to the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Opinion by: Darius Moukhtarzadeh, researcher

A wave of new projects and innovations is increasing utility to the Bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem, expanding its use beyond a static store of value. 

Bitcoin is the oldest, most prominent, most secure blockchain and asset in the crypto space. Recently, it proved critics wrong by setting a new all-time high and breaking the psychologically significant barrier of $100,000, and continuing to break new all-time highs. While its adoption is steadily increasing, its primary use case has changed over the last 15 years since its inception. It was initially created as a peer-to-peer digital currency, but it has evolved to be seen as digital gold.

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Switzerland’s Crypto Valley hits $593B with 17 unicorns in 2024

Stablecoin predictions for 2025: What’s next for the $200B market?

Crypto industry executives share with Cointelegraph what they expect for the now $200 billion stablecoin market next year.

Crypto stablecoins have seen massive successes in 2024, with the fiat currency pegged assets reaching an all-time high circulating supply of over $200 billion in December.

Stablecoins — cryptocurrencies designed to mimic the value of a currency, most popularly the US dollar — are an integral part of the crypto ecosystem and account for 5% of the crypto market value.

With 2025 approaching, Cointelegraph has rounded up the industry’s forecasts and predictions on what key stablecoin trends to expect next year.

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Switzerland’s Crypto Valley hits $593B with 17 unicorns in 2024

Ethereum layer 2s hold $13.5B stablecoin supply

Ethereum layer-2 networks now lock over $13.5 billion in stablecoins, driving total market capitalization to $205 billion.

Stablecoins locked onto Ethereum layer-2 networks have reached a new all-time high, showcasing rising demand for cryptocurrencies.

The stablecoin supply to all blockchains combined is dominated by Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC) and Ethena’s stablecoin, USDe.

As of  Dec. 20, the Ethereum blockchain held $13.5 billion worth of stablecoins, according to data from Tie Terminal, a crypto data platform for institutions and Cointelegraph Markets Pro. The overall stablecoin circulation crossed $205 billion, showing the ecosystem’s growing relevance in real-world use cases.

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Switzerland’s Crypto Valley hits $593B with 17 unicorns in 2024

HashKey Group launches Ethereum layer-2 HashKey Chain mainnet

The launch follows a successful testnet period where 50 projects were deployed and more than 24.72 million transactions were completed.

HashKey Chain, a public blockchain developed by Hong Kong-based HashKey Group, officially launched its Ethereum layer-2 mainnet on Dec. 18.

The mainnet launch follows a month-long successful testnet period during which more than 860,000 wallet addresses were registered, a reported 24.72 million transactions were recorded, and over 300,000 community members participated. 

Hashkey Group announced the mainnet launch. Source: Hashkey HSK

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Switzerland’s Crypto Valley hits $593B with 17 unicorns in 2024

Vitalik Buterin urges Web3 wallets to improve security, privacy

The Ethereum co-founder also proposed changes to ease transfers among layer-2 scaling networks.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin urged Web3 wallet developers to implement features improving privacy and security in a Dec. 3 blog post.

“[A] user only benefits from any decentralization, censorship resistance, security, privacy, or other properties that Ethereum and its applications offer to the extent that the wallet itself also has these properties,” Buterin said in the blog post.

He also proposed ways to ease transfers among Ethereum’s layer-2 (L2) scaling networks, such as Optimism and Arbitrum.

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Switzerland’s Crypto Valley hits $593B with 17 unicorns in 2024

Sony’s Soneium Might Be the Answer to Mass Web3 Adoption

Sony’s Soneium Might Be the Answer to Mass Web3 AdoptionIf you are unfamiliar with the launch of Soneium, you need to read this article because Sony is positioning itself as a bridge for mainstream audiences into Web3. This piece is a guest post by Blocmates. Blocmates is an invaluable crypto news and educational resource that offers clarity in the often complicated and jargon-filled crypto […]

Switzerland’s Crypto Valley hits $593B with 17 unicorns in 2024

China’s lockdown censorship inspired Ethereum ‘based rollup’ Taiko

Taiko Labs co-founder Daniel Wang first wanted to make an “unstoppable” social network and found his way to an Ethereum “based rollup” in the process.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, China plunged its economic capital, Shanghai, into a two-month lockdown in an attempt to outlast the virus — but it also wanted to eradicate any dissent regarding its zero-COVID policies, sparking one of Ethereum’s so-called “based rollups.”

“I lived in my apartment in the Shanghai COVID shutdown. I lived in my small apartment for almost three months without going out once,” Daniel Wang, co-founder and CEO of Taiko Labs — creator of the Ethereum layer 2 based rollup Taiko — told Cointelegraph at DevCon in Bangkok.

“I felt like I wanted to say things in China, but it’s not allowed. So my first idea is to build a decentralized publishing network,” he said.

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Switzerland’s Crypto Valley hits $593B with 17 unicorns in 2024

Crypto Exchange Kraken Announces Launch of New Ethereum Layer-2 Chain ‘Ink’

Crypto Exchange Kraken Announces Launch of New Ethereum Layer-2 Chain ‘Ink’

US-based crypto exchange Kraken has unveiled its Ethereum (ETH) layer-2 blockchain that will be launched on testnet later this year. In a statement, Kraken says the layer-2 blockchain, called Ink, is designed to enable seamless access to decentralized finance (DeFi). The blockchain is built on Optimism’s Superchain, a network of interconnected layer-2 chains powered by […]

The post Crypto Exchange Kraken Announces Launch of New Ethereum Layer-2 Chain ‘Ink’ appeared first on The Daily Hodl.

Switzerland’s Crypto Valley hits $593B with 17 unicorns in 2024

Scammers promote fake Uniswap L2 on Google amid Unichain hype

Google mistakenly promoted a fake version of the Unichain website that spammed users with requests to drain their wallets.

As the buzz around crypto exchange Uniswap’s new Ethereum layer 2 builds, scammers have decided to take advantage of the situation to promote a fake website on Google that claims to promote the network.

The website, originally located at unlchalindefi[.]com, claimed to be the official site for Uniswap’s Unichain network. But in reality, it did not offer a new network with user-friendly apps.

Instead, it stole all of the user’s cryptocurrency and transferred it to the site’s developers, who were not affiliated with Uniswap at all, according to warnings presented in the Web3 wallet MetaMask.

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Switzerland’s Crypto Valley hits $593B with 17 unicorns in 2024

Gate Ventures, Movement Labs, Boon Ventures to launch $20M crypto fund

The fund will support protocols targeting the Move programming language and interoperability with the Ethereum ecosystem. 

Venture capital firms Gate Ventures and Boon Ventures announced a partnership with Movement Labs for a new $20 million fund dedicated to Web3 startups. 

According to an Oct. 13 announcement, the fund targets the development of Move-based protocols, especially projects bridging the Move network with Ethereum-compatible (EVM) applications. 

“The fund will invest across a range of Web3 verticals within the Move ecosystem,” a spokesperson for Gate Ventures, the investment arm of crypto exchange Gate.io, told Cointelegraph.

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Switzerland’s Crypto Valley hits $593B with 17 unicorns in 2024