FTX Lands Naming Deal With Esports Giant TSM for $210 Million

June 5, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Bison Trails and Volt Capital bring ‘secure staking’ to Celo network

May 25, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Celo

“Bison Trails is committed to the growth of the crypto ecosystem and innovative networks like Celo,” said Joe Lallouz, CEO of Bison Trails.

Blockchain infrastructure company Bison Trails has partnered with Volt Capital to allow users of the Celo Network to stake their tokens securely through their mobile devices.

The collaboration sees Bison Trails running a Celo validator node for Volt Capital, thereby allowing Volt Capital’s community to stake the CELO cryptocurrency, earn rewards and help grow the network. Bison Trails’ node infrastructure allows delegators to more easily stake cryptocurrencies.

Volt Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that has set aside $10 million to invest in various cryptocurrency projects focused on the end-user experience. Through its TD Labs subsidiary, Volt Capital has been participating in the Celo Network and running a validator on the platforms since the testnet phase. Celo Network officially graduated to mainnet on May 18.

“We’re thrilled to be working with Bison Trails to offer our community the ability to stake Celo. Bison Trails’ robust infrastructure meets our high benchmark for security, reliability, and uptime, and the team brings invaluable protocol expertise and insights,” said Mohamed Fouda, partner at Volt Capital, adding:

“The Celo community has been steadily growing, and we have been actively working with projects that are developing simple tools to enable better financial engagement with Celo to deliver the long-term vision of the project.”

Prior to the latest crypto market correction, excitement surrounding the Celo Network was on the rise leading into its Donut hard fork. The fork, which took place May 19, promises better gas efficiency, improved interoperability and the ability to connect with several Ethereum tools.

In terms of market performance, Celo is ranked within the top 100 cryptocurrency projects with a total network value of around $724 million.

Bison Trails has provided key infrastructure support for several major cryptocurrencies companies, including Crypto.com and Cosmos. In February 2021, the company launched Global Blockchain Synch, which allows customers to more easily deploy node operations. Polkadot, Kusama, Ethereum, Cosmos and EOS are just some of the main protocols that utilize the service.

State-Owned Swiss Bank Postfinance Launches App Supporting 13 Cryptocurrencies

May 14, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Diem parters with Silvergate bank to launch stablecoin in the US

May 13, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Facebook-initiated Diem Association announces a new model of its upcoming stablecoin that is set to be issued by California state-chartered bank Silvergate.

Facebook-backed digital currency project, the Diem Association, has partnered with cryptocurrency-friendly bank Silvergate to launch a stablecoin pegged to the United States dollar.

Diem announced Wednesday a new model of its upcoming stablecoin, relocating its main operations from Switzerland to the United States and withdrawing its application for a payment system license from the Swiss Financial Markets Authority.

The association, which comprises of 26 financial firms including Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, is now planning to move forward with its USD stablecoin plans through Silvergate bank, which is set to be the issuer of the Diem USD and will manage the Diem USD reserve.

Diem Networks U.S., Diem’s wholly-owned subsidiary, will run the Diem Payment Network, a permissioned blockchain-based payment system facilitating Diem stablecoin transactions.

While Silvergate is a California state-chartered bank and a member of the Federal Reserve, Diem Networks U.S. is seeking to register as a money services business with the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the announcement notes.

“We believe in the future of U.S. dollar backed stablecoins and their potential to transform existing payment systems,” Silvergate CEO Alan Lane said. “We're inspired by Diem's technology and commitment to building a regulatory compliant payment system that offers a safe and secure way to move money,” he added.

“While our plans take the project fully within the U.S. regulatory perimeter and no longer require a license from FINMA, the project has benefited greatly from the intensive licensing process in Switzerland,” Diem CEO Stuart Levey noted.

The Diem Association did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Facebook released a white paper for its Libra cryptocurrency in June 2019, originally planning to peg the digital currency to several fiat currencies including the U.S. dollar, euro, the Japanese yen, the British pound and the Singapore dollar. Due to global regulatory pushback, Facebook-backed Libra Association has been struggling to launch its stablecoin ever since, eventually rebranding to the Diem Association in an apparent renewed effort to launch the digital currency.

The news comes shortly after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apparently hinted at being a Bitcoin holder earlier this week, announcing that two of his pet goats were named “Bitcoin” and “Max.” Some crypto industry observers including CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju subsequently suggested that the move could be a sign of soon-to-come announcements of Bitcoin purchases from companies like Facebook.

Spain’s national soccer team to launch fan token on Turkish platform

May 10, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Bitci

La Roja is launching a fan token in partnership with Turkish blockchain platform Bitci Technology.

The Spanish national soccer team will launch the world’s first national soccer team fan token thanks to a partnership between the Royal Spanish Football Federation and the Turkish blockchain platform Bitci Technology.

The token will launch on Bitcichain, and all tech infrastructure will be provided by Bitci Technology. According to a recent announcement, Bitci Technology will be the exclusive blockchain partner of the team during the initial three-year partnership, followed by an optional two-year period.

The partnership also makes Bitci a jersey logo sponsor of the Spanish national team. World-famous football players such as Sergio Ramos, David de Gea, and Paco Alcácer are going to wear Bitci-branded jerseys during training.

Bitci Technology founder Çağdaş Çağlar noted the Spanish national team’s massive influence over world soccer, stating: “This partnership marks the first blockchain-based fan token for a national football team.“

Royal Spanish Football Federation president Luis Rubiales stressed the importance of using cutting-edge technology, stating: “This partnership enables us to create more synergy and bond even further with Spanish National Football Team fans across the globe.”

Bitci Technology has previously partnered with Formula 1 team McLaren Racing and Turkey’s National Basketball Team to launch fan tokens. As reported earlier this year, European soccer team Rangers Football Club signed a sponsorship deal with Bitci. The Turkish crypto platform’s logo will appear on the Rangers First Team shorts, per the partnership.

While fan tokens have been primarily popularized by soccer teams such as FC Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus, they are increasingly being embraced across all branches of sports. As Cointelegraph reported last week, the world’s premier mixed martial arts league, the UFC, partnered with Socios to launch fan tokens on the Chiliz platform.

UFC to launch MMA fan token on Chiliz blockchain

May 5, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Debuting in June, the new UFC fan token will have a maximum supply of 20 million.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship, the largest mixed martial arts association in the world, is launching its own blockchain-based fan token.

The UFC officially announced Tuesday that it will debut a UFC Fan Token on fan engagement and rewards app Socios.com. Minted on the Chiliz blockchain, the token is scheduled for launch in June and will have a maximum supply of 20 million tokens.

Similar to other fan tokens from Chiliz and Socios, the UFC fan token is designed to enable new fan engagement opportunities like access to exclusive content, fan voting, VIP rewards, promotions, competitions and others.

“UFC has more than 625 million fans around the world, and Fan Tokens are a unique way to connect with them through a compelling, authentic product that brings them closer to UFC and gives them influence, while also rewarding their passion for the sport,” UFC senior vice president of global consumer products Tracey Bleczinski said.

Chiliz and Socios CEO Alexandre Dreyfus said that UFC tokens will be exclusively available on the Socios app, with no pre-sale anywhere else.

The UFC and Chiliz first announced a collaboration last year to allow UFC fans to use Chiliz’s native token CHZ for experiences and rewards. The UFC has been expanding its moves into the blockchain and crypto industry recently, signing an exclusive partnership with crypto-powered online sportsbook Stake.com in March 2021.

The UFC is one of the first sports properties in the United States to launch a fan token using Chiliz and Socios’ ecosystem, marking an important milestone for their global expansion. The news comes two months after Chiliz announced $50 million expansion plans for the United States.

Balancer v2 and Gnosis’ ‘CowSwap’ take aim at MEV with planned integration

April 28, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Balancer

The two protocols will collaborate on a joint platform that will combine the best features of each.

Decentralized exchange Balancer and decentralized finance platform Gnosis have announced today a planned integration dubbed the Balancer-Gnosis-Protocol, a collaboration that will combine Balancer’s v2 pool mechanisms with Gnosis’s DEX aggregation and batch auctions designed to mitigate miner extractable value, or MEV.

Balancer’s v2, which is currently live for developer testing, was announced in February and boasts a host of new features: All liquidity will be pooled into a single vault for gas efficiency, unused liquidity will be put to work on lending platform Aave for additional yield, and users will be able to build their own automated market makers with customizable curves.

Gnosis, meanwhile, is set to release the proof-of-concept for its forthcoming Cowswap DEX on Wednesday. Cowswap integrates “all liquidity sources on Ethereum” as an aggregator similar to 1inch, and it also offers a partially off-chain system that may lead to gasless transactions, as well as tight slippage and MEV protection.

MEV is a phenomenon in which bots front-run transactions on DEXs, exploiting arbitrages and causing slippage. The demand to find ways to mitigate MEV has been growing in recent months, and according to MEV-Explore, over $420 million in value has been extracted from traders on DEXs since Jan. 1, 2020.

The collaboration between the protocols is designed to combine the best of pool and curvature mechanics with a next-generation liquidity aggregator and MEV-deterrent exchange platform. The current target date for the full integration is “mid-June,” and the teams noted that there will be an “incentive program,” presumably some form of liquidity mining, coinciding with the release.

“By collaboration, we can out-cooperate the competition—traditional finance—and bring traders unparalleled decentralization, transparency, and value,” Balancer CEO Fernando Martinelli said of the integration.

Balancer has been particularly active in integrating with other protocols as of late, highlighted by the collaboration with Aave in its v2 design. These integrations appear to be part of a larger movement of collaborations heating up across the DeFi space.

Russian space agency uses blockchain to protect intellectual property

April 27, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Roscosmos is the first organization to test Waves Enterprise’s IP Guard solution.

Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, aims to fight intellectual property infringement in the space industry wit blockchain technology.

Roscosmos started testing an IP protection solution based on the Waves Enterprise blockchain platform, a hybrid blockchain platform developed by the eponymous local blockchain firm. Dubbed IP Guard, the blockchain-based tool detects violations of IP belonging to Roscosmos and other industry organizations.

Using the tool, Roscosmos can reportedly maintain and verify a database of IP data objects as well as coordinate IP experts such as lawyers, patent specialists and auditors.

Waves Enterprise chief commercial officer Igor Kuzmichev said, “The most notable properties of blockchain are data immutability and the possibility of verification. Centralized registries can not provide these properties.”

The solution also enables Roscosmos to provide non-monetary rewards for detecting IP infringement cases through smart contracts. As part of the platform’s remuneration program, network participants will receive “cosmotokens” that can be later exchanged for merchandise from the agency as well as other space industry organizations, Kuzmichev said.

The new tool is now in beta testing, with Roscosmos being the first organization to test the service. IP Guard is expected to fully launch in summer 2021.

Waves has been involved in many blockchain-related developments in Russia, including major state-backed initiatives. Last year, the firm provided its blockchain expertise to power a blockchain platform for Russian parliamentary elections.

A member of the unified register of Russian software for computers and databases, Waves also provided its tech to national energy grid operators. Major Russian bank Alfa-Bank also implemented Waves Enterprise blockchain platform for freelancer-focused service automation in late 2020.

US Pharma Firm and Canaan Sign Major Deal for BTC Miners

April 21, 2021 The Crypto Briefing

Bitcoin’s time has come: TIME magazine to hold BTC on balance sheet

April 13, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin

TIME magazine has partnered up with Grayscale to drop a series of educational crypto videos, and has agreed to be paid in Bitcoin.

Institutional fund manager Grayscale has partnered with acclaimed New York-based magazine TIME to produce an educational video series on the subject of crypto assets.

The partnership was announced on April by Grayscale’s CEO, Michael Sonnenshein, with Sonnenshein revealing that TIME and its president, Keith Grossman, will receive payment in Bitcoin.

Further, TIME does not intend to convert the Bitcoin it receives through the deal into fiat, and will hold the crypto asset on its balance sheet. No further details of the partnership have been revealed so far.

Thrilled @Grayscale is partnering w/ @TIME on a new video series coming this summer explaining the #crypto space.

Equally as important, @KeithGrossman & @TIME has agreed to be paid in #Bitcoin - and will hold the $BTC on their balance sheet. A first for our media partnerships!
— Michael Sonnenshein (@Sonnenshein) April 12, 2021

TIME was first published on March 3, 1923, with the magazine and online publication having been active in the crypto space of late. In March, TIME cashed in on the NFT mania by dropping a set of tokenized magazine covers on NFT marketplace SuperRare, with the “TIME Space Exploration - January 19th, 1959” NFT fetching 135 ETH worth almost $250,000 on March 30.

The company also revealed they were seeking a crypto-friendly Chief Financial Officer in the same month after listing the position on Linkedin.

"The media industry is undergoing a rapid evolution. TIME is seeking a Chief Financial Officer who can help guide its transformation," the listing said.

According to Bitcointreasuries.com, TIME will become the 33rd publicly traded company to hold Bitcoin on its balance sheet. TIME joins the ranks of top U.S. companies Microstrategy — who have invested billions into BTC from August 2020, Square — who added 4,709 BTC to their treasury in October, and Tesla — which purchased $1.5 billion worth of BTC in January. Multinational investment corporation Blackrock also began dabbling in crypto during February, profiting more than $360,000 from a small long using Bitcoin futures.

This deal marks a significant partnership between giants of the mainstream and crypto worlds. Grayscale was founded in 2013 and has $46 billion worth of crypto assets under management, including roughly 3% of Bitcoin’s total circulating supply.

Partnership