StarkWare Adjusts Token Release Timetable Following Community Criticism
Following criticism from the cryptocurrency community, the StarkWare team has modified its token release timetable. The project’s team and investors will now unlock 0.64% of the token supply on April 14, instead of the previously planned 13.4%. By the end of 2024, 580 million of the tokens designated for the team and investors will be unlocked, compared to the initial schedule of 2 billion. STRK has seen a nearly 5% rise in the last hour following the announcement.
Reddit Reveals Investments in Bitcoin and ETH in IPO Documentation
Reddit, a widely-used social media platform with more than 70 million users, revealed that it holds a portion of its surplus cash reserves in Bitcoin and Ether. The investments were disclosed in a Form S-1 submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Feb. 22, marking the first step towards Reddit’s anticipated initial public offering (IPO). The document also stated that the company “purchased Ether and Matic to pay for sales of certain virtual goods, a practice we may continue in the future.”
EigenLayer Secures $100M Series B Funding Round Led By a16z
a16z, a leading venture capital firm in the crypto space, spearheaded a $100 million Series B investment round for EigenLayer, a rapidly growing Ethereum restaking protocol. EigenLayer aims to provide Ethereum’s cryptoeconomic security to other projects. This is expected to simplify the start-up process for new crypto projects as they won’t need to establish a blockchain or validator set. Users who restake ETH via EigenLayer stand to earn returns from validating these new services.
Ondo Introduces Treasury-Supported Stablecoin to Aptos
Ondo Finance, a top-tier real-world asset (RWA) protocol, is collaborating with the Aptos Foundation, the custodian of the eponymous blockchain with a market capitalization of $3.3 billion. The initial stage of the collaboration will see the integration of Ondo’s USDY token, backed by short-term U.S. Treasuries and bank deposits, on Aptos. USDY has a market capitalization of $3.8M, according to data provider rwa.xyz. Ondo’s short-term U.S. government bond product, OUSG, is the third largest treasury-backed asset in DeFi.
Euler Finance Aims for Comeback with V2 Deployment
Following a significant exploit last year, Euler Finance, a DeFi lending protocol, aims to bounce back with the rollout of its v2 version. Euler launched its v2 protocol on Feb. 22, presenting the new platform as a modular lending protocol made up of two core elements — the Euler Vault Connector (EVK) and Ethereum Vault Connector (EVC). The EVK allows developers to deploy custom lending vaults without permission, while the EVC enables composability between vaults.
Chiliz Enlists PSG Football Club As Network Verifier
Paris Saint Germaine, champions of nine out of the last 11 French soccer championships, has become the first sports club to serve as a validator for Chiliz Chain. Announced on Feb. 22, Paris Saint Germaine (PSG) will provide validation services for Chiliz Chain. PSG has pledged to reinvest all revenues generated from validating the network into purchasing back PSG Fan Tokens to support a “self-sustaining digital economy” benefiting users.
Vitalik Expresses Concern Over Highly Complex Layer 2s
In the blockchain community, it is generally believed that the design of Layer 1 networks should be as straightforward as possible without compromising functionality to minimize the risk of critical bugs and attack vectors for harmful actors. As a result, scaling solutions such as Layer 2 networks are expected to handle more complex features. However, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin remains skeptical and expressed his worries over excessively complex Layer 2s on social media on Wednesday.