Bridging the Gap - April 21, 2023
Happy Friday Bridgoors, welcome to another series of Bridging the Gap. Get ready to dive into the latest updates and developments in the crypto space, let's go!
Market
The worldwide cryptocurrency market is valued at $1.19 trillion and has decreased by 2.07% in the last 24 hours.
Within this period:
The total trading volume for all cryptocurrencies is $52.69 billion, representing a 17.34% decline.
The DeFi sector has contributed $4.08 billion to the total trading volume, which accounts for 7.75% of the entire 24-hour market volume.
Stable coins, on the other hand, have a trading volume of $46.91 billion, making up 89.03% of the total crypto market volume over the last 24 hours.
Bitcoin's dominance currently stands at 45.74%, having decreased by 0.28% in the past day.
Top News
Société Générale introduces a Euro Stablecoin.
Societe Generale's digital assets subsidiary, SG-Forge, has launched a euro-backed stablecoin called EUR CoinVertible (EURCV). The stablecoin targets institutional clients, offering benefits such as faster and more transparent property transfers, reduced settlement, credit, and counterparty risks, and integration with DeFi. This move represents a significant step towards blockchain technology adoption by a major financial institution. Read the whitepaper here.
PUBG is planning to launch an NFT metaverse platform later this year.
Krafton, the developer of PUBG, revealed last year that it was working on NFTs and metaverse technology. The company's metaverse platform, Migaloo, is set to launch this year. Migaloo, developed by a AAA game studio, plans to introduce a "create-to-earn" model, allowing players to create, buy, and sell in-game assets as NFTs. Details about the project are scarce, but it appears to be a combination of Roblox and NFTs.
Mystery Hacker Swipes $10M in Ethereum!
Taylor Monahan, who is the former CEO and founder of Ethereum wallet manager MyCrypto, took to Twitter on a Tuesday to reveal a disturbing revelation. According to her tweet, over 5,000 ETH, which is equivalent to $10 million in value, has been stolen since December. The theft has reportedly targeted sophisticated cryptocurrency users, and the alarming rate at which the hackers have been able to make away with millions of dollars worth of digital assets has top security experts scratching their heads.
Gala Games is set to airdrop version 2 tokens in May.
Gala Games is set to airdrop a new version of their native tokens on May 15th, according to a recent blog post by the developers. The new version 2 tokens will be distributed to current Gala (GALA) token holders on a 1:1 basis, and the v1 tokens will no longer hold any value after the airdrop. The upgrade is part of a larger plan to enhance the security of Gala smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain, and will also introduce burn mechanisms. This upgrade is expected to make the tokens more valuable in the future.
Cross-Chain Corner
Bridge Network x Glacier Network
We are proud to announce that Bridge Network has partnered with Glacier Network to enhance cross-chain interoperability for decentralized storage. Head over to our Medium to read more!
LI.FI Launched Bridge Insurance
What does this mean for the users?
LI.FI and InsurAce have partnered to launch Bridge Insurance, the first production-ready insurance product designed to designed to safeguard users against the risks associated with bridging transactions. Read more here.
Celer Network partners with Polygon for mainnet launch with cBridge support.
Celer is providing support for Polygon zkEVM and cBridge bridging through the xLiquidity model, allowing users to easily transfer ETH to Polygon zkEVM from various blockchains such as Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum, Avalanche, and Fantom.
LayerZero and Radix collaborate to improve Ecosystem Interoperability and Web3 User Experience.
LayerZero and Radix are partnering to integrate LayerZero with the Radix Babylon public network in the second half of 2023, bringing cross-chain communication and asset transfers to the Radix ecosystem. This collaboration will enhance the user experience and showcase the potential of cross-chain interoperability. Radix's focus on providing developer-friendly tooling and network functionality empowers developers to build dApps that are mainstream-ready, and the integration with LayerZero will further enhance the usability of the Radix platform.
DeFi Spotlight
TransUnion to provide credit scores for cryptocurrency loans.
TransUnion, one of the top credit agencies in the US, will start offering credit scores for DeFi lenders from next week. The credit scores will be provided off-chain to ensure applicants' privacy when applying for loans on blockchain-based platforms. TransUnion is partnering with Spring Labs, a data security firm, and Quadrata, a DeFi identity and compliance software developer to offer the service.
Ecosystem
The rise of Memecoins.
Bitcoin's dominance faces resistance, hinting at an "altcoin season."
Bitcoin's dominance rate, which rose to 48% from 42% in Q1, has plateaued and suggests that altcoins could potentially outperform BTC. Altcoins have seen outsized gains during declines from 46%-48% in BTC dominance over the past two years.
Bridge of Knowledge
This newsletter section will focus on providing guidance and assistance to newcomers in the crypto industry. You are welcome to share our Substack with anyone who may find it useful!
In this week’s episode we are going to cover Blockchain Technology.
What exactly is Blockchain Technology?
In technical terms:
A blockchain is a distributed ledger that maintains a tamper-evident record of transactions.
It consists of a network of nodes that work together to validate and add new blocks to the chain.
Each block contains a set of transactions and a hash of the previous block, creating an unbroken chain of blocks.
Consensus algorithms, such as proof of work or proof of stake, ensure network security and prevent malicious attacks.
Blockchain technology is decentralized and trustless, making it suitable for various applications, including cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, and supply chain management.
Lets put it this way..
Imagine a group of friends playing a game of telephone, where one person whispers a message to the next person, and so on. By the time the message reaches the last person, it might be different from the original message. In a blockchain, instead of people, there are computers that communicate with each other to keep track of transactions. And instead of a message, they store information about those transactions in blocks. Each block contains a unique code, like a fingerprint, that links it to the previous block. This creates a chain of blocks, hence the name "blockchain". Since each block is linked to the previous one, it's hard to change any information in the chain without breaking the links between blocks. This makes it difficult for anyone to tamper with the information stored in the chain. And just like in the game of telephone, where everyone repeats the message to make sure it's correct, the computers in a blockchain network check each other's work to ensure the accuracy and security of the information stored in the chain.