Ukraine cancels airdrop amid phishing attempt

The Ukrainian government has canceled a planned crypto airdrop as the Russian invasion continues. With it, devious hackers have pounced again.

Twitter users identified the newly minted token Peaceful World (WORD) token distribution from Ukraine’s Ethereum wallet as a potential phishing scam.

Hackers trying to spoof WORD

Ukraine’s Ethereum wallet seemed to distribute a newly minted token, but suspicions have emerged that hackers were trying to spoof the token in a scam.

Mykhailo Fedorov, the country’s deputy prime minister and minister of digital transformation, made the announcement on Twitter via his verified account today. He tweeted:

After careful consideration we decided to cancel airdrop. Every day there are more and more people willing to help Ukraine to fight back the aggression.

Country to support its armed forces via NFTs

Fedorov said Ukraine would announce non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to support its armed forces, but pointed out the country has no plans to issue such.

The country officially announced the airdrop on Wednesday, after which government officials released no further information and made no announcements regarding the event, which had been slated for Thursday.

Goal of drop was to reward donors

Yesterday’s announcement indicated the purpose of the initiative was to reward crypto donors. After the intervention of malevolent third parties, the much-anticipated event fell through.

Crypto donations to Ukraine total $30M

Ukraine has raised around $30 million since it started accepting crypto donations about a week ago, Fedorov’s most recent update on Telegram shows. 

They have been raising money via Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot, and other altcoins like Dai, Candle, Dogs of Elon, and more. Funds are also being raised in stablecoins like Tether and USDC.  

Etherscan data shows the Ukrainian Ethereum wallet has officially received crypto assets worth over $15.9 million, with Ethereum (ETH) only accounting for about $8.1 million. The rest is in the form of the above-mentioned stablecoins and altcoins.

Ukraine was at the forefront of crypto adoption

Before the invasion, Ukraine was a pioneer of crypto. It also became the first country in the world to officially ask for donations in crypto. The hryvnia has crashed and the invasion has impacted electronic payments adversely as well. 

 

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Ignite secures $10M of funding

Ignite Tournaments secured a total of $10 million in funding from strategic investors to create the first mobile play-to-earn (P2E) esports tournament and streaming platform in history, CoinJournal learned from a press release.

Yield Guild and Animoca Brands led crucial investment rounds

The funds were raised in two crucial investment rounds. The first, a $3 million seed round, was co-led by Yield Guild Games and Ascensive Assets. Ignite also closed a $7 million strategic round in February 2022, co-led by Animoca Brands, Infinity Ventures Crypto, and Moon Holdings Fund.

These notable investors bring decades of experience in the traditional and blockchain gaming industry. Robby Yung, CEO of North American Operations for Animoca Brands commented:

Animoca Brands has built its success by investing in and partnering with projects with strong fundamentals both in and out of the gaming industry. It is under this exciting context that we are eager to both invest in as well as to explore integrating our games with Ignite Tournaments.

Thomas Vu, Former Head of Creative and Franchise at Riot Games and Partner at Moon Holdings Fund, added:

We are bullish on Ignite Tournaments. When I led multiple strategic efforts at Riot Games, I always thought that a ‘plug-and-play’ tournament would benefit players. It was inevitable that someone would build such a platform. I am delighted to see what Krystal and Tony have built, and look forward to supporting them in play-to-earn and traditional gaming.

Transforming esports

Ignite Tournaments will lower the entry barrier for gamers worldwide by providing the tools of P2E tournament organization. Payouts are made in NFTs and cryptocurrency. You can stake to earn additional rewards. Ignite is also working on developing web 3.0 infrastructure to improve esports payouts.

Brian Lu, Venture Capital Investor at Infinity Venture Crypto concluded:

It’s clear to me as both a former competitive gamer and VC investor that Ignite Tournaments will completely transform competitive mobile gaming. I am co-leading this round because I want to see Ignite Tournaments add that immense value to all games worldwide; to both IVC’s game portfolio and beyond.

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Perpetual Protocol co-founder shares outlook on TrustToken and Perp’s DEX liquidity deal

Yenwen Feng says Perpetual Protocol and True plan to increase the asset cap in the protocol-to-protocol lending portfolio from $5 million to $20 million if the initial trial succeeds.

Perpetual Protocol (PERP), an Ethereum-based decentralised derivatives exchange and TrustToken, the company behind  digital asset lending platform TrueFi and popular stablecoin TrueUSD (TUSD) recently signed a deal that saw the latter launch a $100 million liquidity pool for market makers.

As part of the partnership, TrueFi unveiled a protocol-to-protocol lending portfolio on Perpetual Protocol, with a $5 million initial plough from the $100 million targeted by end of the year. With the funds, market makers on the PERP platform can now offer more liquidity, allowing the platform to scale its services to more professional and institutional investors.

Commenting on the critical role played by liquidity providers, Perpetual Protocol co-founder Yenwen Feng said:

Committed market makers are crucial for any user-driven decentralized exchange, as they are the engine that keeps it going. By teaming up with TrustToken, we bring our market makers more liquidity to tap into as they support our own trading pairs. This grants liquidity providers more confidence through greater market stability and reduced slippage which ultimately results in a better trading experience for all of our users.”

Yenwen Feng on TrueFi partnership and 2022 outlook

After Perpetual and TrustToken announced their partnership, we wanted to know more about the $100 million liquidity pool and what the PERP team is looking forward to in 2022.

Feng elaborated on several points, including plans to increase the LP funds’ pool from $5 million to $20 million following an initial trial period. He explained the importance of providing support to market makers via a dedicated lending portfolio, with a note on why this could be crucial to the derivatives market.

Feng is also convinced layer 2 solutions will play a key role in the future of on-chain derivatives starting in the second half of 2022.

There’s more the Perpetual Protocol co-founder said.

CJ: When do the Perpetual Protocol (PERP) ecosystem market makers begin to tap into the huge liquidity?

Feng: After this initial trial we should be able to fine-tune the parameters of the program before opening it up to other market makers

CJ: Briefly tells us about the $5 million lending ceiling and why start with only 5% of what could rise to $100 million by end of the year?

Feng: We wanted to start with a small enough amount to initially test the waters to see what kind of an impact it would have on the market-making activities on Perp. This approach is another route for us to bring more liquidity to the platform and if it goes well, we’ll increase it to $20 million for the next round and more in the future.

CJ: What’s your outlook on the crypto derivative markets, especially if we see a crypto winter in 2022? Any advice to investors?

Feng: New L1/L2 development: Rollup technologies and new L1 chains are launching this year. It should further increase the bandwidth and lower the gas fees. The landscape for L2s will become really competitive in the second half of 2022. 

For example, zkSync recently launched their public testnet and the Optimism team are working on reducing the fees by 10x, so we’ll likely see a boost to trading volumes as on-chain derivatives become cheaper and more widely accessible. 

Awareness of institutions: More and more institutional traders are testing out crypto trading and bringing in more markets.

CJ: What do you say about the 2022 crypto market outlook?

Feng: I feel that the bearish market will only be short-lived. In the 2018 bear market, people were leaving crypto and never came back. At that time, we were in the Binance Accelerator program and I think around half of the projects there at the time quit the crypto market completely. 

However, the difference this time is that even if crypto market valuation drops, most people will remain in the space and there are many builders and new innovations. 

There’s still a lot of appetite for cryptocurrency, such as in Silicon Valley, so I think by the second half of the year, the market will be in a much better position. 

CJ: Any new projects and protocols that have looked at your partnership with TrustToken and as a result expressed intention to build on top of the Perpetual Protocol?

Feng: Market makers and online strategy providers are very interested in this partnership.

CJ: What compliance issues, if any, has the platform faced or had to address as a result of sealing a partnership with TrustToken?

Feng: TrueFi creates a great environment to help us navigate through the complexity of regulations. TrueFi is like a fund manager, where Perpetual Protocol is the lender and market makers are the borrowers. Because we are using their platform, we don’t have to be too preoccupied about regulations, as TrueFi handles those issues. 

Also, once we grow more, we can utilize their platform to become the borrower. 

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THORChain (RUNE) price rallies 51% in seven days: this is what is fuelling the uptrend

ThorChain (Rune) logo on a cell phone screen

THORChain (RUNE) price has made a huge comeback rallying 26% yesterday after a week of consistent growth that saw a total of 51% increase over the past week. In recent days, it has been one of the networks that crypto enthusiasts are keeping a keen eye on.

At the time of writing, it is trading at $5.57 after hitting a high of $5.77 and a low of $5.25.

What is THORChain (RUNE)?

Before getting into what is behind the current RUNE price hike, let’s first look at what it is.

THORCHain is a decentralized liquidity protocol that enables users to exchange cryptocurrency assets with full custody of their assets. Its native token is referred to as RUNE.

Why is the price of THORChain (RUNE) price rising?

There are several factors behind the current RUNE price surge but the factors are Terra integration and intermediaries bridges elimination.

  • Terra integration

In a tweet sent on Tuesday, March 1, 2022, the crypto comapany said that Terra integration is ready for release to the public. Terra Smart Contract Auditor is working together with its developers to ensure that the integration is in full operation before the launching of the mainnet.

THORChain-integrated chains users will be able to exchange stablecoins and LUNA tokens once the integration is complete. Besides, It is also working on DeFiSpot, a decentralized multi-chain, that is built on top of THORChain and it is also ready for a debut alongside Terra.

In addition to the recent strong returns on THORChain-integrated chains, this project offers “boosted APYs’’ where users can now earn 17% on Bitcoin, 19% on native Ethereum, and 60% on Binance USD.

  • Intermediaries bridges elimination

THORChain is also working on eliminating intermediaries to allow users to transfer assets across the blockchain directly.

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