Kategorie: Crypto Business

BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager with over $10 trillion in assets under management.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says the investment giant is indeed looking at what’s possible with regard to offering digital asset services and investments to its clients.

“As we see increasing interest from our clients, BlackRock is studying digital currencies, stablecoins and the underlying technologies to understand how they can help us serve our clients,” Fink said in a letter published on Thursday.

He also touched on the benefits of digital currencies and digital currency payment systems amid increased exploration in this area by companies and governments.

„A global digital payment system, thoughtfully designed, can enhance the settlement of international transactions while reducing the risk of money laundering and corruption„, the BlackRock chief added.

According to him, the use of digital currencies has the potential to cut costs associated with cross-border payments. He mentioned the example of how this can greatly help expatriate workers looking to send money to families across the globe.

‚We serve our clients‘

BlackRock has over $10 trillion in assets under management, and Fink said that the firm only manages the money on behalf of its clients.

“The money we manage belongs to our clients. And to serve them, we work to understand how changes around the world will impact their investment outcomes,” he told shareholders.

The comments related to the Russia-Ukraine war, which Fink said had ended the globalisation seen over the past 30 years or so.

But while he still believes in the concept and benefits of globalisation, including global capital markets, Fink is convinced things have changed as a result of the war. The reaction of companies and governments and what could happen next will have far-reaching ramifications, he added. 

According to him, the war adds to the impact of the global pandemic and their impact “will reverberate for decades to come in ways we can’t yet predict.”

The post BlackRock is considering crypto services for clients amid rising demand, CEO says appeared first on Coin Journal.

• The aUSD Ecosystem Fund brings together several Polkadot parachains, including Manta Network and Acala.

• Together, the projects seek to support early-stage startups promoting the adoption of Pollkadot’s native stablecoin, Acala USD

• aUSD, the main product on the Acala chain, is a decentralised, multi-collateral stablecoin backed by crypto.

Manta Network, Acala and seven other Polkadot parachain have teamed up to launch a $250 million ecosystem fund targeted at supporting stablecoin use on Polkadot and Kusama parachains.

Dubbed ‘aUSD Ecosystem Fund’, the financial initiative is set to help early-stage startups in the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystem build strong projects that support the adoption of native stablecoins.

Interoperability benefits the whole Polkadot ecosystem

Apart from Manta and Acala, other parachain teams to contribute to the fund are asset financing protocol Centrifuge, NFT and gaming platform Efinity, WASM + EVM hub Astar Network and Ethereum interoperability protocol Moonbeam. 

Others are DEX chain HydraDX, DeFi multichain Parallel and predictions marketplace Zeitgeist.

Manta Network co-founder Kenny Li, commenting on the importance of the fund to the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems, said:

“We’re excited to be supporting the aUSD Ecosystem Fund and look forward to integrating privacy into the emerging use cases and projects coming out of it. With Polkadot’s native interoperability, every new idea launching in the ecosystem is another value add to all parachains‚ “. 

DEXs and DAOs among targeted projects

The fund is open to startups with Solidity or Substrate-based applications, including payment solutions, money markets, decentralised exchanges (DEXs), derivatives, DAOs, and asset managers among others.

The parachain teams are confident cross-chain activity in the Polkadot ecosystem will push aUSD into broader adoption, benefitting all the parachains in the process. 

Acala Network, Moonbeam, Astar and Parallel are scheduled to outline their respective development milestones since onboarding on Polkadot later on Wednesday. The projects will also share future developments during the Parachains Takeover event.

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KILT’s decentralised identifiers (DIDs) are set to enhance Authtrail’s data integrity, helping offer data provenance for enterprise users.

Authtrail and decentralised identity platform KILT Protocol have announced a collaborative effort, with the former integrating KILT DIDs as it looks to improve on network trustworthiness and transparent data flows.

Moonbeam-powered Authtrail and B.T.E. BOTLabs Trusted Entity GmbH (BTE)-developed KILT are both projects within the Polkadot ecosystem.

The integration of KILT’s decentralised identifiers (DID) technology is set to help achieve data provenance on Authrail, a complete SaaS platform aimed at offering access to enterprise data secured by blockchain-based integrity.

Users across the blockchain ecosystem will be able to benefit from DIDs and other verifiable credentials, the two firms said in the announcement, with this happening via further integrations into data sources accessible to Authtrail.

More value for enterprise customers

The development gives blockchain developers access to tools by which they can create identifiers and credentials all manner of use cases and data sources. These, according to details the firms shared, include DIDs for humans, IoT, services and machines- basically all that needs authenticated/verifiable identity.

According to Authrail CEO Matjaz Sobocan, the integration will help the platform offer customers more value without compromising on their security.

“By employing DIDsign, we can procure more value for enterprise customers who want to innovate their identity systems without compromising the security of personal or organizational data in their environment,” he noted.

Through KILT’s technology, Authrail users will be able to tap into digital data that are securely traceable to real-life identity credentials.

Enterprises can be created and verify the identifiers using DIDsign, a KILT technology that seamlessly helps large enterprises to streamline their onboarding process while at the same time be assured of the safety of their organisations’ systems.

End users do not need to have blockchain knowledge or be familiar with DIDs to tap into the process.

Data integrity is powered by AUT, the native token on the Authrail network that also opens up other investing opportunities for holders and ecosystem users.

The post Authtrail integrates KILT Protocol DIDs for data provenance appeared first on Coin Journal.

DEA has released a new game title and launched an NFT sale that goes went live on 18 March.

Digital Entertainment Asset Pte. Ltd. (DEA) has announced the release of a new blockchain play-to-earn (P2E) game titled Cookin’ Burger. The Singapore-based GameFi platform has also launched an NFT presale for the game’s Shop NFT.

A press release shared with CoinJournal noted that Cookin’ Burger is DEA’s fourth title in the blockchain gaming ecosystem. However, it’s the GameFi platform’s first title from a third party in the company’s PlayMining ecosystem.

What’s Cookin’ Burger?

According to DEA, Cookin’ Burger is a blockchain game that simulates the management of a burger shop. The game is designed to “embody the dream of ‘running your own restaurant’”, Burger Studio CEO Takafumi Kiyota said in a statement.

The gaming experience will involve players taking on multi-tasking roles in a cooking game. Within the game, players will take on the roles of a burger shot staff and compete in serving customers.

DEA plans to officially unveil a beta version of the new game in May, although the Shop NFT presale goes live today 18 March at 11:00 (UTC+8).

In-game  rewards include DEAPcoin ($DEP)

In-game rewards are available when players successfully complete daily missions, weekly events or rank higher on monthly top performer lists. Players will also get a chance to win DEAPcoin ($DEP), an in-game reward token.

The launch of Cookin’ Burger comes as DEA, founded in 2018 in Singapore, looks to dive into the world of gaming finance with a play-to-earn (P2E) game and NFT marketplace.

The post GameFi platform DEA announces NFT Presale for new blockchain game “Cookin’ Burger” appeared first on Coin Journal.

The funding round was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz’ a16z and major crypto VC firm Paradigm.

Optimism, a layer 2 scaling solution on the Ethereum network, has secured $150 million in a Series B funding, the blockchain platform announced on Thursday.

Heavyweight crypto investors Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Paradigm co-led the financing round. The firm added in details shared via a Medium post that the funding round had the blockchain firm at a valuation of $1.65 billion.

After over a year on mainnet, our milestones keep adding up: $1B in gas fees saved for users, thousands of smart contracts deployed, three separate forks…

And now: funds raised to the tune of $150M, giving us runway to keep shipping rain or shine.https://t.co/pBC2jmXtnh

— Optimism 🔴✨ (@optimismPBC) March 17, 2022

The Optimism mainnet has been live for over a year and in that time, the L2 solution has seen users save over $1 billion in gas. The success of its technology has also seen projects deploy thousands of contracts.

The open-source code has also seen three popular forks, with the platform firmly in the limelight across the Ethereum ecosystem.

Per the Medium post, the team at Optimism now plans to take their work across the network to the next level. This, they revealed, will happen with further strengthening of its team.

The startup is now one of the latest Unicorns in the crypto space and its continued development comes amid fresh impetus in the NFTs and DeFi sectors.  Scaling solutions such as Optimism are crucial as they help investors save on transaction fees, which can be prohibitive on the Ethereum network.

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