Uniswap Diamond Gets Largest Portion of Foundation’s First $1.8M Grant

Uniswap Diamond becomes the single-largest recipient of the Uniswap's first wave of grants, with the project set to receive $808,752 of the total $1.8 million. Uniswap Foundation just announced its first wave of grants, totaling $1.8 million. The single largest recipient in the first wave of grants is the Uniswap Diamond, which will receive $808,725 across 3 disbursements. A total of 14 participants will receive the grants in this round, Uniswap Foundation added.

Leading crypto exchange Coinbase has recently been more vocal in advocating their political and legal standings, integrating information about crypto-friendly candidates and initiatives into their platform. However, it looks as though Coinbase may be facing a bit of legal trouble themselves:

Coinbase is reportedly facing a $350,000,000 patent lawsuit relating to their trading software. Veritaseum, the company that filed the lawsuit claims that Coinbase has infringed on a variety of their properties. These include things like their method for validating transactions and blockchain infrastructure.

Veritaseum as a company builds software with a focus on crypto, and previously launched a token back in 2019. The token fell under scrutiny from the SEC but the case has now been settled.

Couple say 'I do' in Singapore’s first metaverse wedding

Avatars clapped and cheered as the digital likeness of Mr Clarence Chan and Ms Joanne Tham sealed their vows with a kiss at a virtual altar during their metaverse wedding – in what they say is the first of its kind in Singapore. Family and friends, the wedding officiator, and even the bride’s pet dog, were present in pixel form.

Mr Chan said this is the first wedding held on decentralised virtual world The Sandbox, and the couple marked the happy occasion by planting the Singapore flag in their digital wedding venue. “We were the first in the world to do this in The Sandbox and just like Neil Armstrong, we wanted to plant the Singapore flag, being proud Singaporeans ourselves,” said Mr Chan. The wedding venue was decorated with super trees, a Cinderella horse-drawn carriage, and a giant calligraphy sign of the word "xi", a Chinese character commonly seen at Chinese weddings meaning "double happiness".

Opensea has remained the top marketplace in the NFT space for multiple years running, and as a result their homepage has become a place where thousands of users come to find the latest and greatest in the space. Earlier this week Opensea made some exciting changes to the highly-frequented homepage.

OpenSea recognizes the importance of NFT collections executing a smooth mint, and they’re making that a whole lot easier. In an effort to make drops simpler and more secure, the marketplace will now allow certain creators to release NFTs directly from the homepage. Select collections will receive dedicated drop pages, allowing collectors to mint directly on OpenSea.

Drops on the newly launched dedicated pages will be created using a new open source smart contract dubbed “SeaDrop”, removing the majority of technical burden from creators. Dedicated pages will also feature allowlist capabilities, allowing collections to curate their collectors easily on the platform.

NFTs bring in-game ownership to a new level, says Blokhaus founder

NFTs improve interactivity by allowing users to unlock fully modular, community-driven in-game experiences to which they own the pieces, explains Mark Soares, the founder of Blokhaus Inc. Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) have taken the gaming world by storm. Whether it’s through limited edition collectibles, avatar enhancement or play-to-earn incentivization, digital assets have given in-game ownership a new meaning.

The ways in which NFTs are available to players are becoming increasingly tangible. In the case of Blockxer, the latest blockchain game from Blokhaus Inc., every component of the game has been NFT-ized and available for modification by users. NFTs allow users to unlock fully modular, community-driven in-game experiences to which they own the pieces. Soares likens this customization of an NFT-driven game, such as Blockxer, to 90s mixtapes, saying that it puts the “power of game.

PancakeSwap coin is comfortably the most searched unknown crypto asset right now

It’s been a turbulent time for cryptocurrency. Economic uncertainty has caused serious volatility surrounding the prices of the most established cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin’s value has fallen over 43% in the year to date (YTD), while Ethereum has followed a similar path, experiencing a 43% YTD decline too. PancakeSwap coin was ranked as comfortably the most popular lesser-known crypto asset right now. Global search volume was 1.4 million for PancakeSwap (CAKE). The main reason it is garnering search volume is because of its recent launch as a new decentralised crypto exchange.

Uniswap Foundation to Distribute $1.8 Million in Grants to 14 Recipients

The Uniswap Foundation (UF), the group behind the decentralized exchange (dex) Uniswap, announced the first wave of foundation grants on Wednesday as it plans to distribute $1.8 million total, awarded across 14 grants. The UF announcement details that a touch more than $800K will be awarded to Uniswap Diamond, a project being constructed by GFX Labs. On September 21, the Uniswap Foundation announced the first wave of grants that aims to bolster the decentralized finance (defi) ecosystem and progress research and development.

Decentralized Exchange Krypton Raises $7M From Framework Ventures, Samsung Next

Krypton, a new decentralized exchange—which shares a name similar to that of the home planet of a certain "Man of Steel"—announced today a seed round raise of $7 million in investment led by venture capital company Framework Ventures. Other investors joining in the seven-figure raise are Samsung Next, HashKey Capital, Finality Capital Partners, Foresight Ventures, GSR, and MEXC. A decentralized exchange or DEX is a platform where people can conduct peer-to-peer cryptocurrency trades.

Web3-native software solution company Chain has been doing big things in the NFT scene, recently partnering with Tiffany’s & CryptoPunks to produce jewelry centered around the legendary collection. Their latest partnership continues this streak of innovation, bringing another major player into the web3 scene.

Earlier today, Chain announced a partnership with the New England Patriots that will see them become the official blockchain sponsor of the iconic sports franchise. In this four year deal, the two will work hand-in-hand to develop web3 experiences using Chain’s technology. Chain will look to take Gillette Stadium to a whole new level, “bringing to light revolutionary possibilities that exist in merging the physical with the digital to redefine a best-in-class fan experience”.

Uniswap Spikes 15%, but DeFi TVL Drops Below $100 Billion

Almost the entire crypto market was trading in the green on Tuesday, thanks to Bitcoin climbing back above the psychological $20k mark. The cumulative value of all cryptos stood above $970 billion at press time, roughly 4% higher when compared to yesterday. Overall, there were only 5 tokens that managed to fetch their investors with double-digit gains on the daily chart. Tokens from the Terra ecosystem have been quite volatile of late. Their prices have mostly been moving in tandem with Do-Kwon-related announcements, and resultantly, they occupied the first two spots.

GameStop (GME) recently revealed new Game Informer cover NFTs. In the announcement, community artists CYBERCREWNFT, MaxxMarshallArt, and torfxnft have been cited as GameStop NFT cover creators, along with the mention of there being 4 collectible NFT covers in total.

All four Game Informer cover NFTs are available for purchase on GameStop’s NFT marketplace with prices ranging between $55 (USD) all the way up to $588 for the Game Informer - GOLD 100 cover of which only 15 remain available for purchase as of the time of this writing. Moving forward, it’ll be interesting to see what other NFT collections GameStop has up its sleeve, and whether NFTs will ever prove to be significantly successful for the company.

NFT marketplace OpenSea announced that it had expanded its offerings to include projects built on Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Optimism.

Optimism joins five other existing networks now supported by the marketplace: Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Klatyn, and—as of last week—Arbitrum, another Ethereum scaler.

OpenSea already has listings for over 100 Optimism-native NFT collections on its marketplace since launching compatibility with the blockchain earlier today.

Chipotle previously launched a crypto-centric campaign with ‘Buy the Dip’, giving customers a chance to win cryptocurrency rewards by ordering food. Now they’re back with another, this time focused around the recent Ethereum Merge.

In honor of Ethereum’s successful transition to proof of stake and its energy usage being reduced by around 99.5%, Chipotle and their partners Flexa are reducing the price of a steak bowl by 99.5% when paid in Ether. The promotion will run through October 4th, and requires users to pay using Flexa, so your typical web3 wallet won’t do the trick.

Uniswap seeks $100-$200M in funding at $1B valuation

A host of companies have been expanding their reigns in the crypto-verse of late. Right from offering new products to acquiring funding and branching out—different organizations have been treading on different paths with the same goal. In the latest development, Uniswap plans to expand its already existing reigns. Per a recent report from TechCrunch, Uniswap Labs is in the “early stages” of putting together a new funding round. It is reportedly engaging with a number of investors—including Polychain and one of Singapore’s sovereign funds—to raise an equity round of $100 million to $200 million at a valuation of about $1 billion.

Earlier this week, Stanford researcher Kaili Wang took to Twitter to detail a highly controversial token prototype for reversible Ethereum transactions. In an effort to combat scams, transactions that take place using these prototype tokens, currently dubbed “ERC-20R” and “ERC-721R”, would be reversible for a limited period of time.

Upon learning of their funds being stolen, users of these reversible tokens would be able to request a “freeze” of these assets. Following this, a decentralized group of judges would decide whether or not a freeze is warranted. Upon executing the freeze, both sides would be put to the test, presenting their evidence to the panel of judges. If the judges find a transaction reversal applicable, they would then be able to execute it.

The community is now faced with a question. Does the need to combat scams and protect everyday users outweigh the need for true blockchain decentralization?

KyberSwap CEO predicts DeFi will overtake TradFi in 10 years

KyberSwap CEO Victor Tran predicted onstage that decentralized finance (DeFi) will overtake TradFi in 10 years. On top of that, KyberSwap will also be the most used decentralized exchange (DEX) because of its innate ability to provide the best rates in all of DeFi. Speaking on the panel “Decentralized Exchanges: The Road Ahead” along with co-founders from 1inch Network and Mantra, Tran declared that consumers in the future will value privacy and control, especially considering developments around the world today.

Disney recently posted a job listing for a corporate attorney with experience in emerging technologies, specifically NFTs and the metaverse. It seems that the company is gearing up for a push into web3 sometime soon.

Retail giant Walmart created a metaverse-like experience in the popular game Roblox, which hosts 50,000,000+ daily users. While there are no crypto or NFT elements to the experience, the company seems to be keeping a keen eye on emerging tech trends.

Meta announced the rollout of NFT integration to all US users of both Facebook and Instagram today. Users are now presented the option to connect a wallet and post “digital collectibles” from the Ethereum, Flow and Polygon blockchains to these platforms.

Decentralized Exchange Transit Swap loses over $21M due to internal bug hack, issues apology

Transit Swap, a multi-chain decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator, lost roughly $21 million after a hacker exploited an internal bug on a swap contract. Following the revelation, Transit Swap issued an apology to the users while efforts to track down and recover the stolen funds are underway. “We are deeply sorry,” stated Transit Swap while revealing that a bug in the code allowed a hacker to make away with an estimated $21 million. Blockchain investigator Peckshield narrowed down the attack to a compatibility issue or misplaced trust in the swap contract.

CryptoPunks, originally created by Larva Labs and now owned by Yuga Labs, are one of the most recognizable NFT collections out there , Originally minted in June 2017, the project can be credited with creating the NFT PFP ecosystem that makes up the majority of the space today.

Today’s big sale takes things a whole step further, as it isn’t every day you see NFTs selling for millions. However, CryptoPunk connoisseur and DJ Seedphrase just sold one of the rarest punks in the entire collection for a whopping 3300 ETH (~$4,428,435).

The CryptoPunk in this case (2924) possesses not one, but two of the most highly sought after and limited traits in the entire collection. CryptoPunks with the “Hoodie” trait are extremely rare, comprising only about 3% of the collection. Add in the even rarer “Ape” trait (found on a small total of 24 CryptoPunks), and you’ve got the makings of a nearly $4,500,000 NFT.

​​Korea’s DAXA to Implement Consumer Protection Measures for Crypto

Korean Crypto Alliance DAXA announces guidelines for consumer protection.

The guidelines cover various risk assessment measures.

The exchanges will offer transaction support to its consumers.

The Digital Asset Exchange Alliance (DAXA) detailed its intention to implement universal standards for transaction support and review, beginning October 10.

The DAXA is a consortium of the five largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Korea: Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax. The group banded together in June of 2022 with the aim of fostering the industry’s long-term growth in the region and developing strategies to safeguard consumers better.

Per the announcement, the guidelines cover measures such as intrinsic risk assessment, technical risk assessment, and commercial risk assessment.

In addition, the five exchanges will make their own decisions about transaction support during the listing review process in accordance with their own procedures and standards; however, item evaluation will be in accordance with common guidelines.

However, DAXA is debating the best ways to track and assess the risks associated with various crypto assets. A special focus will be given to the process of selecting and tracking risk indices for LUNA-related stablecoins and coins issued by international trading operators.

If the agreed-upon risk indicators are discovered, the consortium expects to collectively respond within a specific time period, for example, by designating key assets or opting to cease transaction support.

The alliance has also decided upon how many external experts are to be included when evaluating token listings. Every company’s listing review committee must include at least two external experts or at least 30% of the entire review committee.

Finally, DAXA has chosen to create internal guidelines for a virtual asset warning system for each exchange, which will allow it to swiftly notify investors of sudden movements in price, trading volume, or deposit amounts. It is anticipated that the advisory committee will meet by the end of next month to discuss the standard value and implementation date after developing a framework for internal standards.