🎧 Ice Cube Interview: Why The Acclaimed Rapper is Doing an NFT Drop
Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today,
News
Parcel Challenges OpenSea in Bid to Rule Virtual Property in the Metaverse
Polygon Uses Zero-Knowledge Proofs in New Ethereum Virtual Machine Rollup
Research
Video
Podcast
🎙Listen to this week’s podcast with Nadya of Pussy Riot here:
Links
ConsenSys closes $200 million raise at $3.2 billion valuation: The Block
An update on the upcoming RWA Market built on Centrifuge & Aave: Centrifuge
NFT Marketplace OpenSea Offered $10 Billion Valuation: The Information
Nvidia’s Q3 report reveals a sharp decline in crypto mining chip sales: CoinTelegraph
Join us for the much-awaited Polygon #BUIDLIT kickoff session: Polygon
Most Read on The Defiant
The open economy is taking over the old one. Subscribe to keep up with this revolution. Click here to pay with DAI (for $100/yr) or sub with fiat by clicking on the button below ($15/mo, $150/yr).air
🙌 Together with:
Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools at this link.
Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi
Aave, an open-source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets.
Fintech Meetup, join fintech’s largest online meetings event —30,000+ online speed date meetings. Learn More and Get Ticket
Metaverse Real Estate
🏡 Parcel Challenges OpenSea in Bid to Rule Virtual Property in the Metaverse
EVOLUTION In the future, we will all be connected to the metaverse constantly just as we are all connected to the internet now. At least, that’s the thesis of Parcel, a “Zillow for the metaverse” that aims to bring together all the information virtual landowners might need to know about their properties. “The metaverse is the evolution of the internet,” Noah Gaynor, its CEO, told The Defiant in an interview.
MOGULS Parcel is a New York-based startup with seed backing from Framework Ventures, Distributed Global, and Sfermion. Its long term vision is being the place virtual real estate moguls can go to get all the services they might need to manage their holdings. It might be thought of as a sort of directory of the projects people are building in the organic metaverse (as opposed to the corporate bowdlerized one coming out of Menlo Park soon).
VIRTUAL LAND Right now, Parcel is getting into the resale business. “We are launching a marketplace,” Gaynor said. “We’ll be competing with OpenSea directly. Grand vision: we want to be the niche marketplace for virtual land users.”
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Layer 2s
⚙️ Polygon Uses Zero-Knowledge Proofs in New Ethereum Virtual Machine Rollup
NEWS Polygon, one of the leading Layer 2 Ethereum scaling solutions, has unveiled an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible rollup.
BUILD-OUT Dubbed Polygon Midas, the protocol uses zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs to offer enhanced privacy and EVM-compatibility on Layer 2. The protocol’s development is being led by the pseudonymous former Facebook lead zero-knowledge researcher, Bobbin Threadbear, who is known for leading the build-out of Novi’s Winterfell. Alan Szepieniec of the Nervos Foundation will also have a hand in the development of Miden’s STARK components.
INVESTMENTS The launch follows Polygon’s unveiling of a $1B fund for strategic investments into ZK-based solutions in August. Polygon also merged with ZK-based rollup Hermez that same month, before teaming up with Ernst & Young on the third version of their Nightfall protocol in September.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Research
👀 Smart Contract Platform NEAR Gains Momentum with Plan to Distribute 40M Tokens
In this explanatory column, guest writer Maxine Smith describes how NEAR is making a splash with its Proof-of-Stake blockchain and planned token drop.
TL;DR NEAR protocol is a scalable smart contract platform that supports decentralized applications of almost any kind. Its token, NEAR, can be used to pay for transaction fees and storage as well as for staking by token holders who participate in achieving network consensus as transaction validators.
TOKENS The recent development fund raised in October 2021 for NEAR ecosystem totals $800M. Proximity Labs, a newly formed DeFi DAO, aims to distribute nearly 30% of the fund, nearly 40M NEAR tokens over the next four years on NEAR’s DeFi sector.
ALL-TIME HIGH Data from Footprint shows the total value locked (TVL) of NEAR’s DeFi surpassing $140M ($160M as of 15 Nov 2021) after a 20% boost within a day after news of the fund was released. The native token, NEAR, also hit an all-time high of $12.3 on the next day.
Footprint Analytics: TVL of NEAR
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Sponsored Post
Fintech Meetup is fintech's next big event! No Speakers. No Content. Just 30,000+ online meetings so you can meet the fintechs, banks, networks and investors who are driving DeFi and Fintech forward. Learn More & Get Ticket
Fintech Meetup: DeFi x TradFi x 30,000+ Online Speed Date Meetings! Join the next big event in Fintech and for the easiest way to create DeFi & Crypto opportunities, deals and partnerships.
Meet with DeFi & Crypto companies including BitPay, BlockFi, Circle, Onyx & Ripple (and many more!) plus the fintechs, networks and solution providers making DeFi & Crypto plays, including Finastra, Fiserv, JPMC Merchant Services, Mastercard, Veem & Visa (to name just a few!). Plus investors, banks, tech cos and many others.
Online, March 22-24. Qualifying startups can get discounted startup rates. Learn More & Get Ticket
The Tube
📺 The Defiant Weekly: Ice Cube: NFTs With Attitude feat. Trevor Jones
Links
🔗 ConsenSys closes $200 million raise at $3.2 billion valuation: The Block
ConsenSys, a New York-based company that develops and invests in projects built on the Ethereum blockchain, has raised $200 million, tipping its valuation to over $3.2 billion, according to an announcement. Its investors include HSBC, Coinbase Ventures and Marshall Wace. ParaFi and Thirdpoint also invested in the raise.
🔗 An update on the upcoming RWA Market built on Centrifuge & Aave: Centrifuge
We have been heads down with the development of the market for DROP tokens, also known as the Real World Asset (RWA) Market. It’s time to reveal where we are at, as we have been making some very exciting progress and we know some of you are waiting in anticipation!
🔗 NFT Marketplace OpenSea Offered $10 Billion Valuation: The Information
OpenSea, the most popular marketplace for non-fungible tokens, is fielding new investment offers that could increase its valuation roughly six times to $10 billion or higher, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
🔗 Nvidia’s Q3 report reveals a sharp decline in crypto mining chip sales: CoinTelegraph
Although digital currencies have skyrocketed in value throughout the year, Nvidia has not made any significant profits from its cryptocurrency mining processor (CMP) line.
Most Read on The Defiant
ParaSwap Airdrops PSP Governance Token to ‘Active Users’ ParaSwap, a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator and market maker, launched its governance token, PSP, on Nov. 15.
Discord-MetaMask Tease Triggers Backlash Against NFTs The backlash against NFTs has been brewing ever since the first JPEGs hit the market late last year and fetched eye-opening sums. Detractors called them a fraud, the sequel to the Initial Coin Offering bubble that popped the last great crypto boom in 2018.
0L Aims To Revive Facebook’s Libra Cryptocurrency With Fair Launch Every now and then folks adjacent to crypto Twitter like to tweet out some version of “Remember Libra?”.
This is a public version of the newsletter and both paid and free subscribers are receiving it.
Free subscribers get:
Daily news briefings
Weekly Recap
Paid subscribers get:
Full transcript of the weekly podcast interview
Early access to opinion columns and research pieces
Exclusive access to Inbox Dump where we send all the press releases that didn’t make it to the newsletter (Saturday)
Exclusive access to subscribers-only Discord chat
Exclusive access to bi-weekly community calls
🧑💻 ✍️ Stories in The Defiant are written by Brady Dale, Owen Fernau, Samuel Haig, DeFiDad, and yyctrader, and edited by Edward Robinson, yyctrader, Bailey Reutzel, and Camila Russo. Videos are produced by Robin Schmidt, Alp Gasimov and Daniel Flynn. Podcast is led by Camila, edited by Alp.
The Defiant is a daily newsletter focusing on decentralized finance, a new financial system that’s being built on top of open blockchains. The space is evolving at breakneck speed and revolutionizing tech and money. Sign up to learn more and keep up on the latest, most interesting developments. Subscribers get full access, while free signups get only part of the content. Click here to pay with DAI (for $100/yr) or sub with fiat by clicking on the button above ($15/mo, $150/yr).