📬 Inbox Dump #11
Hello Defiers! Welcome to Inbox Dump where we include the updates and announcements that flood our DMs each week and didn’t make it to The Defiant’s content platforms. Sometimes announcements here didn’t meet the bar to become a news story, sometimes they may have slipped through the cracks, or they came late and we haven’t had a chance to cover.
At The Defiant we cover the most important DeFi-related news and developments but I know many of you are hunting for projects before they are fully developed and before they are newsworthy. Our goal with this installment of the newsletter is to help you find them. Look at this as the starting point to DYOR.
We also include a compilation of DeFi and crypto funding rounds in the past week so you have these in one handy place.
Keep in mind these have been unedited. With that —here we go!
[This post is exclusive to subscribers]
Inbox Dump!
✉️ Here's the first NFT system on Kusama
RMRK is the most advanced NFT system in the world that runs on Kusama Network without smart contracts. RMRK is a unique and creative NFT protocol that can create exciting innovations compared to other NFT systems with smart contracts. It offers unique nested NFTs that can actually own other NFTs. It also provides reactive rendering, which allows owners to trigger changes in the NFTs with a click. For instance, they can change the color or add an effect to the NFT while the viewers are looking at it. Basically, NFTs built on the RMRK protocol can get many more innovative features.
✉️ BSCstarter Announces Rebrand to Introduce a Four Part Ecosystem for IDO Launches
New York - June 1, 2021 - BSCstarter announces a platform overhaul and rebrand for June 1st, 2021 under the new name, Starter. The name change is the result of multichain accessibility, including BSC as well as Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, Polygon, Fantom, and Avalanche. Over 91 projects have chosen BSCstarter as their platform of choice, proving the quality and success this platform delivers, and why the company saw enough demand to execute this new, rebranded ecosystem. Starter will have four separate branches in its new ecosystem.
✉️ Wirex Partners with Terra Virtua for Exclusive NFT Giveaway
Wirex, the leading payments platform, is partnering with Terra Virtua – the world’s first fully immersive digital collectibles platform – to bring the benefits of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) to a mainstream audience. To celebrate the second birthday of The Wirex Token (WXT) the first native cryptocurrency on its platform, Wirex will give away 500 exclusive Terra Virtua vFlect NFTs, as well as up to $500,000 worth of cryptocurrency in promotions throughout June.
✉️ Wyre Announces New Savings API Powered by the Stellar Network
SAN FRANCISCO, June 3, 2021 -- Today, Wyre, a leading blockchain payments company, announced a new Wyre Savings API where FinTechs can access yield-earning savings products leveraging Stellar USDC. Wyre Savings API offers annual yield many times the average traditional U.S. dollar savings account (National average: 0.06%). Wyre enterprise clients have the option to access the Savings API for their own use (e.g., treasury management) or to power feature-rich earning products for their end users.
✉️ Charity: Water Launches Celebrity-Funded Bitcoin Water Trust
New York, NY — June 4, 2021 — Today, global safe drinking water nonprofit, charity: water, announced the launch of its first crypto-native Bitcoin Water Trust initiative. The trust will allow charity: water to receive and “hodl” bitcoin donations to fund global water projects until 2025. In line with the values of the donors, the trust’s funds will be held in bitcoin and the intended execution of the water projects it funds and constructs will be conducted in bitcoin.
✉️ ICHI Launches the World’s First Decentralized Monetary Authority (DMA), Enabling Any Crypto Community to Create & Govern its Own Stable Currency
NEW YORK, June 1, 2021 —ICHI launches the world’s first truly Decentralized Monetary Authority (DMA) to enable any cryptocurrency community to create and govern its own stable currency worth exactly $1. ICHI provides the tools needed to easily develop a trusted and fully-collateralized stablecoin for scalable, reliable and decentralized financial transactions while also increasing the value of the community’s native scarce token.
✉️ IOHK Announces First Cross-chain Bridge to Cardano from Nervos
2nd JUNE, 2021 — Nervos, China’s leading public blockchain, and IOHK, the leading global blockchain engineering company and developers of the Cardano blockchain, today announced a cross-chain ‘bridge’ to connect the Cardano and Nervos networks. This is Cardano’s first cross-chain bridge, interconnecting two ecosystems worth billions of dollars. The bridge furthers Nervos and Cardano’s shared goal of finding the blockchain industry’s ‘bluetooth moment’, where users have a seamless experience when using blockchain networks, regardless of which chain they are using.
✉️ Sovryn Launches $500k “Sovrython” Gitcoin Hackathon to Ignite the Sovryn Ecosystem
Sovryn, the leading protocol for DeFi on Bitcoin, announces Sovrython, a virtual conference and hackathon taking place from June 4th - July 18th 2021, with $250k in bounties and $250k in post-hackathon grants for promising projects. This amounts to $500k of support for developing open source DeFi software that integrates with the Sovryn protocol and platform. Bounties and grants will be paid out in Sovryn’s native token, $SOV.
✉️ PROFESSIONAL FIGHTERS LEAGUE AND FANAPLY ANNOUNCE FIRST MMA ORGANIZATION NFTs IN HISTORY
NEW YORK (June 3, 2021) – The Professional Fighters League (PFL), the fastest growing and most innovative sports league, and Fanaply, today announced the first official digital collectibles partnership for an MMA organization in history. Fanaply, the industry leading digital collectibles provider for the biggest names in sports, music and entertainment, will produce and sell the first officially licensed Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Collection for the PFL, which will include unique and exciting offerings for sports collectors.
✉️ MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index and MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 25 Index Licensed to FTX
Frankfurt (03 June 2021) – Today, MV Index Solutions GmbH (MVIS®) and CryptoCompare announced the licensing of the MVIS CryptoCompare DigitalAssets 10 Index (ticker: MVDA10) and MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 25 Index (ticker: MVDA25) to FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, for the launch of two new perpetual futures products.
✉️ Solverse Accelerator Unites Top Blockchain Mentors with Talented Entrepreneurs to Build Groundbreaking Solana Projects
Shanghai – Solverse is a new ecosystem accelerator designed to provide support to world-class teams building on Solana. Solana is a high-performance web-scale blockchain with one of the fastest-growing ecosystems in the industry. With a team of top blockchain mentors and entrepreneurs, Solverse facilitates technology development, project structure, capital planning, and market entry strategies so developers can focus on delivering the best products and services.
✉️ UOB taps Chronicle Software’s solution for its electronic FX pricing and trade engine to help customers access more competitive FX pricing
Singapore, London, 2 June 2021 – UOB today announced that it has deployed Chronicle Software’s (Chronicle) EFX solution for its electronic foreign exchange (FX) pricing and trade engine[i].Through Chronicle’s technology, UOB has the ability to take advantage of reduced latency via co-location connectivity to improve price discovery and to enhance pricing capability. In doing so, UOB is able to provide customers in ASEAN and across its global network access to more competitive FX pricing.
✉️ Streamr announces testnet launch with 2M DATA in mining rewards
More than 1000 people have already signed up to run a node in the Streamr testnet. The Streamr project recently announced that it will launch a series of several testnets this summer. Interested miners can already sign up to secure a spot as node operators. The project has committed to distributing 2M DATA tokens in mining rewards to testnet participants.
Funding
💰 DeFi Project Impossible Finance Raises $7M in Seed Round
Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Impossible Finance (IF) has raised $7 million via a seed funding round with participation from a bevy of institutional and angel investors, including several high-profile firms, according to a blog post on Thursday.
💰 Circle Completes $440 Million Financing to Drive Growth and Market Expansion
BOSTON, May 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Circle, a global financial technology firm that provides payments and treasury infrastructure for internet businesses, today announced it has raised $440 million in financing from leading institutional and strategic investors.
💰 Endaoment Raises $2.5 Million in Seed Funding & Donations to Decentralize Philanthropy
Endaoment, the first-of-its-class public charity providing Donor-Advised Funds on the Ethereum blockchain, has announced the completion of a seed funding round raising $2.5 million USD. The mixture of investments and charitable donations come on the heels of Endaoment’s first $1 million USD donation from the core contributors of SushiSwap, and a $660k gift by industry-renowned digital artist Pplpleasr.
💰 DeFi oracle protocol Lithium raises $5 million, led by Pantera and Hashed
Lithium Finance has raised $5 million in a founding round led by Pantera Capital and Korean blockchain VC Hashed to build a decentralized data oracle protocol for pricing private assets.
💰 DeFi startup Set Labs raises $14 million in fundraising
In its funding round, Set Labs, an upstart platform dedicated to creating structured decentralized finance (DeFi) investment products on the Ethereum blockchain, managed to haul $14 million.
💰 Panther Protocol Raises $8 Million For DeFi Interoperable Privacy
Panther Protocol has successfully closed a funding round that raised $8 million. Of note, the funding round gained support from over 140 investors, highlighting the popularity of the DeFi privacy solution.
That’s all for today. Let me know what I missed!
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. Spread the word and share!