September 30, 2021
Visa Is Doubling Down on Crypto
Introduction
While crypto prices are still not particularly interesting, there has been no shortage of exciting news today – from Visa's “Layer 2 hub” announcement to significant blockchain upgrades. Strap in and get yourself up to speed on today's most important crypto stories!
Market Watch
Looking at the crypto market, we can clearly make out a lack of direction and conviction of both bull and bears.
With the liquid supply of BTC (and ETH) on exchanges continuing its decline, it’s only a matter of time before an uptick in demand leads to a severe supply squeeze – it just needs a positive catalyst. (Hint: maybe a Bitcoin ETF?)
Visa Is Building a 'Layer 2' Crypto Hub
The story of the day is certainly Visa’s announcement to build a universal hub for stablecoins and central bank digital currencies – and most notably:
The proposed base layer for its universal payments channel is Ethereum.
This is undoubtedly a huge announcement for both Ethereum and the entire crypto space. After having immersed itself headfirst into crypto by settling transactions in USDC and buying a crypto punk a few weeks ago, Visa now aims to bring the decentralized cryptocurrency space together with the regulated and centralized world of CBDCs – a significant and herculean task!
The Crypto Village of Cool Valley
A story that only crypto can write is happening in the 1500-souls village of Cool Valley, Missouri. Its mayor, apparently, a big crypto advocate, wants to give $1K in bitcoin to each household in the small town – and the best is: The project has already been fully funded!
Successful Terra Upgrade
After months of anticipation, the Terra blockchain has successfully implemented its Columbus-5 upgrade!
Besides important economic and underlying protocol improvements, the biggest innovation Columbus-5 brings is full IBC-compatibility, meaning that Terra is now fully part of the Cosmos ecosystem!
From now on LUNA, UST, and other Terra-based assets can be seamlessly used in the Cosmos ecosystem, which significantly increases the value capture and utility of the Terra ecosystem. For more details on the significance of the Columbus-5 upgrade, check out this article.
Thorchain Is Back
After a dreadful time of hacks and setbacks, Thorchain is slowly but surely finding back on its path to becoming the first truly decentralized cross-chain protocol! In other words:
Thorchain is still the only way to trade and LP Layer 1 BTC (not wrapped) in a decentralised and permissionless way. What does that tell you? This stuff is hard, and Thorchain is the sole leader.
Avalanche Rush Is Kicking Off!
DeFi users and degen farmers, get ready to deploy your assets on Avalanche on October 4! The recently announced incentive program Avalanche Rush is kicking off with fresh yield-farming pastures on the largest Avalanche DEX, Trader Joe.
Fantom Launching a Gaming Offensive
In the last weeks, we have seen a number of L1s roll out massive ecosystem incentive programs. While many of them have a strong focus on DeFi, Fantom is now doubling down on gaming and launches a massive gaming-specific incentive rewards program.
The 370 million FTM (approx. $ 455.1 million) is almost 10x bigger than the recently announced Metaverse fund by Facebook...
Andre Cronje's Rarity can be viewed as the trailblazer of Fantom's nascent gaming ecosystem – but certainly many games will follow in its footsteps with the massive liquidity incentives and great UX offered by Fantom.
Axie Infinity Rewarding Early Adopters with an Airdrop
Earlier today, Axie Infinity distributed 800,000 $AXS (over $60 million at the current rate) to early users. Axie continues to change lives...
Some more data demonstrating Axie Infinity's positive impact:
The Art Blocks Splurge Continues
In other NFT news, Fidenza #77 just got sold for 950 ETH – simply breathtaking!
If you haven’t had enough NFT news just yet:
