DeFi – Page 2

AEX: Multi-country presence for a specialised service

October 11, 2021 Published by TheBlockchainExaminer.com

Recently, AEX announced that it will establish a presence in several countries to provide financial derivatives services in line with local markets in order to better serve its users. Founded in 2013, AEX, a well-established exchange, with its blockchain asset storage at the forefront of the world, is one of the few mainstream trading platforms to announce a 100% asset margin.

Over the past 8 years, the number of users converging on the AEX platform to exchange digital assets has reached millions, spreading across more than 100 countries and regions around the world. With the growth of the market scale and the emergence of various cryptocurrency derivatives, AEX has completed its metamorphosis in the direction of a global commercial bank for digital assets, aggregating multiple financial business models such as trading, contracts, finance, loan, DeFi staking, and mining market.

AEX integrates information, community, application market, and financial services such as digital currency trading. AEX now supports the circulation of over 300 tokens such as BTC, ETH, and DOGE, and users can participate in business scenarios such as spot trading, DeFi staking, and liquidity mining. In the AEX community section, users can access a wealth of industry information and interact deeply with global crypto enthusiasts. In addition, AEX can access over 20 fiat currencies such as EUR, SGD, HKD, INR, and IDR will be fully opened to enhance the quality of the resident services.

At the same time, there are considerable differences in cryptocurrency market fever, preferences for business models, and regulatory policies among residents of all kinds of cultures. Moreover, there exist different user interaction habits across regions. AEX’s Strategic Multi-country Presence and differentiated services are designed to meet local regulatory requirements and enable users to “invest safely and grow steadily” in the crypto world.

The composition of AEX’s users is dominated by regions such as the United States, Thailand, Vietnam, Russia, Turkey, South Korea, Nigeria, and Indonesia, all of which are in the hundreds of thousands, and the crypto cities in these countries may become the preferred locations for AEX strategic presence.

SOURCE AEX exchange

Algorand Foundation Announces Grant to LoginID

October 7, 2021 Published by TheBlockchainExaminer.com

The Algorand Foundation announced today, support for a grant awarded to LoginID, a FIDO-certified authentication provider. The grant will allow LoginID to research building a technical path towards enabling its suite of APIs and SDKS for the Algorand ecosystem. For Algorand developers and enterprises this means utilizing FIDO-certified authentication for a one touch execution of a smart contract, which will not require plugins or downloads to complete. Integration of FIDO also provides the benefit of ‘Transaction Confirmation’, a digital signature and receipt binding the individual’s biometric to the transaction.

At the heart of the Algorand blockchain is a unique and powerful protocol known as Pure Proof-of-Stake, created by MIT’s Silvio Micali. Using this protocol, the Algorand blockchain is a unique combination of high performance, scale, security, guaranteed transaction finality and all built on a carbon negative, sustainable platform. The Algorand network has now grown to over 13 million accounts and is supporting over 1 million transactions a day, with zero downtime since launch. The Algorand Foundation is committed to building the most robust and innovative ecosystem around this amazing, public blockchain and bringing one-touch smart contract execution will be a powerful addition to the toolkit of Algorand developers.

The Algorand Foundation is delighted to welcome LoginID to the ecosystem of the Algorand network. Providing FIDO certified, one touch smart contract execution to Algorand developers and enterprises will enable any customer to execute a smart contract by using the biometrics on their device, without any downloads or plugins needed. Given there are over 4B devices globally that support FIDO today, this is a significant step in making Algorand available to all.” said Sean Lee, CEO Algorand Foundation.

“Algorand has really started to accelerate, helping businesses in the DeFi and commerce space, areas where we have expertise and can add a lot of value. LoginID will help lower friction, and make blockchain technology easier to interact when developers integrate our solution. We have recently seen attacks on standard forms of authentication such as SMS. Our solution will help give Algorand developers the tools to create the most frictionless, secure interactions for their customers” says Jim Brown, CRO and Co-founder of LoginID.

Online Blockchain plc: MATIC and ETH Added to Umbria Network’s Narni Cross-chain Bridge

September 20, 2021 Published by TheBlockchainExaminer.com

Umbria’s ultra-low-cost liquidity bridge now supports ETH and MATIC in addition to USDT and UMBR.

Using Narni – https://bridge.umbria.network – the native tokens for the Ethereum and Polygon networks can be transferred exceptionally quickly and cheaply cross-chain. ETH, which was launched first, can be bridged from the Ethereum to Polygon Network for as little as $2.56 in gas, which is significantly less than other bridges. This has caused the Narni Bridge to be adopted rapidly by many DeFi participants and has especially caught the attention of the Zed Run community, who had previously been hampered by prohibitively expensive gas fees.

Another considerable advantage of the Narni Bridge is the APY it pays liquidity providers. Its “Pool and Earn” function (https://bridge.umbria.network/pool/) enables users to lend their MATIC and ETH (and other assets) to the bridge and earn APY when other participants bridge that specific token between networks. Anyone currently providing ETH to the Polygon pool has received up to an astounding 70% APY with no impermanent loss.

Further information can be found here: bridge.umbria.network/docs.

“We’re seeing great momentum now with the Narni bridge and a very pleasing increase in Total Value Locked (TVL). Lots of people are bridging, which in turn attracts more liquidity providers who are enticed by the interest they can earn on the asset they supply,” said Oscar Chambers, Co-lead developer of Umbria. “More chains and assets are coming online imminently; we’d love to hear from the DeFi community about what they’d like to see next on the Narni Bridge.”

Go to the Discord and Twitter channels for the very latest product development news.

See the latest data on UMBR on CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko:
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/umbria-network/news/
https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/umbria-network

Bringing DeFi to the Masses: Launch of X-Accounts & Fireblocks Partnership

June 23, 2021 Published by TheBlockchainExaminer.com

Digital payments platform, Wirex, has announced the launch of their game-changing X-Accounts feature, and partnership with Fireblocks, an industry-leading crypto provider. Set to become one of the world’s most accessible interest-paying accounts, X-Accounts will allow users to earn up to 16% on their crypto and fiat funds*.

Wirex’s long-term goal has been to make crypto ‘open to all’, offering the ability to utilise crypto in the everyday with the world’s first crypto-enabled debit card. With decentralised finance (DeFi) becoming hugely popular in recent months, the latest announcement will open up the often complex and expensive DeFi space to everyone, from hardcore crypto investors to casual, everyday users, and bring the benefits of DeFi to the mass market.

X-Accounts will allow customers to earn unprecedented levels of interest on both fiat and crypto funds* when compared to competitors and high-street banks. Avoiding the expensive fees and complicated processes often associated with DeFi and yield farming, users will have the ultimate control over their funds, with instant access, no minimum holdings and no maintenance fees for each pot.

Combined with Wirex’s other market-leading benefits, the addition of X-Accounts reaffirms the company’s vision to become the go-to crypto platform for users of all abilities. This includes consistently low fees, exclusive interbank and OTC exchange rates, free international ATM withdrawals, up to 2% Cryptoback rewards on card purchases, and the ability to hold multiple crypto and fiat accounts with a single intuitive app.

Further removing the complexity and trust issues often associated with owning a crypto wallet, Wirex have also announced the upcoming integration with Fireblocks’ enterprise technology to offer maximum security of user’s funds. Developing Wirex’s reputation for regulatory compliance and customer safety, the partnership will give Wirex up to $30 million of insurance on crypto assets.

Pavel Matveev, CEO and Co-Founder of Wirex, said that: “X Accounts will give everyday users easier than ever access to DeFi, offering quick cryptodeposits and high interest rates on anyone’s fiat and crypto holdings, meaning customers can sit back and watch their assets grow like never before. By working with Fireblocks to offer secure, scalable and built-in compliance protocols, customers can use X-Accounts without worrying about the risk that’s often found with many DeFi products.”

Michael Shaulov, CEO and Co-Founder of Fireblocks, describes the technology’s significance: “Maximising digital asset security is extremely important with this level of operational scale and efficiency, especially when it comes to DeFi. Building on top of the Fireblocks platform will bring an additional layer of security to Wirex’s customers as they become a part of the growing DeFi ecosystem.”

The latest news has further solidified Wirex’s support for the DeFi space, following a series of important announcements. In May, Wirex migrated 20% of their native token, WXT, to the Ethereum blockchain, and recently hosted an exclusive NFT giveaway. Since then, they’ve launched multiple ERC-20 tokens on the platform, including UNI, AAVE and MKR, with plans for many more.

Online Blockchain plc: Umbria Network’s Narni Blockchain Bridge in Testing Mode

June 15, 2021 Published by TheBlockchainExaminer.com

DeFi protocol Umbria Network – https://umbria.network/ – has initiated development of a first-of-its-kind blockchain bridge.

Umbria’s ‘Narni’ bridge will facilitate quick, frictionless and cost-effective cross-chain transactions thereby removing the barriers associated with many other bridges. Initially enabling the transfer of UMBR (Umbria’s governance token) between the Ethereum Mainnet and Matic Mainnet, the second stage of Narni’s development will see it compatible with other assets, and integrating with other blockchains such as Binance Smart Chain and subsequently any EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatible chain.

The Umbria development team is focused on creating a supreme user experience and promoting blockchain interoperability and compatibility. Currently anyone moving assets from Ethereum to the Polygon network (previously Matic) can experience slow transaction speeds, high fees and the confusing technical challenge of configuring their cryptocurrency wallet to work with multiple chains. By using a different transfer mechanism to comparable bridges, the Narni ‘insta-bridge’ will ensure users can quickly and economically migrate assets from one network to another in just a few clicks. The Narni insta-bridge will also automatically suggest the correct configuration for Metamask to track assets on the pertinent networks.

Narni will make the superior features afforded by the Umbria DEX and Umbria farms much easier to access and will open up the platform to a wider audience. Another key feature will be the ability to provide liquidity to the bridge to earn high APY. On launch, this facility will be available for UMBR on both the Ethereum and Polygon networks and will be quickly extended to other assets.

Liquidity provision on the Narni bridge will be a compelling proposition for stablecoin farmers, who usually generate low APY when pooling. The developers of Narni expect the majority of bridged assets to be stablecoins such as USDT and USDC – subsequently earning a large volume of fees for the liquidity providers. These fees will potentially generate far greater APYs than those offered in traditional DeFi farming as liquidity is used more efficiently than in traditional AMM pools.

Umbria’s Narni bridge, which is named after the famous Bridge of Augustus, a Roman arch bridge in the Italian city of Narni in the Umbria region, is due to launch in a few weeks time for transfers between Polygon-ETH chains.

“The release of Narni will be a watershed moment in providing our community with an improved user experience across our DeFi products and services. Narni will be a hub for transferring between chains and solve the current issue of lack of blockchain interoperability and scalability,” commented Barney Chambers, co-lead and co-founder of Umbria Network. “We are moving towards being blockchain agnostic; ultimately Umbria’s bridge will realise full frictionless interoperability between a universe of chains.”

The Umbria team will be hosting an Ask Me Anything event on its Discord server to answer any questions from the community. The date and time will be announced soon via Umbria’s social media channels (Discord, Telegram, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. Anyone interested in participating can also send an email to [email protected] and will be notified once the time has been finalised.

Center Prime Wallet SDK now supports QuarkChain – QKC, QRC20 payment available

March 19, 2021 Published by TheBlockchainExaminer.com

CenterPrime has signed an agreement with QuarkChain, a blockchain platform based on sharding, for a project which connects the real economy with the DeFi ecosystem. Through this agreement, QuarkChain will be supported through CenterPrime’s Oracle Perceptron Wallet SDK (Software Development Kit). Therefore, QuarkChain will be able to provide real-world and real economy services such as transportation cards, gift certificates, local currency, and overseas remittance fees. When this became known, QuarkChain’s token value rose 55.5% compared to the previous day (as of March 17^th).

Oracle Perceptron is a platform that connects the DeFi industry and traditional finance by cross-chaining various networks such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Tron, and Quark Chain, and by blockchaining the open banking API of traditional finance. Services provided by Oracle Perceptron include Neuron Assets, operators, wallets (enterprise and personal), Explorer, and Payment Gateway. Among these services, there is Oracle Perceptron Wallet, which is a technology that connect various assets with the real economy and resolves the UX/UI problems that hinder the expansion of the DeFi industry. A public key-based structure that integrates public keys used for encryption and private keys used for decryption by integrating and managing digital certificates of PKI is drawing attention as a technology that solves the problems of the DeFi industry. The Oracle Perceptron wallet is available in two categories: personal and enterprise.

With the support of QuarkChain in Oracle Perceptron Wallet’s SDK (a technology that is attracting attention from a multitude of people) many developers and users can easily and conveniently develop and use the core functions of the wallet. In addition, users can safely and conveniently manage and store public and private keys while utilizing various real economy services. An official from CenterPrime said, “As QuarkChain, a stable blockchain platform based on sharding, participates in the Oracle DeFi ecosystem, the expansion of the Oracle DeFi ecosystem that connects various services in the real economy to the DeFi industry is expected to accelerate. We look forward to the Oracle Perceptron as a window to a new world for users of the multitude of QuarkChain platforms.” For more information about CenterPrime, please visit the website (https://centerprime.technology/).

SOURCE CenterPrime

“We’re ready for Decentralised Finance,” claim traditional financial service institutions

November 4, 2020 Published by TheBlockchainExaminer.com

Decentralised finance (DeFi) is now being taken seriously by traditional finance. In a European-wide survey of financial institutions spanning across insurance, banking and trading, 86% are implementing or assessing services built on a DeFi framework.

Of those companies, 31% are reporting an enterprise-wide rollout or have deployed use cases of DeFi. Additionally, 58% of companies are concerned they will lose a competitive advantage by ignoring DeFi instruments.

From the companies implementing decentralised finance, 35% are collaborating with an existing consortium, platform, application or service. 24% are developing their own consortium or platform and 22% are going to collaborate with competitors because the current ecosystem is not compatible with their requirements.

The research, conducted by BCG Platinion (part of Boston Consulting Group) and Crypto.com, analyses the uptake of decentralised services amongst traditional financial institutions. From 400 companies across Europe, 71% with a turnover or balance sheet above £10bn assessed or implemented DeFi, compared with 51% of companies turning over less than £100m.

Of companies assessing or implementing the blockchain technology, 42% are pivoting to a more decentralised approach to asset management. 38% of companies are using it to facilitate faster, more secure, payment processing services, rising to 61% for the biggest companies.

Conversely, 70% believe security concerns over fraud is a challenge preventing company wide adoption of DeFi, and 15% of decision makers strongly believe that whilst decentralised finance is a threat, their companies are against its adoption.

The research also considered the impact DeFi will have on business and operating models and 59% of companies say they will have to implement a new governance structure. But 70% of companies say restructuring the business model or decoupling decentralised finance will increase the speed and lower the cost for financial transactions. 67% said it would open up new revenue streams and 61% said they believe smart contracts are an important business driver for considering or adopting DeFi as a way to execute financial services.

At the same time, a lack of regulation is a challenge for 61% of companies, increasing for companies with a larger turnover or more assets under management. That decentralised finance is over collateralized is also a concern for investment bankers and asset managers, more so than other areas of finance. And sharing their anxiety with a recent FCA announcement, 60% of companies are worried about a lack of recovery mechanisms.

Kris Marszalek, Co-founder and CEO of Crypto.com said, “The research shows that DeFi’s adoption is not limited to just the blockchain industry; traditional financial institutions of all sizes are viewing DeFi not as a competitive threat but rather as a valuable instrument to delivering more decentralized, efficient financial services. This is shown in their warming attitudes towards DeFi and its integral role in future plans for the vast majority of them.”

Kaj Burchardi, Managing Director of BCG Platinion, adds, “As markets evolve towards
decentralisation, there will be a growing demand for approaches like DeFi which can provide a
more efficient and more open way of banking, trading and investing. “It is encouraging to find that financial institutions are already seriously, and strategically, collaborating with the crypto community to begin building a new generation of governance and technologically resilient solutions that will make financial services more accessible.

However, there is still quite some progress to be made in order to bring DeFi into the mainstream especially in security and compliance.”

The survey was conducted by Sapio Research interviewing 411 decision makers with familiarity over decentralised finance and follows up a report highlighting the challenges and opportunities for financial institutions adopting decentralised finance. See more survey findings here.

Delving into DeFi’s Hidden Super Platform

November 3, 2020 Published by TheBlockchainExaminer.com

Quietly up against strong competitors, DRK aims to fundamentally transform daily activities of crypto users (and DeFi users in particular) as it works towards its ambition to become an all-in-one super platform in the crypto space. Based on its native chain (DRK Chain), the underlying platform centers around a decentralized cross-chain exchange (DRK DEX) seamlessly integrated with its Dapp ecosystem consisted of DeFi services (DRK Crosschain Swap, DRKompound), games (DRKats, DRocKet, DTrade), a social network reserved specifically for all crypto users (DRKakao), and more.

In its final form, DRK will be where crypto users can earn money 24/7, have fun and connect with like-minded people. The need for such a platform has never been greater. Imagine Facebook, Medium, Telegram, Coinmarketcap and Trustwallet all rolled into one, DrKakao is already in development, designed to connect crypto users and provide useful social features such as regulated P2P trading, and live streaming for crypto KOLs.

As the centerpiece in the grand scheme, DRK DEX has achieved 5.48M monthly views and is supporting 6 coins and tokens (on 4 popular blockchain networks), and 6 trading pairs. Innovations in cross-chain compatibility behind DRK DEX and DRK Swap have solved the headache facing all Defi projects: how to guarantee utility as well as usability and security. Users only need to log in once by connecting with your Metamask wallet to access wallets on all popular blockchain networks (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tron, and DRK Chain), and do not need to switch networks while trading. The keys of these wallets are generated from your logged-in wallet signature, stored on the client side, and cannot be accessed by any party including the DEX creators.

Seamlessly integrated with DRK DEX, DRK Swap combines the best features of Uniswap with a smart fee mechanism to help liquidity providers mitigate impermanent loss in case of high slippage. Likewise, DRKompound brings Compound enthusiasts a DEX-like and much easier to use interface. On the other hand, DRKats combines elements of DeFi and NFT, allowing users to stake DRK coins in order to receive DRKat NFTs, which can be crossbred and traded freely.

All these high-performance Dapps were and will be built on DRK Chain, which is no less powerful than other popular blockchains, achieving high throughput, smart contract functionality, and compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) with support for the rich universe of Ethereum tools and DApps. This makes it easy for developers to port their projects over from Ethereum, and for users to configure applications like MetaMask to work with DRK Chain.

DRK Chain achieves 2 second blocktime with a Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm and many innovations. Firstly, DaRK privacy protocol uses cutting-edge zero-knowledge proofs to enable private transactions. Secondly, the anti-spam mechanism applies a loyalty point on each address based on the amount of gas that address has contributed to the network, so that the higher the loyalty point is, the less gas it needs to prioritize outbound transactions. Thirdly, the anti-slack mechanism allows any validator node which stops mining blocks to be reported by any address and penalized, keeping validator nodes healthy and the network sustainable.

DRK, the native coin on DRK Chain, has been consistently valued at $0.05 for 3 months with a market cap of $800M, and a daily trading volume of $3M. Currently, 96% of DRK coin supply has been permanently locked in staking, and all newly mined DRK will be staked to prevent inflation. To further popularize its Dapps, DRK Team is considering to list DRK on a major exchange. In the meantime, a few startups are asking to list their own tokens on DRK DEX by paying a fee in DRD, yet another highly demanded token on DRK Chain.

Tag: DeFi