If you want to be a part of the NFT space, then you should visit NFT marketplaces where you can trade NFTs ranging from music to art to assets of the virtual world. There are dozens of marketplaces and some marketplaces cater to specific sectors. What things should you look for in an NFT marketplace before picking which one to utilize and which are the top NFT marketplaces? This article covers top NFT marketplaces in detail. OpenSea OpenSea is the biggest decentralized peer-to-peer marketplace for buying, selling, and trading rare digital assets, such as gaming assets, collectibles, and art which runs on the Ethereum blockchain. In reality, OpenSea bills itself as the world’s largest marketplace for digital assets, claiming to have the best pricing on new NFTs and a wide choice of available NFTs in over 200 categories. Digital art, decentralized domain names, trading cards, virtual worlds, digital collectibles, sports NFTs, utility NFTs, you name it, all of these items can be traded on OpenSea. Cryptopunks, Axie Infinity, Gods Unchained, CryptoKitties, SuperRare, and other popular NFT projects use it as their primary platform. Rarible Rarible is a non-profit marketplace for selling single works of art and collections. Sports, gaming, media corporations, and artists launching collections of work are attracted to Rarible due to its decentralized nature. It is a community-owned platform that encourages decentralization. It has its token, RARI, and the platform’s users get to vote on any platform changes and participate in governance. For example, Adobe has worked with Rarible to secure artists’ work and develop unique NFTs. Rarible uses Flow, Tezos, and Ethereum. You may choose which token to use when you mint your NFT, and you can share your search options with OpenSea. The topic of which blockchain to use is intriguing. The most popular blockchain for NFT minting is Ethereum, although it has a significant carbon footprint and hefty gas prices. Tezos has modest gas expenses (about $0.50). However, it’s aimed towards artists releasing compilations. Flow uses lazy minting, which means creators pay almost no fees, and it’s a proof-of-stake blockchain, meaning it has a much lighter carbon footprint than Ethereum. Nifty Gateway Nifty Gateway has helped some of the most well-known digital artists, including Beeple and singer/musician Grimes, sell their music. It’s a cryptocurrency exchange-backed art curation platform (controlled by the Winklevoss twins). The NFTs, sometimes known as Nifties, are Ethereum-based. Nifty Gateway hosts any NFTs purchased, which means the NFTs aren’t held in your wallet but rather on Nifty Gateway’s servers. NFT collectors may not like this feature, who like more flexibility while investing in art. Purchases on Nifty Gateway can also be done in fiat currency(e.g., US dollars) without the need of purchasing cryptocurrency.  Super Rare The Super Rare platform gives more of a gallery feel to the NFT space. It’s an NFT marketplace that prioritizes artistic intent and credibility above meme-friendly art. You won’t find any celebrity NFTs in SuperRare. It is said to accept only 1% of all applicants, which may sound snobbish, but if you are selected, you will be included in a catalogue of well-curated and intriguing artworks. SuperRare has the atmosphere of a high-end gallery, which is heightened by a rule that allows its artists to mint one of their originals — no Editions here. This indicates that the pieces are more scarce and so rare, as the term implies. It is one of the top NFT marketplaces for serious art and artists, which is incredibly uncommon in the NFT space. Top Shot  The NBA and the Women’s National Basketball Association have teamed with NBA Top Shot, a fan-driven marketplace, to sell collectible moments and art based on the world’s most famous NBA sport and women’s basketball league. Go to the fastest-growing marketplace instead of going to Amazon for your next sports present. Firstly, you need to create an account with the NBA’s Top Shot to purchase an NFT. Top Shot is a closed marketplace that only allows you to buy and sell things on their site, and it was built on the Flow Blockchain by Dapper Labs. Some memorabilia can be purchased for as little as a few dollars. Magic Eden Magic Eden is a Solana blockchain-based decentralized application. The blockchain allows users to generate and manage non-fungible tokens. NFTs can be used for various things, such as digital collectibles, game assets, and more.  The following are some of the desirable characteristics of Magic Eden:  Launchpad: This capability is exclusive to Magic Eden and allows users to construct NFTs in minutes without using any other software. The platform now only accepts a small number of projects; however, this is likely to change.  Future Launches: Rather than wasting time looking for your favourite creator’s next NFT drop, Magic Eden provides a curated list of upcoming launches so you … Continued

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Europe’s largest digital asset investment firm CoinShares has announced a partnership with leading cryptocurrency exchange FTX Global to launch the world’s physically-backed exchange-traded product (ETP) for Solana (SOL). Designed to share the staking rewards in a transparent way, the physically settled Solana ETP will launch with 1 million SOL worth $91 million (at the time of writing) in assets under management (AUM). The staking rewards for the Solana product have been set at 3% per annum while the management fee is reduced to 0% yearly. “CoinShares has a proven track record of providing European investors with innovative and regulated crypto-asset investment vehicles for close to a decade, making them the obvious choice to collaborate with for institutional offerings. We’re excited to work alongside CoinShares to give investors access to the Solana ecosystem and we look forward to collaborating further on additional offerings,” said Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX CEO. [1/5] We are excited to announce that we've partnered with @FTX_Official and our first initiative is to launch a physically staked Solana ETP with SOL1mn seed capital, Staking Rewards of 3.0% p.a, and a reduced management fee of 0.0% p.a. pic.twitter.com/dCq5H2CH1c — CoinShares 👩‍🚀 (@CoinSharesCo) March 23, 2022 Bridging the Gap Between TradFi and Crypto The collaboration with FTX continues CoinShares mission of bridging the gap between traditional finance and digital assets in a secured, transparent and familiar manner. CoinShares FTX Physical Staked Solana will be listed on Germany’s main market Xetra. With the new product, the company has now officially launched four ETPs this year.

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Bahamian-based FTX, one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchange platforms in the world, has announced the acquisition of Good Luck Games in a bid to attract gamers into the world of NFTs and blockchain.  According to FTX’s CEO, in its mission to study the convergence of NFTs, cryptocurrency, and gaming, the company has found the ideal partner in the team at Good Luck Games. This acquisition represents the company’s first venture into in-house game production, as well as a significant step forward in its continuing endeavor to establish blockchain-based virtual assets as a widely recognized business plan in the gaming industry. As part of FTX’s broader commitment to climate and carbon neutrality, FTX’s Gaming team will concentrate on incorporating environmentally friendly blockchain technology into its operations. Why is FTX acquiring Good Luck Games? Good Luck Games (GLG) is an independent game development studio that is responsible for the development and publication of the famous upcoming card auto battle game Storybook Brawl. It was launched in 2019 by a group of seasoned card game designers and former professional card game players who wanted to do something different. FTX is now aiming to assist the team in developing as many games as they possibly can, with the goal of integrating the games as much as possible with FTX. As part of the advancement, FTX’s booth at this week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco will have an art-based NFT demo of Storybook Brawl on display for attendees. Crypto firms are attempting to capitalize on the expanding gaming sector by implementing NFTs and blockchain technology into their operations. A decentralized gaming future might be realized with the introduction of blockchain technology to the gaming industry, in which assets earned or bought in one game could be transferred and utilized in another game. It is FTX’s intention to take the lead in this new initiative, and the company believes that bringing on board the Storybook Brawl and the Good Luck Games team is a significant first step toward attaining widespread adoption of NFTs and blockchain technology across the gaming industry.

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Tezos prices are inside a bear flag amid a double bottom with support at $2.8. A close above the neckline may spark another wave of higher highs towards February 2022 peaks. Past Performance Tezos is inside a descending triangle, printing higher highs with a solid base at $2.8. Based on the formation in the daily chart, the path of least resistance is downwards from a top-down analysis. However, since there have been decent gains in the past few weeks, buyers may close above $3.7 and the upper trend line of the wedge for another leg up. Tezos Technical Analysis The XTZ price is inside a descending wedge with support at around $2.8. While there are higher highs, the Tezos coin could break above the double bottom neckline at $3.7 in a possible bullish breakout pattern as XTZ bottoms up. Ideally, the close above $3.7 should have high trading volumes in line with gains of February 28, confirming buyers. A close above the descending triangle could be the foundation of another leg up towards February 2022 highs of $4.5. What to Expect of Tezos Tezos is in range mode with caps at $2.8 and $3.7 inside a descending triangle. There is a double bottom, signaling possible strength. Despite confident traders, the coin is in bearish territory, provided prices are inside the bear flag.

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The ongoing dispute between the financial watchdog – Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) and the leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance is finally over. This is because the crypto operations in Ontario were finally ceased legally by the crypto trading platform itself.  Disagreement Between Binance and Ontario Binance and Ontario stood disputed since June last year when the crypto exchange decided to quit operations in the province due to allegations of failing to meet crypto securities laws. The OSC continued to allege that Binance notified its users about continuing operations in Ontario while being unregistered in December.  Binance & Ontario Come to an Agreement On March 17, 2022, Binance Holdings & Binance Canada Capital Markets Inc., were issued an undertaking by the OSC. In response, Binance ensured that the creation of new accounts in Ontario will be halted, trading in existing accounts will be ceased, fee waivers and reimbursements will be provided to some users.  Additionally, Binance also guarantees to report to the OSC and retain as an “independent third party.” The leading exchange promises to pave a regulatory path to ensure compliance with the OSC. 

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MATIC is the native token of Polygon that was formerly known as MATIC network. It only supports basechain on the Ethereum blockchain and is Layer 2 blockchain Unlike blockchains with scalability challenges, the Polygon blockchain completes 65,000 transactions per second in a chain, and confirms transaction within 2 seconds Prior to the migration of MATIC to its own blockchain, it was initially launched as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain. Over 50 decentralized applications (Dapps) and decentralized finance (Defi) projects had been launched on the Polygon blockchain. What is Polygon (MATIC)? MATIC was launched on the Ethereum blockchain in 2017 before it was migrated to its own blockchain in 2019. It was cofounded by Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal and Anurag Arjun The total supply of MATIC is 10 billion MATIC and in April 2019 launchpad, only 19% of MATIC’s total supply was sold at a rate of $0.00263 per token and $5 million was raised Let’s see the Polygon (MATIC) price analysis for the coming years. Price Analysis of Polygon (MATIC) Flashback: Fundamental Analysis of MATI With the very low fees that are used in Polygon blockchain for transaction, there has been an option for top platforms that host the buying and selling of non-fungible tokens to allow the option to use the Polygon network. For example, the OpenSea platform, allows it’s users to create and deploy for Sales NFTs with no fees. This is due to the high gas fees of the Ethereum network. Since the NFT market worth over $40 billion as at January 2022, the Polygon blockchain is attracting a host of projects in the NFT sector Though the price of MATIC plummet by over 50% from it’s all-time high value: analysts believe that once the blockchain continues to attain it’s Layer 2 goals, the price of MATIC will recover Now, let’s look at charts to see the price analysis of Polygon (MATIC). https://www.tradingview.com/x/O83wAzB3 The relative strength index for MATIC from the chart above is 39.44. This value means that the present trend of MATIC is weak since it lies between 30 and 50, though it is approaching the undervalued region of 30. https://www.tradingview.com/x/ou7S8c7L The 100-MA is above the 200-MA, which means that the price of MATIC might not give good returns to investors who want to hodl the token for only a few days. https://www.tradingview.com/x/mBJerIIy From the chart above, we can see that the jaw which is represented by the blue curve is above and not closer to the green curve called the lips. This means that the present price of MATIC might plummet further. Now, let’s see the price prediction of Polygon MATIC for the next five years. Polygon (MATIC) Price Prediction 2022 By the end of the first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, and fourth quarter of 2022, the price of MATIC will be at least $1.15, $1.6, $1.75, and $2.18 respectively. Polygon (MATIC) Price Prediction 2023 By the end of the first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, and fourth quarter of 2023, the price of MATIC will be at least $2.35, $2.6, $2.85, and $3.18 respectively. Polygon (MATIC) Price Prediction 2024 By the end of the first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, and fourth quarter of 2024, the price of MATIC will be at least $3.4, $3.65, $3.75, and $4.12 respectively. Polygon (MATIC) Price Prediction 2025 By the end of the first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, and fourth quarter of 2025, the price of MATIC will be at least $4.15, $4.6, $5.75, and $6 respectively. Polygon (MATIC) Price Prediction 2026 By the end of the first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, and fourth quarter of 2026, the price of MATIC will be at least $6.3, $6.6, $7.5, and $10 respectively. Polygon (MATIC) Price Prediction: Market Sentiment Let’s consider the price prediction of MATIC by well-known media platforms. Gov Capital According to Gov Capital, the price of MATIC will be $7.47 by next year and $60.7 by February 2027. Wallet Investor According to Wallet Investors, the price of Polygon (MATIC) will be $2.96 by March 2023 and $8.9 by March 2027. DigitalCoin According to DigitalCoins, the price of MATIC will be $1.96 by 2022, $2.18 by 2023, $2.95 by 2025, and $7 by 2031. Our Polygon (MATIC) Price Prediction With the concentration of the Polygon developers in achieving their Layer-2 goals and also the adoption of Polygon in the NFTs market, the price of MATIC will get to $10 by 2026. Conclusion From the fundamental analysis, charts, and market sentiments around Polygon, we can deduce that the price of MATIC will be bullish in the future which will reward long-term investors.

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The current DeFi market is bearish as most of the tokens are priced low compared to previous months. A bear market can be caused by a variety of events, including bursting market bubbles, a poor or lagging or sluggish economy, wars, geopolitical crises, pandemics, and significant paradigm shifts in the economy, such as changing to an internet economy. Another reason can be the isolation between NFTs and DeFi space. Let’s see how NFTs can help revitalize the bearish DeFi cycle. Isolation between NFTs and the DeFi space Looking back, we can see that NFTs and DeFi protocols have worked separately in the past. However, the current bearish moves in the Defi market may be corrected by the widespread adoption of NFTs.  This is because NFTs have the capacity to assign value to nearly any object. DeFi, on the other hand, aids in the unlocking of a certain asset’s worth. When combined together, they can balance each others’ strengths and weaknesses and enhance their capabilities. Application of NFTs to the DeFi world NFTs help revolutionize the DeFi world because of the following reasons Allow for customizable and exact roles for the community members involved such as ‘avatars’ in the Metaverse games and ‘validators’ for any DeFi protocol/blockchain like Cardano. Make a distinction between the cost of government authority and the cost of native tokens. It’s possible to make DeFi a gamification land. Protocols that can fine-tune scarcity and utility-based value. Solves the illiquidity issue with veTokens The intersection of NFTs and DeFi This section will cover a few cases where the intersection of NFTs and DeFi looks promising- Uniswap v3: The only way to introduce concentrated liquidity into Uniswap v3 was to tokenize distinct LP positions. This innovative adjustment resulted in more use, resulting in higher revenues for LPs. Curve Finance- Solidly Exchange: veCRV’s Curve Finance problem was solved by Solidly exchange. Solidly enabled the lock of tokens for ve governance tokens to be tokenized, allowing for a single lock position and several lock positions with different time durations. BinaryDAO.finance: BinaryDAO.finance, a yield DAO, reinvented APR boosting by releasing a collection of 2,500 NFTs with a 25% APR for stakers. In comparison to the status quo of depending on physical locks, the release earned revenue for bootstrapping liquidity and making APR increases liquid. Nacho Finance: Nacho Finance, an algorithmic stable coin technology, is expanding its ecosystem to include a fun and engaging game. Their Luchador NFTs will allow gambling on NFT bouts and reinforce the peg by acting as a black hole for their token’s upgrades. $NACHO Final thoughts UniSwap v3 and Solidly, for example, are very different from NFT assets with defined amounts that are distributed, such as BinaryDAO and Nacho Finance. Both protocols, however, have one thing in common: they both aim to improve the protocol user’s experience. The construction of Defi protocols is significantly influenced by the techniques employed by UniSwap v3 and Solidly. However, the innovation fostered by NFT assets and the related value addition should not be underestimated. Whether you like it or not, widespread integration between DeFi-NFTs is coming.

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In the past few years, DeFi applications have seen tremendous growth. At the start of the year 2021, the Total value locked (TVL) in DeFi applications was used to be around 18 billion dollars. Currently, TVL in DeFi applications is around 200 billion dollars, which is more than 10x of the TVL of January 2021. Total unique DeFi wallets are 4.3 million right now, more than 4x the unique DeFi wallets of January 2021.  Various DeFi applications provide financial services like lending & borrowing, trading, prediction markets, yield farming, etc. Still, there are only a few million DeFi users, and the Anchor protocol of Terra Ecosystem wants to change it. Team of Anchor Protocol believes that a saving product is required for the mass adoption of DeFi applications.  Anchor is a saving protocol that offers low-volatile yields on deposits of Terra Stablecoins. The Anchor interest rate is powered by staking rewards from Proof of Stake blockchains, and therefore more stable rates can be expected. Anchor Protocol makes a money market between a lender and a borrower.  Lenders can earn stable yields by depositing their Stablecoins while borrowers can borrow stablecoins on their stakeable assets. According to the protocol-defined borrowing ratio, borrowers can lock their bonded assets (bAssets) as collateral and borrow stablecoins. Currently, Bonded Luna (bluna) and Bonded ETH(bETH) are the only two bonded assets that can be put as collateral for borrowing stablecoins.  The stream of staking rewards comes from borrowers’ global pool of collateral. These staking rewards are converted into stablecoin, which are given to the lenders in stable yield.  Tokenomics of Anchor Anchor Protocol’s governance token is the Anchor Token (ANC). Users who have staked ANC tokens can propose new governance polls, which can be voted on by users who have staked ANC tokens.  ANC token is designed to increase its value linearly with Anchor’s assets under management, allowing it to capture a piece of the protocol’s yield. Anchor provides protocol fees to ANC stakeholders proportionally to their stake, benefiting stakeholders as adoption of Anchor grows. ANC stakeholders are driven to suggest, discuss, and vote for proposals that improve the protocol. ANC Value Accrual The buying pressure increases proportionally as ANC tokens grow in lockstep with Anchor’s Assets Under Management. Protocol fees are used to buy ANC tokens from Terraswap, which are then paid to ANC stakers as staking rewards.  Protocol Fees  ANC captures protocol fees created by Anchor, with 10% of the value flowing into the yield reserve being used for the value accrual of ANC tokens. bAsset rewards, excess yield, and collateral liquidation costs are used to fund Anchor’s protocol fees. basset rewards A portion of the rewards from deposited bAsset collaterals is used to buy ANC, with the rest going into the yield reserve. If the yield reserve’s inventory reaches a sufficient amount, governance can modify the ratio of bAsset rewards utilised for ANC purchases. Excess Yield Deposit rates higher than the target deposit rate are stored in the yield reserve, with a portion of it utilised to purchase ANC. The ANC tokens that have been purchased are subsequently given to ANC stakers. Collateral Liquidation Fees When a loan is liquidated, 1% of the liquidated collateral value is sent to the yield reserve, with a portion going into ANC purchases. This cost is not included in the bid premiums. Governance Fees ANC token deposits of Anchor governance polls that have failed to attain the needed quorum are then allocated to ANC stakers as staking rewards.   At the start of the Anchor Protocol, 150 million ANC tokens were released. Fifty million (33.3 percent) tokens were airdropped to LUNA stakers, with staked amounts snapshotted at block 2179600.  One hundred million tokens (66.7 percent) were set aside for the Anchor Community Fund. Final Token Distribution A total of 1,000,000,000 ANC tokens will be distributed over four years. No more new ANC tokens will be added to the supply once this quantity has been distributed. Various methods to earn money with Anchor:  Depositing UST is a simple way to earn money with Anchor. The protocol project itself as a savings product and provides a 20% annual percentage yield (APY) on deposit.  Users can borrow UST by putting their bAssets, i.e. Bonded Luna (bluna) and Bonded ETH(bETH), up as collateral.  Users can also buy and stake ANC to receive staking rewards and participate in governance.  You can also earn rewards while at the same time providing liquidity to exchanges by staking your LP tokens (ANC-UST LP). Conclusion Anchor is the leading DeFi protocol of Terra Ecosystem. Currently, 13 billion dollars worth of assets is deposited in the protocol. Its goal is to become a stable saving solution for DeFi users, providing passive income. Anchor has an easy to use interface, which will be helpful in onboarding millions of … Continued

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Gary Gensler, the Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was questioned in a letter by eight members of the U.S. Congressional Blockchain Caucus concerning the treatment of SEC towards crypto firms.  Congress Members’ Crypto Probe The initiative was spearheaded by Congressman Tom Emmer (R-MN) on March 16, 2022. Emmer took to Twitter stating that the U.S. Congress office had been receiving several tips from many crypto and blockchain firms alike.  These tips were shared in regards to Gensler’s ‘requests’ to the crypto community that was burdensome, not voluntary, and were bordering towards ‘stifling innovation.’ My office has received numerous tips from crypto and blockchain firms that SEC Chair @GaryGensler’s information reporting “requests” to the crypto community are overburdensome, don’t feel particularly… voluntary… and are stifling innovation. — Tom Emmer (@RepTomEmmer) March 16, 2022 Tom Emmer replied to his tweet by sharing his bipartisan letter to the SEC Chair which was highly appreciated by the Blockchain Association. The Association gave the due credits to the eight members including Emmer, Darren Soto, Warren Davidson, Jake Auchincloss, Byron Donalds, Josh Gottheimer, Ted Budd, and Ritchie Torres. This is why I sent a bipartisan letter today to SEC Chair @GaryGensler with @RepDarrenSoto, @WarrenDavidson, @RepAuchincloss, @RepDonaldsPress, @RepJoshG, @RepTedBudd, and @RepRitchie regarding the SEC’s crypto information seeking process. pic.twitter.com/8HcTgZA0XL — Tom Emmer (@RepTomEmmer) March 16, 2022 The letter alleged the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Chair in gathering information in an inconsistent manner, which was the polar opposite to Commission’s standards for “initiating investigations.” Gary Gensler is known for being a nemesis of the crypto industry for a long time.

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Cryptocurrency company, Luno has launched an early-stage investment arm, Luno Expeditions, to back fintech and crypto or web3 startups across the globe, according to an announcement from TechCrunch. Luno launches investment arm to back over 200 fintech and crypto/web3 startups yearly https://t.co/Jc4jLltUef by @ulonnaya — TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) March 16, 2022 The investment arm will fund between 200-300 startups annually and diversify beyond crypto into the broader fintech space. The fund will invest between $50,000 to $250,000 and dig out between $15 million to $75 million yearly which essentially means an investment between $50 million to $300 million range will be committed when looking at typical investment periods of funds of around three-four years. CEO Jocelyn Cheng will spearhead this new project as she leads an all-female team of five. She has prior experience in investing in the startup industry over the last six years as the managing director at Global Innovation Fund, an impact investment VC. “There are very few truly global and very early-stage fintech funds in the world; we see an exciting opportunity here to build one. The reason why it’s not just pure crypto is that over the past few years, as operators scaling some of the largest crypto businesses in the world, we have noticed that there is such a strong intersection between some of the traditional fintechs and crypto,” said Cheng. Venture Capital Firms Bullish on Crypto Companies Earlier last year, leading venture capital firms such as Paradigm and Andreessen Horowitz have launched crypto funds upto $2.2 billion and $3 billion respectively. Additionally, there have been more crypto funds from Hack VC, Electric Capital, Crypto.com, and Inflection, all launched within the last three months. Luno Expeditions has already invested in 20 crypto and fintech companies such as Nala, a Tanzanian remittance solution; Oraan, a digital bank for Pakistani women; Notabene, a crypto compliance solution in Israel. Others include African crypto exchange platform Busha and fintechs Stitch and Root.

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Hong-Kong-based institutional custody service Hex Trust has raised $88 million in a Series B funding round co-led by Animoca Brands and Liberty City Ventures. The round includes both primary capital of $61 million and secondary investment of $27 million. In addition to Animoca Brands and Liberty City Ventures, other investors to participate in the round included Ripple, Terra, BlockFi, CoinList, Wintermute, Morgan Creek, Sino Global Capital, Primavera Venture Partners among others. Prior backers, including Kenetic Capital, HashKey Capital, and Fenbushi Capital, also joined the round. With the fresh funds, Hex Trust now looks towards expanding in the Middle East and Europe in addition to scaling its current team of 100 people to around 160 by the end of this year. Series B featured in @Bloomberg "#Blockchain will become the new infrastructure of the #financialmarkets, which requires institutional players providing infrastructure for institutional investors.”https://t.co/f50XWnK8aX — Hex Trust (@Hex_Trust) March 16, 2022   The latest Series B round brings Hex Trust’s total funding valuation to date to over $100 million. The company didn’t provide a specific valuation with this round but said it’s “10 times more” than the valuation at the time of its Series A round, which was $30 million which translates to at least a $300 million valuation currently. Licensed Crypto Firm in Singapore and Hong Kong Founded in 2018, Hex Trust offers crypto custody, staking, brokerage, and financing services to institutional clients with its licenses in Hong Kong and Singapore. The company has a capital markets services license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore and is registered as a trusted company in Hong Kong. Over the past year, Hex Trust has worked on blockchain projects like Algorand, Terra, Tezos, and Celo, as well as institutions like the UnionBank of the Philippines.

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Cosmos is a permissionless decentralized network of interoperable and independent blockchains that exchange tokens and information. Cosmos was established in order to overcome some of the problems that modern blockchains have. Scalability, governance, and usability are among these concerns. Blockchains can be separated into three conceptual layers from architecture:  Application layer: It updates the state of blockchain based on the execution of transactions.  Networking Layer: It is in charge of ensuring that transactions and consensus-related messages are propagated.  Consensus Layer: It allows nodes to agree on the system’s present state. The Cosmos is a decentralized network of autonomous, scalable, and interoperable blockchains powered by the Tendermint Core Byzantine Fault-Tolerant (BFT) consensus algorithm. Cosmos is all about the multi-chain world, seamlessly communicating data and tokens between numerous sovereign blockchains. This establishes a collaborative ecosystem because no project or blockchain in the ecosystem exists to compete with others; instead, Cosmos connects them all.  Features of Cosmos: Tendermint Core Cosmos SDK IBC Tendermint Core Tendermint BFT combines a blockchain’s networking layer and consensus layer into a generic engine, allowing developers to focus on the development of the application layer rather than the complicated underlying protocol. Tendermint saves hundreds of hours of development time as a result. Tendermint is also the name of the byzantine fault-tolerant consensus method employed by the Tendermint BFT engine. The Application Blockchain Interface connects the application layer of blockchains with the Tendermint BFT engine through a socket. Any programming language of your choice can be used to wrap the protocol, allowing developers to use whatever language best suits their needs. Cosmos SDK The Cosmos-SDK is an open-source framework for creating multi-asset public Proof-of-Stake (PoS) and Proof-of-Authority (PoA) blockchains, such as the Cosmos Hub. Application-specific blockchains are blockchains that have been created using the Cosmos SDK. The Cosmos SDK’s purpose is to simplify developers to build unique blockchains from the ground up that can natively interact with existing blockchains. IBC It’s a protocol that enables different blockchains to communicate with one another. Considering the legalities and constraints that needed to be met to make this communication process a reality was hard. IBC makes it easy to transfer tokens and other data in a trusted and frictionless manner. It opens up a world of possibilities allowing for interoperability and value transfer, without facing the scaling issues which can be seen today in many blockchains. How does IBC work? The logic behind IBC is very simple. Let us suppose, there is an account on chain X, and it wants to send 20 tokens (for eg. ATOM) to chain Y.  Tracking Chain Y receives the headers of chain X continuously and vice versa. This allows every chain to have the track record of the validator set of every other blockchain. For this purpose, each chain runs a light-client of the other. Proof Relay Proof that 20 ATOM tokens are bonded is sent from chain X to chain Y. Validation  The proof sent to chain Y is verified against chain X’s header and if the proof is found valid, then 20 ATOM vouchers are created on chain Y. Keep in mind that, ATOM tokens created on chain Y are not real, because real ATOM tokens still exist on chain X. Tokens present on chain Y are just a representation of ATOM on chain X, along with proof that these ATOM tokens are frozen on chain X. A similar process is followed to unlock the tokens when they return to their origin chain.  Tokenomics Use Cases of ATOM Token ATOM can be used in three ways: as a spam-prevention system, staking tokens, and voting method in governance.  ATOM is used to pay fees as a spam prevention method. Similar to Ethereum’s idea of gas, the fee might be proportionate to the amount of computation required by the transaction. Taking fees is necessary so that malicious actors don’t misuse the blockchain. ATOM can be staked to obtain tokens as rewards. The quantity of ATOM staked determines the Cosmos Hub’s economic security. The more collateralized ATOM there are, the more skin is at stake and the cost of attacking the network rises. As a result, the more ATOM are staked, the better will be the economic security, Governance: ATOM holders can also govern the Cosmos Hub by voting on proposals with their staked ATOM. Initial Token Distribution of Cosmos(ATOM) The Interchain Foundation held multiple private investment rounds, and a public fundraising event on April 6, 2017.  According to the Interchain Foundation, private Contributors, Public Contributors, All in Bits Inc (AiB), and the Interchain Foundation were the recipients of these newly created ATOMs.  In exchange for a $1,329,472.3 donation, strategic and early adopters received 7.1 percent of the first supply or 16,856,718.97 ATOMs. In exchange for $300,000, the seed contributors received 5% of the initial supply or 11,809,947.91 … Continued

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