Midtown, Gibraltar, 25th November, 2021,

Panther Protocol, an end-to-end privacy solution that creates privacy for DeFi and Web3 users across public blockchains, has raised over 22 million as part of their Public Sale. This brings the total amount raised to $32 million. “This raise as part of our public sale demonstrates a huge demand for an interoperable, compliance compatible privacy protocol.” says Panther Protocol CEO and co-founder Oliver Gale. “We are grateful for this overwhelming interest in our project and are confident that this signals the importance of Panther’s mission – enhancing freedom and privacy for DeFi and Web3.” Through the Public Sale, the company is offering the opportunity for widerer community engagement and participation in an end-to-end privacy protocol for DeFi and Web3 users.

The DeFi space has seen unprecedented growth with Panther demonstrating over $500M worth of interest. Panther is of great importance to virtually all DeFi users looking to benefit from personal financial data protection and confidential cryptocurrency transactions. Panther is currently building on Ethereum, Polygon, Flare, Songbird, NEAR and Elrond. In addition to developing a robust set of APIs, SDKs and custom integrations, Panther will allow builders to provide privacy features within their apps without needing a highly specialized team of cryptographers and privacy tech engineers to do so. The idea is to create a private-by-default, decentralized ecosystem that unlocks the value that is currently siloed between blockchains.

Panther Protocol co-founder Anish Mohammed comments, “As with duality of light, privacy has a dual nature, we are in the history of privacy where we are just reconciling, privacy’s dual nature. Panther protocol has managed to allow both privacy and authenticity, by combining zero knowledge proof systems and selective disclosures.” 

Since the company’s founding they have been steadily growing their team of experts, now consisting of over 33 leaders in cybersecurity, cryptography, blockchain engineering, game theory, DeFi, ecosystem development, technology commercialization and marketing with their team set to grow in the coming months. 

About Panther Protocol

Panther Protocol is an end-to-end privacy protocol for DeFi. Panther provides DeFi users with fully collateralized privacy-enhancing digital assets, leveraging crypto-economic incentives and zkSNARK technology. Users can mint zero-knowledge zAssets by depositing digital assets from any blockchain into Panther vaults. zAssets will become an ever-expanding asset class for users who want their transactions and strategies the way they should always have been: private. More information on tokenomics, exchange volumes and release schedule can be found here.

Stay connected: Telegram | Twitter | LinkedIn | Website | Medium | Blog
 

Contacts

• Bruno Ahualli
• bahualli@pantherprotocol.io

London, United Kingdom, 24th November, 2021, Chainwire

The team behind Haven Protocol , the world’s only private digital stablecoin, has redesigned and relaunched its website. By utilising Edge’s decentralised network , they are ready to welcome in the web3 era.

Their reimagined website — which features a new look, designed to appeal to a broader mainstream audience  — was built alongside their development partners in record time to support growth and adoption of a newly launched fork of the protocol – Haven 2.0. 

Thanks to Edge Network — web3 infrastructure that’s powered by its own Blockchain — every line of code is decentralised. Edge is a revolutionary proposition that leverages the spare capacity all around us to generate lightning fast server and media delivery functionality, amongst other things — something which flies in the face of supermassive data centres like Amazon. 

This future-facing aspect of the Haven site embodies web3 in the truest sense; it’s a nod to the possibility of an egalitarian society where corporations no longer have a stranglehold on the ability to generate wealth on the web. The Edge project team believe in this future wholeheartedly:

“There is a huge amount of spare capacity in the devices all around us, with the average laptop utilised to around 40% of its capability. Collectively making use of this capacity to drive the web takes power away from the handful of corporations that monetise our data day in, day out. Privacy is a human right, and web3 delivers it”, said Joseph Denne, founder of Edge Network.

Decentralisation aside, the relaunched website — which went live this week — symbolises Haven’s maturity as a technology. Whilst the privacy and stability ethos remains fundamentally the same, users will notice a higher fidelity across the board; in design, application of brand, UX, functionality and messaging. It’s clear that in addition to Haven’s own maturity, the team have sincerely acknowledged the maturity of consumers in the crypto and DeFi space as well.

“Haven is about bringing privacy to money. True privacy of data requires a decentralised network. Edge is to web3 what AWS is to web2. It’s the future of infrastructure, rebuilding the Web as it was originally intended to be, with privacy at its heart.”, said the Haven project team.

Doxing, anonymity, and data security will underpin a new wave of digital human rights, as yet untouched by global governments and regulators. In such a world, consumers are left with no alternative but to take ownership of their own privacy. As it stands, and with refinements and evolutions coming like they are, Haven Protocol is one of the best toolkits they’ll need to keep their assets safe, and away from unwelcome scrutiny. And now they are taking steps to embrace decentralisation too, prospective investors should find comfort. Haven is a proposition that practices what it preaches. And it’s gearing up for more than just a brand and website refresh; it’s gearing up for the next social epoch and a critical progression in the way wealth is defined.

About Haven Protocol

Haven Protocol  is crypto’s only DeFi ecosystem of private, stable assets. Utilizing Monero’s world-class privacy tools, Haven gives anyone in the world the power to take back control of their money. 

Haven offers synthetic USD (xUSD), Bitcoin (xBTC), Gold (xAU), Silver (xAG), and a range of global currencies that can be stored or traded all within a private Haven Vault. Haven’s “mint and burn” protocol uses the base currency, XHV, as collateral for assets on the network. All Haven addresses and balances are private by default and can never be seen or tracked by anyone except the Vault owner.

About Edge NetWork

Edge is the infrastructure of Web3. A peer-to-peer network, powered by the blockchain and built using the spare capacity all around us. It brings data storage and computation as close to the point of need as possible. Run as a DAO, Edge was established to benefit everyone, not just the handful of corporations that currently run the cloud.

Contacts

CEO

• Joseph Denne
• Edge Network Technologies Ltd
• joseph@edge.network
• 07813359922

ZAGREB, CROATIA, 24th November, 2021,

— Blockademia, the Croatian start-up that certifies documents with blockchain technology, is going to collaborate with the University of Rijeka to improve its platform. 

Thanks to the collaboration, which is going to start immediately, students from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Rijeka are going to participate in a hackathon to test Blockademia’s platform in order to find eventual weak points and improve them. 

The Croatian Cardano-backed blockchain platform has been developed to guarantee the authenticity of documents and valuable files, with particular attention to educational certificates. 

Users can issue original documents and authenticate them by entering the requested data. The platform will then generate a unique hash that is going to enter the Cardano blockchain, including all the information necessary to trace the issued document. 

The verified file is going to be accessible through a QR code, released to the issuer after the insertion into the blockchain. This system guarantees that files are secure, immutable and cannot be forged.

During the next 12 months, engineering students in the University of Rijeka are going to engage in a hackathon that aims to find all leaks and weaknesses in the Blockademia platform, in order to test Blockademia’s reliability and to strengthen it against all possible bugs and faults. 

For Blockademia this represents an opportunity to be challenged and tested, to show the innovation and safety of its decentralized proof system — and to possibly improve its application.

Also, the University of Rijeka is taking the opportunity of expressing its strong policy against document falsification, given that universities are the most widespread target of certificate forgery.

“This cooperation is unique because what we want is for the students, over the following 12 months, to hack the Blockademia application in order to find weaknesses, faults and possible threats,” remarked Goran Težak, President of Blockademia. “Although blockchain technology ensures document authenticity, thanks to uncompromising testing we will be able to guarantee a high degree of reliability to future users. I would like to thank the Faculty of Engineering for becoming our partner and technical associate on Blockademia’s path of building a new level of authenticity.” 

“We are glad to have the opportunity to work on new technologies and be part of a team that, with its solution, contributes to a better future and transparency,” added Kristijan Lenac, Prof. Dr. Sc. at the University of Rijeka. 

About Blockademia 

Blockademia is a Croatian startup that aims to digitize and secure important documents worldwide, ensuring no document fraud is possible thanks to the flexibility and power of Cardano’s blockchain technology. The 20+ strong team brings strong experience from IT and blockchain backgrounds, while experts in economics, legal and marketing complete the startup.

Contacts

President

• Goran Tezak
• Blockademia
• goran.tezak@smartcontract.hr

LOS ANGELES, CA, 23rd November, 2021,

— Pace Gallery and VISIBILITY launched “Pass the Baton”, a revolutionary NFT project that supports nonprofit organizations and activists for social justice, conceived by artist Glenn Kaino and his decade-long collaborator, the iconic Olympian Tommie Smith in partnership with UNOPND, powered by Hashed.

The project includes 7,872 NFTs designed as the iconic baton that Tommie Smith has used during four of his thirteen record-breaking races. The NFTs are integrated with smart contracts that set off donations to selected nonprofits for each digital baton transfer. The project will be launched on baton.art in December. 

The activists taking part in the project include John Legend, Jesse Williams, Derrick Johnson, President of the NAACP, Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s mother and founder of the Trayvon Martin Foundation, Baron Davis, who has designated the Los Angeles Urban League, and nineteen other individuals and organizations.

Influential figures who are listed on Fortune 50 NFT Celebrities list, including Gmoney, Jimmy McNelis, Jeffrey Zirlin, and PleasrDAO are also joining the cause and adding their voices.

Moreover, every NFT will evolve rarer features when one of the selected nonprofits reaches a certain amount of donations, encouraging users to “pass” the batons. 

With this project, Kaino’s and Smith’s objective is to continue the intergenerational perception of social rights that has been previously expressed by the champion in 1968 with a silent protest at the Olympic Games. 

Marc Glimcher, President and CEO of Pace Gallery, says: “Glenn has spent years redefining the scope and purpose of an artist’s studio practice. With Pass the Baton, he is continuing to break new ground. Glenn is helping to define the future of NFTs by placing the NFT within the giving ecosystem of the non-profit world.”

“The Pass the Baton project is a springboard” — says the American actor, director, and activist Jesse Williams — “Celebrating the historic intertwining of social justice movements and new technologies that can propel expressions of freedom forward. When designed with intention, both can dramatically change the world for the better. I’m truly excited to play a role in bringing these forces together alongside this new legacy team of legendary change makers.”

“I am pleased that Hashed is participating in this meaningful project” — declared Simon Kim, CEO & Managing Partner at Hashed — “Especially because it demonstrates how NFTs can uniquely deliver a social message and encourage infinite donations. ‘Pass the Baton’ is sure to inspire others as a primary use case for how to harness NFTs to benefit our society for goodwill.”

About Pass the Baton 

“Pass the Baton” is a revolutionary digital art project by artist Glenn Kaino and Tommie Smith, the iconic Olympian who stood in an unforgettable silent protest at the 1968 Olympic Games. The project includes 7,862 digitally-rendered baton NFTs inspired by Tommie Smith’s coveted sculptural artefact that contribute with donations to nonprofit organizations for social rights. 

About Pace Gallery

Pace is a leading international art gallery representing some of the most influential contemporary artists and estates from the past century, holding decades-long relationships with Alexander Calder, Jean Dubuffet, Barbara Hepworth, Agnes Martin, Louise Nevelson, and Mark Rothko. Pace enjoys a unique U.S. heritage spanning East and West coasts through its early support of artists central to the Abstract Expressionist and Light and Space movements.

About UNOPND

UNOPND is a studio for creative projects, whose primary activity is exploring and experimenting with new ideas to apply blockchain in gaming and collectible NFTs. UNOPND aims to support innovative projects with the full breadth of expertise of its founders and the leadership of Hashed members. In particular, UNOPND will tap ideas that appeal to the wider masses who may not necessarily be deeply involved in cryptocurrency

About Hashed

Hashed is an investment firm that focuses on blockchain. We take pride in ourselves that we contribute to a decentralized future through our investment, community building, and support. Our efforts allow our portfolio companies to penetrate the global market seamlessly to bootstrap their communities and the company-building process. As an early investor to Kakao’s Klaytn and Line’s LINK, Hashed has invested early in the blockchain projects of Asia tech giants. Also, Hashed was the early investor of some of the most significant projects in the blockchain space, including Terra, Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, etc. We run ‘Hashed Lounge’ for early blockchain projects for their co-working and offline meet-up space.

Contacts

Head of Growth

• Edward Hong
• Hashed
• edward@hashed.com

Australia, Australia, 23rd November, 2021,

The Metaverse — Spool, a new DeFi protocol that solves the long-standing issue of DeFi generalized automation, has announced the date of its fair launch Balancer LBP via Copper, set for December 13 at 17:00 UTC. 

The fair launch will finish after three days, on December 16 at 17:00 UTC.

This marks the first public sale of SPOOL tokens, the governance tokens of the Spool Platform, which will occur through the Balancer Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool (LBP). In a nutshell, an LBP acts similar to a Reverse IDO where tokens are gradually sold while more base tokens get added to the pool along a curve. A total of 5% of the supply will be available for the LBP, starting at a weight of 96:4 and an initial price of 2.44 DAI. By the end of the event, the pool will be balanced to a standard 50:50 composition.

Spool is a permissionless DeFi middleware ‘toolkit’ that allows users to create fully customized, automated, and diversified yield farming portfolios with a single deposit. After depositing, Spool automatically rebalances funds between an array of yield generators selected by the user to optimize risk and reward, while taking the individual user’s risk tolerance into account.

Spool represents an evolutionary step forward for  DeFi on Ethereum by allowing for diversification, compounding, and rebalancing at affordable gas prices via a buffer system and transaction batching.

Furthermore, Spool is a ‘middleware’ that makes it very easy for builders to create unique defi products that leverage Spool’s capabilities in the back end. Tokenized Spools acting as yield-bearing stable coins, or fixed term assets, can be easily traded on secondary markets and exchanges, thereby allowing non-crypto native institutional finance entities to gain exposure to DeFi and removing almost all friction and barriers to entry.

Spool is managed by a highly-qualified DAO that includes stakeholders and venture investors such as DFG, Fourth Revolution Capital, CMS, LD Capital, AU21, Digital Strategies, JRR, Signum Capital, and GBV, as well as the founders of Barnbridge, Synthetix, Bancor, F2Pool, Cobo Wallet, AllianceBlock, Centrality, Bridge Mutual, DAIC, ATKA, Staking Rewards, Energy Web Token, Zokyo, BlockBank and more.

“I think Spool is well-positioned as an incredibly promising DeFi middleware,” said Dan Matuszewski, Principal, and Co-founder at CMS Holding. “Middle layer projects will become more and more prevalent in the space as DeFi user adoption increases and a new set of customer needs emerge.”

“Spool’s middleware solution allows us to create custom strategies that can be integrated in DeFi applications via SDKs,” added Leslie Tam, co-founder of Genesis Block Ventures. “As a fund that is actively ‘farming’ and holding a firm interest in DeFi, this is a toolset that we believe has been missing from the market and we look forward to deploying Spool to provide superior risk-mitigated outcomes for our fund strategies.”

“I look forward to Spool helping me allocate funds automatically and cleverly, and using algorithms, instead of hard work, to increase profits and reduce risks,” said the co-founder of F2Pool, Shixing Mao. 

About Spool 

Spool is a composable and permissionless DeFi middleware that seamlessly connects users seeking passive yield with DeFi strategy builders to create the first “fire-and-forget” optimized yield farming tool. 

Contacts

• Luke L
• Luke@spool.fi

Zug, Switzerland, 22nd November, 2021,

One of the original creators of DeFi is aiming to fix one of the industry’s most pressing problems.

When Bancor launched the first-ever DeFi liquidity pool in 2017, the project’s founders saw a tragic flaw in their invention: That when a token rises in price, investors are prone to lose money, fast. The issue, known as “impermanent loss”, costs users billions in crypto gains each year. Today, more than $20 billion staked in liquidity pools is affected.

Bancor released a solution in late 2020 that fully protects users from impermanent loss by insuring against the risk at the protocol level. Now, one year later and with over $200 million earned by Bancor depositors in the last 10 months, the project is gearing up for the release of its third protocol version. Like its predecessor, Bancor V3 will fully protect users from a risk that threatens to undermine the core tenets of DeFi.

Impermanent loss (IL) is the risk that liquidity providers take in exchange for fees they earn in liquidity pools. If IL exceeds fees earned by a user when they withdraw, it means the user has suffered negative returns compared with simply holding their tokens outside the pool.

“Due to the complex nature of impermanent loss, only a small handful of the most active and sophisticated users are able to reliably hedge against the risk and minimize its impact on their DeFi earnings,” said Nate Hindman, Head of Growth at Bancor.

“If staking in liquidity pools is only profitable for the most advanced users, liquidity is likely to become concentrated in the hands of far fewer actors, reducing DeFi’s resistance to censorship and manipulation,” Hindman said.

A recent study on impermanent loss conducted by crypto consultancy Topaze Blue found that around 50% of users staking their tokens in Uniswap V3 are suffering negative returns. In certain pools, the percentage of users who lost more from IL than they gained in trading fees was as high as 70-75%.

Impermanent loss is known as a silent killer in the industry, since it is difficult for users to notice it. The value of a user’s holdings in a liquidity pool may rise if the composite tokens increase in price, creating the illusion of profits. However, compared with simply buying and holding the staked assets in the contributed amounts, the user may still be incurring losses.    

To shed more light on the issue, Bancor and DeFi analytics provider APY Vision recently teamed up to launch il.wtf. The site allows users to input their Ethereum wallet address and see how much cumulative IL they’ve suffered in their lifetime, and which pools have burned them the most. Users who share their IL on Twitter with the hashtag #BancorBailouts qualify to receive $1000 in relief. One recent post revealed a $400,585 loss from providing liquidity to 27 pools. 

The push to expose users to the perils of impermanent loss and the risk it poses to decentralized liquidity markets comes as Bancor is preparing to release its upcoming V3. Core contributors will unveil the key features on a community YouTube livestream on November 29th at 8:30pm EST.

“Bancor V3 is designed to make decentralized finance as simple and safe as possible for everyday users,” Hindman said. “The soul of DeFi is on the line. We must prevent DeFi from becoming a playground for the rich and connected to extract value from protocols and dump on everyone else — and this starts with fixing liquidity pools.”

About Bancor Protocol

Bancor is the only decentralized staking product that allows you to earn money with single-token exposure and full protection from impermanent loss. Bancor generates millions in fees per month for users who deposit their tokens in the protocol, offering up to 40% APR on tokens like ETH, WBTC, LINK, USDT, MATIC & more. Bancor is owned by its community as a decentralized autonomous organization (the BancorDAO).

Learn more about Bancor Safe Staking

Learn more about Impermanent Loss

Contacts

Head of Growth

• Nate Hindman
• nate@bancor.network

Singapore, Singapore, 22nd November, 2021,

Justin Sun, founder of TRON, won the auction of Alberto Giacometti’s most influential sculpture Le Nez at the price of $78,396,000 and later donated it to the APENFT Foundation. Giacometti’s “Nose” in the Macklowe Collection, can be seen representing postwar existential angst that was voiced by Jean-Paul Sartre, a friend of the artist. The piece shows a head suspended within the bars, the nose further extending beyond the confines of its prison. The features of the sculpture reflect the chassis, barrel, and handle of a gun. “Nose” is considered to be one of Giacometti’s most iconic art pieces. The piece, which was featured as part of the Macklowe Collection auctioned by Sotheby’s, was the second most expensive work of the first half of the collection auctioned on November 15th, hitting the middle of the $70-90 million expected range.

The purchase comes on the heels of other high-profile bids by the blockchain entrepreneur back in March and April. Sun has been the confirmed buyer of Andy Warhol’s “Three Self Portraits”, “Femme Nue Couchée au Collier” by Pablo Picasso, Beeple’s “Ocean Front”, and a collection of NFTs from Pak. These works have been minted into TRON’s TRC-721 NFT format and are now featured as part of the works underlying APENFT’s native NFT token.

After successfully acquiring “Le nez”, Sun made an announcement on his Twitter that he will be donating “Le Nez” to APENFT in hopes that people can be inspired and appreciate the art piece on both online and offline channels. 

APENFT has made a name for itself by transforming famous artworks into non-fungible tokens employing the TRC-721 and ERC-721 token formats with help from the Bittorrent File System (BTFS). Now, it is expanding its audience and marketplace’s reach within the non-fungible token universe after listing on OKEx’s exchange. Besides spot trading support for the NFT/USDT pair, OKEx’s Earn feature will deliver NFT staking for an estimated 50% annual percentage yield (APY).

This development follows other noteworthy milestones for APENFT, including the unveiling of the $100 million Art Dream fund in collaboration with TRON to foster growth within the non-fungible token ecosystem. The fund is designed to guide and provide all-around support for artists exploring the possibilities of non-fungible tokens. Now that Sun has minted Le Nez as an NFT and donated it to the fund, it has shed new light on the potential of NFTs.

Commenting on his acquisition and the plan to contribute the NFT to the Art Dream fund, Sun notes, “We truly believe that blockchain technologies can play an instrumental role in delivering greater support for creators and artists, not to mention art enthusiasts and collectors. We want to put art back in the hands of the people, and our collaboration with APENFT is a part of that journey. Demand for non-fungible tokens is strengthening, and that this trend is by no means a passing fad. We are truly honored to be a part of this historic effort to revolutionize the art experience.”

About TRON

TRON is dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet through blockchain technologies and decentralized applications. Founded in September 2017 by Justin Sun, the company has delivered a series of achievements, including MainNet launch on May 2018, network independence on June 2018, and TRON Virtual Machine launch on August 2018. July 2018 also marked the acquisition of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized services boasting over 100M monthly active users.

Website |Telegram |Medium |Twitter |Reddit

About APENFT

APENFT is backed by the underlying technology of the Ethereum and TRON blockchains with support from the world’s largest distributed storage system BitTorrent File System (BTFS), to deliver the mission of registering world-class artworks as NFTs on the blockchain. NFT, as the sole token issued by APENFT, is a decentralized digital currency developed in compliance with the ERC-20/TRC-20 protocol and serves as a proof of stake of the foundation. NFT holders can vote, share profits and participate in community governance.

Contacts

• Anjali George
• press@tron.network

Singapore, Singapore, 22nd November, 2021, Chainwire

Leading global cryptocurrency exchange, Gate.io, has surpassed 8 million registered users, adding 2 million new users since the end of August 2021. The platform has seen tremendous growth in 2021, adding 3 million users in the first half of 2021 as the global cryptocurrency market hit new highs. The exchange has noted huge interests from Turkey, Brazil, and India. They have also noted increasing trading activity in Western Europe. 

“Since the beginning of 2021, Gate.io has seen its user base increase nearly threefold as the overall market grew dramatically. We have launched several exciting new services on the platform and users now have access to over 1,000 coins and tokens in addition to futures and copy trading as well as perpetual contracts. Our NFT Magic Box platform has also shown great success,” said Marie Tatibouet, Chief Marketing Officer at Gate.io

Since its launch in 2013, Gate.io has become one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchanges. According to Coingecko, Gate.io is the 7th largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, with over $2 billion in 24-hour spot trading volume and over $3.3 billion in 24-hour derivatives trading volume.

The platform is host to over 1,100 different cryptocurrencies and offers spot, futures and contract trading in addition to minting and trading NFTs on its dedicated NFT Magic Box marketplace and investing in early stage projects through its Startup IEO platform. Gate.io supports 14 languages and serves over 8 million users in 190 countries across the world.

To celebrate crossing the 8 million user mark, Gate.io has launched a brand new promotional campaign on November 12th. During the promotional period, users stand a chance to win their share of over $100,000 in USDT bonuses and rewards.

About Gate.io

Gate.io allows blockchain enthusiasts to trade and store assets in over 1,100 of the leading cryptocurrencies for over 8 million users from over 190 countries. The exchange offers spot, margin, futures and contract trading in addition to DeFi products through Hipo DeFi, custodial services through Wallet.io, investments through Gate Labs and its dedicated GateChain platform. The company also offers a wholly integrated suite of products such as its Startup IEO platform, NFT Magic Box marketplace, crypto loans and more.

For more information on Gate.io, please visit https://www.gate.io/ 

Contacts

Head of PR and Communication

• Diksha Sharma
• Gate.io
• diksha@mail.gate.io