Cryptocurrency

The Tanssi appchain infrastructure protocol has announced a significant collaboration with Grupo Flow, one of Brazil’s largest media ecosystems, boasting over 23 million subscribers across multiple platforms. As Grupo Flow transitions into the blockchain space with the creation of Flow Chain, this collaboration signifies a milestone. Tanssi will facilitate this move, not only bringing Grupo Flow’s vast community into the blockchain realm but also connecting them with Polkadot’s vibrant and interoperable ecosystem. This strategic integration ensures a robust, scalable infrastructure that will enhance user engagement, expand Grupo Flow’s audience reach, and open new monetization opportunities for content creators within the Flow Chain platform, leveraging both existing community strengths and new blockchain capabilities.Grupo Flow is a leading digital media ecosystem in Brazil, known for its vast reach and influence in the creator economy. With diverse ventures including creative hubs, software development, and audiovisual production, Grupo Flow has solidified its position as a key player in the Brazilian media landscape. Their platforms, such as the highly popular Flow Podcast, attract millions of followers and listeners, collectively achieving over 73 million views per month and amassing more than 23 million followers. As Grupo Flow transitions into the Polkadot blockchain space with Tanssi, they aim to enhance digital engagement, handle large-scale interactions, and seamlessly integrate advanced technology, all while maintaining their commitment to delivering an excellent user experience. This collaboration will help them strengthen their audience and tap into a new community of blockchain users, further enhancing their digital media ecosystem.Tanssi & Grupo Flow: Unlocking Blockchain Potential for Digital Media TransformationTanssi’s advanced blockchain infrastructure is crucial in facilitating Grupo Flow’s seamless transition to the blockchain space. Grupo Flow will launch its own application blockchain, Flow Chain, offering a dedicated and customizable environment tailored to their needs. This collaboration will enhance digital engagement through tokenized interactions and decentralized governance, allowing users to participate in content decisions, access exclusive events, and earn rewards. Tanssi’s scalable infrastructure will handle high volumes of transactions, ensuring efficient processing and maintaining a seamless user experience for Grupo Flow’s large and active community.By integrating with Polkadot’s interoperable ecosystem, Flow Chain will access a network of interconnected blockchains and leverage technologies like Moonbeam Routed Liquidity to expand into ecosystems such as Ethereum and Avalanche. This ensures robust security, consistent performance, and extensive growth opportunities. Tanssi’s infrastructure reduces transaction costs and opens up new revenue streams through staking rewards and tokenized assets. This strategic collaboration not only supports Grupo Flow’s transition to blockchain but also sets a new benchmark in the digital media industry by enhancing scalability, security, and user engagement.Looking Forward: Grupo Flow’s Next Steps with TanssiGrupo Flow is set to revolutionize the digital media landscape with the launch of Flow Houses, inspired by Soho Houses, known for their exclusive memberships and luxurious amenities. This platform will offer unique, tokenized access to high-end venues and events through blockchain technology, showcasing Grupo Flow’s commitment to pioneering new experiences in the media sector. The upcoming launch of Grupo Flow on Tanssi Mainnet later this year marks one of the largest blockchain integrations by an online media group in Brazil, leveraging the scalability and efficiency of Tanssi’s infrastructure and benefiting from Polkadot’s interoperable ecosystem. For those interested in expanding their project to the blockchain space, Tanssi offers a straightforward, code-free application chain deployment platform. Explore and launch your project today at apps.tanssi.network.About Tanssi NetworkTanssi’s appchain infrastructure protocol is designed to simplify and accelerate the deployment of appchains. By connecting a chain to Tanssi, it is instantly transformed into a modular appchain. This transition grants access to a developer-friendly and permissionless environment, fully stocked with all essential infrastructural components to run a chain right out of the box. Key features include a shared and decentralized network of block producers, ensuring robust security and data retrievability, alongside seamless integrations with vital tools like bridges, wallets, block explorers, RPC (NYSE:RES) endpoints, indexers, oracles, and more. As a result, appchains can be deployed in just minutes—a significant improvement over the typical months-long process. Learn more at tanssi.network.About Grupo FlowGrupo Flow operates as a comprehensive media ecosystem, focusing on the creator economy with ventures in technology, content, media, production, and advertising. Central to the group is Estudios Flow, a creative hub housing over 30 creators dedicated to fostering dialogue, plurality, and transparency. Producing over 70 hours of content weekly across various formats and niches, Estudios Flow aims to build community ties nationwide. The ecosystem also includes Flow S.A., Flow Games, Flow News, Flow Sport Club, Venus, Ciência Sem Fim, Amplifica, the digital agency Golden Pill, software house WolfVision, and Flow Labs, specializing in audiovisual productions. The initiative traces back to the influential Flow, launched by Igor Coelho, a trailblazer in Brazil’s videocast arena. Learn more at linkedin.com/company/flow-grupo.ContactCMOKatherine Quilca BarcelliMoondance Labskathy@moondancelabs.comThis article was originally published on Chainwire More

The ‘Web3 Shopify (NYSE:SHOP) of Social’ hits 30,000 onchain users in 2 weeks as the first app goes liveOpenSocial Protocol, a composable infrastructure layer for building social applications, announced today a $6 million strategic backing led by Framework Ventures and North Island Ventures, with participation from other investors including Hivemind Capital Partners, Stratos, Moonrock Capital, Chorus One, HV Capital, X Ventures, Gate Labs, Panga Capital, Aspen Digital; and super angels like Jordi Alexander (Selini Capital), Sreeram Kannan (EigenLayer), Luca Netz (Pudgy Penguins), Sandeep Nailwal (Polygon Labs), Yaoqi (Altlayer), Robinson Burkey (Wormhole Foundation), Gabby Dizon (YGG), Mik Naayem (Dapper Labs), Cygaar (Abstract), Regan Bozman (Lattice (OTC:LTTC) Capital), Muddy Water and more. Built by Everest Ventures Group, a leading Web3 operating group in Asia focused on consumer applications, OpenSocial Protocol provides open-source, multichain social application infrastructure tools that enable users and communities to build social decentralized applications (dApps) without coding experience. This is a vision that OpenSocial stands by as it helps to lower the barriers of entry for users who are looking to create their own community app. Along with the $5 million seed funding round and $15 million in OpenSocial Protocol ecosystem funds raised previously, OpenSocial Protocol now has $26 million in funding to support the protocol’s development. Earlier investors include Portal Ventures, Animoca Brands, OKX Ventures, and renowned Web3 entrepreneurs include Smokey the Bera (Berachain), Jason Yano (Blockworks), Roham Gharegozlou (Dapper Labs), Brian Fabian Crain (Chorus One), Mike Dudas (6th Man Ventures) and more. OpenSocial Protocol aims to onboard thousands of apps by providing infrastructure and a customizable user interface layer, ensuring true ownership of intellectual property and community relationships, and offering better-aligned monetization and financial incentives for communities and users. It is building the necessary open-source infrastructure to enable the largest multichain community economy by solving three key challenges: user retention, spam bot prevention, and user growth beyond the crypto-centric audience.SoMon (short for Social Monster), a Reddit-like forum built to empower communities with true ownership, became the first app to launch on OpenSocial Protocol on June 19 with over 30,000 onchain active users, an average engagement time close to 20 minutes and over 300,000 onchain transactions, excluding spam bots, in just two weeks, solving one of the key challenges in any social media platform.Another app that is launching on OpenSocial is Zeek, a social collaboration network that allows users to harness the value of their community-building networks through onchain social bounty mechanics and reputation building. In June, Zeek completed its own $3 million fundraise. OpenSocial: Enabling scalable, multichain social apps without coding experienceOpenSocial Protocol’s modular design with easy-to-deploy social tools on a multichain approach enables creators and communities to compose apps quickly and economically. Features are either on-chain or off-chain and include feed, chatroom, text/video/audio/posts, comments, reactions, voting, share, on-chain social graphs (social data and structure), tribes (user and topic-based communities), megaphones (advertising engine), as well as plug-ins (token issuance, DAO tools, betting, voting, bounties, matching, mini-games).By embedding social functionalities into the core experience across different verticals, onchain social helps break down silos and enables greater connectivity and engagement across the entire ecosystem. “We believe social has the potential to be a major catalyst for mainstream consumer adoption. Every creator and community builder should be owners and entrepreneurs,” Ng added.EVG has also deployed 80 developers and builders to develop the infrastructure for onboarding thousands of community apps with just a few clicks. By actively working with early adopters to integrate thriving communities, redefine data sovereignty, and implement sustainable economic incentives, OpenSocial is paving the way for a future where anyone can cultivate meaningful yet sustainable social connections and true social data ownership.About OpenSocial ProtocolOpenSocial Protocol (OpenSocial) is a multichain Social infrastructure empowering creators to effortlessly build community apps. Leveraging its robust social graph and modular design, OpenSocial enables transparent content promotion to specific user groups, ensuring fair value distribution among all stakeholders. OpenSocial offers one of the best data, tooling, and financial layer, and its vision is to enable the largest multichain community economy. OpenSocial Protocol is founded by Everest Ventures Group.Website: www.opensocial.co Twitter: https://twitter.com/OpenSocialLabsMedia contact: Gemma Lo / gemma@opensocial.co About Everest Ventures GroupFounded in 2018, Everest Ventures Group (EVG) is a Web3 operating group driving mass adoption of Web3 by building products with real use cases that are set to onboard the next million users.Headquartered in Hong Kong with a global team of over 300 individuals, EVG has built and launched 15+ products across Social (OpenSocial Protocol, SoMon, Zeek), Gaming & Culture (Mugen Interactive, Legend of Arcadia, Last Odyssey, LiveArt) and FinTech (Aspen Digital). As an early investor and lead advisor, EVG has contributed to 10+ unicorns and 150+ defining projects such as Celestia, Berachain, Wormhole, Dapper Labs (Flow), Animoca Brands, Immutable, The Sandbox, Yuga Labs, Kraken, Lukka, Dunamu and Blocklords.Website: https://www.evg.co/Twitter: https://twitter.com/EVGHQ/ Disclosures: Information contained herein is accurate as of the date of publication and is subject to change. This is not investment advice and readers should not construe discussion of any particular organization as a recommendation to purchase or sell, or a solicitation of an offer to purchase or sell, any securities or digital assets related to such organization.ContactPR ManagerKelvin YeoEverest Ventures Groupkelvin.yeo@evg.coThis article was originally published on Chainwire More

Xverse, the leading Bitcoin Web3 wallet, has teamed up with Acre to offer a native Bitcoin-in, Bitcoin-out staking experience. This partnership gives users the ability to earn BTC-based rewards – marking a new category in Bitcoin innovation.Through this partnership, Xverse users can now effortlessly put their BTC to work in Acre directly from the Bitcoin mainnet via their existing Xverse wallet. Acre’s fully on-chain staking experience eliminates the complexity of participation in the Bitcoin economy with its ‘one click’ feature to access Bitcoin rewards.Acre, started by the team behind the decentralized Bitcoin bridge (tBTC), works with many of the protocols in the rapidly emerging Bitcoin L2 market category to drive rewards. These protocols, powered by assets like tBTC, are building the next evolution of the Bitcoin economy. By collaborating with Xverse, Acre aims to broaden the accessibility of “stacking sats”, catering to both seasoned Bitcoiners and newcomers alike.Acre, a native Bitcoin staking platform has partnered with Xverse for its main net launch. Acre is the latest project from Thesis, the venture studio building brands on Bitcoin. According to Brian Mahoney, Co-Founder of Acre, lets “Xverse users put their Bitcoin to work via the Acre staking app to access the exciting new world of Bitcoin L2s,” using their Xverse wallets. Acre’s staking experience simplifies participation in the Bitcoin economy with one-click access to BTC rewards.For more information, users can visit Acre’s: Official Website | Twitter (x) | DiscordContactKevin McGraththesis@mgroupsc.com718-915-4829This article was originally published on Chainwire More

World no.2 token Ether also saw extended losses as traders largely looked past the launch of spot exchange-traded funds in U.S. markets this week. The launch attracted a fraction of capital flows in comparison to those seen by spot Bitcoin ETFs earlier this year.Risk sentiment was battered by a sharp fall in Wall Street indexes on Wednesday, as investors heavily sold off major technology stocks following a couple of underwhelming second-quarter earnings. Bitcoin fell 3.3% in the past 24 hours to $64,024.7 by 08:57 ET (12:57 GMT). Bitcoin, and by proxy broader crypto markets, were also dented by uncertainty over the U.S. presidential race, especially after President Joe Biden pulled out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic frontrunner.Harris was seen polling better than Biden against Republican nominee Donald Trump, and was also seen garnering widespread support from the Democratic party. Given Harris’ past as a public prosecutor- who had cracked down on banks and for-profit colleges, it appeared likely that she would continue Biden’s agenda of stricter financial regulations in the country- which bode poorly for crypto. Media reports said that Harris had reportedly declined an invitation to speak at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville. These drew ire from several crypto proponents. Initial speculation over a Trump presidency had aided crypto markets, especially given that the Republican nominee has maintained a largely pro crypto stance. Trump is set to speak at the Bitcoin Conference on Saturday. Sentiment towards Bitcoin was also further undermined by reports showing defunct exchange Mt Gox had moved more tokens onto exchanges- likely preparing for more distributions.Mt Gox has been a major pain point for Bitcoin’s price, as the defunct exchange began returning tokens stolen during a 2014 hack. Traders speculated receivers of the tokens would be largely inclined to sell them, given Bitcoin’s massive price gains over the past decade.Among broader cryptocurrency prices, the world no.2 token Ether plunged nearly 9% to $3,143.52 on Thursday.The token was little supported by the launch of spot ETFs in U.S. markets earlier this week, which did see strong trading volumes, of over $1 billion in their debut. But this was much lower than the $4 billion volumes seen by Bitcoin ETFs, indicating relatively lower investor appetite.Other altcoins also made little headway. XRP fell slightly, while SOL and ADA fell 5.5% and 6%, respectively.Among memetokens, DOGE tumbled 7.2%, while SHIB lost 7.2%. Bitcoin miner MARA (NASDAQ: MARA), recently rebranded from Marathon Digital, announced on Thursday the purchase of an additional $100 million worth of bitcoin.The company’s shares dropped by more than 2% in premarket trading on Thursday.The move comes as part of the “full HODL” approach toward its bitcoin treasury policy. This means retaining all bitcoin mined in its operations and periodically making strategic open market purchases.”Adopting a full HODL strategy reflects our confidence in the long-term value of bitcoin,” said Fred Thiel, MARA’s chairman and CEO.”We believe bitcoin is the world’s best treasury reserve asset and support the idea of sovereign wealth funds holding it. We encourage governments and corporations to all hold bitcoin as a reserve asset.” More

The company’s shares fell more than 2% in premarket trading Thursday following the announcement. According to a statement shared with The Block, this acquisition brings MARA’s total bitcoin holdings to over 20,000 BTC, representing nearly 0.1% of bitcoin’s total supply of 21 million.The company did not disclose the specific timing or average price of the purchases. However, given the dollar amount and MARA’s previous holdings of 18,536 BTC at the end of June, as reported by Bitcoin Treasuries, it is estimated that the recent acquisitions likely totaled around 1,500 BTC, bought in the $54,000 to $68,000 range this month, The Block said. Moreover, MARA said it will adopt a full HODL approach to its bitcoin treasury policy, retaining all bitcoin mined in its operations and periodically making strategic open market purchases. This strategy will come into effect immediately. “Adopting a full HODL strategy reflects our confidence in the long-term value of bitcoin,” said Fred Thiel, MARA’s chairman and CEO. “We believe bitcoin is the world’s best treasury reserve asset and support the idea of sovereign wealth funds holding it. We encourage governments and corporations to all hold bitcoin as a reserve asset.”MARA’s latest moves indicate that Bitcoin miner is adopting a strategy similar to that of MicroStrategy (MSTR), the world’s largest publicly-listed BTC holder.Founded by Michael Saylor, a vocal advocate of Bitcoin, MicroStrategy holds the premier cryptocurrency as a primary treasury reserve asset. The company continuously buys Bitcoin, accumulating 226,331 coins as of June 24, 2024. More

The takeover creates new opportunities towards connecting the traditional transportation market with a rapidly expanding blockchain based payment system. HBSS Connect is the company behind transportation platform QRyde,Colu has been an active player in the blockchain space since 2014. The company’s digital wallet app was launched in early 2017 and is now operational in cities such as Tel Aviv, Haifa, East London, and Liverpool, serving over 200,000 users and supporting transactions across 2,000 local businesses.The blockchain startup has previously raised decent investments from firms like IDB Development Corporation and Aleph, and its blockchain technology has garnered attention worldwide.The merger with HBSS Connect Corp will help accelerate the development and deployment of these technologies on a global scale.For its part, the acquisition is set to support QRyde’s efforts in creating a blockchain-based transportation system with more efficient municipal government spending. HBSS Connect will leverage web3 technology to integrate transportation systems with local economies. QRyde’s platform, which serves over 250 customers in 35 states and more than 9,700 cities, focuses on connecting people to essential services.HBSS CEO Himanshu Bhatnagar framed his firm’s investment in Colu as the first step in what will be a long discovery process, though one that he expects to bear fruit soon. He added, “We are pleased to have Colu joining our QRyde team. Colu is the perfect partner to help execute our vision of using blockchain in the mobility space, for entering into urban renewal and smart city space, making the transportation ecosystem trustworthy and more accessible to all citizens, not just the elderly and mobility challenged.”Bhatnagar founded QRyde as a shared ride scheduling platform to offer ride booking, cost-sharing, and bidding management services to educational institutions, healthcare companies, and public transit agencies across the nation. Operating under its parent company HBSS Connect, QRyde employs technology like mobile scheduling, automated dispatching, and AI-based route optimization to help these organizations deliver services more efficiently and cost-effectively.“By combining Colu’s vision of making cities thrive with QRyde’s advanced transportation platform, we can now better serve underpaid communities, transporting them to job centers and commerce areas,” said Ortal Tevel, CEO of Colu. Colu has extensive experience in implementing digital reward schemes to engage residents and strengthen local economies. The company has collaborated with municipalities across the United States, including Akron, Boston, Houston, and Saline County. Through collaboration with QRyde, Colu will expand its program to include a variety of essential services. More

ZAP, the reputation-based token distribution protocol and Big Bang winner on Blast L2, today announced a successful raise of $15 million in a funding round led by Rarestone Capital, Cypher Capital and Sharding Capital. The round also saw participation from Auros Global, Presto Labs, and angels Larry Cermak (CEO, The Block), Chelsea Jiang (Foresight Ventures), and Luca Netz (CEO, Pudgy Penguins), plus notable angels from LayerZero.ZAP is a community-driven token distribution protocol that validates user contribution to ensure fair and meritocratic rewards, enabling projects to sustainably build and grow their communities. ZAP features a comprehensive suite of products: A questing and airdrops protocol, a no-code token launcher, and a curated launchpad offering access to VC backed projects. These are all supported by Mission Control, ZAP’s questing and reputation system, ensuring fair and community-driven access to token distributions. ZAP previously raised $11m in March through a “Vault Sale”, using a similar model to the recently popular Node sales used by XAI and Aethir. More recently, they announced a partnership with analytics platform Nansen, who will help the protocol to build advanced, data-driven insights into on-chain users, enhancing ZAP’s offerings and optimizing their questing and airdrops protocols.In conjunction with their recent funding milestone, ZAP also launched the Blast Gigadrops Campaign aimed at fostering greater user engagement within the Blast ecosystem. Running from May 27 and still ongoing, it introduces a chapter-based airdrop system, rewarding users for both their social and on-chain interactions with over 20 leading Blast protocols and decentralized applications (dApps). The campaign boasts a prize pool nearing $1 million and includes collaboration with major partners such as Thruster, Particle, and MetaStreet among others.About ZapZap is a community-driven token launch protocol designed to solve the challenges in the token launch space and provide value to both founders and investors. By offering a merit-based model, Zap ensures that all investors have an equal opportunity to participate.Website | x | Telegram | DiscordContactXiaoxiao@zap.techThis article was originally published on Chainwire More

The world’s second largest cryptocurrency was last down 6% at $3,170 in what would be its biggest daily percentage fall in three months, leaving it broadly in the middle of its recent trading range. Bitcoin was 3% lower at $63,930. The first U.S. ETFs tied to the price of ether began trading on Tuesday, but have failed to generate the bounce in the price that spot bitcoin ETFs created in bitcoin earlier in the year. Instead, broader macro trends have taken hold. Shares around the world have tumbled in recent weeks, particularly tech stocks, and other ‘risk assets’ which often move in line with crypto currencies. The Nasdaq on Wednesday, lost almost 4% – the worst one-day fall since 2022 – as lacklustre Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) earnings undermined investor confidence in the already lofty valuations of the “Magnificent Seven” stocks. [.N]Shares in crypto-related stocks such as miners fell in Thursday’s premarket, with exchange Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) down 2.3%, Riot Platforms (NASDAQ:RIOT) and Marathon Digital (NASDAQ:MARA) down 3.4-4%. European shares dropped 1.4% in early trading Thursday. More