Category: Blockchain

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Australia Blockchain Crypto News DAO DeFi Immutable X Maple NFTs Synthetix

Australian Web3 Ecosystem Is Growing Fast, Driven By Crypto and Blockchain Technology

The Australian Web3 ecosystem has grown immensely over the past couple of years and is driven by cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

The emergence of NFTs, DeFi, and decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) has expanded the space. The days of ICO token raises have been superseded by building meaningful communities. Notable communities/projects in the space include Immutable, Synthetix, Sigma Prime, Maple Finance, and DAOunder, all of which have helped garner increasing interest in the ecosystem.

Australia web3 economy. Source: crypblizz

The branding surrounding Web3 has made the space more inviting than the nuanced word ‘crypto’ would have suggested a few years ago.

Aussie Blockchain History in Brief

  • pre-bitcoin 1970 -2000s: cypherpunk movement;
  • 2009 – 2013: the birth of Bitcoin and underground knowledge of the space;
  • 2014 – 2016: Ethereum launches and early adopters spring up;
  • 2017 – 2018: ICO boom and an influx of capital and interest;
  • 2018 – 2020: ‘DeFi Summer’, where projects started to build the foundations for decentralised finance;
  • 2021: NFTs, DeFi and DAO boom interest; and
  • 2022: who knows?

The following categories summarise the activities within the Australian Web3 ecosystem:

Communities/DAOs

These form the backbone that brings people together, and with recent events, many communities have moved online to Discord. In-person events such as Blockchain Week show that people are willing to meet in real life again. By bringing it all together, people feel a sense of community and the ecosystem grows accordingly.

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)/Gaming

NFTs took 2021 by storm and a lot of people are forking out vast amounts of money for expensive JPEGs. However, a lot of great Aussie projects such as Immutable, which was recently valued at US$3.5 billion, and Illuvium have also been making waves in the Web3 ecosystem.

Decentralised Finance (DeFi)

DeFi is such a vast category that it can be been broken down into the following:

  • Layer 1 blockchains: Fantom, Algorand, ThorChain;
  • Finance layer: Synthetix, Ren Protocol, Maple Finance, Zeta Markets and Drift;
  • Infrastructure: Rocket Pool, Chainflip, Sigma Prime; and
  • Identity: ArcX and BronID.

Venture Capital

Over the past two years, traditional Web2 funds have been spinning off an extra allocation into the space. Airtree, for example, launched a US$50 million Web3 fund, which is a very healthy sign for the growth of this sector.

Media

The right kind of media is essential in this growing space, with click-bait schemes popping up left, right and centre. Influencers who are voicing their opinions in this space can be invaluable.

Legal/Regulatory/Government

Bodies like Blockchain Australia are helping form relationships and policies within the ecosystem. Collaboration between these associations and regulatory bodies will accelerate the adoption process.

Exchanges and Retail Investors

Retail investors use these exchange platforms to enter the Web3 markets. BTC Markets, Independent Reserves, Coinjar and Coinstop are some of the first Australian native exchanges.

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Blockchain Crypto News Markets Tokens Waves

WAVES Protocol is Making Waves, Surging 70% Amid News of US Launch

The price of the Waves blockchain’s token (WAVES) has surged over 70 percent following the March 28 launch of Waves Labs, a US-based organisation tasked with supercharging Waves ecosystem’s growth globally.

According to CoinGecko, WAVES’ value jumped from US$31.80 to US$54 in the 24 hours following the announcement. Since then it’s continued to increase, at the time of writing sitting at US$57.14 – a new all-time high.

Waves Labs to Boost Awareness and Adoption

Waves Labs, which will be headquartered in Miami, US, will spearhead expansion of the Waves ecosystem by pursuing aggressive marketing and hiring strategies and by supporting Waves-based projects with mentoring and funding grants.

Waves founder Sasha Ivanov was optimistic that Waves Labs would further boost the ecosystem despite the network having recently seen record growth, stating:

Waves Labs is a key component of the Waves plan to grow exponentially in 2022. Despite a period of record growth of our ecosystem, Waves remains relatively unknown in the US crypto space. With the founding of Waves Labs, the ecosystem fund, and the extremely talented team in place, I do not doubt that Waves will reach mass adoption in 2022 and beyond. 

Sasha Ivanov, founder, Waves

New Team Brings Crypto Experience

Waves Labs also announced its newly hired senior leadership team, which includes:

  • Aleks Rubin as head of US Operations;
  • Coleman Maher, who previously led business development at Origin Protocol, as head of Ecosystem;
  • Jack Booth, former product marketing lead at Oasis Protocol, as Marketing Lead; and
  • Tiffany Phan as VP of Finance and Operations. 

US head Rubin said: “I am excited to lead this dynamic team as we expand visibility and enhance the utilisation of Waves protocol in the North American market.”

US Launch Follows Bullish Period 

The launch of Waves Labs follows a recent run of bullish news for the network, starting in February of this year: the migration to Waves 2.0; the launch of a US$150 million fund to support Waves-based dApps; and its partnership with Allbridge to facilitate cross-chain interoperability. 

In addition, the total value locked in the Waves ecosystem has boomed recently. In particular, Neutrino – a Waves-based multi-assetisation protocol – has exploded, seeing its total value locked increase over 300 percent in the past month to a new all-time high of US$4.36 billion, including inflows of almost US$450 million in a single day.

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Blockchain BNB Crypto News GameFi Gaming Metaverse

BNB Chain to Launch Application-Specific Sidechains to Reduce Network Strain 

BNB Chain is on the move to add application-specific sidechains to the blockchain to help with scalability and streamline data-heavy applications like gaming and the metaverse.

BNB Chain, formerly known as Binance Smart Chain (BSC), the Layer 1 solution developed by Binance, will start including sidechains to improve its scalability. Similar to Polkadot’s (DOT) parachains, these BNB Chain Application Sidechains (BAS) aim to cut costs and increase the speed of transactions for resource-intense applications such as gaming, SocialFi, and the metaverse.

Binance Labs – the core development team of BNB Chain – has yet to reveal all the technical details. However, the possibility has been ruled out that these sidechains become equal layer 1 blockchains, which is the case with parachains.

A BNB Chain spokesperson told The Block:

The BAS is an infrastructure introduced to help developers and node operators build and run their own blockchain as their internal value system for a massive number of users while still maintaining a close connection with BNB Chain.

BNB spokesperson

It’s All About the Use Case

The point of application-specific sidechains is to allow each chain to focus on a specific use case. According to the BNB spokesperson, the sidechains will host BNB-compatible dApps and will be able to operate independently of the mainnet – allowing teams to customise for their own security needs, instead of relying on the mainnet.

Sidechains to Open Doors for Large-Scale Applications

A valid comparison to BAS is Ronin, a sidechain on Ethereum dedicated solely to Axie Infinity’s play-to-earn game. Similarly, the very first BAS testnet will focus on GameFi, according to the BNB spokesperson.

BNB Chain ecosystem coordinator Samy Karim has mentioned previously that “BNB Chain will embrace large-scale applications, including GameFi, SocialFi and the Metaverse. In particular, scaling from one chain to multi-chain, improving scaling solutions and expanding the validator set of BSC from 21 to 41 (with 20 validators functioning as candidate block producers).”

Binance has been making various moves as of late, from acquiring traditional businesses and bringing them into the crypto space to now adding sidechains to facilitate specific use cases. The centralised giant may still have a big role to play in the crypto space.

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Australia Blockchain Crypto News

ASX Blockchain Upgrade Delayed for the Fourth Time

The Australian Securities Exchange’s (ASX) Clearing House Electronic Sub-Register System (CHESS) has been delayed yet again. The fourth setback for the blockchain-based upgrade is being blamed on the firm building the software, and is believed to have already cost A$187 million.

https://www2.asx.com.au/markets/clearing-and-settlement-services/chess-replacement
An updated clearing and settlement system is planned for CHESS. Source: ASX

Another Delayed ASX Upgrade

Thanks to this latest setback, the ASX’s data warehouse is reportedly facing “several months of delay”. It was initially scheduled to go live in 2023, but this latest news is placing a lot of doubt on the timeline.  

https://www2.asx.com.au/about/our-board-and-management/our-executive-team

We recognise the impact these changes will have on our customers’ programming activities and apologise for the inconvenience.

Tim Hogben, ASX group executive

It is unlikely that accreditation schedules can begin until July or August of this year at the earliest. The ASX is shifting the blame for the delay to Digital Asset, the company developing the world’s first industrial-scale use of this technology.

Past ASX Blockchain Developments

In August 2020, the ASX looked to upgrade CHESS sooner than originally expected due to an increase in market pressure. However, in July of 2021, it was reported that ASX brokers were spending millions to adapt to the new blockchain-based upgrade, with CHESS making it difficult for SAFAA (Stockbrokers and Financial Advisors Association) members to interact.

Finally, the first of the Industry Test Environments (ITE1) for CHESS opened in December 2021. At the time it was a major step toward the final version of the system, which was set to go live next year.

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Blockchain Crypto News Markets OriginTrail

OriginTrail (TRAC) Soars 150% After Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Deal

TRAC, the native token for the OriginTrail network, has soared 150 percent following the rollout of its AidTrust pharmaceutical supply chain tracking system in more than 80 Indian treatment centres, and the launch of an upgrade on its testnet.

According to CoinGecko, the price of TRAC surged from a recent low of US$0.37 on March 16 to a high of US$0.90 on March 23. Over the same timeframe, 24-hour trading volume exploded from just over US$1 million to around US$30 million.

Supply Chain Tracking System Drives Price Action

The launch of AidTrust, a pharmaceutical supply chain tracking and tracing system developed in partnership with British-based BSI Group, has been a major driver of TRAC’s current price action:

The project aims to bring transparency and trust to medicine and vaccine supply chains. It is being rolled out in hospitals and treatment centres in India with plans to bring the system to more than 40 additional countries.

What is OriginTrail?

OriginTrail isn’t actually a blockchain – it’s a set of protocols run on a decentralised network of nodes that can augment blockchain functionality by enabling trusted data sharing between organisations and blockchains. 

Using OriginTrail, information from disparate sources – including different blockchains and oracles – can be shared and secured in what is known as a decentralised knowledge graph, which is searchable. It’s like a Google for blockchains.

The TRAC token functions as both collateral to ensure the accuracy and immutability of data and as a form of payment to compensate data holders for the use of their resources.

Origin Trail v6 Launched on Testnet

A second important driver of the price increases was the testnet launch on March 10 of OriginTrail v6, the latest version of the decentralised knowledge graph protocol. This update introduces a range of new features which aim to bring enhanced ‘Google-like’ capabilities to Web3:

The latest upgrade also significantly improves the scalability and performance of OriginalTrail. Following a thorough testing phase, OriginTrail v6 will launch on mainnet later in the year:

Blockchain-based supply chain tracking systems similar to OriginTrail, such as the Australian-based Security Matters, saw significant interest earlier in the Covid pandemic as transparency and trust within vaccine handling supply chains became a major point of concern.

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Blockchain Cardano Hydra Tokens

Cardano Exploring Token Burning Mechanism Similar to Ethereum

The latest roadmap status update from Cardano suggests the blockchain may be investigating adding some form of token burning functionality, a feature that was added to Ethereum last year as part of the London hard fork update.

The Cardano update, released on its website on March 18, was vague about what is planned in terms of token burning, simply saying it was an option under consideration by the Hydra Team:

Finally, they inspected the options of token minting and burning within a Hydra Head along with scenarios of using tokens instead of datums.

Cardano status update

Confusion About Token Burning

The mention of token burning in this update was taken by some in the crypto industry to signal that Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson had dropped his known, long-standing opposition to token burning on the blockchain:

However, close followers of Cardano emphasised that the update stated token minting and burning may be coming to the Cardano layer-2 scaling solution Hydra, not the main Cardano blockchain itself:

Hydra is a layer-2 scaling solution for Cardano currently under development. Matthias Benkort, a Cardano software engineer, describes it as “an off-chain mini-ledger between a restricted set of participants, which works similarly (albeit significantly quicker) to the on-chain main ledger”.

Token burning being restricted to Hydra implies that the overall supply of ADA, Cardano’s native token, won’t be reduced and therefore won’t cause upward price pressure for ADA investors.

Hoskinson Attempts to Clarify

Hoskinson himself weighed in on the debate, retweeting a suggestion that Cardano is exploring token burning on its main blockchain and adding a GIF of an exasperated-looking Jackie Chan to express his frustration with the confusion:

Across the broader crypto market, token burning functionality has been implemented on many blockchains as a deflationary mechanism in order to increase token price. Last year, Binance burnt over 1.3 million BNB, at the time valued at almost US$400 million, in one of its quarterly token burns.

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Australia Blockchain Crypto Art NFTs

Australian Indigenous Yolngu Artists Are Entering the NFT Space 

Indigenous Australian artists are digitising their work as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to create a new stream of income and share their art on a global marketplace.

Artists from the Yolngu nation in the secluded East Arnhem Land of northern Australia are world-renowned for their drawings connected to nature. For the first time, these artists are venturing into the crypto space by minting their artworks as NFTs.

According to Chainalysis, US$44.2 billion worth of cryptocurrency was sent to ERC-721 and ERC-1155 contracts in 2021 – the typical NFT standards on Solana and Ethereum – and these Australian artists will be accessing a piece of the pie. Blockchain technology will also aid with the copyright of artworks from their community as well as create a new stream of income for local artists.

Preserving Indigenous Art and Culture with Blockchain

The project is being funded by venture capitalist Mark Carnegie and artists from the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka art centre in Yirrkala who will be creating NFTs. The bark paintings of one of the artists, Wukun Wanambi, have been sold all over the world. “I like to try new things, a new way of sharing art to the world,” says Wanambi, whose digitised artworks now being sold online.

Yolngu artist Ishmael Marika. Source: abc.net.au

These works can also be digitally stored and preserved for future generations to appreciate. One of the goals of the project, according to Joseph Brady, the art centre’s Mulka Project director, is to buy more physical work so it can remain in the Yolngu community.

If enough of these are sold, Mulka’s portion of that will go to buying that piece for the museum here […] So the work will stay here at the museum within the community.

Joseph Brady, director, Mulka Project

Sharing Culture

Ishmael Marika, one of the younger accomplished Yolngu artists, hopes that digitising his art will help protect it against forgery and become an asset he can monetise. “We want more of my clan and our tribes to show themselves to the world, so the world can see [us] and carry on our stories,” Marika says.

What is the Yolngu Art Culture? 

The art the Yolngu make represents their clan and all of nature. It is a unique part of their culture, which is why these artists are opting for NFTs. The use case for NFTs as a method to preserve indigenous art and knowledge over a decentralised network makes it a resilient method to keep safe the world’s cultural information.

The designs used by Yolngu artists, whether on paper, bark, ḻarrakitj (hollow logs), or on the body in ceremonial mode, reflect each artist’s clan and country. They are an expression of connection to family, country and to the Wangarr, or period of ancestral creativity. To learn more about the Yolngu art practice, click here.

Last month, the Aboriginal Yidindji Nation launched its own central bank digital currency (CBDC), making it the first indigenous nation on the Australian continent to become fully digitised.

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Blockchain Crypto News NFTs

Spotify Job Ads Hint At Move Towards Web 3.0

News that Spotify is looking to hire staff with Web3 expertise suggests the music streaming behemoth is preparing to defend its turf against blockchain music startups such as Royal, Catalog and Sound.XYZ, all three of which intend to sell music directly to fans as NFTs.

In two job vacancies posted online, Spotify is seeking a senior backend engineer who will “facilitate collaboration with product, insights, and design to uncover the next growth opportunity leveraging new technologies like Web3”, as well as a senior manager to form part of its Innovation and Market Intelligence team. Candidates for the latter position require “expert familiarity with emerging trends”, specifically Web3.

Musicians have increasingly looked to NFT technology as a way to boost their income from selling music, complaining that the streaming subscription model of services such as Spotify has lowered their earnings compared to potential sales of digital files as proposed by the blockchain music startups.

Spotify a ‘Business Model for Ants’

The NFT startups argue that Spotify’s system is a “business model for ants”. Musicians could earn way more, they suggest, by selling works directly to fans as NFTs.

Startup Sound.XYZ intends to sell music directly to fans as NFTs. Source: Sound.XYZ

Another reason Spotify appears to be expediting its Web3 plans is that YouTube confirmed its Web3 intentions in February, citing the technology’s “incredible potential” for content creators through the use of blockchain technology and NFTs.

Just this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed NFTs were coming to Instagram. Zuckerberg did not commit to a specific date but said users would “hopefully” be able to mint NFTs in the next few months.

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Blockchain Ethereum Polygon

Polygon Employs Temporary ‘Hotfix’ as Upgrade Causes 11-Hour Outage

Layer-2 Ethereum scaling solution Polygon was down for over 11 hours last week after an earlier network upgrade inadvertently introduced a bug, which disrupted the network’s consensus layer:

On March 10, Polygon notified users via its online forum that the network would be down from 5:50PM UTC to allow developers to correct the bug. The network was brought back online approximately 11 hours later after the Polygon team deployed a hotfix to address the bug.

Bug Prevented Network Consensus

As explained by the Polygon development team, the bug resulted in different Heimdall validators – part of Polygon’s consensus layer – being on different versions of the blockchain, which prevented the network from achieving 2/3 consensus, and in turn caused the entire blockchain to stop producing blocks.

Although still under investigation by the team, we suspect there may have been a bug in the upgrade which affected consensus, and caused different Heimdall validators to be on different versions of the chain, thereby not reaching 2/3 consensus. When using Tendermint consensus, this situation will cause the Heimdall chain to halt.

Team Polygon

Hotfix Partially Restores Network Functionality

In a forum post to announce the hotfix, the Polygon team explained that the Polygon Bridge – the functionality which allows users to make Ethereum transactions using Polygon to sidestep high Ethereum gas fees – would not be functional until a full update was applied at a later date:

“Kindly note, with this temporary hotfix, Polygon Bridge will not be active/available until we deploy the final solution.”

Outage Raises Concerns

Although users were notified of the outage in advance, many began expressing their concerns as it dragged on far longer than expected:

Only last December, Polygon experienced another critical bug which put over US$24 billion worth of tokens at risk. Polygon is by no means the only major blockchain experiencing uptime issues recently – for example, Solana has seen several significant outages since December.

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Airdrop Blockchain Cosmos Crypto Wallets DeFi

Users Left Fuming After Evmos’ Cosmos Cross Chain Fails to Launch

Evmos, a layer-1 blockchain compatible with EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) built on Cosmos, is facing a community backlash after the protocol failed to launch this week due to numerous bugs found on the network.

The launch of the Evmos mainnet, which came with a rather ambitious token airdrop, was highly anticipated by the Cosmos and Ethereum communities as it allowed cross-chain transfer between the two blockchains.

Critical Security Bug Halts Network

But it seems the launch was riddled with gremlins. Two days before the launch, a “critical security bug” was found on the network, which rushed validators to implement a fix improperly and subsequently caused a network halt:

Users were reporting problems related to hardware and software wallet integrations, which were apparently higher than the network was able to handle. On top of this, some users were claiming a “lack of organisation” and numerous delays surrounding the launch of the mainnet:

The team behind Evmos said developers and validators were reportedly still working on the matter and unable to reach a consensus on the next steps for the protocol.

Launch Suspended Till Further Notice

The backlash forced the Evmos team to suspend the launch for an undetermined number of days to address the community’s concerns, and that the network would be reviewed internally via a postmortem:

Evmos Responds to Backlash

While the community backlash was rather harsh for Evmos, some other users were supportive of the response from the Evmos team to handle the issues and give clarity to its community.

Some other DeFi projects are the opposite, however. Such was the case in January with the cross-chain bridge Multichain when it lost over US$3 million through a security hack. The protocol was sending “mixed messages”, stating the issue had been fixed, but it later reminded users to revoke approvals of the token.