Aztec Network secures $100 million in Series B funding led by a16z

The private layer-2 chain Aztec Network announced on Dec. 15 a $100 million Series B funding round led by venture capital firm a16z crypto. Other investors in the round include A Capital, King River, Variant, SV Angel, Hash Key, Fenbushu, and AVG.  By partnering with a16z, the company plans to hire new engineers and build a […]

The blockchain trilemma: Can it ever be tackled?

Blockchains must balance between offering the best secure and scalable infrastructure while still staying reasonably decentralized. Is this a realistic future for Web3?  A fundamental building block for blockchains is decentralization, a functionality that enables people to transact without the requirement of a central authority. This formed the crux of the Bitcoin (BTC) white paper […]

zkSync developer Matter Labs raises $200M, commits to open-sourcing platform

Matter Labs, the developer behind the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible zkSync, has received major industry backing as it pledges to fully open source its platform — marking the first such initiative for a ZK-rollup technology.  Matter Labs confirmed on Nov. 16 that it had closed a $200 million Series C funding round co-led by Blockchain […]

Polygon Studios’ Ryan Watt talks Web3’s core principles and fairer internet

The year 2022 in crypto was eventful in many ways. However, the negative impacts of a bear market dampened the excitement around the blockchain upgrades that significantly brought crypto ecosystems closer to the future of finance. For Bitcoin, it was the Taproot soft fork upgrade, which was aimed at improving the scripting capabilities and privacy […]

Ethereum launches testnet for Shanghai upgrade: Here’s what is next

Staked ETH withdrawal and lower gas fees are some of the developments expected with the next critical improvements for the Ethereum network, the Shanghai upgrade. The testnet version, dubbed Shandong, is now live.  Developers can now begin working on the implementations; a process expected to continue until September 2023.  This is the first major update […]

Solana outperforms Ethereum in daily transactions in Q2: Nansen report

Hype does not always equate to greater adoption, as the on-chain data from the second quarter of 2022 shows Solana (SOL) surpassing Ethereum (ETH) in users’ daily transactions despite various drawbacks from both macroeconomic conditions and network outages.  Throughout the second quarter, Solana’s daily transactions consistently increased, ending with more than 40 million daily transactions […]

1inch users on Optimism to receive airdrop of 300,000 OP tokens

Decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch is rewarding users with free tokens for their participation on Optimism — a move the organization says will further incentivize activity on the Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution. The exchange aggregator announced Tuesday that it would equally distribute 300,000 OP tokens among its most active wallets and regular users on Optimism through […]