Skip to main content

MLB Team Washington Nationals Partners With Terra Blockchain Community, Ballpark Plans to Accept UST

On February 9, the American professional baseball team based in Washington, D.C., the Washington Nationals, announced the team has partnered with Terra, the open-source blockchain platform and decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). The Washington Nationals detail that the team is a “leading innovator” and is “consistently introducing new technologies to enhance the fan experience.” Washington Nationals Ink Long-Term Deal With Terra Major League Baseball (MLB) team the Washington Nationals has partnered with the blockchain platform and DAO Terra, according to an announcement published by the team on Wednesday. The deal with Terra follows a slew of sports-related deals with crypto firms, but the MLB team will be the first to partner with an open-source blockchain project. In addition to the partnership, the algorithmic stablecoin UST that’s issued on the Terra blockchain will be “accepted as a payment method at Nationals Park as early as next season.” “The Nationals continue t...

Alchemy raises $80M to power the NFT boom as the 'AWS of blockchain'

Alchemy is the platform behind NFT marketplaces OpenSea, Nifty, and many major collections.

Blockchain developer Alchemy has announced that it has raised $80 million in a Series B round to further develop platforms that power non-fungible token marketplaces.

The funding round, announced on Wednesday, April 28, was led by technology-focused investment manager Coatue, and Addition Capital, a venture fund from American investor Lee Fixel.

Also participating in the round was the Glazer family, who own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Manchester United, and VC firm DFJ Growth which has also invested in Coinbase, SpaceX, and Stripe.

The band The Chainsmokers, and actor Jared Leto also contributed to the funding round which brings Alchemy’s valuation to $500 million. Existing backers include Pantera Capital, Coinbase, Samsung, Stanford University, and a number of high-profile individuals such as Charles Schwab, and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.

According to CNBC, Alchemy has benefited from the NFT craze as it acts as an intermediary between the blockchain itself and the apps and NTF collections that run on it. Alchemy, which launched in December 2019, has seen exponential growth of 97 times on its platform over the past eight months, and the number of companies it powers doubled in the first quarter.

The firm developed the platform that powers Dapper Labs, which in turn launched some of the most successful NFT collections to date including CryptoKitties, and the wildly popular NBA Top Shot. Alchemy was also involved with the record-breaking NFT by digital artist Beeple that sold for $69 million in March.

The firm’s developer platform aims to remove the complexity and costs of building infrastructure on top of the blockchain layer. Alchemy CTO Joe Lau compared the technology to Amazon’s AWS which is the backbone of internet cloud services:

“Every time you open DoorDash, you’re using Amazon’s infrastructure. Every time you interact with an NFT, you’re using Alchemy. It’s being powered by Alchemy underneath the hood.”

Pantera Capital’s Paul Veradittakit also described Alchemy as “the Amazon Web Services (AWS) of the blockchain industry,” that is enabling the vision of a decentralized web.

Alchemy has quickly become the technology behind many major NFT platforms, including OpenSea, Nifty Gateway, CryptoKitties, and Gods Unchained according to the official website. The company concurs with the AWS analogy, stating:

“Just as AWS provides the platform that powers Uber, Netflix, and much of the technology industry, Alchemy powers infrastructure for many large players in the blockchain industry.”

The firm plans to use the funding to support new chains with its developer platform, and expand its employee base which currently stands at a team of just 22 people.

In late March, Alchemy partnered with the Flow blockchain to expand its reach into the burgeoning NFT ecosystem.

https://ift.tt/2PBrHDg

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

MLB Team Washington Nationals Partners With Terra Blockchain Community, Ballpark Plans to Accept UST

On February 9, the American professional baseball team based in Washington, D.C., the Washington Nationals, announced the team has partnered with Terra, the open-source blockchain platform and decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). The Washington Nationals detail that the team is a “leading innovator” and is “consistently introducing new technologies to enhance the fan experience.” Washington Nationals Ink Long-Term Deal With Terra Major League Baseball (MLB) team the Washington Nationals has partnered with the blockchain platform and DAO Terra, according to an announcement published by the team on Wednesday. The deal with Terra follows a slew of sports-related deals with crypto firms, but the MLB team will be the first to partner with an open-source blockchain project. In addition to the partnership, the algorithmic stablecoin UST that’s issued on the Terra blockchain will be “accepted as a payment method at Nationals Park as early as next season.” “The Nationals continue t...

Year of sponsorships: Celebrities who embraced crypto in 2021

From Matt Damon appearing in a TV spot for Crypto.com to Kim Kardashian shilling EthereumMax, 2021 saw celebrities with higher profiles getting into crypto. Though the crypto space has seemingly moved beyond the endorsements many minor celebrities bestowed on token projects during the 2018 initial coin offering boom, its growing popularity and acceptance now has professional sports players, Hollywood elites and politicians backing major companies dealing with digital assets. In June 2021, Kim Kardashian promoted EthereumMax (EMAX) via an Instagram story shared with  her more than 200 million followers . The token, which was used as payment for online ticket purchases for some pay-per-view events, gained 116,000% in just one week following the celebrity’s activity before falling more than 99% and leaving many investors in the red. Kim Kardashian promoting EthereumMax on Instagram Stories, June 2021. Source: Instagram Though EthereumMax is somewhat of a cautionary tale for cry...

Top 3 Rebase Token Markets Shudder — Stats Show TIME, OHM, BTRFLY Lost Billions Since All-Time Highs

While the crypto economy has shed more than 3% in fiat value during the last 24 hours dropping to $2.09 trillion, the top rebase tokens by market capitalization have seen significant losses this week. At the time of writing, the rebase token economy is valued at over $3.2 billion but has lost more than 10% in value during the last 24 hours. The largest rebase token economies such as Wonderland, Olympus, and Redacted Cartel have shed between 36% to 55% over the last week. Top 3 Rebase Token Protocols Shed Billions in Value Over the Last Week, Wonderland Down 87% Since High On the first day of November 2021, Bitcoin.com News took a deep dive into the Olympus DAO and the reserve-backed asset called OHM . Olympus is a decentralized finance (defi) project that is described as a rebase token and since Olympus started, a myriad of Olympus forks have been born. Essentially, rebase token protocols adjust the token supply in a periodic fashion or when the price fluctuates. Olympus was once ...