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Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cosmos and more Week 42 2023

Keeping you updated on crypto, web3 and blockchain

TLDR: BitVM Whitepaper Release, Lightning Introduce Taproot Assets, Uniswap Adds 0.15% UI Fee on Swaps, Rysk Finance Launches Atomic Credit Spreads, Kujira Introduces Pond, Nolus Protocol Teams Up with Squid, Neutron Introduces Neutrality Upgrade & dYdX Transitions Into a Public Benefit Corporation.

This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Blockbasis:

Blockbasis scans your wallet transactions for insecure or hacked web3 dApps, making it easy to revoke access to any unsafe contracts. With Blockbasis you stay safe in web3.

Bitcoin Highlights of the Week

BitVM Whitepaper Release

BitVM proposes Turing-complete smart contracts for Bitcoin, drawing inspiration from Ethereum, igniting interest and debate in the Bitcoin community.

The U.S. Government and Bitcoin Holdings

In the world of cryptocurrencies, the U.S. government has quietly emerged as one of the largest holders of Bitcoin, accumulating a substantial sum worth over $5 billion.

Lightning Introduce Taproot Assets

Lightning Labs, a prominent player in Bitcoin's layer-2 Lightning Network, has introduced a significant development named "Taproot Assets".

Strike has announced Strike Private, where users are offered more privacy. Strike Private is targerted for their high net worth users, such as families of wealth, organisations and institutions.

UK's largest fintech bank, Revolut, has launched a new release which feature a Bitcoin symbol in the main menu which intrigue the community.

Next Bitcoin Halving is forecasted to take place: April 11th 2024. Prepare accordingly!

Ethereum Highlights of the Week

Lido Finance Prepares for Penalties

Lido Finance, by far the biggest player in the liquid staking arena, finds itself navigating a challenging landscape as it confronts substantial Ethereum slashing penalties.

Uniswap Labs add a 0.15% fee for major token swaps done with their UI. However, no fees are added for users using the protocol.

Rysk Finance now offers Atomic Credit Spreads, where users simultaneously can sell and buy option contracts with different strike prices, but same expiration date.

PoolTogether has updated to v5 on Optimism. With the update, users can now without permission enter deposits in app and swap, and prices will automatically be sent out to winners.

Amazon and Immutable Forge Alliance for Web3 Gaming

Immutable teams up with AWS to elevate the landscape of blockchain gaming. With AWS' ISV Accelerate Program, Immutable secures a position within a network of potential game studio collaborators.

Cosmos Highlights of the Week

With the introduction of Pond, Kujira provides a tool for developers to start building dApps on Kujira. With Pond, a local Kujira network with complete price feeders and scaffolds out a dApp template are created.

With Agentverse v0.12, Fetch ai bring their users a simplified storarge editor viewer, various fine-tuning improvements and reliability and performance updates.

Nolus Protocol goes live on Squid, which enables transfers between Nolus and any EVM chan easy. With Nolus DeFi Lease users can leverage up to 150%.

With the Introduction of Namada's Community Builders Program, a network of individuals and communities united around the mission to build a portal between public and private worlds are established.

Neutron introduce a Neutrality update where Duality's Binary integrates with Neutron. This means, that Neutron empowers developers to build efficient markets for any assets and replicate any AMM curve.

Other Highlights of the Week

Grab and Circle partner up to provide fee-free NFT experiences for users in Singapore. This collab utilizes Circle's Gas Station service, which allow developers to cover the gas fees associated with user transactions which reduces friction for blockchain integration.

Decentralized derivatives exchange dYdX, announces that it will transition into a public benefit corporation. By doing so, dYdX will not generate trading fee revenue from its upcoming v4 platform, and further aligns itself with the community and prioritizing public interest.

Reddit announces that it will discontinue its blockchain-based Community Points initiative. The program was aimed to reward users who positively contributed to certain subreddits. The shutdown of the program was decided in part to regulatory concerns.

This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Black Jack:

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In Black Jack there are both singleplayer and multiplayer options. Singleplayer is great for beginners to familiarise with the game, while multiplayer offers a wide range of choices:

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