ReportWire

Tag: Polygon (Matic Network)

  • Polymarket Seeking $50M New Funding, Plans Token Launch: Report 

    Polymarket Seeking $50M New Funding, Plans Token Launch: Report 

    According to a Sept. 23 report by tech outlet The Information citing ‘people familiar with the matter,’ the blockchain prediction platform is in talks to raise $50 million in funding.

    The New York-based company is also considering issuing its own token to run its betting market, with potential funding round investors receiving warrants to buy these coins, according to the report.

    Polymarket would use the token “as a way for users to validate the outcome of real-world events.” If it goes ahead, it would be one of the most “high-profile token debuts” since the 2022 bear market, it added.

    Polymarket Growth Surges

    Polymarket previously raised $70 million in two funding rounds, including a $45 million Series B led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.

    The platform is particularly popular for U.S. presidential election betting, with nearly $1 billion staked on this event representing 85% of its volume. It has also been used to bet on Taylor Swift’s engagement prospects and Superbowl Winners.

    The platform uses layer-2 blockchain technology from Polygon and oracle services from UMA Protocol and settles bets in the USDC stablecoin. However, due to regulatory restrictions, Polymarket blocks U.S. IP addresses, though some users reportedly bypass this using VPNs.

    US regulators are not happy with the platform, however. CFTC Chairman Rostin Benham has previously warned about offshore election-betting platforms serving U.S. customers, implying potential regulatory action.

    Polymarket has seen significant growth, with monthly trading volume reaching $472 million in August, according to Dune Analytics. It is on track to break that record for September, which has already seen $400 million.

    Moreover, monthly volumes have surged by 774% since the beginning of this year. Monthly active traders on the platform have already peaked at 64,524 in September.

    Crypto Funding Ticks Up

    According to DeFiLlama, there was $634 million in crypto funding in August. This represents a gain of 130% over the same month in 2023.

    However, crypto venture funding remains down from its peak at the end of 2021, when more than $3 billion was invested in blockchain startups every month.

    Two of this month’s larger raises were for DeFi “superapp” LogX, which raised $4 million, and cross-chain liquidity platform Prime Protocol, which raised $1.25 million.

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  • This Network Had as Many Users as Ethereum in 2023: Flipside Data

    This Network Had as Many Users as Ethereum in 2023: Flipside Data

    Polygon, a layer-2 scaling network, nearly matched Ethereum’s user base in 2023, as reported by blockchain analytics firm Flipside.

    Polygon acquired 15.24 million users that year, coming close to Ethereum’s 15.4 million, with a difference of around 160,000 wallets.

    Polygon Topped User Acquisition in First Half of 2023

    Flipside defines an “acquired” user as someone who engaged in at least two transactions on a specific blockchain, with at least one occurring in 2023. During the first half of 2023, Polygon led the user acquisition race but was later surpassed by Ethereum, maintaining its lead throughout the latter part of the year.

    In January, Polygon achieved a remarkable milestone with 2.8 million acquired users, constituting over 40% of the total number for 2023, according to Flipside. Ethereum secured the lead for the entire year, while Bitcoin claimed the third position with 10.65 million acquired users. Solana and Arbitrum completed the top five rankings.

    The aggregated data from the eight tracked blockchains, including Optimism (OP), Avalanche (AVAX), and Base (BASE), revealed a total of 62 million acquired users. Flipside observed that user acquisition peaked in May but gradually declined afterward.

    Notably, Flipside suggested a connection between the surge in acquired users starting in March and the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. The event potentially eroded confidence in centralized entities, prompting a shift towards decentralized custody alternatives.

    Base, launched in August, also exhibited a strong start, but its user volume dwindled in the final months of 2023. Flipside speculated that the waning user growth for Base might be attributed to renewed enthusiasm for more established chains towards the end of the year.

    Flipside Predicts Trends for 2024

    In its predictions for future trends, Flipside observed a decline in NFT-related activities and a shift towards decentralized finance (DeFi) activities during 2023. Anticipating the upcoming cycle, Flipside suggested that DeFi activities would continue to dominate, surpassing the prominence of NFT trading.

    Specifically, it highlighted decentralized exchange (DEX) trading and yield farming as ongoing predominant applications while also forecasting the emergence of new DeFi applications like the Ethereum restaking protocol Eigenlayer.

    According to Flipside, user behavior in 2024 is expected to involve increased interaction with multiple blockchain networks, although most users will likely stick to engaging with a single chain.

    The prediction further emphasized a growing trend of user interaction with Layer 2 networks in the coming year.

    Despite being a minority in 2023, users with more than one blockchain predominantly interacted with Layer 2s. Flipside speculated that rising transaction fees during the next crypto market bull run could lead Layer 2 networks to lower their costs for end users competitively, potentially driving increased interest in associated governance tokens.

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  • Polygon CDK Expansion Takes Precedence as Edge Contributions Cease

    Polygon CDK Expansion Takes Precedence as Edge Contributions Cease

    Polygon Labs has discontinued contributions to its Edge platform which is designed to build custom Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks.

    This decision reflects the company’s plans to prioritize the expansion of the Polygon Chain Development Kit (CDK), the open-source development toolkit for building ZK-powered Layer 2 chains on Ethereum for both Web3 projects and Web2 enterprises.

    Polygon CDK Set to Take Center Stage

    In the official announcement, Polygon Labs – the developer behind the Polygon blockchain ecosystem – said that Edge has been an open-source project. Its code base is licensed under the permissive Apache License 2.0, which enables the community to use the software for any purpose, distribute, and modify it.

    However, there has been a change in the team’s development priorities over the past year.

    Rather than developing with Edge, the emphasis will now shift towards CDK, Polygon’s toolkit for designing and launching zero knowledge-powered Layer 2 chains. CDX has emerged as a preferred solution for both Web2 and Web3 players. Chains deployed through the CDK are expected to exhibit interoperability across an extensive network.

    “The landscape in which Edge was developed has changed and Polygon Labs now supports a solution that empowers developers to build within a (future) unified ecosystem of ZK-powered L2s.”

    Polygon’s ZK Push

    Polygon Labs has already started doubling down its efforts towards zero-knowledge (ZK) since the beginning of the year. In March, they introduced Polygon zkEVM, a novel Ethereum-compatible network empowered by zero-knowledge technology. Following this, the team has actively been seeking blockchain developers to adopt “Polygon CDK,” serving as a framework for creating new layer-2 networks modeled after the initial technology.

    Companies and initiatives that confirmed leveraging Polygon CDK comprise Flipkart, Immutable, OKX, Astar, Canto, Gnosis Pay, Palm Network, Aavegotchi, CapX, Wirex, IDEX, Nubank, GameSwift, Powerloom, Manta Network.

    In the future, Polygon Labs said the chains deployed through Polygon CDK will seamlessly interoperate within an extended network of zero-knowledge-powered Layer 2s in the Polygon CDK ecosystem, forming a unified liquidity pool. These functionalities are not inherently supported by Edge and require a migration involving substantial modifications.

    The focus is also on the much-anticipated Polygon 2.0 upgrade that seeks to establish a comprehensive network of interconnected Layer 2 chains powered by ZK proofs.

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