Protocol Village: Stripchain, Intent-Based Interoperability Protocol, Raises $10M

May 22: Stripchain, an intent-based interoperability protocol developed by Silent Research Labs on the principle of chain abstraction, has raised $10.1 million. Key investors include Sora Ventures and Messari's Ryan Selkis, according to the team: "Using StripVM technology, it simplifies cross-domain communication for developers, allowing seamless application interactions. Stripchain has launched an internal testnet, plans public access in Q2 2024, and is expanding its team to further innovate in the blockchain interoperability sector."

May 22: NEAR, a layer-1 blockchain, outlined a "masterplan" from co-founder Illia Polosukhin for the project to become "the home for user-owned AI and the best place to build and incubate new AI projects," according to the team: "To achieve this the foundation will invest significant resources in: Compute and inference infrastructure to ensure that Open Source models are available to millions of people; Data infrastructure that rewards creators; and Agentic infrastructure, allowing millions and even billions of AI agents to interact onchain." (NEAR)

May 22: Intentable.io (formerly Kirobo), is launching a marketplace to bridge the gap between Intent builders and users, according to the team: "The main problem lies in the complexity of the industry, with many protocols, each having its own rules and methods. The Intentable.io platform provides the ability to automate and execute complicated actions such as Hedging, De-Pegging Protection, trading commands and more, with a simple and friendly interface."

May 22: Lightspeed Faction, a blockchain venture capital firm, has announced a $7.7 million Series A investment in WeatherXM AG, a core contributor to the WeatherXM Network. According to the team: "WeatherXM Network is a community-powered DePIN weather network that provides accurate and hyper-local weather data to Web2 and Web3 enterprises utilizing their weather stations. On Thursday, May 30, the network’s token, $WXM, will be tradable on Uniswap v3, Gate.io and Bitmart.com, among others, and station owners will be allowed to collect daily rewards and accumulated beta rewards on the Arbitrum mainnet (currently on Arbitrum Sepolia)."

May 22: Zeal, an Ethereum-compatible self-custodial wallet, launched a browser extension, mobile app and what it claims is the world’s first self-custodial Visa® card, with Gnosis Pay. According to the team: "For the first time, users can pay with crypto and access DeFi using a single wallet. Created by former Revolut employees, including Hannes Graah, former VP of growth, Zeal combines neobank user-friendliness with DeFi. Available as a browser extension and mobile app, the Zeal wallet supports both on-chain and everyday crypto payments.

EasyA Consensus Hackathon - Call for Participants

This year, Consensus is hosting its first ever in-person hackathon together with the world's number 1 Web3 learning app, EasyA. This will be a three-day, multi-chain IRL hackathon with world-class sponsors from Sui to Stellar to Polkadot and beyond, and will attract the world’s best developers to build the future of Web3 and raise funding for their projects.

Projects launched by EasyA alumni are valued at over $2.5 billion. The EasyA Consensus hackathon is going to be 2024's most important hackathon yet.

We have a few remaining spots left for hackers, so if you're excited about participating, make sure you sign up here!

May 22: EOS Network Foundation announced that the "Antelope Spring Beta-1" update has launched on the Jungle testnet, "introducing significant advancements in the EOS Network with the new Savanna consensus algorithm, which enhances transaction finality speed by over 100 times," according to the team: "This update also includes advanced cryptographic techniques for improved security and privacy, such as aggregate BLS signatures and zero-knowledge proof systems. The blockchain architecture has been reconfigured to separate the roles of Block Proposers and Block Finalizers, improving network governance and efficiency." (EOS)

May 22: Casper Labs, a project for AI governance technologies, unveiled Prove AI, "an AI governance solution that enhances transparency and auditability for AI training data." According to a press release: "With support from IBM Consulting, Prove AI was built on the Casper blockchain and directly integrates with IBM’s watsonx.governance platform. This solution is crucial at a time when businesses are seeking to comply with new AI regulations such as the EU AI Act and California's AI Accountability Act."

May 22: Kelp DAO, a liquid restaking platform, closed a $9 million private sale led by SCB Limited and Laser Digital (Digital asset arm of Nomura Global), according to the team: "Kelp DAO is building off $850 million in TVL and more than 40,000 active restakers on the platform. The funds will be utilized to enhance the platform's capabilities, expand to other ecosystems like Solana, Bitcoin and BNB Chain, enable native restaking on Kelp from Bitcoin L2s, and further innovate restaking solutions."

May 22: OKX Ventures announced a strategic investment in Monad Labs, which is developing a "developer-forward smart contract platform that is poised to revolutionize the decentralized digital landscape," according to the team: "Monad Labs, a leader in innovation, offers a revolutionary platform that scales Ethereum by 1,000x through parallel execution and superscalar pipelining of Ethereum transactions."

May 22: StarkWare, the main developer firm behind the layer-2 blockchain Starknet, shared Wednesday plans for its own zero-knowledge rollup compatible with the existing Ethereum infrastructure, a setup commonly known as a zkEVM. The zkEVM, called Kakarot, already in testing, will be available via the Starknet Stack, a set of software tools that make it easier for developers to spin up their own customized application-specific chains.

May 22: Uphold, a Web3 financial platform, announced the integration of Uphold’s Institutional OTC trading platform, Uphold Ascent, with Talos, a provider of institutional digital assets trading technology, according to the team: "The integration adds a deep source of liquidity to the Talos Provider Network and expands access to digital assets for institutions. Through this collaboration, institutions leveraging the Talos platform can gain access to Uphold Ascent's execution services, which supports more than 280 digital assets."

Protocol Village is a regular feature of The Protocol, our weekly newsletter exploring the tech behind crypto, one block at a time. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Wednesday. Project teams can submit updates here. For previous versions of Protocol Village, please go here. Also please check out our weekly The Protocol podcast.

May 21: Sui Foundation, supporting the Sui blockchain built around the Move smart-contracts language, announced the successful testnet deployment of Mysticeti, "a new consensus protocol that reduces consensus time on Sui by 80% to 390 ms, making it the fastest consensus layer in the industry," according to the team: "Developed from deep research into Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) consensus mechanisms, Mysticeti represents an advancement from Narwhal-Bullshark, the consensus algorithms Sui launched into its Mainnet. The enhancement optimizes resource use, decreasing complexity for developers and allowing the Sui network to handle tens of thousands of transactions per second with latencies well below one second." A research paper on Mysticeti is here.

May 21: Fetch.ai, building decentralized infrastructure for AI agents, launched "Fetch Recruitment," an AI-agent based platform automating the hiring process, "freeing HR professionals from mundane tasks to focus on finding the best talent," according to the team. "Key features include: Efficient Screening and Unbiased Hiring. Integrations include DeepGram (speech-to-text), ElevenLabs (text-to-speech), OpenAI GPT-4 (job descriptions) and pdf.ai (resume screenings)."

May 21: Morpho, an Ethereum-compatible noncustodial lending protocol, is deploying on the U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase's layer-2 network, Base, "reducing gas costs by roughly 150x and enabling new optimizations, products and integrations previously cost-prohibitive on Ethereum," according to the team: "This is Morpho's first expansion beyond Ethereum, marking a significant step towards enhancing DeFi accessibility and scalability. Reduced transaction costs will drive growth in the Morpho ecosystem, making DeFi participation more cost-effective and broadening Morpho's reach in the DeFi space by attracting new users and strengthening its presence."

Farcaster, a blockchain-based social-media project, has secured $150 million in a fundraising round led by Paradigm, with participation from a16z, Haun, USV, Variant and Standard Crypto, according to a post by founder Dan Romero. "This will support our work on Farcaster for many years to come," Romero wrote Tuesday in an update. He added that the project was hiring staff-level engineers.

May 21: LayerZero is integrating T3id, "a P2P digital identity platform from Trident3 that provides seamless authentication across any app or platform connected to LayerZero," according to the team: "This infrastructure-level integration enables generative AI modeling to personalize customer experiences based on those identities, as well as boosting security by mitigating unauthorized access and fraudulent transactions with digital fingerprints."

May 21: Humanity Protocol, a decentralized identity project that recently raised $30 million, has partnered with the messaging protocol and interoperability project LayerZero, "to enhance trust, security, and user verification across 50+ blockchains," according to the team: "This integration combines LayerZero's interoperability protocol with Humanity Protocol's Proof of Humanity system, ensuring authenticity, privacy and fraud prevention. This marks a significant step toward a secure, user-centric decentralized future."

May 21: Gnosis unveiled "Metri," an on-chain self-custodial wallet operating within the Gnosis ecosystem allowing a wider set of users to access a realm of decentralized finance applications, according to the team: "Built on the Gnosis Chain, Metri presents users with a gateway to a more open financial ecosystem, emphasizing self-custody, open access and effortless management of assets. Leveraging Smart Account Foundations built on battle-tested Safe smart contracts, Metri will grant users access to a suite of platforms including Gnosis Pay, Circles and CoW."

May 21: Livepeer, a video infrastructure network for live and on-demand streaming, announced its "AI subnet" launch, "a fork of the main Livepeer protocol that enables hardware providers to earn fees for processing AI inference and AI compute jobs," at Berlin Blockchain Week, according to the team: "The subnet is a fork of the main Livepeer network, which enables the new AI capabilities while still using the Livepeer protocol for discovery and payments. As the usage of generative AI increases, there’s a commensurate need for more adaptable, dynamic access to AI compute capabilities for builders, creators and developers to innovate at a reasonable cost – compute that's not owned by Big Tech."

May 21: COTI V2, describing itself as a "privacy-centric layer 2 on Ethereum," unveiled its devnet, featuring Garbled Circuits, "an innovation that offers blockchain privacy 1,000x faster and 250x more efficient than current solutions," according to the team: "COTI V2 aims to enhance privacy across various applications. Developers can utilize familiar tools like Solidity and join the builders program, which provides grants and resources to foster privacy-centric applications." The project white paper is here, with an "introduction to garbling protocols."

May 21 (PROTOCOL VILLAGE EXCLUSIVE): Common, a multi-chain DeFi suite built on privacy-focused L1 Aleph Zero, has launched Common AMM, according to the team. "Common operates as an order book, natively integrated with a shielded token pool, thus providing anonymity to its users. Through the integration of zk-SNARKs, order batching, and Multiparty Computation (MPC), Common allows to conceal also the values in orders. This feature, paired with users never leaving the shielded pool when utilizing Common, provides a high level of privacy," according to a paper published on the web site "Cryptology ePrint Archive."

May 21: Pseudonymous crypto sleuth Ogle has witnessed plenty of failures while investigating DeFi hacks. He's part of a cottage industry of security experts who clean up the mess from attackers targeting crypto-finance projects almost daily. That ethos is one of the pillars behind Ogle's upcoming blockchain, called Glue. It plans to fund a security blanket that raises the stakes for black hats and – hopefully – prompts them to take their heisting elsewhere.

May 21: Hong Kong-based crypto custodian Hex Trust Group has issued USDX, a new stablecoin on layer-1 blockchain Flare. USDX becomes the first native stablecoin on Flare as the blockchain gears up for a boost in decentralized finance (DeFi) activity. It will be available to use across lending protocols and exchanges and will also feature staking mechanism to a dedicated T-Pool, which is created by decentralized credit marketplace Clearpool. Press release is here.

May 21: SKALE Labs, the foundation behind SKALE, a modular blockchain designed for secure gas-less Ethereum scaling, announced on Tuesday the appointment of Andrew Saunders as its first chief marketing and growth officer (CMGO). According to the team: "Saunders will leverage his extensive tech sector experience and creative leadership in his new role to spearhead SKALE's global marketing efforts and further accelerate ecosystem growth." According to his LinkedIn, Saunders previously held roles at Hashflow, Arbitrum, Amazon, NBCUniversal and Creative Artists Agency.

May 21: The decentralized funding protocol Polimec "has launched to aid community-funded Polkadot projects with a transparent, regulatory-compliant way to raise funds and issue tokens," according to the team: "Investors can appraise and fund projects after obtaining a Deloitte KYC Credential. Polimec's governance by PLMC holders ensures decentralized decision-making. This initiative offers a promising future for Web3 projects, helping them achieve funding goals and solve real-world problems through blockchain solutions."

May 21: Cronos zkEVM's testnet has been upgraded to its latest major release, "Tethys," according to the team: "The Tethys testnet upgrade marks a major milestone on the path to Cronos zkEVM's mainnet launch, which will take place later in 2024. Leveraging zkSync's v24 release, Tethys is set to enhance scalability, reduce fees and improve developer tools. Developed in partnership with engineering teams from Crypto.com and Matter Labs, VVS Finance, Fulcrom, and Veno, Tethys will also feature an enhanced Ethereum bridge and a validium configuration for cheaper transactions."

May 21: Velodrome, a DEX on the Optimism and Base blockchains, has launched on BOB, a "hybrid layer 2 that merges Bitcoin and Ethereum's security and liquidity," according to the team: "This launch is part of Velodrome's BTC strategy to attract more Bitcoin users and liquidity. Velodrome will join BOB's Fusion campaign, redistributing Spice points to LP stakers. In the next 30-60 days, Velodrome will roll out VELO token rewards, voting on incentives, and Slipstream pools on BOB."

May 21: Portal, describing itself as a "bridgeless interoperability protocol on Bitcoin," is launching testnet for its Swap SDK, "which enables easy cross-chain Bitcoin DEX integration into your dApp or Web3 platform for staking, liquid staking derivatives and more," according to the team: "The native app is available on iOS and Android, and the browser extension goes live this week. Testnet activity earns points enabling eligibility for the Portal airdrop."

May 21: RootstockLabs announced that the fifth wave of their grants program has commenced, "offering more opportunities for Web3 entrepreneurs to build on Bitcoin." According to the team: "In addition, RootstockLabs is committing an extra $3 million to enhance the Rootstock ecosystem, supporting the grants program and strategic integrations with leading protocols and developer tools. Last year, RootstockLabs allocated $2.5 million to encourage new and established crypto projects to join Rootstock, resulting in over 40 innovative dApps launching on the blockchain."

May 21: Spindl, a Web3 startup founded by Silicon Valley veteran Antonio Garcia Martinez, has launched what it bills as the first truly on-chain ad network. Like Web2's off-chain ad networks, this one connects advertisers, publishers and providers of so-called attribution services that track where customers come from. In this case, the "publishers" are providers of crypto wallets that increasingly resemble social apps, with news feeds and "discover" tabs.

May 21: Phantom, the leading crypto wallet in the Solana ecosystem, has bought Web3-focused browser extension wallet Bitski, the companies said on Tuesday. The Bitski team will be joining Phantom to bring embedded wallets to Solana, according to a press release. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

May 20 (PROTOCOL VILLAGE EXCLUSIVE): Moonbeam Network, an Ethereum-compatible smart-contract parachain on Polkadot, announced the Moonrise initiative, signaling the next phase in its evolution, according to the team: "Supported by a comprehensive brand redesign, Moonbeam unveiled a new 2024 product roadmap with significant milestones, including core protocol enhancements to increase throughput 8x, incorporate Ethereum’s Dencun update and optimize governance. Other markers include revitalizing canary network Moonriver with Axelar bridging and launching a zkAuth program for Web2 authentication."

May 20: Lita released its Valida zkVM and Valida C Compiler Toolchain, enabling faster, cheaper and more efficient ZKP generation, according to the team: "Valida’s compatibility with LLVM opens the door to a host of conventional programming languages, helping developers to easily transition into the world of decentralized systems. Lita’s benchmarks for Valida’s performance capabilities show that single-core Valida proving was carried out with a speed ranging from 1.19 to 54 times faster than multi-core RISC Zero proving, and between 19 to 1,600 times more efficient, reducing CPU time and energy expended on proof computation."

May 20: Manta Network has launched Manta CeDeFi, "a new product combining CeFi and DeFi to offer users enhanced yield opportunities with institutional-grade security. Working with Ceffu, formerly Binance Custody, Manta CeDeFi allows users to earn parallel rewards from stable CeFi arbitrage and on-chain DeFi activities. This integration provides secure and traceable real-world assets on Manta Pacific, ensuring compliance and financial agility."

May 17: Oobit, a mobile payment app, has "collaborated with TON Foundation to integrate its native cryptocurrency, TON (Toncoin), into its platform, advancing the usage of cryptocurrency as a means of payment," according to the team: "Toncoin holders will be able to Tap & Pay at over 100 million retailers worldwide. The integration will further strengthen the recent announcement of the collaboration between the largest company in the digital asset industry, Tether, and the TON Foundation." According to a separate press release on Tether's website: Users will be able to "send USDT as a direct message on Telegram and spend the same USDT for instant crypto Tap payments on Oobit."

May 17: Radix, a platform for DeFi and Web3, has "proposed a Bottlenose protocol update to its node runner community and expects it to be enacted on or around June 3. One of the standout features of the update is the introduction of AccountLockers, a 'locker' where token deliveries are routed through, which can be accepted or refused. AccountLockers are intended to stop undesired deposits and make for easier dApp bookkeeping. Other Bottlenose features include API and Radix Engine enhancements, and the addition of a recovery fee vault, eliminating the need for third-party fee locking during account recovery."

May 17: Bitcoin layer 2 Bitfinity has introduced its Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to bring smart contracts Bitcoin protocols and harness Runes to enable Bitcoin DeFi apps. Built on the Internet Computer (ICP) protocol, Bitfinity integrates with the Bitcoin network and allows asset bridging to other blockchains. Internet Computer's tech stack will allow applications that use Ethereum's smart contract programming language Solidity to access Bitcoin-based tokens.

May 17: Layer-2 scaling solution Mintlayer and Salus, a security company specializing in zero-knowledge (ZK) technology, are partnering to enhance Bitcoin via their building of the Thunder Network, a layer-3 ZK rollup-based solution, according to the team. "The Thunder Network is designed to address any potential scaling issues the Mintlayer network might encounter while enabling additional EVM functionality that may be currently absent from Mintlayer," according to a press release.

May 17: DroppGroup, aiming to harmonize AI and blockchain technology, has "announced the launch of droppLink, an intelligent service platform poised to transform AI development and management across multiple blockchains. DroppLink's architecture abstracts computational requirements, facilitates micropayments and democratizes data contributions, providing users with ownership and control, all while stakeholders, known as Computational Resource Patrons (CRPs), support infrastructure costs and share in the revenue generated by the AI processes they enable." According to the project's website, "end user Gen AI outputs are tokenized as unique digital assets on the Solana blockchain and are stored in the Filecoin network."

May 17: Union, the modular interoperability layer, is "partnering with Stargaze, a community-owned decentralized NFT marketplace, to enable the transfer of blue-chip Ethereum NFTs to the Cosmos ecosystem via its trustless, decentralized zkIBC bridge. This collaboration paves the way for achieving trustless interoperability for NFTs," according to the team.

May 17: Pyth, a blockchain oracle project, is "launching their Ecosystem Grants Program with 50 million PYTH (worth ~$22M at today's prices) dedicated towards this activation," according to the team: "The program seeks projects focused on at least one of these three key areas: Community, Research, and Developer Grants."

May 17: The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the world’s largest securities settlement system, completed a pilot project with blockchain oracle Chainlink (LINK) and multiple major U.S. financial institutions, aiming to help accelerate the tokenization of funds, according to a report published by DTCC. The purpose of project called Smart NAV was to establish a standardized process to bring and disseminate net asset value (NAV) data of funds across virtually any private or public blockchains using Chainlink's interoperability protocol CCIP. Market participants included American Century Investments, BNY Mellon, Edward Jones, Franklin Templeton, Invesco, JPMorgan, MFS Investment Management, Mid Atlantic Trust, State Street and U.S. Bank. (LINK)

May 16: FLock.io, a platform for "AI co-creation," and Morpheus, a network for powering smart agents, announced a strategic partnership "to advance decentralized AI capabilities in Web3," according to the team: "By merging FLock.io’s community-driven, decentralized AI training model platform with Morpheus, which empowers Smart Agent builders to deploy their code and receive rewards, the partners aim to reduce reliance on centralized external function calls to OpenAI and integrate more Smart Agents into Web3 wallets. Ultimately, this integration will empower users to harness AI directly from their wallets for seamless, secure, and intuitive trading experiences."

May 16: Entangle, an interoperable data infrastructure layer powered by underlying primitive "liquid vaults," is releasing its mainnet after two years of development and a strict testnet phase, according to the team: "The network currently holds 71 validators, including Hashkey Cloud, Rhino, Nodefi and DaiC. The mainnet also presents the Photon Messaging feature, enabling omnichain development across 16 EVM and non-EVM blockchains, including Solana."

May 16: Alvara Protocol is "launching its testnet, marking a major milestone in its development of a DeFi-based system for fund management," according to the team: "Alvara democratizes fund management with an innovative tokenized fund factory, leveraging DeFi, ensuring transparency, liquidity, and cost-efficiency compared to traditional hedge funds and ETFs. Built on the ERC-7621 token standard, it allows anyone to become a fund manager. With the testnet live, users can explore the platform, provide feedback, and help shape Alvara's future impact on DeFi and TradFi industries."

May 16: The Hashgraph Association has signed a strategic partnership with the Qatar Financial Centre to launch a $50 million Digital Assets Venture Studio, according to the team: "The platform will support local Qatari and international portfolio companies in the development of regulatory-compliant decentralized finance solutions and digital assets built on the Hedera Distributed Ledger Technology network. The studio will be part of Qatar’s Digital Assets Lab within the QFC Innovation Dome as part of Qatar’s 'National Vision 2030' to accelerate research and development within the digital asset space."

May 16: KYVE Network representatives announced that the KYVE Grants Program: Phase 0 is now live: "This grant phase offers up to $50,000 in funding per approved grant that utilizes KYVE’s trustless datasets and or tooling," according to the team.

May 16: Param Labs, an independent game and infrastructure development company behind the game Kiraverse, and 3-D asset creation platform Pixel to Poly, announced a fundraise of $7 million in an investment round led by Animoca Brands. According to the team: "Delphi Ventures, Cypher Capital, Mechanism Capital and other top-tier investors have also joined the seed and private funding rounds. The company has thus incorporated 50+ IP partnerships within its ecosystem, with brands such as Pudgy Penguins, Neo Tokyo, Animoca Brands’ Mocaverse, Pixelmon, as well as retail giants such as GameStop."