avalanche - Pwim.Net

Avalanche Received $230M Funding with its Token AVAX Hitting a Record High of $68.89

On September 16, the Avalanche Foundation received a $230 million investment from a group led by Polychain and Three Arrows Capital. The price of Avalanche‘s token AVAX soared to a record high of $68.89 today.

Through the private sale of AVAX cryptocurrency, R/Crypto Fund, Dragonfly, CMS Holdings, Collab+Currency, Lvna Capital, and a group of angel investors and family offices participated in the $230 million financings led by Polychain and Three Arrows Capital.

Avalanche stated that the Bauhinia obtained this time will accelerate the expansion with the rapid growth of decentralised finance or DeFi, enterprise applications, and enterprise applications on the Avalanche public blockchain.

The director from Avalanche Foundation stated that Avalanche continues to develop the community to cash out its competitiveness, and still has great potential to be tapped at the intersection of institutions and decentralised finance, and said that:

“Avalanche has quickly turned promise and potential into real-world impact and value creation for DeFi users and developers.”

Avalanche network is compatible with Ethereum cross-chain. Smart contracts initially operated on the Ethereum network can be migrated to the Avalanche ecosystem to enjoy higher throughput and low-cost transactions with higher gas fees than the Ethereum (ETH) chain.

According to the project’s website, the first layer protocol can exceed 4,500 transactions per second (TPS), and the finalised time is less than 2 seconds.

According to Coinmarketcap, AVAX has risen 52.08% in the past week and is currently ranked as the 13th largest cryptocurrency by market cap with a market cap of $14,128,365,250.

Avalanche Foundation Unveils its $200M Ecosystem Fund

The Avalanche Foundation has unveiled its plans to fuel the growth of its ecosystem through Blizzard, a $200 million fund secured from its partners.

The funding for Blizzard was pooled from the foundation itself, as well as other prominent blockchain investors, including Ava Labs, Polychain Capital, Three Arrows Capital, Dragonfly Capital, CMS Holdings, Republic Capital, R/Crypto Fund, Collab+Currency, Lvna Capital, and Finality Capital Partners amongst others.

With the fund, more than 320 projects that are currently resident on the super-fast, cheap, and eco-friendly blockchain and new emerging ones will be able to gain access to the funding to scale.

“The last two months have shown incredible growth across Avalanche, with users, assets, and applications joining the community in record-highs,” says Emin Gün Sirer, Director of the Avalanche Foundation. “Blizzard will play a key role in further accelerating this growth and solidifying Avalanche’s position as the premier home for projects and people pioneering the next era in our space.”

The capital from Blizzard will be targeted at four key areas, including DeFi, NFTs, enterprise, and culture applications. The fund will be used to take equity positions in new projects, buying up the tokens of promising startups, and “various forms of technology, business development, and ecosystem integration support,” the foundation confirmed.

The move by Avalanche to fuel the growth of its ecosystem takes a cue from similar moves that other prominent blockchain protocols have made. Back in October, Binance launched its $1 billion funds to promote a plethora of growth activities on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC).

Blockchain networks understand the digital buzz currencies are creating today. Protocols also understand the future of finance, and Web3.0 is also a function of the unique opportunities that blockchain protocols can bring to the table. Armed with this knowledge, many blockchain networks want to be well-positioned to maintain their relevance ahead of the imminent future in which blockchain and cryptocurrencies will rule.

Publicly Traded Voyager Digital to Add Support for Avalanche Token

The Avalanche public blockchain network has continued to expand its ecosystem reach as a publicly-traded digital currency brokerage firm, Voyager Digital has announced it will be adding support for the AVAX coin.

As reported by Voyager, the integration of Avalanche, just like other listings, will afford its platform users to transact with the coins while also gaining access to an income-generating staking service it has enabled.

Avalanche is an emerging blockchain protocol that was launched about a year ago. The network has registered its mark as one of the fastest in terms of time-to-finality, and the cheapest, a feature fostering a number of protocols building on the blockchain.

“By building out a wide range of new Avalanche capabilities on the Voyager platform, we are creating more wealth-building tools for our customers, including the ability to transfer and stake AVAX, Avalanche’s native token, to earn rewards,” said Steve Ehrlich, CEO, and Co-founder of Voyager. “We’re also looking to increase DeFi and NFT functionalities on our platform through Avalanche’s high-performing technology, which instantly processes thousands of transactions within a second. We’re excited for this collaboration and can’t wait to roll out joint products on our platform.”

The partnership between both Voyager Digital and Avalanche comes off as a mutual one, as the blockchain protocol is also doing all it possibly can to grow out its ecosystem. For this latter cause, it reportedly earmarked the sum of $200 million to power its DeFi, NFTs, enterprise, and culture applications.

With more nascent projects billed to gain a headstart through the reserved funding, Voyager Digital said it would also make room for innovative decentralized finance and Non-Fungible Token projects resident on the Avalanche blockchain. While the goal for Voyager is to expand its product offerings, Avalanche will draw on the increasing users of its ecosystem to propound its protocol’s uniqueness.

Top Three Altcoins to Watch This Week: DOT, AVAX, and MANA

The price journies of many digital currencies are known to be bullish toward the end of the year. Though the broad crypto industry is seeing a persistent reversal, many are optimistic the bearish turn will help stir a massive upsurge in the coming days.

At present, the global crypto market cap is seeing a 1.41% plunge to $2.45 trillion, a slump that is being fueled majorly by Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), both of which are far off from their All-Time Highs (ATH).

With a mildly volatile weekend done with, investors are looking forward to another new week in hopes of charting a positive trade history across all markets. Here are three altcoins to watch ahead of the new week.

Polkadot (DOT)

Polkadot is an open-source sharding multichain protocol that facilitates the cross-chain transfer of any data or asset types, not just tokens, thereby making a wide range of blockchains interoperable with each other. With the protocol’s parachain auctions underway, the demand on the DOT token is rising, and away from the current price plunge, the coming week might hold a better reality for the coin and its holders.

Currently, the token is changing hands at $33.62, down 5.86% in the past 24 hours. The broad ecosystem activities will seek to push DOT to retest its ATH at $55.

Avalanche (AVAX)

Avalanche is one of the most innovative blockchain protocols around today, with the goal of accelerating the switch to the metaverse. Branded as having a higher transaction output of up to 6,500 transactions per second while not compromising scalability, AVAX is one of the Ethereum-killers currently walking the talk today.

Over the past weeks, the coin maintained a bullish growth by breaking its correlation with Bitcoin and surged as high as $146.22 about eight days ago. While it is currently trading at a much lower price of $106, the coin has registered support at $105, and all hopes of bouncing to its new heights in this week cannot be ruled out.

Decentraland (MANA)

Attentive investors in the digital currency ecosystem will know that we are currently in the season of the metaverse and Play-2-Earn blockchain-backed gaming protocols. Decentraland is one of the protocols that seek to advance this offshoot of blockchain technology, and though it was launched back in 2019, the protocol has just started gaining the steam that is due to its innovation.

Decentraland (MANA) defines itself as a virtual reality platform powered by the Ethereum blockchain that allows users to create, experience, and monetize content and applications. The native token has been tagged as one of the best performing of the top 100 in the past week, rising by 31.97 in the trailing 7 days.

While other coins were slipping, MANA was retesting new highs up to $5.90 about four days ago. While the coin is still in its price discovery phase, investors can watch out for how high it will rise this week.

Hong Kong-Based Chiron VC Raises $50M for Launching Terra Ecosystem Fund

One of Asia’s biggest Venture Capital firms, Chiron Partners, has launched a $50 million ecosystem fund christened the Chiron Terra Fund I (CTI), aimed at supporting innovative projects that are emerging from the Terra blockchain ecosystem.

The firm announced that the CTI will support the projects. In addition, the Fund will involve in decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFT), and metaverse related initiatives. The primary motivation behind the massive investment is to reposition Chiron Partners as one of the committed accelerators of developing promising, disruptive, and emerging technologies.

“We’re thrilled to have Chiron Partners join the booming Terra ecosystem as a valuable resource to help equip ecosystem projects and builders with capital, strategic expertise, and other guidance,” says Do Kwon, Co-Founder and CEO of Terraform Labs.

Terra is a high-performing blockchain hinged on using fiat pegged stablecoins to power global payment systems. In a bullish move to support the growth of the innovative projects emerging on the Terra ecosystem, the protocol raised a $150 million fund from renowned venture capitalists back in July to support these projects. These funding models similarly move from competing blockchains, including Avalanche and the Binance Smart Chain, respectively.

Furthermore, Terra recently completed its Columbus-5 upgrade, significantly improving scalability and enhancing network interoperability. From here, as many as 160 projects are on track to make their way to the Terra ecosystem as from Q1 2022.

“The Terra ($LUNA) ecosystem’s growth potential, particularly after the latest Columbus-5 upgrade and announcements on Risk Harbour insurance wrapped protection, is limitless,” said Jake Cormack, Founding Partner and COO of Chiron Partners.

The positivity surrounding the Terra ecosystem is highly reflective in the native digital currency LUNA, which has surged over 13,000% in the Year-to-Date period, according to data from data analytics platform, Coingecko.

DeFi Growth Outlook for 2021: From $18.71B to $258.58B

New milestones were achieved across the digital currency ecosystem in 2021, a growth that was translated into Decentralized Finance (DeFi) sub-niche.

According to data from DeFiLlama, the DeFi ecosystem, encompassing the top blockchain networks saw a massive growth surge from $18.71 billion in Total Value Locked (TVL) as of January 1 this year to $258.58 billion it is pegged at as of today.

This growth pace which represented a 1,282% upshot within the space of 12 months showcases the increasing advances in the DeFi world. New projects emerged in the digital currency ecosystem that heralded the emergence of several innovative DApps and smart contracts.

The DeFiLlama data showcases the split in various protocols that make up the DeFi ecosystem. Curve Finance takes the largest cut in the pie with over $23.4 billion in TVL across multiple networks. Ethereum centred Convex Finance and MakerDAO occupy the second and third positions with $19.36 billion and $19.18 billion respectively.

Over the course of the past year, three major protocols, Solana, Avalanche, and Terra have all surmounted expectations with the pace at which new smart contracts are proliferated on their platforms. The protocols themselves have also impressed investors with their offerings, further boosting the overall adoption across the board.

Apart from Ethereum-focused protocols, Anchor Finance, a Terra native money market service provider occupies the 10th position as the largest contributor to the broader DeFi TVL with $8.98 billion in TVL.

The digital currency ecosystem has seen a fair number of trends come and go since its inception, and despite its newness, the sub-niche is still showing great potential for future growth. The broader cryptocurrency industry has recorded a massive correction this year, and this has in no way impacted the growth rate of the DeFi ecosystem. This amongst other pointers with backing data showcases the DeFi world is on track to record even greater growth in the near future.

Ava Labs to Serve as Smart Contracts Platform for Turkish EV Maker TOGG

Ava Labs, the team behind the development and management of Avalanche public blockchain, has entered into a strategic partnership with Turkish Electric Vehicle (EV) manufacturer TOGG to serve as its smart contract infrastructure provider for its next generation self-driven cars.

The partnership was unveiled at the 2022 CES Summit in Las Vegas, U.S. As reported by TBEN, the partnership aims to accelerate Togg’s use case mobility initiative, which combines different technologies and transportation solutions to produce cars with more functionality compared to traditional electric vehicles.

Avalanche is one of the fastest-growing blockchain protocols nowadays. The network prides itself as the fastest smart contract in terms of time to finality. This feature is necessary for the speed that TOGG is integrating into its next-generation automobiles. The partnership will afford TOGG the opportunity to integrate innovative tools, including the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine-to-machine communication (M2M), to expand and accelerate its EV capabilities.

Avalanche will also support the design of a smart contract that can help Togg users pick a scooter or taxi while their own cars are undergoing charging. In addition, the Ava Labs partnership will allow Togg to store vehicle maintenance and parts information on the Avalanche blockchain, which will form the basis of a reliable second-hand market.

“Our collaboration with Ava Labs is founded on improving the Togg user experience, going beyond automobiles to enable partners, users, and non-Togg users in the mobility ecosystem to benefit from this platform,” said Togg CEO Gürcan Karakaş.

It is not uncommon for EV and automobile manufacturing firms to consider employing blockchain innovations in meeting key aspects of their operation. According to an earlier report by Blockchain.News, Volvo Cars, a leading Swedish car manufacturer, invested in Circulor, a London-based blockchain company majoring in industrial supply chains.

Also, German automobile manufacturing company Mercedes-Benz has also reportedly explored a blockchain-based automobile gas emission tracker in the past, a move that implied mainstream car manufacturers are beginning to realize the importance of blockchain technology in the industry.

Top 3 Coins to Watch this Week: BTC, AVAX and MATIC

The digital currency ecosystem experienced mixed volatility that was characterized by an equal dose of bullish and bearish trends last week.

While the growth seen earlier on in the market pushed the combined market capitalization above the $2 trillion benchmarks, however, there was a slip toward the end of the week as the Russo-Ukrainian tension overtook bullish sentiments.

A new week is here, and each digital currency is attempting to take a stance from the others by maintaining a cushion against erratic moves. Amid dramatic twists and turns that we may witness this week, here is a highlight of the top three coins to look out for this week.

Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin remains the undisputed leader in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, both by market capitalization and general correlation with existing traditional markets. Bitcoin’s price currently sits at $42,350.55, after inking a 1.67% growth in the past 24 hours according to data from CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin is worthy of being watched this week as it is the first cryptocurrency that will react to trends in the global market as the tension between Russia and Ukraine intensifies. Should Bitcoin respond in a positive or negative manner, other coins are bound to follow suit likewise.

Avalanche (AVAX)

Avalanche is one of the fastest-growing and most used blockchain networks today. The price of digital currency has been ranging from a low of $77.65 to a high of $94.99 in the past week, and it seems to be stabilizing despite the bearish sentiments that are engulfing the broader market.

Avalanche has an actively growing ecosystem of developers building Decentralized Finance (DeFi), and Non-Fungible Token (NFT) products amongst others. Based on its resilient price trend, AVAX is poised to retest a new weekly high above the previous week, provided the inherent market sentiments apply.

Polygon (MATIC)

Polygon occupies a pivotal position in the Ethereum ecosystem as a scaling tool that is generally reducing the congestion on the latter network. At a price of $1.68 at the time of writing, MATIC comes off as underpriced and awaiting a massive push-up to reclaim the $1.80 resistance level.

Polygon currently has the needed liquidity to stir the growth of its ecosystem following the $400 million raised through private token sales from investors earlier this month. Additionally, the ecosystem growth of the protocols that won parachain slots on the ecosystem is also worth pushing the network into the bigger limelight in terms of token growth in the near term.

Payments Firm Wirex Integrates Avalanche Blockchain into Ecosystem for 4.5M Users

Regulated digital payments platform, Wirex has integrated the Avalanche Blockchain into its network as it continues on its planned growth trajectory.

As announced by the firm, the integration will grant as many as 4.5 million users direct access to the Avalanche Blockchain, strengthening its digital payments solutions across the board.

The choice of Avalanche is not far-fetched as the protocol is deemed the fastest in the space in terms of time-to-finality. Wirex has added a number of innovative blockchain protocols in the past, and the addition of Avalanche is a complement to its product suite.

“Wirex continues to innovate and build partnerships that strengthen our offerings, and the addition of Avalanche is helping to develop use-cases for the Wirex ecosystem,” Pavel Matveev, CEO and Co-Founder of Wirex. “Avalanche’s reputation for improving blockchain’s accessibility closely aligns with Wirex’s, where we can together help to offer users of all backgrounds more choice and flexibility over how they wish to use crypto.”

The integration of Avalanche will enable Wirex App users to purchase AVAX tokens using their credit or debit cards. They will also be able to send the AVAX tokens in and out of the app while enabling Wirex’s popular DeFi savings product, X-Accounts, accessible with AVAX features. With this product, users will be able to earn up to 20% AER interest on AVAX, with no lock-up period, minimum holdings, or monthly fees.

Startups like Wirex are instrumental in getting blockchain products out to the mainstream public. The platform was onboarded as a Mastercard crypto card program partner in 2020 and has, through its technology, extended crypto products to the mainstream. The platform’s affiliation with Mastercard is also shared with Avalanche, which also joined the Mastercard Start Path Crypto engagement program in December 2021.

“Wirex is moving fast to make digital assets and the innovation happening on public blockchains more accessible to the masses,” said John Wu, President of Ava Labs. “We’re excited to support Wirex’s expansion to Avalanche and look forward to further collaboration with Wirex and Mastercard.”

Ava Labs to Raise New Funding Round at $5B valuation

Ava Labs, the team behind the development and management of Avalanche public blockchain, is raising a new funding round at a valuation of $5 billion, according to Bloomberg.

According to people familiar with the matter, the funding raised might reach $350 million, and Ava Labs will become one of the most valuable crypto startups globally.

AVA is a next-generation blockchain platform with revolutionary scalability, decentralization, security, and flexibility.

Avalanche is an open, programmable smart contracts platform for decentralized applications, becoming one of the fastest-growing blockchain protocols currently. The network prides itself on the fastest smart contract in terms of time to finality.

Ava Labs has raised a total of $290.1 million in funding over seven rounds.

Their latest funding was raised on Sep 16, 2021, from an Initial Coin Offering round. While on September 16, last year, the Avalanche Foundation received a $230 million investment from a group led by Polychain and Three Arrows Capital.

The Avalanche network is compatible with the Ethereum cross-chain.

Smart contracts initially operated on the Ethereum network can be migrated to the Avalanche ecosystem to enjoy higher throughput and low-cost transactions with higher gas fees than the Ethereum (ETH) chain.