COSMOS CRYPTO NEWS: ATOM, TIA, DYDX, KUJI & MORE!!

Greetings, Cosmonauts!

Welcome to the June edition of Cosmos Crypto Ecosystem bi-weekly News! In this episode, we’re thrilled to spotlight:

COSMOS HUB AND CONSUMER CHAINS: Cosmos Chain encounters a chain halt following v17 upgrade, voting open for Proposal 927
NAMADA: Shielded expedition rewards for outstanding contributions
DYDX v4: Android app, Stride airdrop, Fireblocks integration
OSMOSIS: $7m landmark
KUJIRA: Kartel’s USK fundraise, Betty is coming
CELESTIA: Launched Blobstream, and Arbitrum integration
SEI: Announces $250K creator fund, launches campaign on Revolut
PERSISTENCE: Expands to Base, Relaunch Persistence DEX
SECRET NETWORK: dWallet partnership
AKASH: Accelerate 24
OTHER ECOSYSTEM NEWS: First rollup on Astria, Initia testnet

All this and much more. Let’s dive in and unpack the biggest news within Cosmos:

Cosmos Hub and Consumer Chains (Neutron & Stride)

Cosmos Hub will be featured at the upcoming EthCC event in Brussels. Hosted by ATOM Accelerator and Informal Systems, the event is scheduled for July 7 at Comet Louise. The event is full now, and no new registrations are possible; however, you can apply for the waitlist.

Burnt Xion is integrating with Solana through Picasso, utilizing Meta Accounts and IBC Protocol to enhance secure chain abstraction. This integration focuses on supporting projects that build chain abstraction solutions, connecting major ecosystems across Ethereum, Cosmos, and Solana. Picasso’s Cross-Chain IBC solution aims to enable mass adoption with seamless liquidity and frictionless interoperability.

On June 5, 2024, at 19:21 (UTC), the Cosmos Hub experienced a chain halt lasting approximately five hours. The incident occurred shortly after the scheduled v17 upgrade and was caused by a bug that was triggered when a validator left the active set, and another validator took its place.

Voting is now open for Proposal 927, which seeks to fund a third-party audit of the Hydro/ATOM Wars codebase using community pool funds. Hydro, a platform for efficient liquidity deployment across the Interchain, will be audited by Oak Security at a cost of $29,750, including coordination fees.

Namada

The Namada community is recognizing exceptional contributions from the Shielded Expedition, a program designed to advance privacy technology within the Namada ecosystem. Participants were invited to nominate outstanding submissions in three categories: Explorers, Interfaces, Shielded Apps, and a bonus category for Shielded Expedition support. In the explorers category, two of the best were the namada.valopers by bitszn and shielded.live by Mandragora. For the interfaces category, the main nomination was for our Staking dashboard. Mandragora mentioned that they considered our staking dashboard useful and they weren’t aware of a similar interface made on the Shielded Expedition. Another participant mentioned that the dashboard is ‘simple and useful simultaneously (especially in Mainnet)’. We are proud that our Staking dashboard was nominated by Mandragora, who was 2nd overall in the Shielded Expedition and 1st in the Community Builders first round. The Namada community will be able to use our dashboard for staking and voting after the mainnet launch.

dYdX v4

The highly anticipated dYdX Chain app is now available for Android users. It brings the powerful and innovative trading suite of the dYdX Chain right to your phones. You can download it now from the Google Play store.

On January 30th, Stride launched the stDYDX airdrop to introduce the dYdX community to Stride and foster stDYDX DeFi integrations. With the airdrop period now concluded, users who held stDYDX can claim their allocated STRD tokens. The claim portal will be live in a few days.

Fireblocks has announced its support for the dYdX Chain, the leading DeFi protocol for perpetual derivatives trading. This integration provides secure access to dYdX’s features, enabling greater institutional involvement in the DeFi space. It also enables users to stake DYDX through Figment and Kiln and offers a custody solution in the Fireblocks Vault.

The dYdX Ecosystem Development Program has announced new grants for various projects, including the Isaac Telegram Trading Bot, Copy Trading Bot, dYdX Urbit Client, Trading History and Markets Page Frontend Revamp, Solana Nodes for dYdX Testnet, and the dYdX Merch Renewal. These updates aim to enhance the platform’s functionality and user experience.

The dYdX community has announced the proposed upgrade to the dYdX Chain Protocol v5.0.0. This major update includes the introduction of Isolated Markets, Batch Orders, Liquidity Vaults, Risk and Safety Improvements, and the integration of Skip’s Slinky price oracle. These enhancements are designed to improve the security, performance, and user experience.

Osmosis

This past weekend, DEVMOS 2024 brought together an impressive crowd of over 150 attendees and more than 20 distinguished speakers from around the world in New York City. The event served as a vibrant platform for exchanging knowledge and delving into the intricacies of the Cosmos technology stack.

The Osmosis DEX has reached a significant milestone, generating over $7 million in taker fees to date. This achievement underscores the growing popularity of Osmosis and the robust onchain activity within the Osmosis ecosystem. The continuous upward trend in fee generation highlights the increasing volume on the DEX, solidifying its position as the 1st DEX in the Cosmos Ecosystem.

Kujira

The AwesomWasm Hackathon 2024, hosted by Confio, concluded in Berlin. The hackathon featured various activities, including workshops and presentations from notable figures like Ethan Frey, the father of CosmWasm, and Hans, Co-Founder and CTO of Kujira. The event also highlighted the potential of CosmWasm’s cross-chain capabilities and its growing adoption in the blockchain ecosystem.

The Kartel Project has announced its decision to raise funds in USK on PILOT, scheduled for June 10th. This initiative is positive for the overall Kujira Ecosystem, as it utilizes Kujira’s native stablecoin for launch on the platform. Rather than proceeding with the regular model of USDT or USDC, which are non-native to the Cosmos Ecosystem and Kujira, Kartel’s plan echoes the current ethos of the Kujira ecosystem.

The latest hackathon with AwesomWasm showcased an incredible journey from concept to product, resulting in the introduction of “Betty” to the Kujira ecosystem. Pragmatic Monkey presented the concept of a “social oracle” for a permissionless betting platform, which caught the attention of the Kartel Project. Recognizing its potential, the Kartel collaborated with Pragmatic Monkey, resulting in a KART allocation and the development of Betty.

Celestia

The latest integration of Arbitrum and Celestia allows developers to build high-throughput, customizable chains using Celestia’s Blobstream. This integration enables the fast deployment of Ethereum L2s and L3s on Arbitrum Orbit without needing a committee or centralized data availability services.

Celestia Labs unveils Blobstream, a solution that streams Celestia’s modular data availability (DA) layer to Ethereum, simplifying the creation of high-throughput L2s. Blobstream, formerly Quantum Gravity Bridge, uses Data Availability Sampling (DAS) for security. The addition of Blobstream X by Succinct Labs, a zero-knowledge implementation, further optimizes performance and reduces costs. Blobstream is now live on Sepolia and Goerli testnets.

FormaChain has successfully launched the first sovereign rollup on Astria, marking a significant milestone in the modular ecosystem. RariChain, HamOnWarpcast, and LightLinkChain have officially launched, utilizing Celestia as their underlying infrastructure. Blockworks has introduced the Expansion Pod, a new initiative aimed at fostering innovation and development within the modular ecosystem. Everclear has revealed a new clearing layer designed to streamline transactions and enhance security within the modular ecosystem. The winners of the Infinite Space Bazaar Hackathon have been announced. This event celebrated the most innovative and impactful projects, showcased the talent and creativity within the modular ecosystem, and set the stage for future advancements.

Sei

Sei and Gitcoin have teamed up to launch the Sei x Gitcoin Creator Fund, aimed at accelerating the growth and development of the Sei ecosystem. Celebrating the launch of Sei V2, this initiative will feature multiple rounds of funding to support innovative projects.

Revolut, the leading finance app with over 40 million users, has launched an exciting Crypto Learn campaign in collaboration with Sei. This initiative aims to educate users about Sei’s pioneering technology through Revolut’s incentivized Learn and Earn program.

Persistence

The voting for Proposal 109 on the Persistence network has concluded. The proposal, which suggested halving the existing XPRT inflation parameters, has been under active community discussion for over seven weeks. The changes proposed included reducing the inflation minimum from 12.5% to 6.25% and the inflation maximum from 25% to 12.5%.

Persistence One has announced a significant initiative to enhance XPRT liquidity by expanding into new ecosystems, starting with the Base chain. This move aims to provide greater exposure and accessibility for XPRT, starting with an XPRT/USDC liquidity pool on Aerodrome Finance.

Persistence One has announced the rebranding of Dexter to Persistence DEX, integrating it directly into the Persistence ecosystem to offer users a unified and enhanced trading experience. This strategic move aims to streamline the ecosystem for better alignment and efficiency.

Secret Network

Secret Network has announced a strategic partnership with dWallet Network to bring their programmable cross-chain asset management infrastructure to the Secret Network ecosystem. This collaboration aims to enable Secret DeFi dApps to manage assets on other chains while protecting user data through Secret’s Decentralized Confidential Computing (DeCC) technology.

Akash

On May 28th, the Akash core team and community hosted their first-ever full-day summit, Akash Accelerate ’24, in Austin, Texas. The event focused on the growth of permissionless computing and Decentralized AI (DeAI), drawing hundreds of the brightest minds in the decentralized computing space.

Other ecosystem news

Dymension has unveiled a groundbreaking feature, DYM Sponsorships, as part of its upcoming 3D upgrade. This innovative system introduces a weight-based voting mechanism for DYM stakers, allowing them to influence the distribution of onchain incentives between RollApps and liquidity pools.

On June 10th, Berachain, a Layer 1 blockchain compatible with EVM and built on the Cosmos SDK, launched its public testnet bArtio B2. This event marks a significant step towards the upcoming Berachain V2 mainnet, featuring a re-architected framework called BeaconKit. This new architecture resolves previous limitations and enhances network performance.

Penumbra is hosting a unique public event known as the Summoning Ceremony, where the community can actively participate in creating the network’s initial cryptographic framework. By contributing signatures, participants help generate the “toxic waste” or cryptographic materials necessary for Penumbra’s zkSNARKs, which are fundamental to the network’s security and privacy.

The Initia Foundation has announced the launch of its testnet, providing developers and enthusiasts an opportunity to explore and test new features before the mainnet release.

Crypto regulations & compliance news with MME

European Banking Authority Add to MICA Clarity with New Guidelines
On June 13, the European Banking Authority (EBA) published another crucial package of technical standards and guidelines, this time focusing on prudential matters for issuers of asset-referenced and e-money tokens in the EU. This development marks a significant step towards implementing the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, which aims to enhance clarity and stability in the crypto sector.
The newly released guidelines address several key areas:

Own Funds Requirements: Ensuring that issuers maintain adequate capital reserves to cover potential risks and losses.
Liquidity Requirements: Mandating that issuers have sufficient liquid assets to meet short-term obligations.
Recovery Plans: Requiring issuers to have robust plans in place to recover from financial distress and ensure business continuity.

These measures are designed to provide issuers in the EU with a comprehensive framework to navigate the regulatory landscape. The timing of these guidelines is particularly pertinent given recent events in Switzerland. FINMA, the Swiss financial regulator, declared Flow Bank, a bank specializing in forex and crypto, bankrupt due to insufficient capital reserves. This incident underscores the critical importance of maintaining adequate funds and liquidity.
Moreover, on June 14, lawyers representing FTX debtors argued for a “superior right” to assets that could be used to satisfy the court’s $11-billion judgement against Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX. This case further highlights the necessity for stringent regulatory oversight to protect stakeholders and prevent financial mismanagement.
The EBA’s new guidelines are intended to minimize the risk of such situations occurring within the EU, promoting a more stable and secure environment for cryptocurrency operations.
Finally, following the latest elections, members of the new European Parliament appear likely to continue the EU’s supportive approach towards the cryptocurrency industry, reinforcing the region’s commitment to fostering innovation while ensuring robust regulatory safeguards.

Conclusion

That wraps up our first June edition of Cosmos Crypto Ecosystem bi-weekly News! Keep your eyes on the stars and your wallets secure. Don’t forget to give us a cosmic thumbs up, drop a comment with your thoughts, and hit that subscribe button to stay tuned for more out-of-this-world content. Until next time, stay cosmic, keep staking, and may the blockchain be ever in your favor! Stay tuned for more cosmic updates and keep exploring the universe with Cosmos! Happy staking and trading!

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