Welcome to Decrypt’s Week in Polkadot, our regular round-up of the latest developments in the Polkadot ecosystem.
Moonbeam Network, consistently one of Polkadot’s most popular parachains since it first launched in January 2022, has launched a $13 million funding initiative.
The new initiative will look to boost Moonbeam’s ecosystem in several key areas such as gaming and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, alongside supporting its sister blockchain Moonriver, hosted on Polkadot’s canary network’ Kusama.
Moonbeam allows developers to build DeFi applications that work across the Ethereum and Polkadot blockchains, providing full interoperability with both ecosystems. Moonbeam was the first parachain launched on Polkadot. As of Q1 2024, Moonbeam has facilitated over 49 million transactions, launched more than 300 projects, and built a community of 200,000 members.
The fund has already made its first investment into gaming platform N3MUS, a start-up which works on better integrating Web3 with conventional gaming platforms. Its platform already supports 130 games, with a total player base of 1 million.
If you're interested in developing within the Moonbeam ecosystem, you can head here to apply for grant money and technical support.
The Moonbeam Foundation is allocating a total of $10M to Moonbeam's newly established Innovation Fund 🥳
The Innovation Fund will focus on advancing key areas, including:
Polkadot has allocated three million DOT tokens, roughly $20 million at the current price, into two DeFi projects, following an almost unanimous community vote via its decentralized governance.
Hydration, a DeFi protocall meant to bring liquidity to the Polkadot ecosystem, will receive two million DOT tokens, or $13.4 million at current rates.
Web3 Foundation invests in Asian Polkadot ecosystem
The Web3 Foundation, the organization behind Polkadot, has given PolkaPort East a grant as part of its Decentralized Futures program
The money will be used to enhance technical, community, and ecosystem growth within the Polkadot network within Hong Kong and the surrounding area.
Polkaport East will look to establish and grow a vibrant Polkadot community in Hong Kong, supporting current investors as well as attracting new teams and institutional investors.
By far one of Asia’s largest financial capitals, Hong Kong launched its Virtual Asset Trading Platform (VATP) handbook in June last year, to encourage legitimate crypto activity in the region.
We are officially Live! The @Web3foundation has approved our Decentralized Futures application. We are extremely excited to be representing @Polkadot officially and driving IR and Growth initiatives for the ecosystem in the HK and Greater Bay Region.
Top college football prospect Matai Tagoa’i is set to join football stars like Russell Okung, Odell Beckham Jr., and Trevor Lawrence by receiving his compensation in Bitcoin.
The linebacker will be paid part of his earnings via the Strike app after signing a “name, image, and likeness” (NIL) deal with the University of Southern California (USC).
The exact details of his package are not known, but some college football players, such as Shedeur Sanders, have received estimated payouts of up to $4....
The world’s largest asset manager BlackRock just debuted a new advertisement proselytizing the virtues of Bitcoin, but rather than cheer on the Bitcoin ETF issuer for its efforts, Bitcoiners aren’t happy.
The video, which is housed on the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) ETF page on BlackRock’s website, spends three minutes walking viewers through the evolution of money and key fundamentals of Bitcoin.
One of those fundamentals is Bitcoin’s 21 million fixed token supply.
While the video explains t...
El Salvador may have reached a deal with the International Monetary Fund that will see the tiny country scale back its Bitcoin law—but it’s still going to “HODL.” And it might even step up its BTC buys.
That’s according to Stacy Herbert, the head of El Salvador’s National Bitcoin Office, who wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter) Thursday that the country may even continue buying the cryptocurrency at an “accelerated pace” going forward.
El Salvador in 2021 made Bitcoin legal tender along with...
