ethereum

Matter Labs, the company behind zkSync, raises $200 million to scale Ethereum • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 16, 2022Posted in Crypto, ethereum, L2, matter labs, zkSyncNo Comments

Matter Labs has raised a $200 million Series C funding round co-led by Blockchain Capital and Dragonfly. Matter Labs is better known for its work on zkSync, an Ethereum scaling solution that drastically reduces the cost of Ethereum transactions. LightSpeed Venture Partners, Variant and Andreessen Horowitz are also participating in the Series C round. Overall, Matter Labs has raised $458 million, including a $200 million ecosystem fund to foster zkSync adoption. It’s quite a large sum of money, which means that the company will be able to iterate on zkSync for a while even though we still don’t know the full aftermath of the collapse of FTX. Over the past couple of years, the biggest pain point with Ethereum transactions has been gas fees. In Ethereum lingo, gas fees are transaction fees. Every time you want to send some crypto assets on the Ethereum blockchain, you have to pay some gas fees. And those gas fees aren’t variable. If you try to send $10 worth of Ethereum or $10 billion, you will pay the same amount in gas fees. Those fees vary depending on network demand. But it can be quite discouraging if you’re getting started with cryptos or want to use your cryptocurrencies for small transactions. Many teams have been working on ways to solve this issue. They think that some transactions shouldn’t happen on the main Ethereum blockchain (the Layer 1). That’s what we call Layer 2 solutions. zkSync is one of those L2 solutions that have been gaining traction in the crypto ecosystem. Essentially, transactions are sent to Layer 2 nodes so that they can be processed and batched together. When there are enough transactions, a group of transactions is submitted to the main Ethereum blockchain. Once it’s on the main Ethereum blockchain, these transactions can’t be altered. zkSync is a zero-knowledge rollup implementation, meaning that validity proofs are generated based on hundreds of transactions and then posted to the main Ethereum blockchain. That’s the main security advantage as Layer 2 transactions can’t be altered because they won’t comply with the validity proof. zkSync’s latest release is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine. This way, decentralized app developers can make their apps compatible with zkSync with minimum work. And Matter Labs plans to open source zkSync 2.0 through an MIT Open Source license at some point in Q4 2022. So far, 150 projects have been using zkSync in one way or another. For instance, Chainlink, SushiSwap, Uniswap, Aave, Argent, 1inch, Gnosis and Curve have been implementing zkSync in their products. Ethereum scaling solutions are going to be incredibly important to make the crypto ecosystem truly decentralized. There are many reasons why centralized exchanges like FTX exist. They let you convert fiat currencies into cryptocurrencies. But many people also use these exchanges for crypto-to-crypto transactions. Projects like zkSync will make crypto transactions easy, secure and affordable even without using a centralized exchange.

FTX’s seemingly sluggish withdrawals raise eyebrows • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in Crypto, crypto exchanges, cryptocurrency, ethereum, FTX, stablecoinNo Comments

Withdrawal transactions for customers using FTX, the third largest crypto exchange by volume, have seemingly been limited to a nominal amount or none at all, according to multiple on-chain data sources. Stablecoin withdrawals from FTX dropped to zero around 6 a.m. ET on Tuesday, according to data on CryptoQuant. Meanwhile, withdrawals of ether, Ethereum’s token, have been small during the same time frame, CryptoQuant data also showed. Etherscan data also revealed that FTX withdrawals are currently executing for up to 0.12, or about $170.79, of ether. “As FTX’s net crypto asset holdings decreased by 83% over the past two days, they seem to be struggling to process withdrawals,” Ki Young Ju, CEO and co-founder of CryptoQuant, said to ZebethMedia. “For example, when their users exchange ETH for stablecoins and request withdrawals, FTX has to bring stablecoin liquidity to process the withdrawal via markets or other exchanges.” FTX’s stablecoin reserve also decreased 93% over the past two weeks, and it has injected USDC liquidity from Alameda Research wallets, Ju said. “This suspension of withdrawals seems to be a liquidity problem for user withdrawals.” A spokesperson from FTX did not reply to ZebethMedia’s request for comment. Some individuals in the crypto community tweeted that they “successfully withdrew” ethereum and bitcoin from FTX, while others replied that they have been waiting hours to withdraw funds. Last night, FTX tweeted that its team has been processing the backlog of withdrawals and added that the “queue is decreasing and getting back to more reasonable levels; nodes and banks catching up.” Since then, FTX and its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, have not released any statements regarding the pause, as of the time of publication. The situation has transpired as FTX is facing heat from the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, after its CEO, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, tweeted that his exchange would slowly withdraw billions of its holdings in FTX’s native token, FTT. On Monday, Bankman-Fried tried to calm the waters in regard to FTX’s liquidity via a series of tweets indirectly responding to Zhao and Binance’s liquidations. “A competitor is trying to go after us with false rumors,” Bankman-Fried said. “FTX is fine. Assets are fine.” Bankman-Fried said FTX has enough to cover all client holdings and it doesn’t invest in client assets. He then tweeted he would “love” if Zhao and FTX could “work together for the ecosystem.” FTT is currently trading at $14.65, down about 35%, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Building the bridge between Web 2.0 and web3 • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 24, 2022Posted in Column, Crypto, EC Blockchain, EC Column, EC Cryptocurrency, ethereum, Ethereum Merge, Google, Startups, Web 2.0, web3No Comments

Devin Abbott was founder of Deco (acquired by Airbnb) and specializes in design and development tools, React and web3 applications, most recently with The Graph. It’s too early to predict all the implications of the recent Ethereum blockchain Merge, but it definitely addresses the most frequent (and valid) criticism of web3 regarding excessive energy consumption. Critics may still find a new reason to oppose ETH, but my hope is this Merge will lead to something else: A chance for us to also merge what’s best about Web 2.0 with what’s most exciting about web3. There’s seemingly a growing rift in Silicon Valley, with the traditional Web 2.0 industry and the burgeoning web3 ecosystem depicted as being in opposition to each other. And trapped somewhere in the middle are emerging startups. I’m active in all three groups, and I believe most of this controversy is based on wild pronouncements and hype by VCs and other evangelists who are not developers. Incessant celebrity promotions of NFT drops, for instance, have contributed to the impression that web3 as a whole is a Ponzi scheme. In fact, NFTs are only a small part of the web3 ecosystem, and, in my view, not even the most interesting or potentially transformative. While Web 2.0 and web3 may seem incompatible, I believe it’s better to see technologies like blockchain and ETH as potential back-end solutions for scalability challenges that all companies face. In a similar way, web3 advocates should recognize that Web 2.0’s maturity makes it indispensable for many core use cases. Despite web3’s great potential, it’s still much easier to develop a Web 2.0 app simply because the ecosystem is mature and enjoys a large and thriving developer community. Let’s consider a couple examples where each side has something to contribute: From web3: An emerging revolution in open source To capture what’s happening in web3 development now, we have to go back to before the Web 2.0 era. During the dot-com boom, there was quite a lot of buzz over open source, Linux and hot companies like Red Hat. While very few consumers would go on to install Linux as their operating system, this buzz helped contribute to something equally important. In the background, with few people noticing, Linux quickly became the go-to operating system for running the back-end servers of 96.5% of the top million web domains — not to mention the massive Android market.

Developers pour into crypto space despite stagnant markets • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 17, 2022Posted in Crypto, developers, EC Blockchain, EC Cryptocurrency, ethereum, Polygon, sdk, SolanaNo Comments

This year was huge for the crypto developer space even though the digital asset market continues to wallow in a downturn, according to a new report by web3 developer platform Alchemy. Although the crypto market capitalization is down about 58% year to date, web3 developers are pouring into the space. The report found that developer activity increased based on the number of crypto software developer kit (SDK) libraries being downloaded, smart contracts being stored on blockchains, and the growth in the number of decentralized applications (dApps) in the market. “It’s a really exciting time in web3 overall and especially in the web3 development space,” Jason Shah, head of growth at Alchemy, said to ZebethMedia. “We were shocked at the results [because they run] counter to the narratives out there with token prices being down, pullbacks in investments, and even layoffs. But in the data with libraries, smart contracts, and dApp growth, all those numbers are up year over year.” Despite the bear market, crypto has become a “builder market,” with many clearly undeterred, Shah said. “Crypto bear markets are often when the best projects get built,” Francesco Melpignano, CEO of layer-1 blockchain Kadena, said to ZebethMedia.

Green shoots appear in crypto land as winter reigns • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 10, 2022Posted in crypto startups, cryptocurrency prices, EC Blockchain, EC Cryptocurrency, EC Newsletter, ethereum, Startups, The Exchange, VentureNo Comments

Now comfortably into Q4 2022, ZebethMedia is busy looking at a mountain of data from the third quarter, hoping to solidify our understand of where the market for startup dealmaking was, is right now, and is heading next. So far, we’ve seen stronger-than-anticipated American venture capital results, a somewhat troubling international picture, and we’re keeping tabs on unicorns as well as software companies. But what about the crypto world? There’s precious little good news, it turns out. This morning, after coming across this particularly interesting datapoint about trading volumes in September from The Block, we went hunting for other bits of good news. Nearly everything that we found pointed in the other direction, however. The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on ZebethMedia+ or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday. Perhaps it’s too early in the present crypto winter to go hunting for green shoots. All the same, this morning, we’re going to look at the less encouraging data and close with what we can say about September. News that, while not encouraging for your supercar lease payments, may shine some hope that the decentralized economy is showing enough signs of life that a recovery could be on the horizon.