Asset manager Grayscale Investments launched a new investment fund for Aave’s governance token, AAVE, according to an Oct. 3 announcement. The Grayscale Aave Trust “offers investors the opportunity to gain exposure to AAVE, the governance token for Aave’s platform,” Grayscale said. The fund, which is only available to qualified investors, adds to Grayscale’s suite of single-asset…

Visa introduced its new Visa Tokenized Asset Platform (VTAP), designed to enable digital asset issuance and management. On Oct. 3, the financial services giant revealed its VTAP, which it said is built to support a wide range of tokenized assets, including stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). According to Visa, the VTAP is currently…

The team behind Ethereum re-staking protocol EigenLayer and cross-chain messaging protocol LayerZero have introduced a new system to make cross-chain communication more secure. In a blog post on Oct. 2, LayerZero Labs announced the partnership with Eigen Labs and introduced a framework for “CryptoEconomic Decentralized Verifier Networks” (DVNs). The system combines technical verification with financial incentives to…

U2U Network, a modular layer-1 platform, leverages DAG and subnet technology to enhance DePIN applications, gaining significant backing from venture capital firms. The appeal of decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) lies in their ability to decentralize the sharing of physical assets, removing intermediaries like Uber and Airbnb. Through blockchain and Web3 technologies, DePIN enables peer-to-peer exchanges of…

Investment outflows from the Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH) exceeded $25 million on Oct. 1, marking a new all-time high in daily outflows among all other United States-based spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs), excluding the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE). On Oct. 1, the spot Ether ETFs saw cumulative outflows of $48.6 million across nine issuers. FETH, ETHE…

What is a DePIN? DePINs are the bridge between the physical and digital worlds. They use blockchains and provide token rewards for publicly recorded services. Imagine a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) technology, a public library where everyone can contribute or borrow books freely. In this library, blockchain is a detailed catalog of books with…

Apollo Crypto, an investment management firm specializing in digital assets, released a report highlighting the potential for a second wave of growth in decentralized finance (DeFi). A market slowdown followed the peak of “DeFi Summer” in 2020, the report noted, though protocols like Maker, Uniswap and Aave have emerged as industry staples. “As of today…

EigenLayer’s native token, EIGEN, cracked the top 100 tokens by market capitalization after commencing trading on Oct. 1, according to CoinMarketCap. The token unlocked at 5:00 am UTC and has been trading between $3.50 and $4.50 per token on Binance. According to Binance, it’s currently trading at around $3.85, implying a fully diluted value of approximately…

Understanding Bitcoin loss Bitcoin losses — such as the well-known case of James Howells losing access to 7,500 Bitcoin — occur when private keys become inaccessible, effectively removing Bitcoin from circulation. When you think about “losing your Bitcoin,” you probably recall the image of James Howells, a British IT worker, rummaging through a landfill in…

Ethereum network transaction fees have risen significantly over the last two weeks following a surge in onchain activity, according to Coinbase. Coinbase’s weekly report, published on Sept. 27, notes that the average Ethereum gas fees between Sept. 16 and Sept. 26 were 498% higher than the monthly average, with the median transaction cost rising from $0.09 at the beginning…