Vitalik Buterin Just Invested in This Little-Known Blockchain Project – DL News

A version of this article appeared in our The decentralized July 2 newsletter. Sign up here.

General manager, Tim here.

Here’s what caught my attention in DeFi recently:

• The biggest names in crypto are piling into MegaETH.
• Why Lido Recovered After Jump Crypto’s Leadership Change.
• A project by Solana DePIN challenges Google Maps.

MegaETH’s Mega Fundraising Round

You’ve heard of ETH, but what is MegaETH?

That’s what many people – including me – thought when they heard that this little-known project had just raised $20 million.

MegaETH is a new blockchain (yes, another one) that claims to be the first to operate in real time.

What he complaintsmeaning it can reach “100,000 transactions per second with millisecond responsiveness.”

Processing transactions on existing blockchains like Ethereum can take up to 13 seconds.

Join the community to receive our latest stories and updates

Dragonfly Capital led MegaETH’s seed funding round.

I don’t know if MegaETH will live up to its promises. But many respected figures in the industry certainly thought it was a good investment.

Angel investors include:

Some observers have compared MegaETH to Monadanother project promising improvements in speed and throughput over the current generation of blockchains.

In April, Monad Labs raised $225 million in a round led by Paradigm.

Lido tokens rally

The resignation of Jump Crypto president Kanav Kariya has apparently been a good thing for Lido’s LDO.

After Kariya announced his departure on June 24, LDO jumped some 7%.

The reason, according to observers, is that under Kariya, Jump Crypto sold more than five million LDO tokens in 2022 and 2023, driving down the price of the asset.

It is unclear whether Kariya was personally involved in Jump’s sale of LDO. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“It’s a mix of joke and truth,” said Will Sheehan, founder of crypto data platform Parsec Finance.

“Jump was selling Lido through 2022 and 2023, and sometimes in cryptocurrency. [crypto Twitter] “The joke becomes a real negative story.”

Hivemapper Token Issue

Hivemapper, a Solana-based mapping project, has big ambitions.

The company wants to overtake Google Maps and to do so, it is using symbolic incentives.

Like many so-called DePIN projects, short for Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network, Hivemapper issues a token, called HONEY.

Those who use a dashcam to contribute to the project’s mapping service can earn MIEL.

Ariel Seidman, CEO of Hivemapper, said: DL News This incentive setup “can produce street-level imagery 20 to 100 times more recent than Google’s.”

But there is a catch.

Hivemapper is struggling to generate demand for its product — and therefore demand for HONEY.

The token’s price is down 85% from its December peak.

Data of the week

Solana memecoin Pump.fun launches: Surpasses $50 million in cumulative revenue.

At its current rate, Pump.fun is expected to bring in more than $252 million per year. (DefiLlama)

This Week in DeFi Governance

VOTE: GnosisDAO to Fund New Venture Capital Fund GnosisVC

VOTE: Lido takes another step forward by integrating stETH into Ethereum’s Layer 2

VOTE: Compound Votes to Launch USDT Marketplace on Version 3

Article of the week

Ethereum co-founder Buterin writes a blog post explaining how to speed up transaction confirmation on Ethereum.

What we are looking at

DeFi users are withdrawing liquid Ether re-staking tokens from protocols at an unprecedented rate.

Got any DeFi tips? Contact us at tim@dlnews.com.

Fuente