Tag: Celo

Polygon Labs Proposes Celo’s Transition to Ethereum L2 Using Their Chain Development Kit

by Blockchain News

Polygon Labs has officially proposed a technical upgrade for Celo, suggesting its transition from an independent EVM-compatible L1 to an Ethereum L2. This proposal was made public on September 21, just 9 hours after its initial announcement by SandeepN.

The Proposal in Detail

Polygon Labs’ recommendation revolves around Celo deploying an L2 using the Polygon Chain Development Kit (CDK). This open-source toolset allows developers to create their own ZK-powered L2 for Ethereum. It also facilitates the conversion of existing L1s to Ethereum L2s with minimal friction, emphasizing modularity.

Key Value Propositions of Polygon CDK

Enhanced Collaboration: By joining a robust ecosystem of ZK-powered L2s, there’s potential for increased cross-community collaboration.

EVM-Equivalent Environment: Developers can achieve the closest alignment with Ethereum technically possible.

Security: The system leverages Ethereum’s proven consensus layer combined with the security of zero-knowledge proofs.

Low Fees: Achieved through a zkEVM validium architecture and off-chain data availability.

Unified L2 Ecosystem: This merges the Ethereum mainnet and Polygon ecosystem into a single expansive economy.

Customizability: The system offers an app-chain stack and interoperability with all Polygon L2 chains.

Fast Transactions: Near-instant withdrawals and rapid cross-chain interactivity are secured by ZK.

High Standards of Support: Meeting the standards of major Web3 projects and Web2 companies.

Ethereum Alignment and Background in ZK

Polygon Labs has consistently aimed to scale Ethereum and its core values. With L2 and rollups on its roadmap, Ethereum’s future is geared towards scaling securely and seamlessly. Polygon Labs’ core developers have invested years in ZK technology to align closely with Ethereum. Innovations like the Plonky2 ZK proving system have enabled L2s to see reduced fees and finality times, all while inheriting Ethereum’s decentralization, security, and existing tooling.

Upgrade Value Propositions

The proposal addresses both the initial value propositions suggested by cLabs and unique value propositions unlocked by Polygon CDK. These responses delve into the technical value of deploying with Polygon CDK and position this decision within the broader efforts of scaling Ethereum.

Potential Impact on the Celo Community

Validators: The Polygon CDK offers deployment in rollup or validium mode, allowing current Celo validators to participate. They would either act as a data availability committee or as sequencers.

Developers: Developers will benefit from the EVM-equivalent nature of Polygon CDK, maximizing the network effects of Ethereum alignment.

Users: Transaction fee changes with Polygon CDK are expected to be minimal.

CELO Holders: CELO will remain the governing token of the Celo ecosystem, with holders retaining control over core smart contracts and the validator set.

Conclusion

Polygon Labs’ proposal aims to expand on the value propositions highlighted by cLabs for Celo’s upgrade to an Ethereum L2. The dialogue between Polygon Labs and the Celo community is anticipated to continue, with the shared goal of achieving optimal technical upgrades for the blockchain community.

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

$8.4m Exploit Breached from DeFi Lending Protocol Moola Markets

by Blockchain News

Another exploit hits the crypto industry with roughly $8.4 million stolen from Moola Markets, a non-custodial liquidity and lending protocol built on the mobile-first Celo blockchain.

hacking_1200.jpg

According to Research director Igor Igamberdiev, the attacker exploited the protocol by using 243,000 CELO tokens deposited from Binance and, in turn, loaned 60,000 CELO to Moola protocol to borrow 1.8 million MOO for use as collateral. 

With the remaining CELO, the exploiter increased the MOO token price and used the borrowed MOO token as collateral to borrow more tokens across a series of other DeFi lending protocols.

Using all of these strategies, the exploiter made away with 8.8 million CELO ($6.5 million), 765,000 cEUR ($700,000), 1.8 million MOO ($600,000), and 644,000 cUSD ($600,000).

Currently, Moola Markets has paused all operations on its platform due to the latest exploit. And according to an update on its Twitter page, the platform advises users not to trade mTokens as the team is actively investigating the exploit.

“We are actively investigating an incident on @Moola_Market. All activity on Moola has been paused. Please do not trade mTokens,” said Moola Markets in its Twitter update.

The team added that they have contacted law enforcement and taken steps to make it difficult for the exploiter to liquidate the funds. And in addition, they are ready to negotiate a bounty payment in exchange for the attacker returning the funds within the next 24 hours.

This month has been a month of exploitation like never seen in the industry. According to new data from Chainanalysis, 2022 is most likely to surpass 2021 in terms of the biggest year for hacking on record.

Last week, trading and lending platform Mango Markets got hit by a $100 million exploit. As reported by Blockchain.News, the attacker, manipulated the price of Mango Market’s native MANGO token via an oracle.

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

Celo Launches Web3 Africa Fund to Support Blockchain Startups

by Blockchain News

Celo, a mobile phone-focused blockchain platform, launched the Celo Web3 Africa Fund to support 250 projects in developing African blockchain-based projects.

The fund will select 250 projects, and in addition to financial support, it will also provide business and technical guidance for potential projects. At present, the fund is open for application.

The company said it would hold corresponding seminars in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, and South Africa. It will help blockchain projects to be listed on decentralized exchanges.

The Celo network has differentiated itself from other blockchains, enabling payments with its Celo Dollar stablecoin, which could be directly sent to a person’s phone number rather than an address.

The smartphone-focused Celo platform currently boasts more than 1 million registered wallet addresses across 113 countries.

The company claims that it will be able to reach 1 billion users worldwide by 2025.

Last August, Celo, a mobile phone-focused blockchain platform, announced a 100 million funding program, popularly known as the “DeFi for the people” fund, aiming to make DeFi accessible to the 6 billion smartphone users worldwide.

Crypto Valley Venture Capital (CV VC), a Switzerland-headquartered private venture capital company, announced that it has launched African Blockchain Early-Stage Fund that targets blockchain startups from across the continent.

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / /

Kickstarter Faces Backlash Over Partnership With Celo

by Cryptobriefing

Key Takeaways

  • Kickstarter has revealed plans to develop a decentralized protocol mobile-centric blockchain–Celo.

  • The blockchain integration announcement has been met with intense backlash from its community.

  • Kickstarter has yet to respond to the criticism.


Share this article


Popular crowdfunding platform Kickstarter is drawing criticism from its community for choosing to build on Celo, a mobile-centric public blockchain. 

Kickstarter Criticized For Considering a Decentralized Service

On Thursday, Kickstarter revealed plans to develop a decentralized protocol on mobile-centric blockchain Celo. According to the Kickstarter team, a new open-source and decentralized model would make it “possible for people to launch and fund creative projects anywhere.”

By building on a blockchain like Celo, Kickstarter can remove the involvement of intermediaries and gatekeepers. This way, the firm says it hopes to reduce friction and make the process of fundraising easier for millions of unbanked people worldwide.

However, Kickstarter’s blockchain plans have been met with an intense backlash from its community. Social media commentators and Kickstarter’s own users, including notable artists and designers, called out the platform for mulling a blockchain model. 

A blockchain pivot could potentially be a large growth catalyst for Kickstarter. However, based on the latest developments, it’s clear that many of its existing users are strongly opposed to the idea. Disgruntled users posted complaints on social platforms, including Twitter and Reddit, in response to the company’s blockchain plans.  The backlash has come from users’ alleged claims that Kickstarter’s blockchain strategy would be damaging to the environment.



Jeeyon Shim, a Korean American game designer, wrote in a tweet post they were “heartbroken” by the partnership and urged Kickstarter to reconsider the decision. Shim argued that “environmental stewardship” was a core value for them. Another detractor of the Kickstarter-Celo partnership, Elizabeth Hargrave wrote: “Oh hell no. blockchain is an environmental disaster and I will never support a board game that uses it [Kickstarter].”

While environmental concerns surrounding Proof-of-Work chains like Bitcoin are real, it is essential to distinguish Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work from a much more energy-efficient consensus mechanism known as Proof-of-Stake deployed by Celo. In Proof-of-Stake, instead of using energy-intensive computations to validate blocks, blockchain validators secure the network by putting up tokens as a stake to validate transactions.  

Brian Li, a core contributor to Celo-based projects such as UbeSwap and NomSpace, believes that “putting the entirety of crypto under that umbrella is overgeneralizing.” 

Speaking with Crypto Briefing, Li said: 

“Unlike other chains, Celo doesn’t require a massive amount of computing power finding hashes to add new transactions to its network. Celo’s hardware requirements are quite small.”

He added that traditional payment services are “completely centralized, non-censorship resistant,” making it hard to build decentralized, open-source applications. 


Despite these facts, Kickstarter users were quick to jump to conclusions. Recently Discord and Ubisoft also faced similar backlashes from their respective communities for merely discussing the idea of integrating non-fungible tokens into their platforms. 

Kickstarter has yet to address concerns posted by its users. Per their update, Kickstarter plans to publish now a whitepaper detailing their planned decentralized crowdfunding platform.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned BTC, ETH, and other cryptocurrencies.

Share this article


The information on or accessed through this website is obtained from independent sources we believe to be accurate and reliable, but Decentral Media, Inc. makes no representation or warranty as to the timeliness, completeness, or accuracy of any information on or accessed through this website. Decentral Media, Inc. is not an investment advisor. We do not give personalized investment advice or other financial advice. The information on this website is subject to change without notice. Some or all of the information on this website may become outdated, or it may be or become incomplete or inaccurate. We may, but are not obligated to, update any outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate information.

You should never make an investment decision on an ICO, IEO, or other investment based on the information on this website, and you should never interpret or otherwise rely on any of the information on this website as investment advice. We strongly recommend that you consult a licensed investment advisor or other qualified financial professional if you are seeking investment advice on an ICO, IEO, or other investment. We do not accept compensation in any form for analyzing or reporting on any ICO, IEO, cryptocurrency, currency, tokenized sales, securities, or commodities.

See full terms and conditions.



Kickstarter Announces That It Will Move to Blockchain

Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter has announced that it will soon integrate its main service with blockchain technology. Kickstarter Will Transition to Blockchain Kickstarter says that will create a “decentralized version of…

What is Rarible: A DAO for NFTs

What was once dismissed as a silly and expensive sector, NFTs give creators access to global markets in a way that’s never been possible before, and it’s all thanks to blockchain.Those familiar…

Is Bitcoin Mining Really An Environmental Catastrophe?

We’ve seen the screaming headlines: Bitcoin uses more electricity than Ireland! Bitcoin is an environmental terrorist! Bitcoin will use more energy than the whole wide world by next year! (Yes,…

Discord Scraps Ethereum NFT Plans Following Backlash

Discord is pausing its crypto plans after heavy resistance from users. Discord U-Turns on Ethereum Plans Discord founder and CEO Jason Citron has suggested that the platform will pause its…


Source

Tagged : / / / / /

Kickstarter’s New Company Will Run on Blockchain Tech by 2022

by Blockchain News

Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter plans to unveil a standalone company by building a crowdfunding system based on blockchain technology.

Webp.net-resizeimage - 2021-12-09T112910.098.jpg

In a blog post, CEO Aziz Hasan and co-founder Perry Chen also reported that Kickstarter will switch its own website to the new infrastructure following the completion of the new company sometime in 2022.

Currently, the new company does not yet have a name. Still, Kickstarter’s open-source protocol is confirmed that will be built on the blockchain platform Celo, which counts Andreessen Horowitz and Jack Dorsey among its backers.

Bloomberg reported that the development of the new company is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2022.

“We are entering a significant moment for alternative governance models, and we think there’s an important opportunity to advance these efforts using the blockchain,” said Chen and Hasan.

This move from Kickstarter comes at a time when crypto spaces are rapidly emerging and capital that might have once gone to Kickstarter campaigns is flowing through blockchains into what are known as distributed autonomous organizations, or DAOs. 

In November, a group dubbed ConstitutionDAO mounted a crowdfunding campaign to bid a rare printed copy of the U.S. Constitution. The anonymous organisation raised $46.3 million but failed to win the auction eventually. Following its failure to win the auction, the DAO offered refunds and decided to disband.

Kickstarter was launched in 2009, and it almost became an instant hit with entrepreneurs, celebrities and big firms. The company reported that 21 million people have pledged more than $6 billion to back 213,034 projects using the crowdfunding platform.

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / /

Kickstarter Goes Crypto to Compete With DAOs

by Decrypt

DAOs have been called the new GoFundMe or Kickstarter. Well, what if Kickstarter is the new DAO?

The crowdfunding platform is creating a new organization tasked with building a blockchain-based version of its platform. The new organization, which does not yet have a name, should begin developing the platform early next year. Kickstarter plans to switch over to the new platform when the protocol is ready; it’s aiming for 2022, per reporting from Bloomberg.

“We think bringing all that we’ve learned about crowdfunding since 2009 to inform the development of a decentralized protocol will open up exciting new opportunities for creative projects to come to life,” founder Perry Chen and CEO Aziz Hasan wrote today. “In the coming weeks, a white paper will be released outlining the technology and plans for the protocol.”

Kickstarter was one of the original web-based fundraising platforms. It works like this: Someone has an idea but they need money to make it a reality. Rather than lose equity to venture capital firms or take out an interest-laden loan from the bank, they use Kickstarter to pitch their idea to the hoi polloi. If people want the idea to become reality, they can pledge money to it—typically in exchange for an eventual version of the product and some bonus goodies; essentially, they pre-order it.

Peloton—now a publicly traded company—produced its first bike using Kickstarter; the Oculus virtual reality headset—now owned by Facebook parent company Meta—started off on the platform as well.

But decentralized autonomous organizations may be eating into Web 2 platforms’ market share. Like crowdfunding platforms, DAOs can also be used as mechanisms for pooling money together to buy something—whether that’s a copy of the U.S. constitution at auction, an NBA team, or collectible NFTs. DAOs raise millions by selling their own digital tokens—typically via the Ethereum blockchain—that represent voting shares; the more tokens you have, the more sway over the DAO’s decisions you have.

DAOs have a few potential advantages over legacy platforms. For starters: fees. Kickstarter takes 5% of all funds raised. That’s after grabbing 3-5% in payment processing fees per pledge. Blockchain tech has the potential to cut down on those numbers by making payments more efficient, though it’s not without complications.

While DAO members don’t tithe to their organization, they do have to cover on-chain transaction fees. Ethereum rates over the past year make Kickstarter’s take look tiny.

Kickstarter won’t be using Ethereum; it’s opted for Celo due to its “carbon negative blockchain platform.” The company intends to establish a “governance lab” run separately from the current and new platform.

Source

Tagged : / /

0x expands partnership with Celo to distribute $4.5M to DAO ecosystem

by Cointelegraph

0x protocol and Celo blockchain have announced a joint partnership to allocate $4.5 million — consisting of $3 million CELO and $1.5 million ZRX — towards the growth of 0x’s ecosystem via its community-centric decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

The news follows an agreement penned in mid-November between the two firms to integrate a zero-cost 0x API functionality on the Celo blockchain to enhance the experience of DeFi developers seeking to access multi-chain aggregated decentralized exchange (DEX) liquidity services.

Celo is an open-source collective of tech, nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) unified to promote greater global access to decentralized applications (dApps) and cryptocurrency payments via its mobile-centric model, while 0x is a decentralized web infrastructure that facilitates tokenized ERC-20 investing through the use of public smart contracts. 

0x claims that, since its launch, its API feature has enabled more than 21 million trades across more than 1.8 million unique addresses for a sum of over $100 billion in volume across popular chains Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, and Fantom.

Celo’s head of ecosystem growth Xochitl Cazador said the new partnership is designed to foster “rapid expansion” of a “truly decentralized DeFi within the 0x community DAO.”

Founded upon principles of decentralization, community governance and transparent objectives, the re-emergence of DAOs over the past 12 months has ignited the conversation for the technology becoming the next major sub-sector of mass growth within DeFi during 2022, and as such, accelerating the growth of an industry already establishing historic total value locked (TVL) of $274.65 billion. By comparison, DeFi’s TVL was less than $20 billion a year ago and virtually non-existent at the start of 2020. 

Related: DeFi can be 100 times larger than today in 5 years

In August this year, both Celo and 0x were founding members of the decentralized finance philanthropic initiative DeFi for the People. The collaborative venture, which included notable projects such as Aave, SushiSwap and Curve, among others, raised $100 million to support a panoply of financial inclusion and education schemes. 

Aligning with these collaborative principles in this latest funding, 0x Labs’ co-founder and co-CEO Will Warren said the Celo partnership is expected to have a positive impact on his platform’s native ZRX token. ZRX is currently valued at $1.07 for a total market capitalization of $910 million, according to CoinGecko.