Switzerland-based technology company Velas has allocated $100 million to startups building on top of the Velas blockchain, marking a sizable increase from its initial pledge of $5 million earlier this year.  The grants program is designed to support the growth of the Velas ecosystem and expand its capabilities within Web 3.0, a broad umbrella term that describes the next stage in the internet’s evolution. Like the initial $5 million grants program announced in August, the new funding initiative will allocate up to $100,000 per project. While Velas intends to fund a wide range of projects, developers who are creating solutions for DeFi, decentralized exchanges, nonfungible tokens and gaming will be given priority. To apply for the grant, startups must include a business plan, pitch deck, technical specifications for their product, project timeline and an explanation for how their project will benefit the Velas ecosystem. Developers selected for the program will receive networking, marking and technical support from the Velas team. 

Terra’s (LUNA) three-month rally saw its token rise by 674%, catapulting LUNA to the ranks of potential so-called “Ethereum killers.” LUNA has been on a tear lately because Terra’s most recent upgrade, Columbus-5, has effectively overhauled its tokenomics and brought significant changes to its technology. LUNA currently sits in fourth place in total value locked (TVL) among other blockchains, indicating its growing popularity for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications and also underpins its long-term viability. Terra is a layer-one blockchain developed by South Korean startup firm Terraform Labs and was released in January 2018. It has a payments-focused ecosystem powered by algorithmic stablecoins and aims to be the infrastructure for all the apps being built by Terraform Labs and the Terra community.

According to data from eth.btc.com，ethereum network's hashrate is708,674.56 GH/s，mining difficulty is9,636.37T. ETH's price ：$ 3,572.30 Avg Gas Price：110.00Gwei Pending Txs ：128943

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance, or DeFi, newsletter. Blogging platform Mirror expanded to the public market this week. Read on to discover the impact of this move for Ethereum wallet holders.  What you’re about to read is a more succinct version of the newsletter. For a comprehensive summary of DeFi’s developments over the last week, subscribe below.

Smart contract automation network Gelato has become the latest to receive big backing from crypto venture capital giants. Gelato has raised $11 million in a Series A funding round led by Dragonfly Capital and with participation from ParaFi Capital, Nascent, IDEO CoLab Ventures and Aave founder Stani Kulechov. The funds were raised through a closed-door token sale and will go toward onboarding more blockchains to the network and increasing its staff from the current team of 15.

Bitcoin (BTC) has led a 35% rally this week by soaring far above the $50,000 resistance level and restoring a $1-trillion market capitalization to the asset. According to a note shared by JPMorgan with clients on Thursday, the recent increase in price for BTC was predominantly attributed to institutional investors looking for a hedge to inflation. “The re-emergence of inflation concerns among investors has renewed interest in the usage of Bitcoin as an inflation hedge,” the analysts said, arguing there has been a shift in perception as to the merits of BTC in relation to gold.

A subsidiary of the blockchain software provider Powerbridge Technologies, Powercrypto Holdings, has announced the launch of a sustainable cryptocurrency mining initiative for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) in Hong Kong. The company plans to deploy a total of 2,600 first-grade mining rigs, comprising of 600 BTC mining machines operating at a hash rate of 60 PH/s, as well as a further 2,000 ETH mining machines, which harness a hash rate power of 1,000 GH/s. According to the announcement, Powercrypto’s ultimate ambition with the inauguration of this venture is to increase the BTC and ETH hash rate level across the North American and Asian markets.

Dfinity founder Dominic Williams believes content creation platforms like OnlyFans are ripe for disruption now that decentralized technologies have become mainstream. He’s inviting developers to build a blockchain-driven content platform on Internet Computer (ICP) — a powerful general-purpose blockchain launched by Dfiniity Foundation earlier this year. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Williams discussed recent attempts by financial institutions to censor adult content creation on OnlyFans, as well as the general outlook on smart contract platforms. In August of this year, major financial institutions such as Bank of New York Mellon, Metro Bank and JPMorgan Chase effectively forced OnlyFans to ban sexually explicit content on its platform. CEO Tim Stokely told the Financial Times that his company, which has become synonymous with adult content creation, “had no choice” but to heed to the banks’ demands. (The banks reportedly threatened to cut ties with OnlyFans because of the reputational damage of servicing an adult content platform.)

Under pressure from regulators around the world, major exchange Binance is looking to establish headquarters in Ireland. Until now, it has operated globally for years under what its CEO, Changpeng Zhao, has described as a “decentralized” structure. A Wednesday report from Irish media outlet Independent noted that Binance had established three subsidiaries in the country on Sept. 27 — Binance (APAC) Holdings, Binance (Services) Holdings and Binance Technologies — with Zhao listed as the director for each. In an interview with Reuters published on Thursday, Zhao stated that Binance is currently “in the process of establishing a few headquarters in different parts of the world.” When asked if Ireland was part of Binance’s plans for formal headquarters, he responded, “Yes, it does.”

Esports, gaming and interactive media investment platform Bitkraft VC has established a $75-million token fund for investing in blockchain gaming and digital entertainment. The fund uses a “stage-agnostic” strategy, meaning that it will put money in companies and startups at any business development stage. Apart from equity investment, the token fund will also invest in cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens (NFT). In order to provide regulated investment opportunities, Bitkraft received an investment advisor registration from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in June 2021.

United States Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming, has revealed that she purchased Bitcoin (BTC) worth between $50,001 and $100,000 on Aug. 16, according to documents filed on Thursday.  The disclosure was part of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or STOCK Act, which prohibits the use of non-public information for profit. The STOCK Act was signed into law under former President Barack Obama in April 2012 and is designed to combat insider trading. As CNBC reported, Lummis’ purchase was disclosed outside of the 45-day reporting window stipulated in the law. The reporting delay was due to “a filing error,” a spokesperson said.

This month, Cointelegraph Research will release a comprehensive report on nonfungible tokens, discussing NFTs in detail and providing a detailed guide to getting into this market.  In collaboration with multiple partners — including Enjin, NFTBank, The Sandbox and others — the report will evaluate the technology behind NFTs, their regulatory challenges, and their prospective growth and current market positions. The report will also outline the hurdles that the market may encounter in the future, and potential ways to overcome them. At the beginning of 2021, there was increased interest in NFTs, with the largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, experiencing a hundredfold sales increase in half a year. The total volume of NFT sales reached $2.5 billion in the first half of 2021, almost eight times the total amount in all of 2020.

Yat Siu, co-founder and chairman of nonfungible token (NFT) game developer Animoca Brands, believes NFTs offer a new way for culture to be stored in the virtual sphere. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Siu argued that while the technology underpinning NFTs may be new, the desire to “store culture” has long been with us throughout human history. “We describe NFTs as stores of culture because they embody a moment in history,” he said, adding, “What is art? Art stores culture.”

Abracadabra.Money’s stablecoin, Magic Internet Money (MIM), has surged past a $1-billion total supply this month as the project works to provide competition to MakerDAO. Abracadabra is a cross-chain stablecoin lending protocol that operates on Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Fantom, Avalanche and Arbitrum. Along with MIM, the project also has a SPELL governance token that can be staked on the protocol. The project describes itself as a “spell book” that enables users to provide collateral via interest-bearing tokens, such as yvUSDC and xSUSHI, and to borrow the MIM stablecoin against their tokens.

The research unit of Arcane Crypto predicts the Lightning Network will go parabolic as adoption of the Bitcoin (BTC) layer-two payment protocol ramps up over the decade. Arcane Research published the “State of Lightning” report on Tuesday and analyzed the Lightning Network in terms of current capacity, wallet payment volume, the growing rate of adoption, and the switch from online services to everyday usage. The report provides ambitious estimates for the future of the Lighting Network, such as 90% of Salvadorans over the age of 15 having access to Lightning payments by 2026, and 50 million Lightning users, representing $17 billion in annualized payments, for things like remittances and household expenditure by 2030.

Indian short-video sharing platform Chingari is preparing to launch its own blockchain network and social token. Chingari has completed a $19-million funding round to launch its mainnet and conduct a token sale for its Solana-based GARI token in November, the firm announced on Friday. Chingari co-founder and CEO Sumit Ghosh said that the token sale is scheduled for Nov. 2, while the mainnet launch and application integration are expected to have gone live by the end of that month.

The amount of Ether (ETH) that is being held by miners has reached record levels in terms of United States dollars, as they remain reluctant to sell. The balance held by Ether miners is the largest it has been since shortly after the network was launched five years ago. When converted into USD, it is at a historic peak of $1.85 billion, according to data provided by analytics platform Santiment. The firm stated that the 532,750 ETH is the largest balance held by miners since July 13, 2016. The amount equates to around 0.45% of the total circulating supply of Ethereum, which is currently 117.8 million ETH.

According to data from eth.btc.com，ethereum network's hashrate is694,029.97 GH/s，mining difficulty is9,455.09T. ETH's price ：$ 3,501.62 Avg Gas Price：51.00Gwei Pending Txs ：125602