The latest decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol to raise venture capital coin is Formation Fi, which has dubbed the concept of “Smart Farming 2.0.”

In a May 5 announcement, the DeFi protocol stated that it has successfully completed a $3.3 million strategic sale round. Participating in the round were some of the usual names in crypto investment including Kenetic, Kosmos, Spark Digital Capital, AU21, X21 Digital, Momentum 6, GenBlock, GBV Capital, Shima Capital, and Brilliance ventures.

A number of DeFi protocols such as Synthetix, Bancor, and Polygon also contributed to the oversubscribed round.

DeFi smart farming 2.0
Running with the slogan “The End of Yield Chasing,” Formation Fi aims to introduce “risk parity inspired smart yield farming 2.0,” enabling users to tailor their level of exposure while receiving guidance from the protocol.

This will be provided through the creation if a “founders’ club” which will comprise the founders of top DeFi platforms and companies it wishes to work with long-term.

Formation’s co-founder Kristof Gagacki elaborated;

“We are proud to be building on the collective wisdom of some of DeFi’s first pioneers. With our founders’ club approach, we are focused on coming together to build and amplify this still-experimental ecosystem and evangelize Smart Yield Farming into the world of open finance”

Formation Fi promises to simplify DeFi for ordinary investors and deliver superior returns over time by optimizing the return-to-risk ratios.

Crypto collateral can be deposited into index type investments called Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Parity that will yield an index coin that can then be further deployed for additional yield at the holder’s discretion, it added.

On the surface the platform appears to be trying to emulate what Yearn Finance has done by aggregating yields from a number of DeFi protocols.

Sorce

A crypto-focused company with an array of products and services has revealed the next priority on its ambitious roadmap — a cutting-edge staking system that is set to transform the relationship between high-profile content creators and their fans.

TimeTicket Inc. provides a skill sharing economy platform called TimeTicket, which is home to a community of about 500,000 people. This platform enables users to purchase the time of others — and receive help with website production, writing services, IT support, translations, counseling, and more. Work is under way to create a decentralized version of this platform that’s available internationally.

Another of its applications is eSportStars, which connects professional players with fans and enables them to participate in tournaments for games including Fortnite, Call of Duty Mobile, APEX, PUBG Mobile, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. As previously reported by Cointelegraph, this platform is planning to roll out DeFi and NFT functionality soon.

With each of these subsidiaries showing promising developments, attention is now turning to a concept that is known as Creator Sponsor Staking — a model that is set to offer a better experience than rival platforms that focus on crowdfunding and tipping.

Making things exclusive
According to TimeTicket, fans who contribute to crowdfunding campaigns often end up getting little in return. Creator Sponsor Staking is designed to change this… and increase engagement as a result.

Through this novel environment, an exclusive set of talented content creators (including YouTubers, anime creators and illustrators) will be able to sell rare or limited-edition NFT items to people who believe in their work.

Whereas other marketplaces allow anyone to sell anything, Creator Sponsor Staking aims to become a premium platform where only the best of the best is on offer. It’s hoped that this will help creators differentiate themselves in what has become an exceedingly crowded market.

Negotiations are already under way, and TimeTicket is hoping to unveil just some of the high-profile personalities who have signed up to Creator Sponsor Staking in the near future. The project itself is set to launch in the coming months.

More info

If you don’t have a traditional stock account and want to gain exposure to Coinbase stock you can now do so on Binance. Before we look at how to buy Coinbase Stock Tokens, let’s first clarify what tokenized stocks are.

What Are Coinbase Stock Tokens?
Stock Tokens on Binance are zero-commission digital tokens backed 1:1 by the underlying stock held by Binance. The tokens are pegged to the performance of the stock on the NASDAQ.

Unlike other digital assets on Binance, trading of stock tokens on Binance follow traditional exchange hours.

For a greater understanding of the risks involved read the Binance Stock Tokens Trading Service Agreement here.

https://cryptonews.net/en/news/market/604958/

Switzerland’s stock exchange, SIX, released its trading data for April, showing a 20.6 percent decline in demand month-over-month. The exchange recorded a trading turnover of CHF 109.8 billion for the month.

The official data shows that there was a decline in most of the key trading metrics. The trading volume decline was triggered by a lesser trade execution number, which, for April, came in at 5,148,483, 19.4 percent lower than the previous month.

Demand for equities and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) dominated with 4,925,792 trades being executed, bringing a total turnover of CHF 90.8 billion. CHF and non-CHF bonds generated volumes of CHF 9.2 billion and CHF 1.79 billion, respectively.

The decline in trading demand can also be observed in the numbers of the first four months of the ongoing year. The total turnover generated from the trading activities from January to April came in at CHF 486.8 billion, 34 percent less than what the exchange recorded in the same period last year.

However, it should be noted that the trading venues across the globe earned a windfall in March 2020 due to the financial market turmoil created by the Covid-spurred volatility. Those record monthly numbers not only impacted the quarterly financials of exchanges but also dragged the yearly revenue and profits. The operating income of the exchange jumped by 21.8 percent last year.

Crypto Demand Soars
SIX is one of the few traditional exchanges listing many cryptocurrency products as well. These products generated a turnover of CHF 845.8 million, 36 percent higher than the previous month. And since the beginning of this year, demand for crypto products jumped by 194 percent. Last month, Finance Magnates reported that Seba bank joined the Swiss exchange to list crypto ETPs.

https://cryptonews.net/en/news/market/606890/

The decentralized finance space has become increasingly crowded in recent months. New protocols, exchanges, and automated market makers are launching on an almost daily basis. One of the original protocols feeding many of those new ones, is Balancer, and it is still going strong.

The Ethereum based automated market maker allows users to create or add liquidity to customizable pools and earn trading fees. Balancer derives its name from the formula it uses. As such, it essentially allows any number of tokens in any weights or trading fees into to its custom pools.

The protocol is designed two categories of user:

Liquidity providers who own Balancer pools or participate in shared pools.
Traders who buy or sell the underlying pool assets on the open market.
Over the past 12 months, the collateral locked into the platform has exploded from around $2.5 million to over $2 billion. This securely places Balancer in the top ten largest DeFi platforms on the planet.

More information

American food company General Mills has released its first nonfungible tokens (NFTs) with Dunkaroos, as per a tweet earlier this week.

NFTs…cause why not?
NFTs are blockchain-based representations of tangible or intangible objects that prove their holders are the true owners of that underlying asset.

They were initially limited to blockchain-based art pieces, virtual lands, and other crypto collectibles, but have since been used to sell sneakers, list real estate, release iconic merchandise and music albums…and now even cookie brands.

“Introducing Dunkaroos New Frosting Tokens (NFT)– 90s inspired art. You can own your favorite 90s snack as an NFT and get a taste of our new flavor before they hit the market,” wrote the team on Twitter.

Introducing Dunkaroos New Frosting Tokens (NFT)– 90s inspired art. You can own your favorite 90s snack as an NFT and get a taste of our new flavor before they hit market. Check them out: https://t.co/NB5BlUx3pY. 100% of the profits earned will be donated to Feeding America® pic.twitter.com/0Fu0Mkf39E

— Dunkaroos (@Dunkaroos) April 28, 2021

Dunkaroos are a snack food first launched in 1990. It consists of a snack-sized package containing cookies and frosting and was among the most popular snacks in that decade. Dunkaroos were discontinued in 2012 but returned in 2020.

In a release to CryptoSlate, Dunkaroos said it had minted 10 one-of-a-kind “New Frosting Tokens” (NFTs) for fans who want to own original Dunkaroos digital artwork and score exclusive first taste access to Chocolate Dunkaroos.

[urlhttps://cryptonews.net/en/news/nft/596226/]more info[/url]

Cryptocats are digital art tokens (NFTs) made in 2017 that are hosted on the Ethereum Blockchain -one of the main crypto networks- and sparked interest recently with the huge NFT Market growth these past few months.

This story is the story of how old digital assets get valued by the public, and why there is more to it than actual art quality and ownership issues.

CryptoCats Reborn: How it Started
Until March 11th and the widespread craze for NFTs in the cryptosphere, a significant portion of these cats NFTs were patiently awaiting their adoption, dormant on the Cryptocats website, just like Mooncats and Cryptopunks before them. Their rediscovery by NFT “Archaeologists” -modern-day archaeologists who search for older, forgotten art tokens- sparked a huge rush with over $1 Million spent in a matter of hours by people trying to get their hands on a precious digital feline.

What made them so popular so quickly is that not only they’re one of the oldest digital tokens ever, but they also are the very first fork (made using the same source code) of the famous Cryptopunks, with some of the cats designed by John Watkinson from LarvaLabs (CryptoPunks co-creator). However, unlike CryptoPunks and their 10000 unique punks, the total amount of Cryptocats available is only 625, so the community that formed around it is way smaller than the CryptoPunks one, and the hype/marketing surrounding it quickly vanished.

That was until a week later, on March 19th, another group of NFT Archaeologists discovered the very first versions of these cats on contracts that were published prior to the official ones.

These early versions featured cats of the latest version that were thought to have been lost forever in “forgotten wallets”, making the rush even more massive.

The original #CryptoCat devs deployed 2 contracts within 3 minutes of each other. The only difference appears to be a cost of 0.08 ETH instead of 0.8 ETH. Greed? Maybe, maybe not. Regardless. There’s cats for the taking.

DYOR, you are 100% responsible.https://t.co/Pj6kMw4n8b

— Allen Hena (@RealAllenHena) March 19, 2021

CryptoCats See New Ownership
Within a few minutes, several hundred cats found a new owner. This story could have ended there, but the blockchain is full of surprises. The first version of these cats is similar in all aspects to the final version except for one non-negligible detail- The price.

They are ten times cheaper than their little brothers. Accused of hiding these versions out of pure financial interest, the developers of the CryptoCats decided to deny this version by doing everything in their power to prevent their trade.

They quickly made an official statement on the matter, wrongfully stating that any older contracts were “buggy” and “unusable”.

We had a situation that happened a few hours ago where people found some old CryptoCat contracts that were never used and never associated with our CryptoCat official website.

— CryptoCats (@CryptoCats26) March 19, 2021

This decision came with serious consequences and angered several users who believed that the developers had violated the spirit of the blockchain. Decentralization, by definition, means that no single individual or entity can own the blockchain as it belongs to the community. It is up only to the market to determine what holds value. A group of enthusiasts began to rehabilitate these cats, disowned by their creators.

The ”unofficial” cats were published on OpenSea, the largest market available for NFTs, but quickly taken down after the original developers reported them.

That didn’t stop the new community from working on making these cats available for everyone, and the archaeologists team who found the contract took the matter in their own hands and started working on a decentralized exchange.

Love and passion coming from this Community is incredible. It’s crazy.
We will do our best to perpetuate the spirit of blockchain and decentralization. Come and write history by joining CryptoCats Labs. The very first disowned. Made by the Community.https://t.co/JkNuvGmBRh pic.twitter.com/VcAYzaTBzu

— Archaeology NFT (@TheSybarit) March 22, 2021

Thus, 2 days later, CryptoCats Reborn, and its exchange cryptocatslistings.com were born, a fully decentralized exchange acting directly on the contract, without intermediates.

A runaway success that generated over 200 trades and $600,000 in volume in less than a week, all the while the official version of the contract only showed a single sale in 10 days, an all time low since their rediscovery.

-The devs rejected the older(1st deployed) contracts found by the community

– The community decided to build their own UI after getting kicked off @opensea

-In less than 48hrs, the 1st deployed CryptoCats have done 200 ETH+ in volume.

The market has spoken 🔥 https://t.co/DPNVAVeOvE

— JuanSnow (@Juan_Snow1) March 26, 2021

This story of CryptoCats Reborn once again reminds us of the beauty and power of decentralization. The blockchain allows us to free ourselves from individuals and centralization, and it is its users that define the market value of anything on it.

CryptoCats Reborn, When the Blockchain Takes Power Over Developers
https://cryptonews.net/594768/?utm_source=CryptoNews&utm_medium=app&utm_campaign=shared