DAY LONG NEWS ROUNDUP: LATEST NEWS 10/12/21

• Avinandan Banerjee
• December 10, 2021

Trying to keep you well-informed about the crypto industry is our everyday target. So, here is the daily dose of the top 3 crypto news items that can help you stay right ahead of your competitors. Take a look:

 

Polygon to support Mir by investing 250M MATIC

Created for designing Ethereum connected blockchain products, Polygon has decided to invest 250M MATIC tokens as part of a deal with Mir, a zero-knowledge cryptography firm. With this deal, Polygon will be putting in a whopping amount of $627.5 million to enhance blockchain scaling capacity through ZK cryptography tools. The partnership is likely to help Polygon in building a powerful ecosystem for blockchain developers looking forward to advanced scaling solutions.

As cryptocurrency and blockchain technology became popular, tech-savvies began experimenting with the existing structures to build something advanced for the future. Ever since the inception of cryptocurrencies, scaling has always been a tough spot for the decentralized industry. The development of Zero-knowledge algorithms by Mir is a powerful remedial solution for scaling problems.

Zero-knowledge protocols allow external validators to verify encrypted information without disclosing the confidential data stored within. This technology is highly useful for various decentralized fields like ride-share apps, insurance, etc. Here the nodes need to verify the personal information of the blockchain parties without compromising with data security. Mir offers tools for creating two subcategories of ZK algorithms namely PLONK and Halo. The cryptography solutions allow quick generation of proofs unlike the previous versions of SNARK and STARK.

Talking about the pact, Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, stated that the team is having high hopes for ZK cryptography techniques. The firm is willing to explore every potential opportunity to improve scalability. The use of ZK technology will help to place Polygon as the leading player across the industry.

The PLONK ZK proof requires a reliable setup for verification purposes whereas Halo does not require any such setup and can achieve the target through its complete decentralized structure. In Zero-knowledge algorithms speed is an important determining factor and Mir aspires to achieve all such quintessential features. The collaboration with Mir forms a part of the $1 billion commitment of Polygon focused on ZK technology.

 

 

Ross Ulbricht makes his grand NFT debut, earning $6.2M in an auction

There seems no stopping for the NFT cluster as it continues to set sweeping success records with each passing moment. In the latest development, Ross Ulbricht, the founder of dark web marketspace Silk Road has announced to fetch $6.2M equivalent to 1,446 ETH by selling his first NFT token. The news comes right after the launch of the ‘Genesis Collection’ NFT auction by the Silk Road chief.

According to the report, the auction was organized at Art Basel Miami through the SuperRare portal. The winning bid was placed by FreeRossDAO, the decentralized entity set up to help free Ross from imprisonment. Post winning, the DAO website stated that it aspires to bring a prison reform and put forward the work of Ross while giving every person a fair opportunity to own a share of it in the form of an NFT token.

The first sold NFT was named ‘Perspective’ and was created in the prison using a graphite pencil. It forms a crucial part of the 10-piece collection of unique artworks and writings created by Ross in his life. The collection includes an animated video curated by audiovisual expert Levitate infused with a voiceover by Ross himself. In this video, Ross has shared a chain of the experiences he gathered during his stay inside the prison.

The funds collected from the sale proceeds of the Genesis Collection will be forwarded towards the Art4Giving fund created by the FreeRossDAO. The donor-advised trust fund works as a legal arm for funding new legal obligations and channelizing awareness programs. The team is planning to convert the NFT stock into ROSS governance tokens. These tokens will then be given to people in pro-rata against their donations to the organization. The token holders will get a fair chance to vote and participate in the core working of the FreeRossDAO cluster.

 

 

In a $27 million Series B round, Microsoft backs Palm NFT Studio

Hailing as a high-potential crypto startup project, Palm NFT Studio has announced successful completion of a Series B funding event where it pooled $27 million from industrial investors. The funding round witnessed active participation from Microsoft’s venture fund M12 as it evolved as the biggest contributor leading the event. Other firms that supported the raise included Griffin Gaming Partners, RRE, Third Kind Venture Capital, Sfermion, the LAO, Warner Bros., and SK Inc.

Cofounded by ConsenSys founder and Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin, Palm NFT offers strategic and technical tools for developers to create NFT ecosystems. The funds collected by the company will allow it to expand its core technological spectrum. The platform aspires to help the developers willing to introduce NFT across multiple fields like games, music, art, etc. with proper regulatory compliance and a seamless working interface.

The co-founder and CEO of Palm NFT Studio, Dan Heyman advocates that NFTs will be distributed free of cost in the coming three years span. The team aspires to support projects that mint huge volume of NFTs with utility, share the social objective that connects people, encourage engagement, and rewards participants. The collaboration with M12 will help the firm to realize its vision.

Ever since its launch, Palm NFT Studio has partnered with DC Comics to release NFT tokens depicting tokenized comic book covers. The firm worked with Damien Hirst to present The Currency collection. Palm NFT Studio co-developed the Palm Network that works as an ETH sidechain allowing customers to create NFT projects. The NFTs created on the Palm Network or ETH mainnet can be moved easily across each other’s ecosystems.