Evening News | Vitalik on the cover of Time magazine; Project Galaxy announces airdrop plan

Organizer: Cookies, Chain Catcher

"What are the truly important news today?"

1. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin on the cover of Time magazine

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin appears on the cover of Time magazine, showing that Vitalik Buterin is fighting for the future of cryptocurrency.

Time magazine also announced that it will release the first fully decentralized magazine on the blockchain in the form of an NFT on March 23, featuring Vitalik as the cover. This NFT was created in collaboration with the NFT project LITDAO, allowing holders to read the entire content of the magazine through an interactive NFT. (Source link)

2. Project Galaxy announces airdrop for some Galaxy NFT holders

The Web3 credential network Project Galaxy announced on its official blog that it will airdrop GAL tokens to Galaxy NFT holders to reward early adopters, with the airdrop amounting to 1.83% of the total issuance, and the snapshot will be taken one week before the token generation event.

It is reported that the eligible NFT series include Meta Cowboy NFT, Shadowy Coder NFT, Galaxy Girl, and Reindeer NFT, among others (details can be seen in the image below), with a total of 31,600 addresses holding and qualifying for the airdrop.

Project Galaxy is known as the world's largest Web3 credential data network, built on an open and collaborative infrastructure that helps developers and organizations leverage NFT and digital credential data to build better products and communities in Web3. (Source link)

4. Lightweight blockchain protocol Mina completes $92 million financing, led by FTX Ventures and Three Arrows Capital
The lightweight blockchain protocol Mina has completed a strategic and private financing round of $92 million, led by FTX Ventures and Three Arrows Capital, with participation from Alan Howard, Amber Group, Blockchain.com, Brevan Howard, Circle Ventures, Finality Capital Partners, Pantera, and others. Mina will use the funds to accelerate the adoption of zero-knowledge proofs.

Mina is reported to be the first Layer-1 to achieve simple programmability for zero-knowledge smart contracts (zkApps), with unique privacy and security features, as well as the ability to connect to any website through its zkApp, making Web3 more secure and private, aiming to become the preferred privacy and end-to-end security layer for Web3. (Source link)

5. Ethereum Layer 2 scaling network Optimism completes $150 million Series B financing, co-led by a16z and Paradigm
Ethereum Layer 2 scaling network Optimism announced that it has recently completed a $150 million Series B financing round, reaching a valuation of $1.65 billion, co-led by a16z and Paradigm. Optimism stated that it is currently focused on reducing the complexity of its codebase and promoting close compatibility with code written for Ethereum, so developers do not have to change their existing applications to be compatible with Optimism. The company also mentioned that an upcoming version called "Bedrock" will double the so-called "EVM equivalence" and reduce network costs by half. (Source link)

6. Synthetix has released the Diphda version, including perpetual contract market, debt pool merging, and other updates

The synthetic asset protocol Synthetix has released the Diphda version at 3:00 AM Beijing time on March 18, 2022. The debt pool merging has begun, and deposits and withdrawals between Layer 1 and Layer 2 have been suspended. The debt pool will be completed by 1:00 AM Beijing time on March 19.

The new version includes a perpetual contract market that can be traded with 10x leverage on Kwenta; merging Synthetix's debt pools across all supported chains; and launching synthetic assets sAAVE and sUNI for AAVE and UNI on Optimism. (Source link)

7. X2Y2: Initial parameters of the staking reward contract had errors, causing reward share to increase from 18% to 56%

The NFT trading platform X2Y2 stated that an error was found in the initial parameters set for the staking reward contract during the staking halving. X2Y2 noted that the staking halving began at block 14408224, with the APR dropping from ~1000% to ~160%, far below the expected 500%. After investigating the issue, the team discovered the error in setting the initial parameters of the staking reward contract.

Due to the parameter error, 56% of the total rewards of 200 million were allocated in the first 30 days, instead of the initially planned 18%. X2Y2 stated that this may also be a major driving factor behind the intense selling pressure experienced so far. (Source link)

8. American entertainment software retailer GameStop plans to launch NFT marketplace by the end of July
American entertainment software retailer GameStop announced in its fourth-quarter financial report that the company plans to launch an NFT marketplace by the end of July. GameStop stated that it hired dozens of employees with experience in blockchain gaming, e-commerce, and technology in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Previously, in February of this year, GameStop announced that it would collaborate with the NFT Layer 2 scaling solution Immutable X to launch its NFT program and would receive $150 million worth of IMX tokens after achieving certain milestones. (Source link)

"What articles are the editors of Chain Catcher looking at?"

1. “Time Magazine Feature: Vitalik is Worried About the Future of the Crypto Industry”

After being nominated for Time magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people, Ethereum founder Vitalik today appears on the cover of Time, further highlighting the influence of Ethereum and the crypto industry.

At the same time, Time magazine released an interview report with Vitalik, covering his early growth journey, personal thoughts, and insider details about Ethereum's early development.

2. “Mint Ventures In-Depth Report: Is Luna Really a Ponzi Scheme?”

This year, the market value of Luna has skyrocketed, and it has recently become the focus of the industry again. Terra's co-founder and CEO Do Kwon and crypto KOL Sensei Algod have made a million-dollar bet on whether Luna's price can stand above $88 a year later (later Do Kwon requested to raise the bet to $10 million). As one of the public chains with the strongest rising momentum this year, Terra has high research and discussion value.

3. “How does EthSign connect the Web2 and Web3 worlds through electronic protocol signatures?”

With the rise of trends such as paperless offices, remote work, cross-border trade, and internet finance, electronic signatures have begun to see widespread application. However, electronic protocols have hidden dangers such as non-standard operations, easy tampering, easy loss, and difficulty in verifying the identity of electronic signers.

ETHSign is a decentralized electronic protocol signature platform established in 2019. Users can bypass authoritative intermediaries to achieve peer-to-peer transactions and collaboration. After both parties sign, the data will be stored on blockchains such as Ethereum, and the validity of the contract will be proven by numerous nodes on the chain, rather than by authoritative intermediaries.