Decentralized oracle network Umbrella has published details of its recent initial DEX offering, or IDO, revealing that 110,000 applicants hsigned up for the offering on Polkastarter. The Feb. 9 offering saw 10 times the amount of hopefuls sign up as the 1,000 randomly selected slots available, with 2.5 million UMB tokens being distributed to only 625 participants during the sale. The IDO raised 72.5 Ether worth roughly $250,000. In an announcement shared with Cointelegraph, Umbrella emphasizes the token sale was intended to limit the concentration of tokens among large holders, taking “deliberate steps to ensure strong participation at fair prices.” …

Bitcoin's (BTC) sharp correction below $45,000 sent shockwaves throughout the entire market for a second day and many altcoins are fighting to hold the gains they've accrued since the start of the year. Two exceptions to the current downturn are Solana (SOL) and Cosmos (ATOM), which have both managed to experience minor price breakouts following recent bullish developments for each project. Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that SOL and ATOM saw initial price dips in the early trading hours of trading on Feb. 23 but both were able to quickly bounce back and outperform the wider market for …

Cross-chain bridges and layer-two solutions have become an important topic of conversation in recent weeks as protocols compete to offer the best solution to skyrocketing transaction costs on the Ethereum network. While a lot of the focus in decentralized finance (DeFi) has been on the creation of a sprawling multichain ecosystem following the recent emergence of Binance Smart Chain and Avalanche, those who wish to stay on Ethereum have turned to layer-two solutions like Loopring as their preferred method of escape. A recent report from Delphi Digital has identified Loopring’s decentralized exchange (DEX) as one of the top layer-two contenders, …

In the latest feat of decentralized finance money Lego magic, lending platform Aave and automated market maker Balancer have teamed up on a hybrid liquidity-and-lending feature that may significantly fatten depositor yields. In a blog post on Tuesday, Balancer CEO Fernando Martinelli unveiled plans for the project, dubbed the Balancer V2 Asset Manager. In essence, the integration will allow users to earn two forms of return on their deposits: trading fees and yield farming from Balancer, in addition to lending interest from Aave. In Balancer’s current architecture, users deposit funds into a liquidity pool in order to enable decentralized asset …

Major decentralized exchange SushiSwap is the latest to consider action to mitigate Ethereum’s extreme transaction fees, and it involves a potential port to the Solana blockchain. A proposal, which was posted to the SushiSwap forum on Feb. 22 under the codename ‘Bonsai,’ suggests building out the platform on the Solana ecosystem. The integration is intended to mitigate Ethereum's skyrocketing transaction fees, which have spiked to new all-time highs over the past 24 hours. The proposal would involve integrating SushiSwap with Raydium's platform, with the Solana-based automated market maker having launched on Feb. 21. The proposal’s author, "Handroll," notes Raydium already …

Uniswap and SushiSwap have emerged as two of the top decentralized exchanges (DEXs) that are leading the current DeFi bull run higher. Despite a controversial start for SushiSwap, the last few months have seen it catching up to Uniswap in terms of activity on the platform, total value locked, and the price of its SUSHI governance token. A recent report from Delphi Digital took a closer look at the two projects and broke down the fundamental differences in the way that each has diverged in their development since SushiSwap’s vampire attack on Uniswap. SushiSwap originally emerged as a fork of …

Fresh institutional and retail investor inflows into the cryptocurrency market have led to bull market conditions for many top tokens from blue-chips like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) to more recently established DeFi projects like AAVE and Synthetix (SNX). Exchange tokens are another easily overlooked sub-sector of the market but they have been performing exceptionally well in 2021 as increases in trading volumes results in a larger pool of fees to collect when the exchange’s native token is used for settlement. Native exchange tokens are also typically used as the base pair for funding new listings and token buybacks. Here …

Ren (REN) price underwent a strong 65% breakout on Feb.19 as the interoperability-focused protocol saw continuing accumulation from whale wallets holding more than 1 million REN. Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that REN rose from $0.99 on Feb. 18 to establish a new all-time high of $1.84 on Feb. 19. The move to a new high occurred as REN's trading volume also reached $704 million over the past 24-hours. Attention for the protocol received a noticeable uptick at the end of January when it was announced that Dogecoin (DOGE) would be integrated with REN, enabling the trading of …

As decentralized finance continues to increase it hold on the wider cryptocurrency market, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) is beginning to emerge as a suitable option for traders looking to escape from high transaction fees on the Ethereum (ETH) network. With more attention being paid to BSC, DeFi projects operating on the chain have also seen an influx of buying activity in recent weeks as token holders rush to supply liquidity for recently launched protocols. One such project is Venus (XVS), an algorithmic money market and synthetic stablecoin protocol designed specifically for the BSC. Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows …

PancakeSwap (CAKE) has emerged as a rising star in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector with the recent surge in price helping the food-themed token become the first billion-dollar project on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Data from Cointelegraph Markets and Tradingview shows that the price of CAKE has risen 520% since reaching a low of $1.89 on Feb. 3 to establish a new all-time high of $11.12 on Feb. 17. This propelled its total market cap above $1 billion for the first time. As DeFi has grown in prominence with a majority of top projects currently operating on the Ethereum …

Decentralized finance aggregators are growing in popularity in 2021 as the embryonic industry continues to expand. Delphi Digital analyst Ashwath Balakrishnan has observed that year-to-date growth for DeFi aggregators puts the sector on track to dwarf 2020’s figures. The researcher noted 1inch, Matcha, and Paraswap facilitated a total $9.3 billion of volume across 2020 — but that as of Feb. 16, the 1inch exchange alone had recorded close to $10 billion in volume in just the first 46 days of 2021. 1/ Aggregators had a breakout year in 2020, with platforms like @1inchExchange and @zapper_fi recording significant growth The best …

Uniswap’s decentralized exchange reached a major milestone on Monday as cumulative trade volumes surpassed $100 billion in the wake of the decentralized finance boom. Hayden Adams, Uniswap’s CEO, tweeted Monday that the platform became the first decentralized exchange to process over $100 billion in transactions. Using data from Dune Analytics, Adams showed cumulative volumes of $101.5 billion as of Monday. The chart highlights Uniswap’s dramatic growth since mid-2020 when the first DeFi bull market began. @Uniswap just became the first decentralized trading platform to process over $100b in volume - an exciting milestone for DeFi pic.twitter.com/hUoM36aG6A — Hayden Adams (@haydenzadams) …