DeFi has steadily grown in prominence over the past year thanks in large part to the strong foundations established by decentralized exchanges (DEX) that enable easy access to the latest tokens and projects. While there have been previous iterations of DEX user interfaces, such as IDEX or Etherdelta, it wasn’t until Uniswap launched that trading in the DeFi network really took off and facilitated the launch of the finance tokens. Here are six of the top-performing tokens in the decentralized finance sector. UNI/USDT Uniswap has risen from the humble beginnings of a simple user interface that allowed for a token …

Corporate blockchain solutions provider Waves Enterprises has partnered with Chinese decentralized ledger technology (DLT) startup Conflux Network to boost hybrid data transactions in permissioned networks. The collaboration, announced on Thursday, will see Waves Enterprise using its anchoring technology to allow companies to facilitate data transfer across private and public blockchains. Anchoring is a hybrid data storage method that places hashes of private data into public blockchains, thus ensuring its validity without revealing the input information itself. The announcement also noted that such a system allows public chain consensus validation for private company data without sacrificing business confidentiality. Commenting on the …

Waves Enterprise, a major technology company specializing in blockchain-based solutions for businesses and governments, has inked a new partner to streamline its e-voting service. According to a Dec. 16 announcement, Waves Enterprise has signed a memorandum of understanding with blockchain platform Ontology to integrate decentralized identification tools into the Waves Enterprise e-voting system. As part of the partnership, Waves Enterprise and Ontology aim to solve one of the biggest challenges of digital voting — user authentication and identification. The companies specifically plan to apply Ontology’s new decentralized identity solution known as ONT ID. Artem Kalikhov, chief product officer at Waves …

The first half of 2020 was pretty tumultous for Waves (WAVES), as the altcoin underperformed Ether (ETH) price by 36%. While it was once a top-20 cryptocurrency for a brief period back in Dec. 2018, the proof-of-stake project created by the Russian physicist Alexander Ivanov in 2016 seemed to have lost its traction. The platform's success was initially based on its mobile application designed to streamline the user experience of decentralized applications (dApps) usage. Waves blockchain combines on-chain governance with blockchain-based computing but unlike Ethereum, it offers fixed fees. This means there are no variable processing fees for miners and …

The Neutrino Protocol, a project building algorithmic cross-platform stablecoins, announced Tuesday the launch of staking rewards for its governance and utility token, the Neutrino System Base Token (NSBT). Neutrino uses an innovative mix of collateral backing and algorithmic supply changes to create a wide range of fiat-pegged stablecoins. Its flagship stablecoin, USDN, and NSBT are available on Ethereum as ERC-20 tokens. The USDN generation mechanism relies on WAVES, the native token of the Waves platform. Generating the stablecoin is as simple as using its smart contract to exchange WAVES for USDN. Oracles will read the price of the asset and …

Today was a relatively uneventful day for Bitcoin (BTC) as the price continues to consolidate into a tighter range. As mentioned by Cointelegraph contributor Rakesh Upadhyay, Bitcoin price spent the weekend consolidating within a bull pennant and the breakout to $19,418 was quickly stamped out by overhead resistance. After retouching the pennant trendline, the price gave way, falling below the 20-MA on the four-hour time frame and briefly losing the $19,000 mark. Generally, most traders seem to agree that after a raging 93% rally from $10,300 to $19,888, a period of consolidation is necessary. Cointelegraph analyst Michaël van de Poppe …

Alfa-Bank, one of the largest private commercial banks in Russia, is exploring blockchain technology in its services for freelancers. According to a Dec. 1 announcement, Alfa-Bank will use blockchain-based applications to automate services for freelancers and self-employed workers. Based on Waves Enterprise’s blockchain platform, Alfa-Bank’s new service covers the entire process of registration and remuneration for self-employed individuals, including payments settlement, income registration and tax payments. Denis Dodon, director of Alfa-Bank’s research and development center, told Cointelegraph that the new blockchain-based service enables freelancers to get direct remuneration via any bank: “DLT and embedded smart contracts with an end-to-end integration …

Waves Enterprise, the business-focused spin-off of the Waves project, announced on the public release of its blockchain voting system primarily aimed at corporations and board governance. The Waves system uses blockchain at every step of the voting process, as votes are recorded and then counted with full cryptographic guarantees. Homomorphic encryption is used to accurately tally votes without having to reveal the identity of the person who cast each ballot. While the system is primarily targeted for lower stakes environments such as corporate boards, the technology has recently been trialed in Russia during its local and parliamentary elections. The team …

Over the past few years, regulatory bodies across the globe have increased their scrutiny of the cryptocurrency space, clarifying gray areas while also going after offenders. Although the industry has seen a lot of regulatory action, authorities have not really changed their positions — at least according to Alex Wearn, CEO and co-founder of decentralized crypto exchange IDEX. "Crypto regulation itself hasn’t really changed the last few years," Wearn told Cointelegraph. "Instead what we’ve seen is an increase in enforcement actions, and stronger guidance from regulatory bodies," he added. "I believe we’ll continue to see enforcement actions that help businesses …

The Waves Association announced on Wednesday a new grant program for cross-chain interoperability development. The pool consists of 1 million Waves tokens, worth approximately $3 million as of press time. Projects will be eligible for grants of up to 300,000 Waves to develop solutions for interoperability and cross-chain communication. There will be three separate types of grants: open grants, grants distributed through hackathons and Waves-focused grants. Sten Laureyssens, strategic advisor at the Waves Association, explained to Cointelegraph that open grants will have a wide scope: “For the open grant category, the grants are open to a wide variety of interoperability …

Proof-of-stake blockchain NEM (XEM) is preparing for a token migration in December alongside the public launch of the Symbol (XYM) blockchain. Speaking to Cointelegraph, NEM Group CIO and NEM Ventures managing director, Dave Hodgson, revealed that Symbol will host at least two products at launch. Symbol will host the Wave Financial Whiskey Fund, which offers a tokenized representation of ownership in 25,000 barrels of 2020-vintage bourbon worth more than $4 million. The platform will also host LBCOIN, collectible crypto assets that commemorate Lithuania’s 1918 declaration of independence issued by the country’s central bank. Both products were previously hosted on NEM. …

Close to 30,000 votes were recorded on the blockchain during the Russian parliamentary elections in what appears to have been the biggest case of blockchain-based voting yet. The blockchain component of the online voting platform was built by Waves Enterprise. The voting concluded early yesterday, and according to the chief product officer of Waves Enterprise, Artem Kalikhov, everything went off without any hiccups. He told Cointelegraph that the elections took place on the permissioned network run by Rostelecom. The firm was contracted by Russia’s Central Election Commission, which, in turn, subcontracted Waves Enterprise to build the blockchain part of the …