1. Aptos launches its mainnet
Aptos – a layer-1 platform that caused a craze in the crypto community after it successfully raised USD 150 million in a Series A funding round that was led by FTX Ventures. The Aptos ecosystem has flourished as it focuses on user experience and technology upgrade with the ability to handle 160,000 transactions per second.
Currently, there are initial transactions on the mainnet made by the Aptos development team. The project is also facing mixed opinions when it can only handle 4 TPS, which is different from its initial announcement to users.
However, this may just be the final testing step for Aptos before it comes to maninet. Currently, the project development team has not announced the official mainnet date.
Aptos has also received great support from leading exchanges such as Binance, FTX and Houbi when they confirmed to list this project on their platforms.
2. Binance pool starts $500 million fund to support bitcoin mining
Binance Pool, a mining subsidiary of Binance, launched a USD 500 million lending project to support the crypto mining industry. It will provide loans to private blue-chip Bitcoin miners.
According to the official blog post from Binance, the Binance Pool will provide access to a USD 500 million loan fund on several conditions, which include an 18-to-24-month term, 5% to 10% interest rates. The company will look at a wide range of metrics, including current performance, mining power and security quantity, to define the borrower’s creditworthiness.
This could be a turning point marking the return of projects using the Proof of Work mechanism.
3. Kanye West acquires SocialFi platform – Parler
Superstar rapper Kanye West has reached an agreement to buy crypto-friendly social media platform Parler.
Parler drew huge attention after launching an NFT collection highlighting former President Donald Trump. Politically, Kanye West is a controversial entertainer and Trump supporter. This is the reason why he decided to acquire Parler.
Last month, Parler announced the raise of USD 16 million in Series B funding.