Crypto winter is still in full effect, but that doesn’t mean that teams aren’t busy building. Let’s check out the 3 crypto and blockchain projects that will be the most interesting to follow this week.
3. EOS (EOS)
EOS is a blockchain platform that had its mainnet launch in 2018. The EOS blockchain supports smart contracts functionality and uses a delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism. Blockchain development firm Block.one raised funds for the EOS project through the biggest initial coin offering (ICO) of all time, which raised more than $4.4 billion.
However, tensions began mounting between the EOS community and Block.one. In 2021, an organization called the EOS Network Foundation was established with the aim of representing the interests of the EOS community. The foundation alleged that Block.one was failing to stick to its commitments related to EOS, did not focus on the project enough, and displayed a lack of interest in improving the EOS protocol.
The EOS Network Foundation has become one of the leading players in the EOS community’s efforts to “resurrect” the EOS project, which has mostly been seen as a disappointment following the massive ICO and highly anticipated mainnet launch.
Why EOS? $100 million ecosystem fund aims to revitalize EOS ecosystem
The EOS Network Foundation has announced a $100 million ecosystem fund that aims to make EOS the primary choice for web2 projects that want to transition into the world of web3, as well as blockchain-native projects that are developing decentralized applications. The fund is called EOS Network Ventures (EVN), and will make both equity and token investments. Some of the sectors the EVN fund is targeting include GameFi, metaverse, NFTs and fintech.
November was a tough month in terms of EOS price action, although most other cryptocurrencies in the crypto top 100 lost value as well. Moving forward, news related to the EVN fund’s investments will be interesting to follow, and we’re intrigued to see whether EOS can reclaim some of the relevancy it has lost.
2. ApeCoin (APE)
ApeCoin is a newly launched cryptocurrency that can be claimed by holders of NFTs from the Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT collections. ApeCoin is used as the governance token of the ApeCoin DAO, and is also designed to enable other use cases like virtual currency and incentive mechanisms. Yuga Labs, the team that originally created the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection, says they plan to implement ApeCoin into the Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem and use it as a primary token for their future projects. The token was launched on March 17, 2022.
Why ApeCoin? Users will soon be able to access ApeCoin staking
ApeCoin holders will soon get an ApeCoin staking option which will allow them to get rewards on their APE. The initiative, which has been described in AIP-21 and AIP-22 proposals, will feature four different staking pools:
- ApeCoin Pool: For APE tokens holders
- BAYC Pool: For holders of APE tokens and BAYC NFTs
- MAYC Pool: For holders of APE tokens and MAYC NFTs
- Pair Pool: For users that hold APE tokens and a Bored Ape Kennel Club + BAYC or MAYC NFT
Besides the ApeCoin staking pool, which is open to all APE token holders, the other pools are only available to owners of NFTs from specific collections. In the BAYC staking pool, each user will be able to stake up to 10,094 APE tokens for every Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT they own. The limit for the MAYC staking pool is 2,042 APE tokens for every Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT.
Users who stake in these pools will receive additional APE tokens as a reward. Here’s how much APE will be allocated to each pool in the initial staking period (the first 12 months of staking):
- ApeCoin Pool: 30 million APE
- BAYC Pool: 47.1 million APE
- MAYC Pool: 19.06 million APE
- Pair Pool: 3.83 million APE
The APE staking smart contract was created by Horizen Labs, who are also working on a front-end user interface for APE staking. The ApeStake.io platform is expected to go live on December 12.
1. Chainlink (LINK)
Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that connects blockchain-based smart contracts with high quality off-chain data. This enables a wide variety of decentralized applications that aren’t possible without oracles. For example, a decentralized finance app can use Chainlink to access data about the prices of cryptocurrencies on centralized exchanges, which is useful for applications like crypto-collateralized stablecoins and synthetic tokens.
Chainlink oracles are also capable of supplying verifiably random numbers to smart contracts, which makes it useful for blockchain-powered games and NFT collections that require randomness in their minting process.
The platform is widely used on a variety of blockchain platforms. According to the Chainlink website, the total value of crypto assets deposited into markets that use Chainlink oracles exceeds $37 billion.
Why Chainlink? Chainlink Staking is launching on December 6
The highly anticipated Chainlink Staking program is set lo launch on December 6 on the Ethereum mainnet. Eligible users will be able to stake up to 7,000 LINK in the staking pool in the first two days, and the staking go into General Access mode on December 8 (the 7,000 LINK limit will still apply).
The v0.1 staking pool will initially have a cap of 25 million LINK token, but there are plans to eventually expand it to 75 million LINK. The v.02 staking pool is expected to launch within 9 to 12 months from the launch of the v.01 pool, and will give v.01 stakers the ability to unlock their staked LINK tokens and their accrued rewards.
1/ With Chainlink Staking v0.1 launching on Ethereum mainnet on December 6th, we’d like to provide an update on our iterative approach to building future versions of Staking beyond this initial release and how that will affect important attributes like the lock-up period.
— Chainlink (@chainlink) December 1, 2022
Chainlink Staking is a part of Chainlink Economics 2.0, which aims to provide incentives for LINK holders and Chainlink node operators for contributing to the security of the Chainlink decentralized oracle network.
