Matter Labs has announced a major new funding round to further develop the second version of its Ethereum-based rollups, zkSync. On Nov. 9, Matter Labs announced it had secured $50 million in a Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz and included participation from existing investors Placeholder and Dragonfly Capital. The new round follows Matter Labs’ $6 million Series A in February, and saw participation from many new investors including Crypto.com, ConsenSys, and OKEx. The new cash injection will be channeled into further developing zkSync v2, the firm’s second-layer rollups solution for Ethereum that is currently focussed on facilitating low-cost …

Public blockchain platform Nervos has announced the mainnet beta launch of Godwoken. The layer-two blockchain protocol integrates Ethereum Virtual Machine capabilities and optimistic rollup mechanics to provide instant transaction finality and low fees within an Ethereum-like environment. Built upon the existing Nervos layer-one network, the multi-chain solution seeks to capitalize on Ethereum’s well-documented drawbacks — most notably network congestion, high gas fees and scalability — and benefit from the growing importance of layer-two alternative platforms. This long-standing roadmap achievement follows last year's deployment of Force Bridge, a cross-chain bridge designed to enhance the interoperability of transactions such as those between …

In a tweet posted by the Cardano Foundation on Monday, the number of Cardano (ADA) wallets has surpassed the 2 million mark. The network reached the previous milestone of 1 million ADA wallets on May 22, 2021. During that period, the Cardano Foundation successfully implemented the Alonzo hard fork, enabling smart contracts on its network. Meanwhile, Charles Hoskinson, Cardano's founder, has shifted his attention to increasing the adoption of blockchain technology in Africa. Via a tweet posted last week, Hoskinson claimed that 5 million students in Ethiopia are on schedule to receive an ID based on the Cardano blockchain for …

The world’s most popular decentralized exchange, Uniswap, is seeing layer-two volumes surge as Ethereum transaction fees surge once again. On Tuesday, Uniswap founder Hayden Adams tweeted that daily volume across v3 deployments of the decentralized exchange on layer-two networks has pushed into record levels. Adams estimated that Uniswap v3 processed an unprecedented $115 million in combined daily volume across the Arbitrum and Optimism networks without providing a source. Uniswap v3 on layer 2 (arb + OE) doing an all time-time high of $115m volume!! 2⃣ L2 season is here :) — hayden.eth (@haydenzadams) October 18, 2021 While Adams’ post was …

The growth of layer-two protocols has been one of the major stories of 2021 as the rising popularity of decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible tokens (NFT) have driven transaction costs higher on the Ethereum (ETH) network effectively pricing out many participants. Earlier this year the Polygon network, formerly known as MATIC, emerged as one of the top contenders in the race for an effective Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution, and the project's QuickSwap DeFi platform was also one of the more successful Uniswap clones. The platform was quite popular initially but as other platforms like Arbitrum and Optimism popped up, discussions …

There has been a lot of talk about how blockchain unlocks endless enterprise opportunities. And although all this buzz has not entirely translated to tangible results, the explosion of the decentralized finance and nonfungible token (NFT) markets has laid down markers on what is achievable and how blockchain can truly impact even the most conservative industries. So unlike two to four years ago, developers, entrepreneurs and businesses are not just blindly joining the bandwagon. It is no longer about what blockchain can do. Now the questions being asked revolve more around how best to utilize the technology for the best …

In September the frenzy that propelled the nonfungible token (NFT) sector quieted down but a burst of fresh energy emerged as the layer-two sector heated after the successful launch of Ethereum (ETH) scaling solutions like Arbitrum and Optimism. Another project that has benefited from the sector's transition to layer-1 and layer-2 alternatives is OMG Network (OMG), a non-custodial layer-two protocol that utilizes an optimistic rollup scaling solution to improve Ethereum scalability. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $8.42 on July 20, the price of OMG has climbed 380% to reach a daily …

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance (DeFi) newsletter. DYdX surpassed Coinbase in daily trading volume for the first time this week. Read on to discover why this was a seminal moment for the project’s founder. What you’re about to read is the concise version of this newsletter. For the full breakdown of DeFi’s developments over the last week — released with more anticipation than a layer-two airdrop — register below. dYdX surpasses Coinbase in trading volume for first time Decentralized derivatives exchange dYdX has risen to prominence through 2021 as an alternative to the hegemony and governmental …

Layer-two protocols have seen monumental growth this year, and in terms of active addresses, one such protocol has briefly surpassed the network for which it is a scaling solution. The number of daily active unique addresses on layer-two aggregator Polygon has surpassed those on the high-fee layer-one Ethereum according to Polygon co-founder Mihailo Bjelic. According to his stats, Polygon had 351,000 daily active addresses on Monday, whereas Ethereum had 326,000. Another huge milestone for @0xPolygon! We eclipsed Ethereum L1 in daily active addresses for the first time! This is just the beginning. We are working round the clock to improve …

High transaction costs have been a thorn in the side of investors and developers for more than a decade and the issue became worse in 2021 after the emergence of decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible tokens (NFT) led to record-high levels of activity across the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Since the completion of Ethereum's London hard fork, cross-chain bridges and layer-2 solutions have been revised as options for mitigating the high fees on the Ethereum network. In the past two weeks, Celer, a layer-two scaling solution that utilizes off-chain transaction handling to help increase the throughput capacity of its network, has seen …

“Sooner or later, ETH will outpace Bitcoin and become the global standard,” said Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal in an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph. Nailwal believes that Ethereum will eventually become "the ultimate settlement layer" for the decentralized finance, or DeFi, space. Polygon will play a major role in ensuring the long-term success of Ethereum through its scalability solution. Despite increasing competition from other layer-one protocols, such as Solana, Nailwal believes it is still too early to talk about an “Ethereum killer.” “The Ethereum chain, because of its fundamentals, security, the level of decentralization, and the community and the trust that …

Immutable X, the scaling solution for layer-2 NFT protocol Immutable, has penned an agreement with Together Labs to integrate into the platform's native social metaverse IMVU. The partnership will foster the creation and distribution of NFTs within the game's virtual ecosystem. IMVU, pronounced "imm-view," is a blockchain simulation game akin to The Sims or Second Life in which players can design, inhabit and interact with virtual worlds. Parented by Silicon valley-based firm Together Labs — a technological architecture working on the social media experience with the implementation of the crypto and all its ecosystem facets — IMVU has 200,000 active …