Welcome to Decrypt’s Week in Polkadot, our regular round-up of the latest developments in the Polkadot ecosystem.
Moonbeam Network, consistently one of Polkadot’s most popular parachains since it first launched in January 2022, has launched a $13 million funding initiative.
The new initiative will look to boost Moonbeam’s ecosystem in several key areas such as gaming and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, alongside supporting its sister blockchain Moonriver, hosted on Polkadot’s canary network’ Kusama.
Moonbeam allows developers to build DeFi applications that work across the Ethereum and Polkadot blockchains, providing full interoperability with both ecosystems. Moonbeam was the first parachain launched on Polkadot. As of Q1 2024, Moonbeam has facilitated over 49 million transactions, launched more than 300 projects, and built a community of 200,000 members.
The fund has already made its first investment into gaming platform N3MUS, a start-up which works on better integrating Web3 with conventional gaming platforms. Its platform already supports 130 games, with a total player base of 1 million.
If you're interested in developing within the Moonbeam ecosystem, you can head here to apply for grant money and technical support.
The Moonbeam Foundation is allocating a total of $10M to Moonbeam's newly established Innovation Fund 🥳
The Innovation Fund will focus on advancing key areas, including:
Polkadot has allocated three million DOT tokens, roughly $20 million at the current price, into two DeFi projects, following an almost unanimous community vote via its decentralized governance.
Hydration, a DeFi protocall meant to bring liquidity to the Polkadot ecosystem, will receive two million DOT tokens, or $13.4 million at current rates.
Web3 Foundation invests in Asian Polkadot ecosystem
The Web3 Foundation, the organization behind Polkadot, has given PolkaPort East a grant as part of its Decentralized Futures program
The money will be used to enhance technical, community, and ecosystem growth within the Polkadot network within Hong Kong and the surrounding area.
Polkaport East will look to establish and grow a vibrant Polkadot community in Hong Kong, supporting current investors as well as attracting new teams and institutional investors.
By far one of Asia’s largest financial capitals, Hong Kong launched its Virtual Asset Trading Platform (VATP) handbook in June last year, to encourage legitimate crypto activity in the region.
We are officially Live! The @Web3foundation has approved our Decentralized Futures application. We are extremely excited to be representing @Polkadot officially and driving IR and Growth initiatives for the ecosystem in the HK and Greater Bay Region.
New York Mayor Eric Adams announced the city’s first official crypto summit on Monday, while reaffirming his goal to make New York “the crypto capital of the globe.”
New York will host a major crypto summit on May 20, just two months after former U.S. President Donald Trump held a similar event at the White House.
At a press conference on Monday, Mayor Eric Adams promoted the city’s growing blockchain sector, joined by Figure Firm co-founder June Ou and Traction and Scale CEO Richard Hecker.
Ada...
The biggest holders of President Trump’s meme coin, who qualified for access to a private reception and dinner with the U.S. leader, held an average of nearly $4.8 million worth of TRUMP apiece to earn their spots via an official leaderboard ranking.
Placements were calculated using a time-weighted average of TRUMP holdings between April 23 and May 12, providing a score that was ultimately used to rank registered users. The top 25 finishers were granted “VIP” status, with extra benefits, while a...
Shares of Coinbase jumped in after-hours trading after the S&P 500 announced that the cryptocurrency exchange's stock will begin trading on its index on Monday, May 19.
COIN, which trades on the Nasdaq, rose 8% following the news, currently sitting at an after-hours price of $225 per share, as of this writing. The stock already rose nearly 4% during the trading day to finish at $207.22.
Coinbase will replace Discover Financial Services (DFS) on the S&P 500, with the index noting that financial s...
