Latest news with #Arbitrum
Business Wire
a day ago
- Business
- Business Wire
Stackup Raises $4.2 Million in Seed Round to Streamline Operations for Crypto Businesses
CULVER CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Stackup, the digital asset management platform designed to streamline crypto operations for crypto businesses, today announced that it has secured $4.2 million in seed funding. The round was led by 1kx, with participation from Y Combinator, Goodwater Capital, Soma Capital, Amino Capital, and Digital Currency Group (DCG). The investment will accelerate the development of the Stackup platform, allowing the team to continue developing solutions that simplify crypto operations for businesses. Coinciding with the influx of new capital, Stackup has launched a new direct banking integration feature that directly addresses the fragmentation between traditional and crypto operations. Businesses can now connect their bank accounts to their Stackup wallet, enabling seamless, non-custodial ACH transfers between their bank and wallet within their existing payment workflows. This solves a critical pain point for companies forced to juggle between two parallel financial systems: traditional banking for crypto operations and separate crypto platforms for on-chain activity. Stackup's solution creates one system for all financial operations, without giving up control of your assets to third parties. 'Our mission at Stackup is to provide businesses with the tools they need to manage their digital assets with the same level of efficiency and control they expect from traditional financial systems,' said John Rising, co-founder and CEO of Stackup. 'This funding gives us the ability to eliminate operational inefficiencies that have historically hindered the adoption and growth of this industry. We're empowering businesses to streamline their financial operations and workflows, allowing them to focus on growth without compromising on security or control of their assets.' Additionally, Stackup has expanded its support blockchains to include Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, Avalanche, and BSC. This feature unlocks businesses operating across multiple blockchains. Previously, businesses were forced to manage separate wallets and manually bridge assets between chains, creating a process that was both time-consuming and error-prone. With Stackup, businesses can manage their multi-chain operations from one platform, moving assets seamlessly without external bridges or multiple wallet setups. 'Crypto businesses have largely struggled to address their operational needs due to the unique burden of managing assets on multiple chains,' said Nichanan Kesonpat of 1kx. 'Stackup is addressing those critical pain points and enabling businesses to take control of their funds in one seamless, secure, and scalable platform.' The Stackup platform has evolved significantly since its inception in 2021. The platform played a crucial role in building wallet infrastructure for major industry players like Coinbase and TrustWallet. This foundational experience in enterprise-grade wallet infrastructure informed Stackup's current model of providing a comprehensive digital asset management platform directly to businesses. Today, Stackup provides centralized control over decentralized assets, allowing businesses to take charge of every detail of their operations with ease. About Stackup Stackup is transforming how businesses manage their on-chain operations by offering a smart account platform designed to simplify and automate complex blockchain tasks. As the need for seamless, secure, and efficient crypto transactions grows, Stackup provides centralized control over decentralized assets, allowing businesses to take charge of every detail of their operations with ease. Our platform integrates advanced security and adaptive features to eliminate the chaos of traditional crypto wallets, empowering businesses to manage their crypto stack in real-time. Whether you're orchestrating large-scale transactions or ensuring complete transparency, Stackup's solution brings order and precision to blockchain management, turning crypto chaos into a structured, seamless business flow.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Ethereum critics say it has failed—but boosters say cryptocurrency has become ‘digital oil'
Ethereum is dead. Ethereum will be fine. The social media takes are flying on the state of the world's second most valuable blockchain. Conceived in 2013, Ethereum has experienced a series of dramatic ups and downs, including an existential hack in 2016 and a remarkable technological upgrade in 2022. But this year has brought unprecedented scrutiny of the current and future direction of the project. A big part of this is due to the price of Ethereum, which is badly lagging Bitcoin. The world's most valuable cryptocurrency has notched a series of all-time highs and a flurry of interest from Wall Street investors. Meanwhile, as of Tuesday, Ethereum was trading around $2,500, about 50% lower than its all-time high, according to data from crypto exchange Binance. Ether's lackluster price movement has prompted some to proclaim Ethereum's end. 'Ethereum died,' wrote Max Keiser, a prominent Bitcoin booster, on X. 'It just hasn't been buried yet.' This is an overstatement. But questions remain on whether Ethereum's price slump reflects a temporary stumble, or whether the blockchain—long hailed by boosters as the computer of the future—will never grow into its promise. 'Bitcoin has died many times… Ethereum has died several times,' Joseph Lubin, CEO of the blockchain technology firm Consensys and cofounder of Ethereum, told Fortune. 'When there are challenges, we learn from them.' Those challenges have been present since 2013, when a wiry 19-year-old from Canada named Vitalik Buterin had an idea for a new type of computer. Fearing that Big Tech firms had an unhealthy monopoly over cloud computing that could stifle developers, Buterin looked to blockchains instead. He and others came up with Ethereum—a decentralized blockchain-based computing platform where programmers' code was immune to the whims of corporate behemoths. Developers soon flocked to Ethereum, but the increase in activity brought a rise in 'gas fees.' Every time users send one another assets on Ethereum, they need to pay with cryptocurrency—in the same way Amazon requires users to pay dollars to use its cloud computing network. The only difference is that Ethereum's gas fees are distributed to the decentralized cohort of computers supporting the blockchain, instead of one corporate entity. In 2021, sending a few dollars of cryptocurrency to other users on Ethereum resulted in charges of sometimes hundreds of dollars, and developers looked for a solution. This embedded content is not available in your region. That solution is what Ethereum's critics say has sapped the network of some of its financial value. Instead of immediately working to speed up Ethereum's core network, developers fostered a system of layer 2 blockchains, or L2s, built on top of Ethereum. These L2s—including Arbitrum, Optmism, and Polygon—package user data into one bundle and post that onto Ethereum, rather than ask the blockchain to process each transaction individually. If gas fees are any indication, that strategy has worked. Since a peak in mid-2020, transaction costs have plummeted more than 99% on Ethereum, according to data from Glassnode. But Kyle Samani, managing partner at crypto investment firm Multicoin Capital, believes this approach has made the core network of Ethereum less valuable. 'It's my fundamental view that a network is not sustainable or valuable without direct user activity,' he told Fortune. Users have moved to L2s and drained Ethereum of some of the activity that propped up its cryptocurrency's price, Samani, a noted supporter of the competing Solana blockchain, argued. However, Paul Brody, chairman of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, an advocacy group for the blockchain, said fixation on the price of Ether in the short term is missing the point. 'Ethereum is the amazing world computer,' he told Fortune. 'I don't think it can or should try to be all things, all people, and, especially, I don't think Ethereum should also try to be the best, most deflationary cryptocurrency.' Ethereum's upgrades, not any explicit work to buoy Ether's price, should prompt a rise in demand for the cryptocurrency, said Brody. And that's what developers are working on, said Danny Ryan and Vivek Raman, cofounders of the Ethereum advocacy group Ethrealize—one of many wings of a robust technical and cultural community based around the blockchain that convenes at large annual get-togethers like ETHDenver in Colorado. Programmers are now optimizing the speed of the layer 1 network, not just its ecosystem of layer 2 chains, say Ryan and Raman. Plus, the duo believe that the flood of Wall Street and Big Tech firms exploring blockchain technology will spur a rush to buy the cryptocurrency. 'I don't think that we should pretend like the asset doesn't need to be valuable,' added Danny Ryan. His cofounder Raman even equated Ethereum to 'digital oil.' 'When you ask institutions, when we go have our meetings and say, 'Which is a civilizational infrastructure, which is the global, neutral infrastructure that you can actually deploy real assets with real trust?'' Raman added. 'Ethereum is the obvious choice.' But whether Wall Street titans decide to go with Ethereum, rather than competitors like Solana, remains to be seen. Still, proponents are hopeful. 'If we do our job, and we become the first place for everybody to do business,' said Brody, 'then the asset price is just something that takes care of itself.' This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
What Are Crypto Airdrops? And Are They Worth the Risk?
Airdrops are promotional distributions of cryptocurrencies. Some airdrops are scams, others require unpaid labor, and a few are free money. Your time is probably better spent doing something else. 10 stocks we like better than Bitcoin › Few phrases in cryptocurrency trigger the fear of missing out (FOMO) faster than "free coins." Social media used by cryptocurrency natives overflows with screenshots from people who supposedly banked five-figure windfalls simply by clicking a button, or sometimes simply by holding a certain coin. The allure taps mankind's primordial impulse to find and then eat free lunches whenever possible. But it's been said that there's no such thing as a free lunch, and that if something is too good to be true, it probably isn't real. That tension is why crypto airdrops feel at once irresistible and, for most investors, maddeningly unrewarding. For some, they can even be disastrous. Let's unpack how these giveaways really work, what can go wrong, and why skipping them usually beats chasing them. For the uninitiated, an airdrop is, at its core, a marketing stunt. In a nutshell, an airdrop is when a cryptocurrency protocol or side chain sends free tokens into all wallets that meet a specific set of on-chain criteria. The objective is for the recipients to talk about the asset, trade it, get others to use it, and generally to bring in some liquidity. Crucially, you will never ever see established cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other dominant networks airdropping coins. Their brands are already strong. The issuers are almost always newer players with fairly small market caps looking to bootstrap users. Qualifying for airdrops usually requires performing on-chain actions weeks or months before the drop. Usually the more of those actions the user performs, the larger their distribution is. Thus there's the term "farming airdrops," wherein users intentionally do repetitive actions on a network with the goal of inflating their record of actions that should in theory generate a larger airdrop for them whenever it occurs. For example, Arbitrum awarded at least 625 ARB tokens, worth roughly $800 on launch day, to addresses that had bridged assets or used its apps before a March 2023 snapshot. Those airdrop criteria are relatively loose in the sense that it was very easy to qualify. In contrast, Optimism's third airdrop sprayed 10 million OP across 54,000 wallets, but filtered for governance voters and repeat bridge users rather than passive holders. In other words, on average, qualifying for airdrops isn't dumb luck as much as it is a combination of luck in selecting the right protocol to use and consistently doing the right kind of grind. You will usually need to be paying gas fees and hoping that the issuer's rules about qualifying don't change. Then, on claim day, you typically need to take action in order to collect, though in some cases the airdrop is automatically distributed to qualifying wallets. Sometimes the haul is large. Sums as high as $12.1 million have been reported as recently as 2023. But such jackpots are very much statistical outliers, not the norm in any way. Airdrops are, in my experience, rarely worth the amount of time, capital, and risk it takes to find and then farm them. Gas fees can add up very quickly, especially when farming airdrops on chains like Ethereum. Bridging your assets to a new chain can also be expensive. And your time is valuable. Clicking buttons inside of a decentralized finance (DeFi) app for hours on end is tedious at best. Next comes uncertainty. Some chains hint at big airdrop offerings without making any explicit commitments, leading investors to park their capital and perform effort for months. Then, when the big moment arrives, sometimes users receive just a fraction of what rumors suggested. Expectations and outcomes rarely line up because issuers reserve the right to tweak formulas until launch. Security risk is the darker side. Phishing sites spin up within minutes of every announcement, mimicking claim portals and emptying wallets after one mistaken signature. "Free" tokens can be Trojan horses that grant attackers illicit spending permissions on someone's wallet. Rug-pulls masquerading as community drops further prove that marketing can pivot to malice overnight. Given those frictions, the expected value of farming random airdrops trends low. There are scenarios where the math can flip in your favor when it comes to trying to qualify for airdrops. If an issuer discloses eligibility early, publishes a fixed formula, and has venture capital (VC) backing or clear product-market fit, the risk-adjusted reward can justify a measured allocation of your time and capital. For instance, Arbitrum's drop met that bar. Rules were posted months ahead, there was a live ecosystem, and there was a public investor roster stacked with blue chip crypto funds. To tilt odds in your favor, verify announcements on the project's official domain and social channels before interacting, use a fresh wallet containing only the funds you need for the task, and cap your spending by setting a maximum in fees or deposits you are willing to risk. Remember that airdrops are ads. Most investors are better served by owning high-conviction assets directly, holding for years, and ignoring siren calls of "free money." The time you spend trying to out-game anonymous token issuers could be better spent researching enduring projects, or simply enjoying an afternoon offline. Before you buy stock in Bitcoin, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Bitcoin wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $653,702!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $870,207!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 988% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 Alex Carchidi has positions in Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. What Are Crypto Airdrops? And Are They Worth the Risk? was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
Business Insider
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Bitget Lists Spark (SPK) in Innovation and DeFi Zone
Bitget, the leading global cryptocurrency exchange and Web3 company, has announced the listing of Spark (SPK), an onchain capital allocator. Trading will commence under the SPK/USDT pair on 17 June 2025, 09:00 (UTC) with withdrawals available on 18 June 2025, 10:00 (UTC). The token will be listed in Bitget's Innovation and DeFi Zone, reflecting its status as a project at the forefront of decentralized finance. Spark is a decentralized finance (DeFi) and real-world asset (RWA) protocol focused on delivering optimized, risk-adjusted returns for stablecoin holders. Operating as an onchain capital allocator, Spark has deployed over $3.86 billion in liquidity across leading blockchain networks including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, Unichain, and Gnosis Chain. At its core, Spark offers three flagship products that work in synergy to support stablecoin holders and enhance market liquidity. Spark Savings allows users to earn competitive, risk-adjusted yields with minimal liquidity constraints. SparkLend enables the borrowing of stablecoins such as USDC and USDS against a variety of collateralized assets. Meanwhile, the Spark Liquidity Layer (SLL) improves liquidity across DeFi platforms, real-world assets, and exchanges, creating more efficient capital flow throughout the ecosystem. The Spark ecosystem is powered by its native token, SPK, which plays a central role in governance, staking, and reward distribution. Through its decentralized and community-driven model, Spark is building a more resilient and accessible financial infrastructure for the digital economy. As DeFi evolves to offer more sophisticated tools to users, projects like Spark demonstrate how innovative capital allocation, seamless cross-chain liquidity, and user-focused financial products can unlock sustainable yields and bring institutional-grade efficiency to the decentralized economy. For more information about Spark (SPK), visit here. About Bitget Established in 2018, Bitget is the world's leading cryptocurrency exchange and Web3 company. Serving over 120 million users in 150+ countries and regions, the Bitget exchange is committed to helping users trade smarter with its pioneering copy trading feature and other trading solutions, while offering real-time access to Bitcoin price, Ethereum price, and other cryptocurrency prices. Formerly known as BitKeep, Bitget Wallet is a leading non-custodial crypto wallet supporting 130+ blockchains and millions of tokens. It offers multi-chain trading, staking, payments, and direct access to 20,000+ DApps, with advanced swaps and market insights built into a single platform. Bitget is at the forefront of driving crypto adoption through strategic partnerships, such as its role as the Official Crypto Partner of the World's Top Football League, LALIGA, in EASTERN, SEA and LATAM markets, as well as a global partner of Turkish National athletes Buse Tosun Çavuşoğlu (Wrestling world champion), Samet Gümüş (Boxing gold medalist) and İlkin Aydın (Volleyball national team), to inspire the global community to embrace the future of cryptocurrency. For media inquiries, please contact: media@ Risk Warning: Digital asset prices are subject to fluctuation and may experience significant volatility. Investors are advised to only allocate funds they can afford to lose. The value of any investment may be impacted, and there is a possibility that financial objectives may not be met, nor the principal investment recovered. Independent financial advice should always be sought, and personal financial experience and standing carefully considered. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. Bitget accepts no liability for any potential losses incurred. Nothing contained herein should be construed as financial advice. For further information, please refer to our Terms of Use.
Business Insider
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
ArbiDex and BaseSwap Relaunch dLimit and dTWAP Orders Powered by Orbs
Decentralized exchanges ArbiDex and BaseSwap have relaunched their respective UIs and integrated dTWAP and dLIMIT powered by Orbs into the upgrade. As a result, Arbitrum and Base traders can access advanced order types including the ability to break swaps into multiple orders for superior pricing. The integration of dTWAP and dLIMIT brings Orbs' flagship trading protocols to users of the two DEXs, enabling them to either lock in the price of their trades or split large orders into smaller ones. Their addition to ArbiDex and BaseSwap maintains the familiar UI throughout, ensuring that user flow isn't impacted when utilizing these advanced trading technologies. When switching to a dLIMIT swap on ArbiDEX or BaseSwap, users are presented with an easy-to-follow user interface alongside an order history tab to keep track of previous transactions. With dLIMIT, the trade will only be executed when the market price is equal or better than the Limit price set by the user. With dTWAP, meanwhile, the user can set the number of individual trades and the time gap between them, allowing them to gradually scale into positions. The integration of dLIMIT and dTWAP into ArbiDex and BaseSwap follows dozens of similar integrations across EVM networks. Powered by Orbs L3 technology, these twin protocols have become the gold standard for decentralized algorithmic orders in DeFi. Together with other Orbs-powered protocols, Liquidity Hub for aggregated liquidity and Perpetual Hub for decentralized onchain perpetual futures, dLIMIT and dTWAP have become cornerstones of DeFi trading. In addition to adding dLIMIT and dTWAP, ArbiDex and BaseSwap have relaunched with a fresh design and new incentives programs that can solidify their position at the center of the onchain trading landscape on their respective networks. About Orbs Orbs is a decentralized Layer-3 (L3) blockchain designed specifically for advanced onchain trading. Utilizing a Proof-of-Stake consensus, Orbs acts as a supplementary execution layer, facilitating complex logic and scripts beyond the native functionalities of smart contracts. Orbs powered protocols such as dLIMIT, dTWAP, Liquidity Hub, and Perpetual Hub push the boundaries of DeFi and smart contract technology, introducing CeFi-level execution to onchain trading.
