Mon 28/11

Good Morning. Web3-based ad networks have already started, India's web3 fintech gets a boost, forget web3, a web5 social media app is here and you can buy an insurance policy for NFTs now.

• India's 1st blockchain, news platform, Wortheum launches Web3-based ad network: Wortheum India's first blockchain and news platform by Wortheum has launched Web3-based Ad network. The solution to changing advertising culture is now available in web3's decentralized advertising network. This ad network is based on Delegated Proof of Stake blockchain-based news platform and is powered by its news network. Its most significant advantage is that the advertiser will not have to worry about their ad being limited or removed from the platform without any reason because all the advertising-based activities are done on this platform. This network works in such a way that the WortheumBlockchain will issue its coins to its users who are journalists or news readers and to place ads on Wortheum news platform or news network, the advertising user will need to buy coins from the exchange or users who are earning these coins for spending their time for creating or curating news from all around the world.

• NEAR India backs wellness platform Growfitter to support Global Web3 Expansion: Growfitter, India's biggest incentivised wellness platform, has partnered with NEAR India to expand its operations globally. NEAR Protocol is a highly secure and cost-effective platform, which an application like Growfitter can leverage to reach its global audiences without physically being present in the targeted geographical locations. Backed by NEAR, Growfitter is one of the first Indian startups to transition from Web2 to Web3 for geographical expansion. The future architecture of Growfitter will continue to evolve on the highly scalable Layer-1 blockchain that offers sharding as an infrastructure. The reward-based digital health platform also plans to launch its token, Growfitter's utility token (GFIT) as a reward for its crypto customers on the NEAR Protocol.

• Sei partners with Graviton concentrating focus on the burgeoning Indian blockchain market: Sei Network – a decentralized layer-1 that is building a network-wide order-book exchange on the Cosmos ecosystem – announces today a new strategic partnership with Graviton – a cohort-based web 3 accelerator program providing a platform for Indian founders and builders to fast-track their growth. The partnership with Graviton is important given the rapid growth of crypto in the Indian market. The share of Indian activity on decentralized finance platforms was 59%, according to recent data from the Economic Times of India. Graviton's 16-week cohort cycle includes live learning sessions by experts, problem-solving sessions with peers, and access to a crypto-native community allowing for a deeper network and shared learnings that can be leveraged throughout the product development cycle.

• What is Zion, the web5 social network app?: After Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and his team laid the foundation for the future of Web5 earlier this year, it was only a matter of time until a project was announced that employs Web5 components. It wasn't long after Dorsey's comment that Zion, an app for creators, announced it would use a decentralized web platform from payments app Block in its second version. Zion describes itself as “an open global scalable decentralized community platform that facilitates the direct flow of content and payments between creators and their audiences.” Zion was built with Web5 components and is distinct from Web3 in its core architecture and design. Web5 is a decentralized peer-to-peer network based around decentralized web nodes and identity, using Bitcoin as the base consensus layer. Zion aims to sever the tie between social media companies acting as the middleman between content creators and fans.

• Crypto custodian, Aegis Trust Offers $25M insurance policy for NFTs: Crypto custodian Aegis Trust is offering an insurance policy for non-fungible tokens (NFT), the company said Tuesday. The policy, provided by insurance marketplace Lloyd’s of London, will allow Aegis to insure up to $25 million for tokenized assets held by institutional investors, hedge funds, and exchanges. As the NFT market continues to ride out an extended crypto winter, digital asset insurance remains a topic of discussion. In March, insurance company IMA set up its office in Decentraland to offer protection for tokenized assets. And in the wake of crypto exchange FTX’s collapse, there appears to be heightened interest in keeping digital assets safe. In August, the company teamed up with Coinbase Cloud to provide custody and staking for Evmos (the EVM hub launched on Cosmos) and Avalanche.

• Ethereum Foundation to test withdrawals of staked ETH: On Nov. 23, the Ethereum Foundation JavaScript Team said it will relaunch the Shandong Testnet over the coming days with ETH withdrawals enabled for the first time. On the same day, Marius van der Wijden, an Ethereum developer working on the Go Ethereum (Geth) software client, tweeted that Ethereum client teams have launched a multi-client devnet to test Beacon Chain withdrawals. The devnet currently supports the Geth, Nethermind, Lodestar, Teku, Lighthouse, and Prysm clients. Ethereum began its transition toward Proof-of-Stake consensus in December 2020 with the launch of the Beacon Chain, previously known as the Eth2 consensus layer. While the launch allowed ETH holders to stake their tokens for the first time, users cannot withdraw their funds from the Beacon Chain until Ethereum’s next major upgrade, Shanghai, which is expected to take place late next year.

Blockchain Consultants at PwC India

What is Sharding?: Sharding is the process of splitting a database horizontally to spread the load – it’s a common concept in computer science. In an Ethereum context, sharding will work synergistically with layer 2 rollups by splitting up the burden of handling the large amount of data needed by rollups over the entire network. This will continue to reduce network congestion and increase transactions per second.

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