Author: Michelle Lazo

Sonic, a gaming-focused layer-2 blockchain built on Solana, has successfully raised $12 million in a recent funding round. The Series A round was led by Bitkraft and included investments from Galaxy Interactive and Big Brain Holdings.

The funds will be allocated to expanding the Sonic protocol, which features game development tools tailored for the Solana ecosystem. According to the press release, Sonic offers “built-in mechanisms designed specifically for game development and execution on Solana, such as a sandbox environment, customizable gaming primitives, and extensible data types, all while providing the fastest on-chain gaming experience.”

Sonic was developed by Mirror World Labs, a two-year-old infrastructure company led by CEO Chris Zhu. Zhu, who graduated from New York University in 2020 and previously worked for ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, has been pivotal in driving Sonic’s growth.

“We expect the Sonic SVM to become the go-to destination for any gaming studio that wants to build games within the Solana ecosystem,” said Justin Swart, principal at Bitkraft, in the press release.

This latest fundraising round follows an earlier $4 million seed round in 2022, bringing the total funds raised to $16 million.

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The layer-2 blockchain  has launched its much-anticipated airdrop of the ZK token, with 45% of the tokens claimed within the first two hours, according to the ZKsync Association. This non-profit organization, created by Matter Labs, oversees the airdrop process.

“It’s a Monday, don’t you have work?” the ZK Nation X account tweeted, noting the rapid claim rate. The ZK token opened at $0.31 but has since decreased by 21%, trading at $0.24 according to CoinGecko. The market capitalization is approximately $908 million based on the circulating supply, with about 3.7 billion tokens eligible for distribution. The fully diluted market cap would be $5.1 billion.

The ZK token is listed on cryptocurrency exchanges Binance, Bybit, and KuCoin. Binance had initially postponed the listing due to technical issues with their node but assured users that the issue was being fixed urgently and that deposits would be credited once the block height catches up.

Matter Labs, in a statement to CoinDesk, detailed the token distribution plans through the ZKsync Association. Despite some user dissatisfaction with the airdrop’s design, the team defended its “unconventional design.”

According to the distribution plan, 89% of the airdrop can be claimed by ZKsync users who transacted on the blockchain and met an unspecified activity threshold. The remaining tokens are allocated to ecosystem contributors, including:

• ZKsync native projects: 5.8%
• On-chain communities: 2.8%
• Builders: 2.4%

Additionally, Matter Labs employees will receive 16.1% of the ZK tokens, and investors will get 17.2%, both of which will be locked for a year and then released over three years. The rest of the token supply will be divided between ZKsync’s Token Assembly (29.3%) for governance purposes and Ecosystem Initiatives (19.9%).

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Bitcoin investment products saw significant outflows totaling $621 million last week amid mixed economic signals from the U.S., according to asset manager CoinShares.

Across the broader digital asset ecosystem, there were net outflows of $600 million, primarily driven by Bitcoin’s losses. This marked the largest outflow since March 22. Grayscale’s GBTC was particularly hard-hit, experiencing $273 million in outflows.

CoinShares noted that these outflows overshadowed minor inflows into various altcoins, including Ethereum (ETH), Lido (LDO), and Ripple (XRP).

The U.S. inflation data for May, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, exceeded expectations, remaining flat for the month. However, this positive news was dampened by the Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve maintaining its benchmark rate range at 5.25%-5.50%. The economic outlook suggested just one 25 basis point rate cut this year.

Bitcoin was affected by this hawkish stance, dropping to its lowest point in four weeks on Friday at $65,100. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was stable at $66,000. The CoinDesk 20 Index, which tracks the performance of the broader digital asset market, was down by 1.75%.

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The Australian Securities Exchange, which accounts for 90% of Australia’s equity market, has approved its first spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund. The issuer, VanEck, announced in a blog post that it will launch the ETF on June 20, touting it as the “lowest cost bitcoin ETF in Australia.”

VanEck resubmitted the application for this product in February. Reports from April indicated that DigitalX Ltd. had applied for approval around the same time, and Sydney-based BetaShares was also working toward launching a similar product on the ASX. Bloomberg had previously reported that spot Bitcoin ETFs might be approved by the end of 2024, making this an early development.

In contrast to the U.S., Australian firms need approval from both the Australian Securities & Investments Commission and the exchange listing the product. In May, ASIC confirmed via email to CoinDesk that DigitalX Ltd., VanEck, and BetaShares either had the relevant licenses or were collaborating with firms that did.

Earlier this month, Australia-based Monochrome Asset Management received approval for its Monochrome Bitcoin ETF (IBTC) from the Cboe Australia exchange, ASX’s smaller rival. Monochrome stated that its product was the first and only ETF in Australia to hold Bitcoin directly.

“Despite regulatory and exchange framework challenges in Australia, VanEck intends to lead the way in bringing the first Bitcoin ETF to ASX investors,” VanEck stated in their blog.

Industry experts previously expressed more excitement for a spot Bitcoin ETF to trade on ASX due to its larger trading volumes. ASX’s approval of VanEck’s product is expected to lend greater legitimacy to cryptocurrency and related ETFs in the region.

After the U.S. approved spot Bitcoin ETFs in January, there has been anticipation for similar approvals in APAC countries as they strive to position themselves as major crypto hubs. VanEck plans to leverage its global expertise and infrastructure, having launched approved spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. and Europe, to provide Australian investors with a top-tier cryptocurrency solution.

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Tether, the company behind the $110 billion stablecoin, announced on Monday the launch of Alloy, a new token minting platform on the Ethereum network. Alloy allows users to create tokens collateralized by Tether’s tokenized gold (XAUT).

“Alloy by Tether is an open platform that allows the creation of collateralized synthetic digital assets and will soon be part of the new Tether digital assets tokenization platform, launching later this year,” said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, in an X post. Tether also mentioned in a press release that the platform might offer yield-bearing products in the future.

The first asset available on the Alloy platform is aUSDT, a token pegged to the U.S. dollar. Investors can mint aUSDT by using Tether’s XAUT as collateral. XAUT has a market capitalization of $570 million and is backed by physical gold stored in Switzerland.

The aUSDT token is designed for users who want to make crypto payments and remittances without selling their gold-backed tokens. According to the press release, the collateral must be overcollateralized, with new tokens limited to 75% of the collateral value.

The asset issuance for Alloy will be handled by Moon Gold NA, S.A. de C.V., and Moon Gold El Salvador, S.A. de C.V., both regulated under El Salvador’s National Commission of Digital Assets.

This new offering is part of Tether’s broader strategy to expand beyond USDT, the largest stablecoin by market value and a key component of the digital asset market. Tether has recently invested in bitcoin (BTC) mining, payment processing, and artificial intelligence through cloud computing. In April, Ardoino outlined plans to launch a tokenization platform that would enable the creation of digital versions of various assets, including bonds, stocks, funds, and loyalty reward points.

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