This Week in Blockfolio Signal — Tezos, NKN, Solana and OneLedger
Every week we comb through hundreds of Blockfolio Signals to bring you the most significant team updates with brief analyses to help you understand the latest developments in blockchain
But first, in macro crypto news this week:
- Ethereum rivals Bitcoin for daily value transfers
- Central banks recommended banning stablecoins
- China sees new blockchain innovation alliance with Huawei and Alibaba
- Andreessen Horowitz looks to start new $450m crypto investment fund
Top Blockfolio Signals of the past week:
- Tokenized Bitcoin Launched on Tezos Blockchain
- tZERO’s Digital Securities Protocol Now Supports Tezos Blockchain
- NKN Chosen by iQIYI to Speed Video Content Delivery
- Solana Partners with Terra for a High-Speed Stablecoin Bridge
- OneLedger Becomes an IBM Business Partner
Tokenized Bitcoin Launched on Tezos Blockchain
“The Bitcoin Association Switzerland (BSA) announced a group of crypto firms has collectively launched a tokenized version of Bitcoin, tzBTC, on the Tezos blockchain.
tzBTC provides exciting new opportunities for the Tezos community, as it brings the resilient Bitcoin brand and asset to Tezos, which in turn provides Bitcoin access to Tezos’ institutional-grade smart contract security features, future composable DeFi applications, and active global community of developers.”
— Amer Justice, Community Director
Summary
- The Bitcoin Association Switzerland (BAS) announced the launch of tzBTC, a token on the Tezos blockchain that is backed 1:1 by Bitcoin.
- tzBTC provides exciting new opportunities for the Tezos community, as it brings the resilient Bitcoin brand and asset to Tezos, which in turn provides Bitcoin access to Tezos’ smart contract security features and future DeFi applications.
Significance
This brings the trust and liquidity of Bitcoin to the Tezos blockchain and lends the potential for rich functionality made possible by Tezos smart contracts. It opens the possible use cases for Tezos, making the platform a more desirable choice for developers.
Price at the time of Blockfolio Signal: $1.92. View XTZ on Blockfolio.
tZERO’s Digital Securities Protocol Now Supports Tezos Blockchain
“The integration marks tZERO’s first step in supporting other blockchains outside of Ethereum on its open-source protocol. This expands the range of technological options available to digital securities issuers who wish to have their securities be compatible with the tZERO ecosystem.”
— Chris Ghent, Head of Communications, TQ
Summary
- tZERO, a leader in blockchain innovation for capital markets, announced its digital securities protocol now supports Tezos.
- The integration marks tZERO’s first step in supporting other blockchains outside of Ethereum on its open-source protocol. This expands the range of technological options available to digital securities issuers who wish to have their securities be compatible with the tZERO ecosystem.
- Multiple issuers in tZERO’s pipeline, including Alliance Investments’ River Plaza STO, have expressed interest in leveraging the Tezos blockchain.
Significance
The integration is a nod of faith in the institutional-grade security of the Tezos blockchain and will increase awareness of their technology. tZERO gains another platform option with additional features for those looking to digitize securities. This is a clear win-win for both companies and the partnership helps to highlight one of the many use cases for blockchain technology.
Price at the time of Blockfolio Signal: $1.94. View XTZ on Blockfolio.
NKN Chosen by iQIYI to Boost Performance of Their Video Content Delivery
“NKN is thrilled to join iQIYI in advancing technical innovation for video content delivery.”
— Zheng “Bruce” Li, Co-Founder & Co-CEO
Summary
- Baidu-owned iQIYI is building one of the world’s largest content distribution networks on modern architecture such as multi-CDN, edge computing, and smart scheduling. iQIYI built its own HCDN software that can run on many different hardware and software platforms.
- NKN’s micro hosting capabilities were developed on top of its own open-source peer to peer network architecture. This architecture offers the ability to scale to millions of nodes.
- Integrated with its micro hosting is network management for deploying and managing services such as 3rd party CDN software. The nodes in this architecture also have a built-in payment channel with the ability to reward network operators in real-time. Altogether, NKN software offers the micro hosting platform for iQIYI’s HCDN software.
- NKN excels in network-level Quality of Service (QoS) and Internet topology and traffic metrics, smart scheduling for packet and session routing, as well as e2e and hop by hop security and verification.
Significance
NKN and iQIYI have complementary areas of competence that can be leveraged to make breakthroughs in optimized video content delivery. Through this partnership, NKN will get to demonstrate the power of their peer to peer network connectivity protocol. This also provides an opportunity to highlight blockchain-based solutions that can improve the user experience.
Price at the time of Blockfolio Signal: $0.014. View NKN on Blockfolio.
Solana Partners with Terra for a High-Speed Stablecoin Bridge
“It is a busy time for Solana! Last week we listed our token on Binance and this week we’re announcing a very special partnership with our friends at Terra.
Terra is a thriving payments network that is supported by a basket of stablecoins pegged to the world’s largest currencies. Today, these stablecoins largely flow through Terra’s flagship app, CHAI, which recently crossed 1M MAU and over $3M USD in daily transaction volume. Terra is backed by an impressive team and some of the world’s best investors.
Together, through this partnership, we’re building a new high-speed token bridge that facilitates the transfer of Terra stablecoins into Solana’s dapp ecosystem. Terra’s tokens will be the first stablecoins on the Solana network. Stablecoins on the Solana network allow for novel applications that require price-stable payments. Similarly, we hope to support Terra’s expansion by creating a seamless gateway to our developer community.”
— Raj Gokal, COO
Summary
- Terra is a thriving payments network that is supported by a basket of stablecoins pegged to the world’s largest currencies. Today, these stablecoins largely flow through Terra’s flagship app, CHAI.
- Solana and Terra are building a new high-speed token bridge that facilitates the transfer of Terra stablecoins into Solana’s dapp ecosystem. Terra’s tokens will be the first stablecoins on the Solana network.
- Solana is opening the door to novel applications that require price-stable payments. They also hope to support Terra’s expansion by creating a seamless gateway to our developer community.
- To facilitate the bridge, they are building two smart contracts that will each be deployed on both platforms by May 2020. The bridge leverages a mint-and-burn model via these mirrored smart contracts.
Significance
Stable payments are the foundation of some of the most successful DeFi applications. By prioritizing support for stablecoins with Terra, Solana should be able to accelerate its DeFi ecosystem. This expands the potential use cases for their high-throughput, web-scale blockchain platform.
Price at the time of Blockfolio Signal: $0.66. View SOL on Blockfolio.
OneLedger Becomes an IBM Business Partner
“OneLedger becomes an IBM Business Partner to advance enterprise blockchain solutions.”
— Sahir Parmar, Community Director
Summary
- OneLedger has become an IBM Business Partner to advance enterprise blockchain solutions.
- IBM has an enormous network of companies currently using its platform and leveraging its resources. By joining this program, OneLedger aims to advance its current enterprise relationships by providing extensive blockchain solutions through IBM’s platform.
- OneLedger now has the capability to test its client solutions against IBM criteria to ensure compatibility and integration with IBM technologies.
- After launching the Mainnet, OneLedger will list its solution on IBM’s Business Portal for other companies to reap the benefits of a full-scale blockchain product.
Significance
This partnership is significant given the size of IBM and the relationships that are opened from becoming an IBM Business Partner. It allows OneLedger to connect with a variety of businesses in the IBM ecosystem and to host and test the OneLedger Private networks on the IBM infrastructure. In the future, they will be able to test Hyperledger to Hyperledger connectivity over OneLedger. Overall, it increases the visibility of OneLedger to the wider technology sector.
Price at the time of Blockfolio Signal: $0.004. View OLT on Blockfolio.
Quote of the Week:
““Bitcoin is manipulated.”
If manipulation was a sporting event, the stock market would be the Super Bowl and Bitcoin would be two legless ducks playing badminton blindfolded on an ice skating rink.
Wake up. Bitcoin is the closest thing we have to a free market.”
— Scott Melker
Thanks for joining us and we look forward to bringing you our top Blockfolio Signals again next week.
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Jason Hamlin
Ecosystem Insights & Development @ Blockfolio
Blockfolio Signal is a first-of-its-kind communications platform built exclusively for token teams to connect and engage with their communities. Over 400 token team CEOs and team leaders actively use the platform to provide relevant project updates directly to Blockfolio’s 5 million+ users. Learn more at www.blockfolio.com/signal.
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