There were a number of good news stories for Bitcoin, Ether and the wider crypto world in October, including the momentous Paypal news, ETH 2.0 staking being around the corner and lastly more publicly listed companies adding Bitcoin as an asset to their treasuries.
First to PayPal, who by announcing it will allow its 330m users to purchase Bitcoin and other crypto assets directly within the app and use it as a form of payment with their over 26m registered merchants got the markets and even Vitalik very excitedâŚ
Ethereumâs developer team then announced Eth 2.0 staking is imminent. The ETH network just needs to hit a certain amount of Ether locked in the staking contract so validators can start of the Proof-of-Stake network. This is expected to happen sometime over the next few months.
In the middle of all this, Ethereum continuously sees increased network usage with more Ether locked in DeFi than ever. Further the new staking usage model coming to Ethereum might impact it a lot as an asset in terms of price/market dynamics.
Another bit of good news was that the payment processing company Square announced they had purchased $50m Bitcoin to hedge against inflation. Jack Dorsey, also the Twitter CEO, became another Bitcoin poster boy for this move.
There is a now a clear trend to move significant portions of corporate treasuries into Bitcoin(and maybe Ether soon). Find a great table here.
Polkadot Projects and Ecosystem
Polkadot has seen a spike in developer activity with projects like Acala, Moonbeam, Edgeware, Plasm and more building on it and many are part of our portfolio. Some 253 projects, ranging from stablecoins to social networks, are now building on the new blockchain that was launched earlier this year, according to tracker PolkaProject. The story got picked up by Decrypt and Bloomberg.
âThe number of monthly active developers building on Polkadot increased by 44% in the 12 months ended in May, the report found.â
Decrypt also did a deep dive into the ecosystem, talking about âHere are the Most Exciting Projects Building on Polkadotâ, we were quoted and featured and you might recognize some of the names from our portfolio page.
Portfolio Update: Polkadot
We published an update of our Polkadot position, announcing a small sale of a part of our holdings, it continues to be our biggest holding to date and one that we are actively staking to generate revenue.
âWitnessing the successful launch of Polkadot is a momentous event in KR1âs history, which we and many shareholders have been eagerly awaiting since 2017, when we backed the project in its earliest funding round. We are pleased to have locked in some profit at good prices and weâre delighted that Polkadot is further expanding the Companyâs staking activities as a yield-bearing asset.â
âAs mentioned in our last announcement about the revenue from Polkadot staking yields, there is a buzzing ecosystem of projects building on Polkadotâs technology and the market has clearly recognized this potential, putting Polkadot firmly in the top ten of cryptocurrencies in terms of network valuation. Subsequently, we are seeing huge interest flowing into numerous new projects building on Polkadot, many of which we have already supported at an early stage or are in active discussions with.â
âWeâre very excited for Polkadot and what it brings to the general blockchain space. Improved scalability, native interoperability and shared security are going to become important building blocks for many upcoming projects and should push the space forward for years to come.â George McDonaugh, Managing Director and Co-Founder.
Read the full announcement and all the details here.
KR1 in the News
KR1 was featured in Decrypt discussing Polkadot;
KR1 was also recommended in CityWire as a top stock pick (of course with the usual disclaimers):
George was featured on ShareTalk talking Polkadot:
Keld joined a âWhats Next for DeFi?!â panel with Martin from Centrifuge and Marc from Aave. The recording can be found here.
KR1 is Europeâs leading digital asset investment company supporting early-stage decentralised and open-source blockchain and DeFi projects. Founded in 2016, KR1 has been a notable first investor in many key projects that will power the decentralised crypto assets, platforms and protocols that form the emerging Web3 infrastructure.
In the spirit of the open and decentralised movement, any individual or institution can buy publicly-listed KR1 shares through the London-based AQSE stock exchange (previously NEX Exchange).
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