Crypto Biz: SushiSwap bets on new roadmap against DEX competition

Decentralized exchange SushiSwap announced a new roadmap, promising to allow users to “Swap Anything” from non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to coins across over 35 chains. 

The roadmap targets one of the key pain points of the blockchain ecosystem — liquidity across networks. The company recently unveiled a route processor to gather traders’ better rates with liquidity aggregated from hundreds of sources. 

According to data from DefiLlama, Sushi’s aggregator tool has generated $597.76 million in all-time trading volume since July. The revised roadmap follows recent governance changes in the DEX, which created a counsel structure where its community would still have the power to decide on treasury allocations but wouldn’t be involved in operational details.

Among the new features, SushiSwap is launching Blade — its automated market maker focused on eliminating impermanent loss (IL) for liquidity providers by offering stable yields on certain assets despite price fluctuations. Another upcoming feature is Kubo, which is designed for delta-neutral strategies in perpetual futures markets. The solution promises to balance risks across multiple networks, reducing exposure to market volatility.

The changes are expected to boost SushiSwaps’ position amid growing competition for traders’ fees. According to DefiLlama, the protocol generated nearly $462,000 in fees in September, compared to over $836,000 a year earlier. In September 2022, before the crypto winter, it generated $3.8 million in fees.

 This week’s Crypto Biz also explores Tesla’s Bitcoin holds, Avalanche’s Visa card, Core Scientific’s billionaire deal with CoreWeave and Chainlink’s pilot for corporate databases. 

Tesla likely still owns $780M in Bitcoin despite recent shuffle: Arkham

Tesla probably still owns its entire Bitcoin stash worth $780 million despite transferring all the funds to unidentified wallets on Oct. 15, according to a blockchain analytics firm. The company split the 11,509 Bitcoin into seven wallets, holding between 1,100 and 2,200 BTC. Wallet addresses “1Fnhp” and “1LERL” received the largest batches worth $142.2 million and $128.1 million, respectively. “We believe that the Tesla wallet movements that we reported last week were wallet rotations with the Bitcoin still owned by Tesla,” Arkham Intelligence said in an Oct. 22 X post.

Avalanche Foundation introduces Visa crypto spending card

The Avalanche Foundation, the organization behind the cryptocurrency and blockchain platform Avalanche, has introduced a Visa cryptocurrency card. According to a blog post, the new Visa card by Avalanche will feature support for Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin, ​​Wrapped AVAX (wAVAX), BENQI Liquid Staked AVAX (sAVAX) and others, allowing users to spend cryptocurrency “wherever Visa is accepted.” According to the Avalanche Card’s website, the credit card is linked to a “self-custody wallet and unique address per asset.” The card’s description notes that user activity is “not reported to the credit bureaus.”

Core Scientific to host more CoreWeave infrastructure, targets $8.7B revenue

Bitcoin miner Core Scientific has announced the final expansion of its hosting contract with artificial intelligence computing firm CoreWeave. According to an Oct. 22 announcement, the extended agreement adds 120 megawatts (MW) of power to CoreWeave’s high-performance computing (HPC) operations, bringing the total to 500 MW across six Core Scientific sites. The revised partnership is expected to generate up to $8.7 billion in revenue over the next 12 years for Core Scientific. The new infrastructure is set to become operational in the second half of 2026.

Chainlink using AI, oracles to bring market-moving corporate data onchain

Chainlink has piloted an onchain database of corporate actions using artificial intelligence and decentralized oracle technology, according to an Oct. 21 announcement. The pilot seeks to harness “the combined advancements in AI, oracles and blockchain technology to address the lack of real-time and standardized data around corporate actions,” Chainlink said. Information on corporate actions — such as mergers, dividends and stock splits — “present[s] one of the most complex unstructured data problems in the financial world,” Chainlink said in a report detailing the initiative. These inefficiencies cost investors, brokers and custodians about $3 million to $5 million every year, according to Chainlink.

Before you go: Cointelegraph Accelerator has announced the launch of the application process for its upcoming cohort, inviting innovative Web3 startups to apply for the program from Oct. 24, 2024, to Jan. 31, 2025, with the cohort set to commence in the first quarter of 2025.

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