Polygon announced the date for the conversion of MATIC to POL
Polygon developers have set September 4 as the date for converting the MATIC utility token into the new Polygon Ecosystem Token (POL) in a 1:1 ratio. The community supported this innovation. POL will replace MATIC as the main token for staking and gas payment.
Tokenomics, distribution and overall supply will remain unchanged. The latest figure is 10 billion with annual inflation of 2%. In the next stages, improvements and expansion of POL functionality are possible, especially at the AggLayer blockchain aggregation level, depending on the opinion of the community.
For MATIC holders in the Polygon PoS network, the transition to POL will occur automatically, without the need for user intervention. However, owners of assets on Ethereum, Polygon zkEVM or various CEXs will need to follow special migration procedures, as stated in the project announcement.
Developers and stakers who delegate MATIC will receive tokens automatically converted to POL with the opportunity to refuse the transition. The team also plans to carry out large-scale dapps and infrastructure upgrades as part of the migration.
Bitcoin mining difficulty increased by 3%
During the latest recalculation, Bitcoin mining difficulty increased by 3.21%, reaching a new record of 82.05 T. This increase came after three consecutive periods of decline. The average hashrate between the last changes was 646.59 EH/s, and the interval between blocks was reduced to just over nine minutes. According to Glassnode, the 7-day moving average of hashing power has increased to ~591 EH/s, moving towards the March peak of 636.6 EH/s.
TON Foundation will launch a cross-chain bridge for integration with Bitcoin
The TON Foundation, which is behind the development of The Open Network (TON) blockchain, announced the launch of a cross-chain bridge for transferring bitcoins to its platform. The organization said in a statement that the solution, called TON Teleport BTC, is designed to attract Bitcoin holders to actively participate in the DeFi sector.
This infrastructure will open access to interaction with decentralized exchanges, lending platforms and other applications in the TON ecosystem. Each BTC on TON will be fully backed by real Bitcoins, using a teleportation process to ensure transaction security. It is expected that the launch of TON Teleport BTC will take place this year.
Buterin: Web3 infrastructure projects need more investment
Investors choose some types of infrastructure for their investments, while others are neglected. Therefore, it is incorrect to talk about “large capital flows” in this direction, noted Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin in Warpcast. Buterin expressed regret about the lack of funding for open source projects.
It is worth recalling that a researcher under the pseudonym Emperor Osmo predicted the rapid growth of the DePIN sector, as large companies such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Cloudflare will need to scale efficiently.
BNB Network Initiates Public Vote on BEP-341
The BNB Chain ecosystem has announced the start of public voting on proposal BEP 341, which aims to improve the efficiency and security of the BNB Smart Chain blockchain.
BEP 341 intends to increase transaction throughput through sequential block production. Changes to the distribution of transaction fees are also proposed to reduce MEV abuse.
Voting will last until July 23, and users who have staked BNB through one of the delegates will be able to participate. Previously, BNB Chain announced its intention to allocate $900,000 to support meme tokens.
Tezos announces the launch of a non-custodial crypto card
The Tezos Foundation will release an on-chain payment card in collaboration with Baanx and Mastercard, powered by Etherlink, an Ethereum-compatible L2 solution for Tezos. The card will be accepted by more than 110 million merchants.
Baanx commercial director Simon Jones said such products could replace online banking and help people without bank accounts. Bybit also announced a similar initiative for Argentina.
Visa shelved plans to integrate digital assets in early 2023, but in April announced it was looking for developers for such projects. In September, Visa began a pilot project to use the USDC stablecoin on the Solana network. In January, Visa made it possible to convert cryptocurrencies into fiat money directly from wallets such as MetaMask and Coinbase Wallet.
