Interchain News #3

Welcome back to Interchain News! In this week's update, we bring you the latest on product and token launches, major chain upgrades, fresh airdrop announcements, and much more from the Cosmos ecosystem. Enjoy!

Babylon Bitcoin Staking Cap 2

On Wednesday, October 8th, at 7PM UTC, Babylon will raise the Bitcoin Staking Cap.

- Cap-2 is duration based; It will be open for 10 Bitcoin blocks.
- Every valid BTC staking tx will be accepted (no TVL caps).
- Limits: min 0.005 BTC - max 500 BTC (per address).
- 10,000 points are distributed per BTC block to active stakers.
- 50% reduction of unbonding fee.

The third native use case for Bitcoin

Bitcoin staking on Babylon is the third native use case for BTC. Until now, there have been two use cases for Bitcoin:

1. Store of Value

2. Payments

3. NEW: Staking

Bitcoin staking via Babylon is trustless, it does not involve any third party and is fully done natively on the Bitcoin chain.

Unstoppable Private Digital Cash

Payy Network is a self-sovereign bank on crypto rails that is ushering in a new era of unstoppable private digital cash.

The privacy chain tailor made for anonymous stablecoin transfers has just announced to scale their network by integrating with Celestia, the high-throughput data availability layer.

Crypto Apps are finally here. Try it out now!

Interchain Security 2.0 is live ⚛️

The Cosmos Hub has successfully upgraded to v20, enabling new exciting features like:

- Permissionless Interchain Security (ICS 2.0).
- ICS with inactive validators.
- Removal of unbonding pausing for ICS.

Permissionless ICS is a real game-changer, as it brings permissionless restaking to the Hub.

Developers looking to launch a Consumer Chain on the Cosmos Hub no longer have to go through governance.

All it takes to launch a sovereign chain is a few validators to "opt-in" to run and secure a chain.

Forge - The User-facing frontend for ICS

With Permissionless Interchain Security now live on the Hub, Forge provides a unifying platform where $ATOM stakers, developers, and validators can collaborate to coordinate new product and chain launches.

Forge enables:
- One-stop shop for all ATOM delegators
- Smooth entry for Consumer Chains
- Validators can find Consumer Chains to opt in

SAGA is breaking through the mainstream wall

Major media outlets like Verge and Vox Media which have been long critical of crypto, are now covering Web 3 projects like SAGA and the next generation of crypto games building on and leveraging the SAGA tech stack.

SAGA Innovator Cohort

28 projects were selected to join the SAGA Innovator Program in Cohort 9, bringing the total number of teams in the program to over 400 since its inception.

The Saga Innovator Program puts an emphasis on gaming projects, but also supports a wide range of other categories such as:

- Dec. ID, Digital Fashion, Generative AI
- Education, Entertainment, Privacy
- DeFi, NFTs, Social, Infra & Tools

The new Interoperability Standard

Axelar announced the Mobius Development Stack (MDS), a new interoperability standard expanding across all Web 3 ecosystems.

- Infinite connections: Interop with all existing and new chains.
- Security that scales: leveraging the Interchain Amplifier.
- Interchain Token Service (ITS): Native everywhere, beyond bridges.
- Programmable interop: via the Axelar Virtual Machine.
- Security via restaking primitives like EigenLayer & Babylon.

Osmosis Updates 🧪

$36 billion trading volume

Osmosis, the Interchain DEX, just eclipsed $36B in total trading volume.

Will it hit $50B before the end of 2025?

Cypher Integration

The Crypto Card provider Cypher integrated with Osmosis. Users can now spent their assets on Osmosis around the world using the Cypher Debit Card.

Nolus supports Alloyed Bitcoin

- Up to 3x leverage on your BTC holdings (lease long).
- Fixed interest rate.
- Favorable liquidation terms.

"Alloyed BTC will be the canonical BTC in Cosmos."@Sunny Aggarwal

That's it for today, thanks for reading folks.

We hope this article helped you stay up-to-date with the latest developments in the Interchain.

September Recap

- Polaris App was unveiled at the Breakpoint conference.
- Partnership with Omnity Network to connect the ICP ecosystem with the Interchain.
- ckBTC added to Alloyed BTC.
- Osmosis' Alloyed Assets are now available on Coingecko.
- Revenue-sharing agreement with Shade Protocol.

Namada Pre-Genesis Stage 2

Recipients of the Namada airdrop can now stake their $NAM tokens before mainnet launch.

There could be some perks awaiting those who stake their airdrop pre-genesis. 🤫

Here's a quick Stakecito tutorial on how to stake your $NAM.

Blockchain Security & Intelligence

The new Range platform went live last week, featuring improved security, a revamped blockchain explorer, and a suite of products including:

- Real time security and alerts.
- Cross-chain wallet monitoring and forensics.
- Custom analytics and anomaly detection.
- Advanced transaction explorer.

Top level teams like dYdX, Osmosis, Solana, Noble, Cosmos Hub, Neutron, Celestia are using Range today.

New trading feature on dYdX

Trade History: Traders can now see their past trading activity (buys and sells) on the chart.

Injective Updates

Injective has entered Phase One of INJ 3.0, aiming to dramatically reduce the Injective token supply.

This update sets the stage for $INJ to become one of the most deflationary assets in all of crypto.

- Over $220,000 in $INJ have been burned last week through Injective's decentralized burn auction.
- In total over 6.2 million $INJ tokens have been burned.

- Injective has reached another major milestone on its journey, surpassing 1 billion on-chain transactions on the network.

- Not only are on-chain transactions on Injective skyrocketing, but also daily active addresses on the network are growing faster than anywhere else.

IBC is leveling up

The latest release of ibc-go brings new features, use cases and improved UX to the Interchain's interoperability standard.

- Multi-Token transfers: Allows sending of multiple token types in a single transaction.
- Native packet forwarding/unwinding: Maintaining token fungibility across different paths.

NFT Recap #20

To wrap things up, here are the latest and hottest news from the world of Interchain NFTs.

That's it for this week, folks! Thanks for reading.

We hope this article helped you stay up-to-date with the latest developments in the Interchain.

#InterChainNews3

Disclaimer

This article is intended to educate readers about certain topics and should not be considered financial advice in any way.