Today in Crypto: Sino-US Bitcoin ASIC War May Be Starting, Neon EVM Testing Alternative Gas Payments

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of crypto and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s news.
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• We may be witnessing the start of a Sino-US bitcoin silicon war, according to the latest Miner Weekly report by BlocksBridge Consulting, discussing miner manufacturers. US startup Auradine announced its bitcoin ASIC design in July, touting its 4nm technology, launching two miner systems this week that are said to achieve 15 J/TH in efficiency. “Such an efficiency level, if true, will be competitive enough to rival either Bitmain or MicroBT – the current market leaders,” the report said. Auradine said its goal is to offer North American mining operations an alternative to “foreign ASICs,” meaning Chinese manufacturers. It seems that the company postponed the initial timeline, saying this week that the shipment will start in Q2 2024, with production volumes picking up in Q3.

• Neon EVM, an Ethereum Virtual Machine on Solana, announced its Testnet support for several tokens as payment for gas fees. The press release said that this feature is set to go live on Devnet in the following weeks and on Mainnet in Q1 2024. Ahead of most protocols implementing Ethereum‘s account abstraction feature, it added, Neon EVM is unveiling alternative gas payments. When users transact with Solana-standard SPL tokens such as SOL, USDC, and USDT, they will have the option to pay the gas fee in the transaction token rather than NEON. Going forward, Neon DAO will determine whether Neon EVM will add support for additional tokens. The upgrade to Neon EVM also enables dapps to pay the transaction fee and gain a competitive edge.

• Dacoco, the publisher of the popular metaverse game Alien Worlds, announced a collaboration with Science Fiction author Kevin J. Anderson (Star Wars, Dune, Saga of the Seven Suns). According to the press release, the two have introduced AI-Driven Tokenized Story-Telling, also known as the “Large Lore Model,” a concept that “merges the power of AI with the vibrant creativity of the global community, all governed through decentralized on-chain mechanisms.” With over 9 billion plays in Alien Worlds, this feature will be the largest AI system governed by DAOs at scale, they said.

• “The smoke signals are out for the very likely and a near imminent approval of Bitcoin Spot ETFs“, said Fineqia CEO Bundeep Singh Rangar. “The market’s simply responding to this positive signalling.” Fineqia International, a digital asset and fintech investment business, announced that its analysis of global Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) with digital assets as underlying collateral revealed a 91% growth in total Assets Under Management (AUM) in the year-to-date (YTD) period, outpacing the growth of underlying digital assets by 30%. The underlying assets had comparatively slower growth of 70% during January-October. The differential is attributed to bitcoin’s (BTC) larger proportion within digital asset ETPs compared with its share in the overall market: it makes up about three quarters of the ETPs AUM while it’s only half of the digital asset market. BTC more than doubled in value this year, which had a magnified effect on ETP’s AUM. October’s $38 billion AUM figure marked the peak value recorded this year, a monthly increase of 25% from $30.5 billion, and the highest figure since May 2022. In October, crypto assets’ market value rose 17% to $1.35 trillion, representing the highest market cap since June 2022.
• Union Labs, the team creating a zero-knowledge interoperability layer, has raised $4 million in seed funding to build the first fully trustless bridge that connects appchains, layer 1, and layer 2 networks.  The round was led by Galileo, Semantic Ventures, Tioga Capital, and NascentI, while other investors include Lightshift and Chorus One. Per the press release, the capital will also be used for the expansion of Union’s team, comprised of leaders from Composable Finance, Consensys, Tokensoft, and Polygon, in anticipation of its upcoming mainnet launch. Furthermore, it will support Union’s goal to provide a user-friendly experience through its high-level API, ensuring developers from various ecosystems can easily integrate and utilize its technology.

• Metaverse platform Utherverse is collaborating with Legacy Inspired Films (LIF), a producer and distributor of Web3 entertainment content. According to the press release, Utherverse will make its movie theater, comedy club, live concert stage, and nightclubs available to LIF to showcase content and performers to live audiences. Utherverse will also provide access to its virtual convention center for LIF to host audience discussions, panels, and meet-and-greets with filmmakers, comedians, musicians, and other performers. Additionally, the two companies will work together on booking and ticketing systems, they said.

• CoinEx launched the CoinEx Creator Program, backed by a multi-million-dollar commitment. Per the press release, the program sееks to provide both financial and publicity support to crеators passionatе about Wеb3 and blockchain technology. “CoinEx еnvisions thеsе crеators еvolving into global ambassadors, driving innovation and shaping the platform’s futurе,” the exchange said.