Overview of industry news on April 18

1. Mainstream projects & hot event trends:

Worldcoin will launch a new blockchain network, WorldChain, later this year.

BytePlus, a subsidiary of ByteDance, will work with Mysten Labs to apply services such as its recommendation solutions and augmented reality products to Sui.

In its latest unaudited financial disclosure, Animoca Brands said it holds $558 million in digital assets on its balance sheet, including $291 million in cash and stablecoins.

The Bitcoin Layer2 network BSquared Network stated on social platforms that the mainnet has been launched.

Analysts at investment research firm Bernstein expect Bitcoin to resume its bullish trajectory after the halving, reiterating its goal of reaching $150,000 by the end of 2025.

Multi-chain liquidity staking platform Kelp DAO has announced a special promotion for all deposit users, covering ETH, stETH and ETHx.

BounceBit will take a snapshot of all early access to BounceBit Points Paradise on April 20th at 00:00 UTC (8:00 Beijing time).

2. Financing information updates:

ZekoLabs, the parent company of the cross-chain zero-knowledge expansion protocol Zeko Protocol, completed a pre-seed round of financing of US$3 million. This round of financing was led by YBB Capital, UOB Venture Management and SSignum Capital.

Zignaly, a social investment platform, announced at Token2049 the launch of Layer 1 blockchain ZIGChain based on Cosmos and the establishment of a US$100 million ecosystem development fund.

Ordinals manager Ord.io completed a $2 million pre-seed round of financing, led by BitcoinFrontier Fund and Sora Ventures.

Stable currency startup Usual Labs completed US$7 million in financing, led by IOSG and Kralken Ventures.

3. Regulatory information updates:

U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Cynthia Lummis have introduced a stabilization bill. The bill would require stablecoin issuers to hold a one-to-one reserve of cash or cash equivalents to back their tokens, prohibiting unbacked algorithmic stablecoins.