Espresso Partners With Polygon Labs to Solve Rollup Interoperability

Hi NoRamp Community,

Daily News:

1) Arch Labs Gets $7M to Develop Bitcoin-Native Application Platform

2) Espresso Partners With Polygon Labs to Solve Rollup Interoperability 

3) Tokenization to Unlock Interoperability Across Payments & Investments

4) CFPB Fines Chime $3.25M For Customer Refund Delays

5) Archive Intel Bags $1M to Enhance Wealth Firm Communication Solutions

Arch Labs Gets $7M to Develop Bitcoin-Native Application Platform:

• Arch Labs has secured a $7 million investment in a seed funding round led by Multicoin Capital, with participation from Portal Ventures, OKX Ventures, and others. The funds are earmarked for developing decentralized finance (DeFi) applications directly on the Bitcoin blockchain, avoiding secondary layers or bridges to enhance user experience and maintain Bitcoin’s inherent security.

• The company plans to use the investment to expand its development team, aiming to accelerate the creation and refinement of decentralized applications built on Bitcoin’s secure and liquid environment. Arch Labs is developing a parallelized, proof-of-stake system featuring a Rust-based zkVM, known as the ArchVM, and a decentralized verifier network.

• Alongside team expansion, Arch Labs plans to launch a public development network followed by a mainnet release in the latter half of the year. This will allow early testers and future users to explore the platform’s capabilities, enhancing stability and functionality ahead of a comprehensive public rollout.

Espresso Partners With Polygon Labs to Solve Rollup Interoperability:

• Espresso partners with Polygon Labs to develop AggLayer, a solution aimed at enhancing rollup interoperability on Ethereum's layer-2, focusing on creating a unified aggregation layer for simplified user experience and validated cross-chain transactions.

• AggLayer uses "proof aggregation" and "proof of ordering" to ensure the integrity and accurate sequencing of transactions, with Espresso coordinating the unification and settlement of interdependent rollups on Ethereum for improved transaction finalization.

• The collaboration highlights a modular scaling approach, contrasting with other initiatives like the Nil Foundation's sharded interoperability, underscoring the diversity of strategies within the Ethereum ecosystem to address liquidity fragmentation and enhance user adoption.

  

  Source: Cointelegraph

Tokenization to Unlock Interoperability Across Payments & Investment

• Rob Durscki from the Stellar Development Foundation predicts the increasing convergence of payment and investment assets, suggesting that in the future, people could potentially pay for everyday expenses like dinner using shares of tokenized funds, as discussed at the TokenizeThis 2024 event in Miami.

• Tokenization, which involves converting ownership of assets such as real estate or stocks into digital tokens on a blockchain, facilitates fractional ownership, enhances liquidity, and makes financial products more accessible to small investors.

• Ripple's VP of engineering, Bradley Chase, noted a trend among enterprises towards adopting stablecoin payments and holding tokens on-chain to generate additional revenue. The tokenized markets, including assets like U.S. Treasurys, are projected to reach a value of $16 trillion in the near future, significantly surpassing the current market capitalization of the entire cryptocurrency sector.

CFPB Fines Chime $3.25M For Customer Refund Delays:

• Chime has been fined $3.25 million by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for failing to promptly issue balance refunds to consumers after closing their checking and savings accounts, with some delays extending beyond 90 days.

• The CFPB highlighted that these delays caused significant hardships for consumers, who were often unable to cover basic living expenses and were forced to seek costly credit alternatives like credit cards or payday loans.

• In response to the findings, Chime attributed the majority of the delayed refunds to a configuration error with a third-party vendor during 2020 and 2021. Chime has since resolved the error, issued refunds to impacted consumers, and agreed to pay at least $1.3 million in redress to harmed consumers as part of a settlement agreement emphasizing the importance of timely customer service.

Archive Intel Bags $1M to Enhance Wealth Firm Comm Solutions:

• Archive Intel, specializing in communications archiving and compliance solutions for wealth firms, has successfully raised $1 million in seed funding led by Social Leverage. This investment will support the enhancement of AI capabilities, expansion of communication connections, and resource reinforcement for growth.

• The company's platform, launched in mid-April, aims to address compliance challenges in the financial services industry by offering seamless, multi-channel communication archiving and analysis. This development comes in response to substantial fines imposed by regulators like the SEC on firms such as LPL and Ameriprise, due to communication archiving deficiencies.

• Archive Intel is expanding its platform to include iMessage connectivity, enabling financial advisors to use this popular messaging tool while complying with regulatory standards. This integration is particularly significant as a considerable portion of industry fines has stemmed from improper archiving of iMessage communications.

NoRamp:

NoRamp is building Web2’s favorite Web3 apps on our lightning-fast payment infra. Join our discord, dive into our our docs, or check out our website to learn more.