DeFI News by Thebittimes.Com

Google Cloud is launching its own layer-1 blockchain for financial institutions, taking on Ripple, Circle, and Stripe in payments. Google Cloud’s Web3 Head of Strategy, Rich Widmann, shared new details about the blockchain, called the Google Cloud Universal Ledger (GCUL), in an Aug. 26 post on Linkedin .  “GCUL brings together years of R&D at Google to provide financial institutions with a novel Layer 1 that is performant, credibly neutral and enables Python-based smart contracts,” Widmann wrote.  “Besides bringing to bear Google’s distribution, GCUL is a neutral infrastructure layer,” Widmann added.  “Tether won’t use Circle’s blockchain – and Adyen probably won’t use Stripe’s blockchain.  But any financial institution can build with GCUL.”   By moving into blockchain payments infrastructure, Google Cloud is positioning itself to compete over the financial rails that coul...

Sonic Labs, a layer-2 blockchain project that is a split off of the Fantom network, announced that its new blockchain will go live “soon” after it recently produced its first block of transactions. “Genesis achieved. Block zero. Infrastructure deploying. Public soon,” the project said in a Dec. 2 X post. Sonic Mainnet Follows “Incredible Performance Enhancements” Achieved Through Testnet 2.0 Launch The new Sonic mainnet is a successor to the Fantom Opera network. This rebranding to Sonic will include enhanced network performance, reduced latency and much lower transaction fees. Genesis achieved. Block zero. Infrastructure deploying. Public soon. — Sonic Labs (prev. Fantom) 💥 (@0xSonicLabs) December 2, 2024 The move toward the public mainnet launch follows shortly after Sonic Labs unveiled its “testnet 2.0” called Blaze on Dec. 1. Blaze comes with compatibility for the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), and saw ...