Crypto startup Taiko Labs has raised $22m across two seed rounds, with Sequoia China leading a $10m raise in Q3 2022 and Generative Ventures leading a $12m round more recently. Other investors included IOSG Ventures, GSR and GGV Capital, and angel investors such as Patricio Worthalter, Tim Beiko and Anthony Sassano.

Concordex, the first decentralized exchange (DEX) built on the Concordium blockchain, has launched its testnet. The project raised $1.7 million in seed funding in December 2022 to bring institutional-grade DeFi trading tools to the Concordium blockchain ecosystem. Concordex will offer one of the first regulation-friendly DeFi platforms, utilizing the regulatory-ready Concordium ecosystem. To celebrate the launch of its public testnet, Concordex has also launched a Concordex Testnet Rewards Program, allocating a total of USD 100,000 in its upcoming $CCDX token as rewards for participants in the program.

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A new protocol that allows Ethereum validators and stakers to “re-stake” their assets onto other emerging networks has just launched on testnet.

EigenLayer contracts are undergoing audits, and a bug bounty program will be launched following the completion of these audits.

Prices of Goerli ether (gETH) spiked to over $1.60 over the weekend, rising from 7 cents last Friday and reaching a market capitalization of as much as $15 million.

The Ethereum core developers are planning a new testnet called Holli in response to difficulties in acquiring ETH on the blockchain's primary test networks, Tim Beiko of the Ethereum Foundation said.

A testnet that will demonstrate Ethereum staking withdrawals is set to go live on Wednesday, according to statements from developers on Jan. 30. Ethereum Foundation members Parithosh Jayanthi and Barnabas Busa said the Zhejiang testnet will go live on Feb. 1 at 15:00 UTC. The Shanghai and Capella upgrade will be triggered on the testnet six days later (at epoch 1350 on the blockchain). Once the process is complete, validators can try out staking withdrawals in a practice environment without real funds. Validators can convert between credentials, test partial and full withdrawals, and fully exit their validator node. (cryptoslate)

In December, Dusk Network reached an important milestone with the launch of the first phase of its Rolling Incentivized Testnet. The ITN allows users to test and experiment with the network. It provides a way for users to interact with the network and earn rewards for participating. The main goal for Dusk Network is that helps its development team to gather valuable feedback and data, to further improve the network. This first phase of the ITN will end as 2022 comes to an end, however, the details of the next phases will be unravelled at the beginning of 2023.

Ethereum scaling platform Polygon launched its second public testnet, moving the platform to its final stage before mainnet launch.