Bessie Liu

<div id="highlights-block_63086f79f641d" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Elrond CEO Beniamin Mincu said many new updates are expected in the coming months</li>
 <li>EGLD price has dropped by 77% since its all-time high in November 2021</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



British fintech and banking firm Revolut is partnering with Elrond to bring the blockchain’s native cryptocurrency, EGLD, onto its platform.



Elrond’s EGLD will be available to over 20 million Revolut users in over 30 countries, an opportunity that Elrond CEO Beniamin Mincu dubbed “tremendous.”



The move marks a bet on the underlying technology of the blockchain, considering its token plummeted some 90% from its all-time high in Nov. 2021. Its total value locked (TVL) has been decimated in that time as well and now sits at $157 million, <a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Elrond" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to DefiLlama</a>.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignright size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="300" height="300" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-08-25-Beniamin-Mincu.png" alt="" class="wp-image-29269" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-08-25-Beniamin-Mincu.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-08-25-Beniamin-Mincu.png?w=150 150w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-08-25-Beniamin-Mincu.png?w=257 257w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-08-25-Beniamin-Mincu.png?w=261 261w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-08-25-Beniamin-Mincu.png?w=219 219w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-08-25-Beniamin-Mincu.png?w=80 80w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-08-25-Beniamin-Mincu.png?w=50 50w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /><figcaption>Beniamin Mincu; Source: <a href="https://twitter.com/beniaminmincu" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Twitter</a></figcaption></figure></div>


“It’s a huge step forward in making EGLD available to a large audience of people,” Mincu told Blockworks. “The listing is one thing, but there are other things such as staking and some other features as well.”



Elrond launched its mainnet in July 2020, using its own unique Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm called Secure Proof of Stake (SPoS) to support its blockchain.&nbsp;



“We believe the Elrond network enables us to scale dynamically with the demand of the network&nbsp;



in a way that no other network can do at this point,” Mincu said.



The network’s decentralized exchange and digital wallet Maiar was taken offline in June 2022 after “<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/elrond-native-token-drops-7-as-maiar-dex-goes-dark/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">suspicious activity</a>.” This incident caused the wallet’s token MEX to drop in value by over 90%.&nbsp;



EGLD suffered as well, slipping to as low as $38 shortly after the incident. Its price remains down from its all-time high in Nov. 23 2021 high of around $540, trading hands at roughly $56.20 at the time of writing.



Although there have yet to be any significant ecosystem updates on the network, Mincu said there will be a lot to look forward to in the coming months. Most specifically, in November — when the first Elrond conference will be held in Paris.



“We’ve been working on several things, and with this conference, people will get the sense of where this entire space is really going towards, and what we’ve been working on in silence for some time now,” Mincu said.&nbsp;



Mincu said that moving forward, he sees Elrond becoming the “next fundamental layer for the metaverse.”



“I believe that the metaverse landscape will be absolutely defining for the next decades,” he said. “But without the blockchain, the metaverse really cannot exist&nbsp; — so this is the direction that we&#8217;re pushing very heavily towards.”



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Revolut Expands Crypto Offerings, Adding Elrond

Sebastian Sinclair

<div id="highlights-block_629d4ab9fdace" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The main DEX deployed on the Elrond Network has been taken offline amid an investigation of &#8220;suspicious activity&#8221;</li>
 <li>The DEX&#8217;s native token fell more than 90% late Sunday evening while Elrond Network&#8217;s token dropped 7%</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The native token belonging to smart contracts platform Elrond Network shed more than 7% of its value Sunday as Maiar, the decentralized exchange deployed on Elrond, underwent maintenance.



Founder and CEO of Elrond, Beniamin Mincu, <a href="https://twitter.com/beniaminmincu/status/1533598583001337863?s=20&amp;t=0E71Kn4fh82CgGhECLwXHw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a> Sunday his team was investigating &#8220;suspicious activity&#8221; on Maiar and would provide an update &#8220;soon.&#8221;



&#8220;Identified the potential issue, and working on an emergency fix,&#8221; Mincu said in a later <a href="https://twitter.com/beniaminmincu/status/1533658926557847552?s=20&amp;t=-39Uw2aZDaIjSAtvkeKpAw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweet</a>.



Blockworks confirmed that Maiar has gone offline by way of a &#8220;<a href="https://maiar.exchange/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">scheduled maintenance</a>&#8221; with an accompanying message on its site claiming that &#8220;operations will resume shortly.&#8221; The exchange has remained offline for more than seven hours.



Speculation is mounting, with some Elrond proponents alleging a potential <a href="https://twitter.com/BoomerRang54/status/1533642437402427397?s=20&amp;t=adDFW2mg1ryYrJc5l8apIQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">exploit</a>. Elrond is promising to update users once a fix has been implemented.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">This might be an exploit of the Maiar DEX or SC async calls (problem reported earlier by some devs on Lottery type Smart-Contracts) There might be a way to &quot;hide&quot; some transactions / call funds out of nowhere (still under investigation) Waiting for the team&#39;s official response&mdash; ⚡Anduu.elrond (@AnduTabacu) <a href="https://twitter.com/AnduTabacu/status/1533638069458550784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 6, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Both the Elrond token (EGLD) and the native token of the Maiar DEX (MEX) are down on the day, with MEX having yet to recover from a considerable drop in price where it shed 90% of its value late Sunday evening. 



EGLD remains down from around $75 seen at 9:00 pm UTC to $72.30.



Launched late last year, Maiar coincided with a liquidity incentive program totaling $1.29 billion in MEX tokens in a bid to curry activity on the new exchange. Smart contracts built for Maiar and deployed on Elrond were touted at the time of the launch as having undergone &#8220;<a href="https://elrond.com/blog/elrond-superwave-1-billion-usd-incentive-maiar-dex/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">rigorous auditing and formal verification</a>.&#8221;



Blockworks attempted to contact the team at Elrond but did not receive a reply by press time.



This story is developing and will be updated accordingly.



Correction on June 6, 2022, at 3:40 am ET: Elrond&#8217;s token trades as EGLD.



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