Revolutionizing Confidential AI with Intel TDX and iExec

As 2025 approaches, the cryptocurrency market is abuzz with speculation about which tokens will emerge as top performers this year. Investors are shifting their focus from mere hype to tangible progress, adoption rates, and strategic market positioning. Among the frontrunners, BlockDAG is gaining significant attention, alongside established players like Toncoin, Litecoin, and Filecoin, each offering unique advantages worth monitoring. BlockDAG is making waves with its ambitious exchange strategy, planning to list on 20 centralized exchanges on June 13. This aggressive move is not just about visibility; it signifies a readiness to expand its market reach. With over $273 million raised and a presale currently underway, BlockDAG has already sold more than 21.4 billion coins, yielding substantial returns for early investors. Its hybrid model, which combines DAG scalability with Proof-of-Work reliability, is attracting both developers and miners, positioning it as a serious contender in the crypto landscape. On the other hand, Litecoin remains a reliable choice in the crypto sphere, known for its fast transactions and low fees. Its potential in cross-border payments is gaining traction, appealing to investors seeking a blend of legacy trust and future utility. Meanwhile, Toncoin benefits from its integration with Telegram, providing seamless access to millions of users and enhancing its adoption prospects. Lastly, Filecoin is carving out its niche in decentralized storage, catering to the growing demand for secure data solutions. Each of these tokens presents distinct opportunities, but BlockDAG's early momentum and strategic roadmap may give it the edge in the competitive crypto market of 2025.

In an innovative shift towards decentralized connectivity, Roam is transforming the way users share their internet connections. By allowing individuals to contribute both private and public WiFi to a global network, Roam empowers users to monetize their unused bandwidth while providing others with reliable access to the internet. This model not only enhances connectivity but also rewards users with Roam Points, which can be converted into $ROAM or used to participate in various in-app activities, including games and exclusive events. Security and privacy are paramount concerns when sharing internet connections, and Roam addresses these issues with a robust security framework built on blockchain technology. Users maintain full control over their WiFi sharing preferences through the Roam app, allowing them to add, edit, or remove hotspots at their convenience. The platform ensures that all connections are encrypted, safeguarding personal data for both the host and the users accessing the network. Additionally, each Roam account is assigned a unique decentralized identity (DID), further enhancing user privacy and data management. Roam's rapid growth is evident, with over 2 million registered users and more than 3.5 million WiFi hotspots mapped globally, making it the leading decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) for WiFi coverage. This expansion is fueled by a diverse user base, including students, travelers, and local businesses, who are not just consumers but active contributors to the network. By downloading the Roam app, users can easily share their WiFi and earn rewards, thereby participating in a community-driven effort to enhance global connectivity.

Sungkyunkwan University’s AI & Media Lab (AIM Lab), led by Professor Sungeun Hong, has become the 32nd academic institution globally to adopt Theta EdgeCloud, a decentralized GPU infrastructure tailored for AI and machine learning research. This partnership will significantly enhance the AIM Lab's capabilities in areas such as multimodal learning, domain adaptation, and 3D vision. Notably, their recent work, supported by Samsung, titled "Question-Aware Gaussian Experts for Audio-Visual Question Answering," has been accepted as a Highlight Paper at CVPR 2025, one of the most prestigious AI conferences. The integration of Theta EdgeCloud will allow researchers to access high-performance GPU resources on demand, facilitating faster iterations while reducing costs. Professor Hong, an expert in multimodal AI and robotic perception, emphasizes the advantages of Theta EdgeCloud in providing the necessary computing flexibility to advance their research. The AIM Lab's focus on vision-language modeling and privacy-preserving domain transfer will benefit from the decentralized architecture, enabling rapid training and evaluation of models. The collaboration with Samsung further strengthens the lab's research output, showcasing a strategic relationship that enhances the development of impactful AI technologies. The AIM Lab's recent achievements, including the innovative QA-TIGER model for video question answering and a memory-efficient attention mechanism for image segmentation, highlight the lab's commitment to cutting-edge research. By joining a network of esteemed institutions leveraging Theta EdgeCloud, such as Stanford and KAIST, Sungkyunkwan University is poised to lead in the advancement of AI innovation. This partnership not only accelerates research but also positions the AIM Lab at the forefront of developing socially relevant AI applications, demonstrating the power of academic-corporate collaboration in the tech landscape.

In May, DIMO announced several exciting updates aimed at enhancing the developer experience on its platform. The most notable introduction is the public beta of DIMO Webhooks, which allows developers to subscribe to vehicle events instead of repeatedly querying the Telemetry API. This innovative feature is expected to significantly streamline the development of event-driven applications. The Webhooks functionality is integrated into the DIMO Developer Console, with support for the Python SDK and n8n already available, enabling developers to manage webhooks programmatically or in a low-code environment. Additionally, DIMO has improved the user experience for logging out of accounts using the Login with DIMO feature. Developers can now implement a direct logout option through the React Component SDK, allowing users to log out easily via a new “Manage DIMO Account” button. For non-React applications, a new URL Redirect method has been introduced, making it simpler to manage user sessions. These updates aim to enhance user convenience and streamline the logout process for developers. Furthermore, DIMO is excited to introduce on-chain attestations, which will help establish trust in vehicle data by allowing third parties to verify information immutably on the blockchain. This feature acts like a Notary Public for vehicle data, ensuring authenticity and quality without relying solely on the source. Lastly, DIMO will be deprecating the old privilege grants for the Token Exchange API on May 27th, urging developers to transition to the SACD permissions contract to maintain service continuity. These updates reflect DIMO's commitment to fostering a robust and reliable data ecosystem for developers and users alike.

Last week, the blockchain fundraising landscape witnessed a significant surge, with 26 projects collectively raising a remarkable $267 million. The standout was World Foundation, which successfully completed a $135 million public token sale aimed at creating a proof-of-personhood protocol that facilitates universal digital identification and global financial access. Following closely was Catena Labs, which secured $18 million in seed funding to develop an AI-native financial institution. Other notable projects included Roxom, True Markets, and Hyperdrive, each attracting substantial investments to enhance their innovative offerings in the blockchain space. In addition to fundraising, the week also saw notable mergers and acquisitions (M&A) that are reshaping the blockchain ecosystem. DePIN Pulse made headlines by acquiring DePIN.Ninja and Who Loves Burrito, consolidating fragmented data within the DePIN ecosystem. This strategic move aims to streamline operations and enhance data analytics capabilities. Meanwhile, Alchemy expanded its portfolio by acquiring NFT launchpad HeyMint, which provides no-code tools for NFT creation, thereby bolstering its Smart Wallets initiative. Apex Group also announced plans to acquire Tokeny, further solidifying its commitment to digital asset infrastructure. On the venture capital front, Theta Capital Management launched Theta Blockchain Ventures IV, a $175 million fund-of-funds dedicated to supporting crypto-native VCs focused on early-stage blockchain startups. This fund aims to leverage the expertise of specialist managers to navigate the evolving landscape of digital assets. Insights from industry experts highlighted a shift in crypto VC dynamics, with a focus on long-term fundamentals rather than speculative investments. As the sector continues to mature, these developments signal a promising trajectory for blockchain innovation and investment.

The DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) narrative is rapidly gaining traction, bolstered by the introduction of innovative protocols and the expansion of existing ones. Recent reports indicate that the DePIN sector's total market capitalization has surged by 132% year-over-year, surpassing $40 billion. Additionally, startups within this domain have raised over $266 million in funding. With its demonstrated real-world applications and strategic partnerships, DePIN is poised to transform major industries such as telecommunications, energy, and computing. Notably, the compute sub-sector is anticipated to become one of the largest DePIN markets, with Inferix leading the charge as Asia's largest decentralized GPU network, offering high-performance GPUs for AI training and visual computing at competitive costs. Inferix has announced a partnership with Animoca Brands Japan to launch the Inferix Worker Node Sale on May 30, 2025. This sale will feature a network of decentralized machines, categorized as Manager, Verifier, and Worker nodes. The Worker Node is crucial for handling the majority of rendering and processing tasks. When an AI or rendering job is requested, the Manager node distributes the tasks to Worker nodes, which then return the results for verification. Successful verification results in rewards distributed in the form of IFX tokens from the Inferix blockchain, incentivizing participation in the network. The Worker Node License, represented as an ERC721 NFT, allows holders to earn rewards by operating a Worker Node Client. Inferix aims to deploy around 100,000 Worker Nodes, with 75% of the Ecosystem Fund allocated for service revenue rewards. The Node Sale will include both a Whitelist Sale and a Public Sale, commencing simultaneously on May 30, 2025. Interested participants can find detailed information about the sale structure, pricing tiers, and eligibility criteria through the official channels. Inferix's innovative GPU network is set to revolutionize visual computing, enabling faster and more cost-effective rendering solutions for a variety of industries.