Latest news with #ChristianThompson
Campaign ME
3 days ago
- Business
- Campaign ME
Alkimi brings billions in ad spend on-chain to fix broken ad ecosystem
Decentralised ad platform Alkimi has partnered with Sui, a blockchain built for mass adoption, to bring billions of dollars in digital advertising revenue on-chain. Intending to fix a broken ad ecosystem, Alkimi's platform removes opaque intermediaries from the advertising supply chain, redirecting value directly between advertisers and publishers. The ad platform – which is already seeing mainstream adoption of ad spend on blockchain through brands such as Amazon's AWS, TikTok, Polestar and Currys – exposes where spend was previously lost, bringing transparency, reduced fees and accelerated payments to the digital advertising landscape. The partnership sees Alkimi adopt the full stack of Mysten-created technologies – including the Sui blockchain, Walrus, Nautilus, and Seal – to bring digital advertising on-chain, advancing one of the largest and most commercially viable sectors and showcasing how these innovations work together to modernise a legacy industry. Powered by Sui's high-performance blockchain, Alkimi infrastructure will also be able to unlock future opportunities for data monetisation, from licensing models to AdFi innovations. 'Alkimi is fixing a broken digital and advertising ecosystem by bringing it on-chain, and we are proud to be the network chosen for such an important job,' said Christian Thompson, Managing Director at Sui Foundation. 'Sui and its stack ensure the experience for Alkimi and their partners is fast, secure, transparent, and able to function completely on-chain – the only way the benefits of decentralization can be fully realised,' Thompson added. Each Mysten-created product plays a critical role in bringing this modernised advertising experience to life: The Sui blockchain is the coordination layer for Alkimi's offering, powering verifiable, outcome-based transactions between advertisers and publishers. is the coordination layer for Alkimi's offering, powering verifiable, outcome-based transactions between advertisers and publishers. Walrus supercharges Alkimi's capabilities, enabling the platform to scale efficiently by putting data onchain. Currently delivering more than 25 million ad impressions per day, Alkimi is expanding its network of publishers and global brands. Walrus ensures the data infrastructure keeps pace, providing a reliable, cost-effective, and high-performance solution. With real-world advertisers requiring transparency and auditability, Walrus gives Alkimi the foundation to deliver trusted, accurate data at scale. supercharges Alkimi's capabilities, enabling the platform to scale efficiently by putting data onchain. Currently delivering more than 25 million ad impressions per day, Alkimi is expanding its network of publishers and global brands. Walrus ensures the data infrastructure keeps pace, providing a reliable, cost-effective, and high-performance solution. With real-world advertisers requiring transparency and auditability, Walrus gives Alkimi the foundation to deliver trusted, accurate data at scale. Nautilus allows Alkimi to independently validate ad impressions and run financial reconciliation logic in verifiable trusted execution environments (TEEs) — ensuring advertisers and publishers are paid based on provably accurate delivery data and help ensure agreements between advertisers and publishers are met. allows Alkimi to independently validate ad impressions and run financial reconciliation logic in verifiable trusted execution environments (TEEs) — ensuring advertisers and publishers are paid based on provably accurate delivery data and help ensure agreements between advertisers and publishers are met. Seal encrypts and manages access to the sensitive ad impression data and related metadata of Alkimi's Fortune 500 clients without relying on centralised services, making a fully on-chain advertising platform possible — protecting brand and publisher confidentiality while keeping the system fully decentralized. 'We had the tech, and we knew it needed to scale, that's when the team at Sui really leaned in,' said Ben Putley, CEO and Co-Founder of Alkimi. 'They understood our vision to rebuild digital advertising into something more transparent and equitable. Bringing it onchain isn't about replicating the legacy systems, it's about giving advertisers, publishers and users a fundamentally better experience, powered by faster, more secure, and decentralised infrastructure,' Putley concluded.
Finextra
3 days ago
- Business
- Finextra
Digital asset bank Sygnum integrates Sui blockchain token, SUI
Sygnum, a global digital asset banking group, today announces a variety of accessible custody, trading, and lending solutions for layer-one cryptocurrency, SUI, broadening access for professional and institutional clients to the Sui ecosystem. Sygnum's regulated product portfolio and bank-grade infrastructure provides Sui with a trusted gateway to tap into the accelerating inflows from financial institutions, banks, asset managers and High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI). 0 This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author. SUI is fully integrated into Sygnum's banking platform. Regulated services include institutional-grade digital asset custody, spot and derivatives trading, staking and Sui collateral-backed Lombard Loansii, complemented by a broad range of traditional securities. "Broadening institutional access to the Sui ecosystem further expands Sui's reach to the global institutional investor community,' said Christian Thompson, Sui Foundation CEO. 'Sygnum's crypto-native team, end-to-end regulated offering and trusted infrastructure make them our ideal banking partner as we continue to build and scale.' 'We're pleased to be a banking partner for the Sui Foundation and expand access to professional and institutional investors via Sygnum, a regulated bank', said Mathias Imbach, Sygnum Co-Founder and Group CEO. 'Sygnum's unique understanding of digital assets sits at the intersection of the rapidly converging digital asset and regulated financial ecosystems. We are excited to support the Sui Foundation in developing the future-proof, opportunity-ready treasury it needs to continue its growth trajectory.' Sui, developed by a team of former Meta engineers at Mysten Labs, is designed to deliver crypto's decentralised benefits with the ease and familiarity of today's internet. The Sui blockchain processes activity in parallel, making it highly scalable in the same way as Cloud services. Sui supports a wide range of applications, including DeFi, instant payments, Real-World Asset (RWA) tokenization and gaming. It is also an early leader in BTCfi (Bitcoin Finance) where it enables Bitcoin owners to engage with DeFi and earn, lend, and trade without compromising security.
Business Insider
16-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Meet Christian Thompson, the security expert betting big on Africa's Web3 builders
As blockchain adoption accelerates globally, new networks are under pressure to deliver on old promises: security, scalability, user experience, and meaningful real-world utility. In emerging markets like Africa, these demands are even more acute, where innovators and investors alike are looking for technology that can drive inclusion, power local economies, and connect them to the global digital ecosystem. Sui, a next-generation Layer 1 blockchain, is one of the networks aiming to fill that gap. Launched to enable what it calls mass adoption, Sui claims to make blockchain as easy to use as the web itself, while solving the security and scalability challenges that have long dogged the industry. At the center of this effort is Christian Thompson, Managing Director of the Sui Foundation. A veteran with experience spanning software entrepreneurship, law enforcement, and a high-profile stint leading blockchain security at Meta's Libra/Diem project, Thompson brings a cross-disciplinary view to what blockchain needs next. In this exclusive interview with Business Insider Africa, Thompson explains Sui's philosophy, its technical differentiators, its approach to security and user experience, and its ambitious bet on supporting developer communities across Africa. 'Throughout my career, I've always had a deep interest in how technology can be used to empower individuals while maintaining trust,' Thompson begins, reflecting on his path to Web3. 'At Meta, I led blockchain security for the Libra/Diem initiative, which opened my eyes to both the possibilities and the limitations of existing blockchain infrastructure. That experience, combined with my earlier work founding software companies and in law enforcement, shaped my belief that decentralization is a design philosophy for trust. That journey ultimately led me to the Sui Foundation, helping build infrastructure that enables real utility and mainstream adoption in a secure, scalable way.' Sui's pitch to developers and businesses is bold: to be the blockchain designed specifically for mainstream adoption. Rather than focusing narrowly on financial applications or crypto-native users, Sui's vision is to become a global coordination layer for digital assets of all kinds. 'Sui is the only blockchain built for mass adoption. It serves as the global coordination layer for intelligent assets, helping individuals and businesses securely create, own, and transact digital assets without intermediaries,' Thompson explains. 'Sui's architecture, which is based on the Move programming language, enables fast, scalable, and intuitive digital experiences. Sui is designed to deliver the performance and simplicity needed to power real-world applications, from identity to gaming and everything in between.' Competition among Layer 1 blockchains is intense, with projects racing to address known bottlenecks like high fees, slow transactions, and poor developer experience. For Thompson, Sui's differentiator is clear: its approach to security and scalability begins at the protocol level. 'Security at Sui starts at the protocol level,' he says. 'The Move language was designed to eliminate common vulnerabilities by defining digital assets as objects with clearly defined rules. This object-centric model is easier to audit and harder to exploit than traditional smart contract architectures. In addition to this unique approach, we invest heavily in formal verification and modern cryptography to enhance security.' Security alone, however, isn't enough to unlock mass adoption. Thompson points out that blockchain's notoriously bad user experience has been one of its biggest obstacles. Sui's design explicitly aims to overcome that, making blockchain interactions feel as seamless as using a modern web app. 'Accessibility is central to the Sui ecosystem,' Thompson says. 'Sui is built to make crypto feel like the Web experience most people are already used to. It is seamless, safe, and intuitive, with a variety of features created to ensure accessibility. zkLogin, for example, allows users to access blockchain apps with familiar logins like Google or Facebook, no seed phrases, and no browser extensions. Meanwhile, Sui Passkeys bring passwordless security via biometrics, and sponsored transactions mean users don't even need to hold crypto to get started.' For developers evaluating blockchain platforms, Thompson says Sui's scalability and developer experience are designed to remove many of the industry's traditional headaches. 'Sui is faster, more scalable, and more developer-friendly, thanks to the Move programming language and horizontal scalability,' he notes. 'This enables developers to build apps that scale with demand, without facing performance trade-offs. Developers can directly access and compose assets without needing smart contract intermediaries, leading to faster development, lower costs, and better user experiences.' Thompson is also no stranger to the world of regulation. Having worked closely with global regulators while at Meta, he has a sober view of the need for clear frameworks, even as the industry resists heavy-handed oversight. 'We're at an inflexion point in crypto regulation, with policymakers globally realizing that existing legacy frameworks don't fit digital assets, and a growing emphasis on purpose-built regulations,' he says. 'Sui is committed to working within these frameworks to ensure long-term success while preserving the decentralized ethos.' Beyond technology and policy, the Sui Foundation is betting on developer communities as the engine of blockchain's real-world impact. In particular, Thompson points to Sui's investments in local hubs that can support developers in emerging markets where blockchain is seen not just as a speculative asset, but as infrastructure for solving real problems. 'Developers and entrepreneurs are the backbone of blockchain adoption and we firmly believe that some of the most innovative blockchain solutions will come from local communities solving local challenges with global relevance,' he says. 'Sui provides a full stack of support to developers and builders across the world, through grant programs and technical mentorship to in-person opportunities for learning and connection. A recent example is SuiHub Lagos, a space dedicated to supporting the next generation of West African builders. It offers workshops, technical office hours, funding access, and hands-on support from international mentors. Sui launched this hub following months of community engagement in the area, including hackathons and educational outreach.' This emphasis on local empowerment shapes Sui's broader philosophy of community building. 'A thriving ecosystem begins with empowerment,' Thompson says. 'Sui works with communities around the world to offer them tools and resources to address local challenges with a global outlook. Investing in tailored, localized hubs like those in Lagos and Athens leads to real ownership and opportunities to lead. These spaces foster collaboration, mentorship, and global connectivity, linking builders to the broader Sui network. Sui's object-centric architecture and governance model are designed to support transparent, inclusive decision-making, ensuring that as the network scales, the community scales with it.' Africa, in particular, is a region where Thompson sees enormous promise for blockchain technology. 'Africa is a continent of extraordinary innovation and ambition, particularly in tech-forward regions like Nigeria,' he says. 'SuiHub Lagos is a permanent, community-led space that connects local developers to the global Sui ecosystem. This hub serves as a physical anchor for West Africa's vibrant builder community, offering hands-on engineering support, international mentorship, funding opportunities, and educational programming. We've seen firsthand how local talent is already using Sui to address critical issues, and we're committed to deepening that impact, including through a $1.3 million developer training donation from Mysten Labs co-founder and original Sui contributor, Adeniyi Abiodun. We believe that Africa will be a significant force in the future of blockchain, and SuiHub Lagos is just the beginning.' Looking ahead, Thompson is bullish about Sui's role in the next phase of the internet's future, which he believes will be powered by blockchain infrastructure that's invisible to the end user, but fundamental to how we coordinate, trade, and build online. 'Sui is building for the internet's next chapter,' he says. 'In the coming years, Sui will become the backbone of a new class of mainstream digital applications, where billions of people interact with onchain assets as naturally as they use the internet today. From decentralized identity to AI-driven systems, everything will run on a network that's fast, reliable, and invisible to the end user. To get there, we're doubling down on composability, developer experience, and global ecosystem growth. We want builders to stand on the shoulders of existing projects and extend them even further. That's why we've built tools like Move Registry and launched SuiHubs around the world to localize support, grow talent pipelines, and create a truly global developer network. We also see Sui as a core enabler of digital coordination, helping people and institutions collaborate on a massive scale without intermediaries. Whether that's tokenizing real-world assets, supporting stablecoin payments, or powering decentralized data for AI, Sui's architecture is designed to scale with demand while preserving security and trust.'
Thrill Geek
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Thrill Geek
Opening Date for High Key Club at Disneyland Hotel Revealed
A luxurious new addition to the Disneyland Hotel has officially opened its doors. Located in the Adventure Tower, the all-new High Key Club reimagines the concierge experience with nearly double the space of the previous lounge and a unique design that celebrates the rich musical history of Disneyland. Perched high above the resort, the High Key Club offers a sophisticated retreat that pays homage to the music, artists, and soundscapes that have brought Disneyland Park to life since its earliest days. Guests will find themselves immersed in a world of audible artistry, from the intricate foley effects used in attractions to iconic park tunes that have become beloved classics. High Key Club, the new concierge lounge at the Disneyland Hotel at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, Calif., opens on July 10, 2025. Inspired by the music and sounds of Disneyland Park circa 1955, Disneyland Hotel club-level guests can enjoy food and beverage in this mid-century modern lounge that pays homage to the history of audible magic at the park. The lounge features a nearly 50-foot-wide mural, artistic light fixtures resembling classic Disney records, and musical artifacts including metal discs once used on a self-playing music machine that was in Walt Disney's apartment on Main Street, U.S.A. (Christian Thompson/Disneyland Park) The lounge's design features a breathtaking 50-foot-wide mural illustrating these legendary soundscapes, complemented by artistic light fixtures inspired by vintage Disney records. Guests can also admire original metal discs from the self-playing music machine once housed in Walt Disney's personal apartment on Main Street, U.S.A. Starting Thursday, guests staying in club-level rooms at the Disneyland Hotel will enjoy a host of exclusive perks, including daily breakfast, all-day snacks and beverages, access to a dedicated concierge team, and spectacular bird's-eye views of Disneyland Park's fireworks on select evenings. In celebration of Disneyland's 70th anniversary, guests can also take advantage of a special limited-time offer: save up to 20% on select hotel stays Sunday through Thursday nights, now through August 14, 2025. Looking ahead, a new offer will be available beginning July 17, for stays between August 17 and December 19, 2025. For more details and to book, visit Clint Gamache is the owner of ThrillGeek. He started ThrillGeek to share his love of theme/amusement parks and pop culture with the world. You can find him at Halloween Horror Nights. Also, be sure to follow him on Twitter/X, Instagram @iamcg83
Business Wire
08-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Sui Integrates Axelar to Unleash Limitless Scale for Next-Generation Asset Issuers
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Axelar today advances global blockchain interoperability with the mainnet integration of Sui, the blockchain built for mass adoption, to advance their shared vision of empowering asset issuers to deliver seamless UX at limitless scale. The integration comes as DeFi surges on Sui, with more than 1.4M daily active wallets powering over $11B in DEX volume over the last 30 days alone. Sui's connection via Axelar unlocks interoperability across all of crypto. Tapping into Sui's high-performance infrastructure and growing liquidity is now as simple as deploying a single smart contract on Axelar's Interchain Token Service (ITS). This is what we mean when we say, "one connection; limitless possibilities." TLDR Axelar's development stack includes toolsets like Interchain Token Service (ITS) that keep UX seamless across multiple blockchains with secure multichain tokenization. Sui has transformed UX so that users interact with apps, not chains – and set records in throughput, delivering sub-second finality via its innovative parallel processing consensus mechanism. "Axelar enables asset issuers to leverage Sui's industry-defining UX and scale to everyone across crypto," said Christian Thompson, managing director of the Sui Foundation."Both Sui and Axelar have built groundbreaking scalability solutions while maintaining best-in-class security, and I'm excited to see what this integration will unlock for developers." Chain abstraction = 'Web2' UX + institutional adoption Internet users are accustomed to application experiences that abstract away multiple layers of infrastructure. Contrast that against the multichain era of Web3 today, where users themselves may be asked to stitch together bridges, wallets and gas tokens just to use an app. Empowering asset issuers to overcome this fragmentation is the core capability of Axelar's Interchain Token Service (ITS). Axelar and Sui share a worldview in which these barriers can be broken down and users can interact with applications, not chains. Here's a real-world example showing how financial institutions can now build compliant products that connect liquidity and access across multiple blockchains via Axelar ITS: Using Interchain Amplifier, they connect private and compliant new blockchains and communities as easily as deploying a smart contract. Using Interchain Token Service (ITS), they can mint tokenized assets as-native across these chains, preserving the same fungibility and functionality everywhere. With Sui and Axelar integrated, these institutions now have unlimited scalability at their disposal, combined with built-in compliance and audit capabilities, institutional-grade security, and simple UX features like Sui's zkLogin for onboarding. Institutions can add these innovative capabilities without creating user hurdles for their clients. "Axelar introduces faster connections for everyone from financial institutions to consensus innovators like Sui," said Georgios Vlachos, director at Axelar Foundation and co-founder of Axelar protocol. "Sui has made huge strides with institutions like Franklin Templeton, VanEck and Grayscale; Axelar has provided institutional-grade secure connectivity for Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan's Kinexys. These institutions recognize the power of interoperability to enable compliant solutions at the full scale of Web3 liquidity and accessibility." Scalability = next-generation consensus + universal interoperability With Sui and Axelar connected, industry-leading performance meets universal connectivity – and it's only possible via Axelar. Sui's proven sub-second finality has broken records for blockchain throughput. It's based on Sui's Mysticeti protocol powered by Bullshark, a novel decentralized acyclic graph (DAG) consensus mechanism, and Narwhal, a high-throughput mempool and consensus engine. Without Axelar, protocol-level innovations like these can end up in silos, unavailable to the broader crypto ecosystem. Axelar abstracts the complexity of connecting advanced consensus mechanisms and issuing assets that are natively multichain, enabling integration via a simple smart contract. Sui + Axelar = market impact and future vision The mainnet integration of Sui and Axelar is a call to developers to build new applications Web3 has never seen before. Several of them are already planning and building multichain layers into their dApps – including Aftermath and Bluefin, two of the largest DEXs on Sui. 'Sui's protocol-level capabilities have enabled Aftermath to deliver things that wouldn't be possible anywhere else – like near-zero slippage, best-execution and a CEX-like user experience built fully on-chain,' said Aftermath Finance co-founder and CTO Kevin Nelson. ' We've been looking forward to the Axelar connection, which will enable Aftermath to expand these innovations to every asset in Web3, reaching DeFi users everywhere.' 'Our North Star at Bluefin is to deliver an on-chain trading user experience that can compete with that of Binance. Sui makes this possible,' said Bluefin co-founder Rabeel Jawaid. 'Axelar not only supports seamless bridging and onboarding, it will also enable Bluefin to connect liquidity cross-chain, accelerating our path to making on-chain a zero-tradeoff proposition for both retail and institutional users.' With Sui connected to the broader crypto ecosystem via Axelar, asset issuers and developers enjoy: A unified API for accessing all major blockchain networks. A developer suite that includes Interchain Token Service for rapid multichain tokenization. Easy connection of new blockchains via Interchain Amplifier. Axelar connectivity doesn't stop with Sui. Axelar is accelerating connectivity to a list of major blockchains that includes Monad, Solana, TON, XRP Ledger, and dozens of L2s and application-specific blockchains, and these integrations have the power to bring greater liquidity to the Sui blockchain. Get started building today and see how fast you can build the future of Web3 with Axelar and Sui: About Axelar Axelar is the Web3 interoperability platform, delivering the shortest path to scale: an open stack to connect all blockchains. Adopters include Uniswap, Microsoft and dozens of natively multichain startups with a combined total value locked (TVL) that has crossed $1 billion. Axelar supports a best-in-class developer stack on a cross-chain layer that is open, scalable and secure. Backers include Binance, Coinbase, Dragonfly, Galaxy and Polychain. Learn more: About Axelar Foundation Axelar Foundation is a nonprofit established to support the growth and adoption of the Axelar Network, a decentralized blockchain interoperability platform that connects multiple blockchain ecosystems. Learn more at
