Latest news with #Dragonfly
Metro
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
New Glastonbury map reveals big changes for 2025
The new Glastonbury 2025 map has been revealed, and here are the major changes you need to know about. Sleeping bags, tents and hunter wellies are at the ready as the biggest UK music festival is fast approaching. Ahead of the Worthy Farm festival, the headline acts have been announced with British pop band The 1975, folk rock star Neil Young and US pop singer Olivia Rodrigo all taking major spots in the lineup. The festival has now released the new maps for the festival, which show there are some subtle but important changes that show how the farm is mapped out for the event. The Other Stage capacity has been extended, meaning the crowd capacity will be much larger. Levels, the dance music area in Silver Hayes, which will host Groove Armada this year, has increased. As has the Dragonfly (previously known as Arcadia), the Glade, and Lonely Hearts Club. Camping-wise, there are some shrinking and others growing. Oxylers campsite has halved, South Park 2 has also shrunk as has Pennard Hill, and the indoor stage The Assembly which was introduced just last year. Shangri-La has introduced a new area, Dragon's Tail, which includes a bar. There is also now more public camping space in Pylon Ground, and two new toilet blocks at Park Hill. Glastonbury is set on Worthy Farm with a capacity of 210,000 festival-goers. The festival is around 900 to 1,000 acres, which is pretty massive and difficult to visualise. This is around the equivalent of 500 full-size football pitches, and at it's widest point it's around 1.5miles in length. The entire festival is surrounded by an 8 km perimeter fence. FRIDAY On Friday, headlining the festival is The 1975. Also performing that day is: Loyle Carter, Busta Rhymes, Biffy Clyro, Alanis Morissette, The Blossoms, CMAT, and Fatboy Slim, among many other names. SATURDAY Saturday will see Neil Young headline, with Charli XCX, Raye, Doechii, Ezra Collective, Deftones, Kneecap, Scissor Sisters, and the Kaiser Chiefs also performing. SUNDAY Sunday will see Olivia Rodrigo perform with Rod Stewart in the legends slot. Other acts performing that day include: Noah Kahan, Jorja Smith, The Libertines, Snow Patrol, and The Prodigy. The excitement for the festival is growing with Rod Stewart confirming that he will be joined by a special guest on stage, his former Faces bandmate Ronnie Wood. More Trending He was asked on That Peter Crouch Podcast whether he was in touch with other The Rolling Stones' members and 'other people in music'. Sir Rod replied: 'Not really. Woody (Wood) I do a lot, just recently, because we're going to do Glastonbury together. 'Elton, sometimes, you know, birthdays, but nowhere near how we used to, I think probably because he doesn't drink anymore, and Woody doesn't drink, and I still do. They stay away from me. Bad influence.' Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: Kneecap axed from lineup of major music festival due to 'police safety concerns' MORE: 'Gutted' Glastonbury glampers who paid £16,500 left ticketless after Yurtel goes bust MORE: 90s icon hints at surprise Glastonbury performance next month
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Tether, Tron Dominate Fast-Growing Stablecoin Payments Arena, Survey Shows
Tether's USDT token and the Tron blockchain network dominate the rapidly growing stablecoin payment industry, according analytics firm Artemis with help from investment firms Dragonfly and Castle Island Ventures. A report entitled 'Stablecoin Payments from the Ground Up' looked at data from 31 stablecoin payment companies, and found USDT, the largest stablecoin, accounted for 90 percent of payment transaction volume, followed by Circle's USDC, the second-largest. Tron was the preferred settlement network, hosting around 60 percent of volume, followed by Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain and Polygon. The snapshot of stablecoin payment volume taken in February added up to an annualized $72.3 billion, covering various payment types and sectors (B2B, P2P, B2C, Card, and Lending). Stablecoins, predominantly U.S. dollar-pegged digital tokens, were originally used to conveniently park money while trading cryptocurrencies. But these low-cost, instantly-settled financial instruments are now eating payments across the board, with bullish estimates on the potential size of that market coming from both crypto native firms and major banks. It's perhaps surprising that the share of Circle's USDC isn't larger, given the firm's involvement in payments and recent plans to introduce a dedicated cross-border payments network. In addition, Circle, which this week filed for an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange, has been taking market share from Tether in terms of issuance, so the expectation might have been a similar or pro-rata level when it comes to payments volume, said Dragonfly general partner Rob Hadick. 'For the 31 providers we got data from at least, it's clear that's not the case for the payments use case,' Hadick said in an interview. 'In fact, a higher portion of the volume, relative to the issuance, is happening with Tether, and it's happening primarily on Tron and then Ethereum. This was quite surprising to us.' This perspective is partly shaped by the fact that a lot of business-to-business uses, such as paying suppliers for global supply chains, is happening from emerging markets to the U.S. or from the U.S. to emerging markets. In some of those markets, places like Argentina or Brazil, for instance, people might be worried about things like bank failures, and Tether is seen as a trusted brand, Hadick said. Moreover, firms that use stablecoins for payments have little concern about which blockchain is being used to settle on. Tron is fast and cheap and there's over $60 billion of USDT on the chain, so it simply makes sense, he added. 'If you go to Argentina or Brazil, people don't say they want to use stablecoins, they say we use Tether,' Hadick said. 'Tether is the brand that is ubiquitous with USD access, in the same way that in the U.S. Uber is ubiquitous with taking a car that you call from your phone.' Sign in to access your portfolio
Finextra
3 days ago
- Business
- Finextra
Conduit raises $36m to take on Swift with stablecoin-based cross-border payments
Stablecoin-based cross-border payments platform Conduit has raised $36 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Dragonfly and Altos Ventures. 0 Sound Ventures, Commerce Ventures, DCG, USDC issuer Circle Ventures, Helios Digital Ventures, and Portage Ventures joined the round. Conduit's cross-border payment network integrates stablecoins, USD and local currencies to provide what the firm claims is a faster, cheaper, and more reliable alternative to Swift. Already connected into multiple local banks across North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia, Conduit will use the capital to fuel expansion into additional markets and support a broader range of traditional and digital currencies through its real-time payment rails. The round of funding comes on the back of strong growth, with transaction volumes growing 16 times through the Conduit platform between 2023 and 2024. The startup says it has saved clients over 60,000 hours in settlement times and generated fee savings worth over $55 million. Kirill Gertman, CEO, Conduit, says: "Traditional cross-border payment systems do not meet the demands of modern businesses. Conduit's platform seamlessly bridges the gap between traditional banking and stablecoin technology, offering unparalleled speed, affordability, transparency and reliability."
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Conduit Raises $36M to Expand Stablecoin-Based Cross-Border Payments Beyond SWIFT
Conduit, a cross-border payments firm that uses stablecoins, has raised $36 million in a Series A round to expand its global payment rails, the company said on Wednesday. The round was led by Dragonfly and Altos Ventures, with backing from Circle Ventures and Digital Currency Group among others. Founded in 2021, the Boston-based startup offers real-time payments that blend crypto infrastructure with traditional finance systems. Its platform supports both stablecoins and local fiat currencies, helping businesses in markets with limited dollar access or unstable currencies move money more efficiently. The firm claims that its clients have saved over 60,000 hours in settlement time and avoided more than $55 million in fees. Stablecoins are one of the fastest-growing sectors in crypto, and an increasingly attractive target for venture capital investments. With their prices anchored to an external asset, predominantly to the U.S. dollar, they serve as a key piece of infrastructure for digital asset trading. They are also increasingly popular vehicle for payments, savings and remittances, especially in developing countries, as a cheaper and speedier alternative to traditional banking rails. Conduit says the funding will help it grow its footprint in Asia, Mexico and other parts of the world. Rob Hadick of Dragonfly Capital will join Conduit's board as part of the deal. "With billions of annual transaction volume already flowing through Conduit's platform, it has proven there's a better way to move money globally and that stablecoins are the future of cross-border payments," Hadick said in a statement. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Scientists Puzzled by Mysterious Motion in Atmosphere of Saturn's Moon
Researchers have found that the thick and hazy atmosphere enveloping Saturn's largest moon, Titan, behaves in a very peculiar way. As detailed in a new paper published in The Planetary Science Journal, a team of scientists analyzed 13 years' worth of thermal infrared observations recorded by NASA and the European Space Agency's Cassini-Huygens mission. Their finding: that Titan's atmosphere wobbles like a gyroscope as it shifts with the seasons of its nearly 30 Earth-year cycle, instead of spinning in line with its surface. "The behavior of Titan's atmospheric tilt is very strange," said lead author and University of Bristol postdoctoral researcher Lucy Wright in a statement about the work. "Titan's atmosphere appears to be acting like a gyroscope, stabilizing itself in space." The discovery makes the moon, which has already captured the attention of astronomers for its suspected bodies of liquid and planet-like dimensions — it's larger in diameter than Mercury — an even more intriguing candidate for a closer look, since it appears to have its own, independent climate system. Given the latest discovery, though, scientists are now facing even more riddles about the unusual celestial body. "We think some event in the past may have knocked the atmosphere off its spin axis, causing it to wobble," Wright posited. "Even more intriguingly, we've found that the size of this tilt changes with Titan's seasons." "What's puzzling is how the tilt direction remains fixed in space, rather than being influenced by the Sun or Saturn," coauthor and University of Bristol planetary scientist Nick Teanby added. "That would've given us clues to the cause. Instead, we've got a new mystery on our hands." The findings could influence NASA's upcoming Dragonfly mission, which is tentatively scheduled to launch no sooner than 2028, and will see a massive rotorcraft attempt to descend through Titan's extremely dense atmosphere to explore its surface. It won't be a walk in the park, as it will have to endure temperatures around -300 Fahrenheit while keeping itself airborne with a surface pressure one and a half times that on Earth and winds of up to 20 times faster than the moon's rotation. How the atmosphere "wobbles" on its own could allow scientists to get a better idea of how to keep Dragonfly operational, and where to touch down. The new findings could also have far-reaching implications, forcing us to reevaluate our understanding of the Earth's atmosphere. "The fact that Titan's atmosphere behaves like a spinning top disconnected from its surface raises fascinating questions — not just for Titan, but for understanding atmospheric physics more broadly, including on Earth," said coauthor and NASA Goddard planetary scientist Conor Nixon in the statement. As for the chances that we'll encounter extraterrestrial life on the surface of Titan, astronomers aren't exactly hopeful. In a recent study, scientists concluded that Titan's rivers and lakes of liquid methane make it quite inhospitable to life as we know it. However, they found that a tiny amount of glycine-consuming microbes could, in theory, survive in its oceans. More on Titan: Titan Covered With Fragments of Obliterated Moons, Scientists Say
