Latest news with #Sei
New Straits Times
4 days ago
- General
- New Straits Times
Century-old goldsmithing tools, Sei whale skeleton to go on display in city museums
KUCHING: A set of century-old traditional equipment once used by one of the city's most prominent goldsmiths could soon be added to the list of new exhibits in one of the museums in the state capital here. Sarawak Tourism, Creative Industries and Performing Arts Minister Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Hamzah said they could go on display as new exhibits at the Borneo Cultures Museum or the Natural History Museum after the documentation process had been completed. The equipment, which comprised a work station, hand tools and a blowtorch with a mini gas cylinder, were donated to the Sarawak Museum Department by Teo Keng Boon, the grandson of the esteemed goldsmith Teo Chai Seng. The equipment and tools were those normally used to convert gold bars into plates and wires, which were subsequently fashioned into jewellery. Teo even donated the signboard of his grandfather's shop, Chop Swee Hin. The shop was originally located at No. 11, Jalan Rock, until 1950, before it shifted to No. 8, China Street in the city centre on Oct 18, 1988. The business closed down permanently on Nov 29, 2005. Another item that will be exhibited is the skeleton of a 13-metre Sei whale that the Museum Department managed to obtain in November last year. The skeleton is from the remains of a whale found floating off the waters of Pulau Seduku near Batang Luparin in Sri Aman Division in Nov 19 last year. The remains subsequently got trapped in the structure of a bridge under construction near the Triso ferry terminal. The carcass was retrieved by a team from the Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) on Nov 22 last year for study. DNA testing confirmed that it was a Sei whale (Balaenoptera borealis), marking the first time the species was found in Sarawak waters. Now part of the museum's zoology collection, it is the largest whale specimen ever obtained and holds significant value for research and exhibition, Karim said. He added that the skeleton would be exhibited at the Natural History Museum, or generally known to locals as "the old museum". At a press conference after the post Sarawak Heritage Council meeting today, Karim said the Borneo Cultures Museum, built at the cost of RM323 million, remained a prominent state attraction. The "new museum", he said, had drawn more than 1.35 million visitors since its opening in March 2022. He said up to June 16, there were a total of 117,095 visitors recorded in the museum. Among the notable visitors were Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, who visited the museum twice in November last year and in February this year; Ugandan Energy and Minerals Minister Ruth Nankabirwa and her delegation; the Ambassador of Norway to Malaysia Morten Paulsen, the Ambassador of Switzerland to Malaysia Chantal Moser, and a delegation from the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Karim said the Cultures Museum had generated more than RM9.42 million in ticket sales since its opening in 2022. "Beyond ticketing, the rental of facilities such as the auditorium, function room, temporary exhibition room and arts & crafts gallery has also drawn strong interest, contributing an additional RM 334,000.00 in revenue," he added. "This strong response highlights the Cultures Museum's growing reputation as a premier venue for events, exhibitions and public engagement. "This year, the museum has generated RM 9,763,801.00 in revenue up to May 31."
The Star
4 days ago
- General
- The Star
13m whale skeleton set to be S'wak museum attraction
KUCHING: A 13m-long whale skeleton is set to go on display following its acquisition by the Sarawak Museum Department. State Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Minister Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said the Sei whale (Balaenoptera borealis) was initially found dead and drifting near Pulau Seduku in the Sri Aman division in November. He said it was the third whale specimen in the department's collection and the largest to date. "We will find a place for it, either in the Borneo Cultures Museum or the Natural History Museum. "It will be an interesting exhibit," he told reporters after chairing a Sarawak Heritage Council meeting here on Wednesday (June 18). The whale carcass was first reported by area residents on social media on Nov 19. ALSO READ: Dead whale found in Sarawak is Sei whale, says Sarawak Forestry Four days later, a team from Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) discovered the heavily decomposed carcass trapped around the construction site of a bridge near the Triso Ferry. The Museum Department subsequently obtained the skeleton through collaboration with the Sri Aman Resident Office, Lingga and Sebuyau district offices, SFC, Fire and Rescue Department, police and the local community. Now part of the museum's zoology collection, the specimen holds significant value for research and exhibition. Karim also said a set of traditional goldsmithing tools nearly a century old was recently donated to the department by Teo Keng Boon, the grandson of well-known goldsmith Teo Chai Seng. He said the set comprised machinery, hand tools, a work station, gas canister, vault and the original shop signboard. The equipment was used to shape gold bars into plates and wires to be fashioned into jewellery. "Entirely operated by hand, the tools are estimated to be over 90 years old. "The goldsmith's shop was located at China Street here and ceased operations in 2005," Karim said. In addition, he said two copper pots estimated to be over 70 years old were donated to the department by Surau Darul Falah at Kampung Tupong here. He said the pots were used by the villagers to cook rice, porridge and other dishes during communal events.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Institutional yield infrastructure on Sei's high-performance layer
Institutional DeFi demands high-speed execution and low-latency trading for capital efficiency, but many current solutions can't meet large-scale market-maker needs. Yei Finance taps into Sei's core design processing 20K+ TPS and ~1-second finality to reduce slippage, allow real-time rebalancing, and deliver optimal yields. Sei employs a concurrent trade execution model, making it one of the fastest DeFi-focused chains. Gas fees remain lower, with added MEV protection. Institutional-grade features performance analytics, strategy customization, and integration tooling position Yei as a modular backend for on-chain asset managers. DeFi draws institutional interest for good reason: it offers open access to global liquidity, 24/7 markets, and transparent settlement rails. But much of the infrastructure still runs at retail speed. On Ethereum, unpredictable fees and execution delays make deploying fast, high-volume strategies difficult. For hedge funds and market makers, that's not just friction—it's a non-starter. When speed drives returns, latency kills the trade. Yei Finance, built on Sei, is designed for this exact problem set. Where Ethereum executes trades one by one, Sei processes thousands at once, creating the kind of throughput and responsiveness institutional strategies depend on. Real-time arbitrage becomes practical. Slippage stays low. Liquidity can be managed in motion. For firms competing on execution, this is the environment they need to operate at full capacity. Most DeFi platforms still rely on AMMs that push trades through one by one, opening the door to slippage, delays, and MEV extraction—all of which bleed value for institutions. Sei rewrites the model. Its native orderbook and parallel execution architecture split block processing across independent lanes, so trades can be matched simultaneously without fighting for block space. The result is lower latency, tighter spreads, and the ability to run high-frequency strategies that are out of reach on legacy DeFi rails. Sei's sub second finality and deterministic ordering mean trades clear instantly and predictably, without the uncertainty that kills real time strategies. Yei Finance is built to tap straight into this infrastructure, delivering automated liquidity rebalancing and optimized yield programs designed for institutions that need speed, precision, and cost discipline to stay competitive. Yei Finance is built for institutional DeFi, where execution speed, real-time responsiveness, and capital efficiency directly influence returns. Most aggregators rely on delayed updates and batch processing, which often miss opportunities during fast market shifts. Yei takes a proactive approach. Its system continuously rebalances liquidity across pools, targeting the best available yield with minimal delay. This is more than basic automation. It is execution that keeps pace with market volatility. In DeFi, high-yield windows can appear and disappear in minutes. Yei's architecture identifies these movements and reallocates funds in response, keeping capital productive and reducing missed opportunities. This level of responsiveness can lead to measurable gains in APY, even without taking on additional risk. Scalability is also central to Yei's design. As institutional capital flows into DeFi, the ability to manage multiple strategies through a single interface becomes essential. Yei allows capital to be deployed across various strategies at once, with backend smart contracts analyzing pool depth, rate volatility, and recent performance to allocate funds efficiently on every block. Sei provides the infrastructure that enables this. With consistent throughput near 50 transactions per second, it outperforms other leading chains during periods of high activity. That throughput reduces congestion and enables real-time strategy execution, which is essential for firms operating arbitrage, basis, or delta-neutral strategies. On chains with lower capacity, delays introduce drag. On Sei, capital moves as fast as the opportunity does. Yei also supports the operational needs of institutional users. It includes features such as role-based access controls, API integrations, and detailed reporting. This makes it suitable for integration into broader trading and compliance workflows. Yei is not adapting consumer tools for professional use. It is building purpose-built infrastructure that aligns with the scale and speed of institutional capital. Yei Finance leverages Sei's core differentiator, fast and deterministic finality, to execute high-frequency rebalancing strategies with minimal latency and maximum reliability. In blockchain systems, finality marks the point at which a transaction becomes irreversible. On Ethereum, this can take up to 12–15 seconds per block, often with additional confirmation overhead. Solana offers faster times but still faces occasional rollbacks during congestion. Sei targets consistent ~1-second finality, delivering not just speed but also the determinism critical for strategies that depend on precise block-by-block adjustments. This infrastructure directly impacts how Yei handles yield rebalancing. Its smart contracts evaluate real-time APY shifts across pools and reallocate capital dynamically, adjusting positions on every block. Internal analytics from Q1 2025 show that this mechanism increased stablecoin pool yields by 5-7% compared to slower execution environments, simply by minimizing lag between opportunity detection and capital deployment. It's not just fast, it's synchronized with the underlying chain's cadence. Equally important is the reduction in slippage. Traditional AMM-based DEXs queue and serialize trades, often resulting in partial fills or unfavorable prices. Sei's native order book architecture, paired with parallelized order matching, allows Yei to execute large trades with near-zero slippage. For instance, on a $1M stablecoin-to-stablecoin swap, Sei recorded an average slippage of 0.05%, while equivalent trades on Ethereum L1 platforms like Uniswap v3 hovered around 0.20–0.25%. Across high-frequency strategies, this delta compounds into meaningful capital efficiency. Sei's design also mitigates Miner Extractable Value (MEV), a systemic risk for institutional DeFi. On chains where validators can reorder or front-run transactions, yield strategies become vulnerable to extraction, distortion, or outright failure. Sei's parallelized sequencing makes reordering considerably more difficult, limiting exploitability. While no system is MEV-proof, Dune Analytics data from Q4 2024 showed that MEV-related attacks were 60% lower on Sei-based DEXs compared to major Ethereum-based protocols. For a platform like Yei, these execution guarantees, low slippage, rapid finality, and reduced MEV aren't optional. They're the foundation for building reliable, automated yield infrastructure capable of matching institutional speed, scale, and precision. Yei is evolving beyond aggregation to build foundational yield infrastructure optimized for institutional capital. Upcoming upgrades include programmable strategy layers that support custom fund mandates and native yield tranching to enable differentiated exposure levels within the same vault, allowing institutions to manage risk-adjusted returns with greater precision. On the cross-chain front, Yei is developing a hub-and-spoke architecture for lending and credit. Users will be able to post collateral on one chain and borrow assets on another, coordinated through a dedicated app chain that performs real-time credit calculations across multiple execution layers. This is designed to support more capital-efficient strategies without relying on centralized bridges or wrapped assets. To support active portfolio management, Yei is also building a suite of on-chain analytics tools. These will provide real-time dashboards, vault performance tracking, and API-level integrations to match institutional reporting requirements. In parallel, integrations with prime brokerage solutions are being explored, linking execution, custody, and compliance into a single operational stack. Together, these developments reflect a shift from passive aggregation toward active, scalable infrastructure, aligned with Sei's high-throughput execution model and built to accommodate the next wave of institutional DeFi. Yei Finance brings institutional-grade execution to DeFi, built natively on Sei's high-throughput infrastructure to support real-time rebalancing, cross-chain strategies, and capital-efficient yield management. It's a protocol built from the ground up to meet the needs of professional traders, hedge funds, and market makers operating in high-speed, capital-intensive environments. While most platforms offer passive yield tools, Yei is designed for active capital, executing real-time yield rebalancing strategies with the execution precision that institutional players demand. For trading desks, quant funds, and DeFi-native asset managers seeking programmable strategies and infrastructure-level control, Yei offers a stack ready for integration. To explore enterprise integrations, strategy customization, or prime brokerage tooling, reach out to the Yei team directly. If you're building on-chain execution systems or managing high-frequency DeFi strategies, Yei offers infrastructure that aligns with institutional demands, low latency, real-time yield routing, and native Sei compatibility. Get more in-depth with the aggregator at or explore Sei's developer tools to understand what high-performance DeFi can look like at the execution layer. 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
29-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sei Foundation Explores Buying 23andMe to Put Genetic Data on Blockchain
The Sei Foundation, the nonprofit development organization behind the layer-1 blockchain Sei (SEI), is exploring the acquisition of bankrupt personal genomics company 23andMe and putting the genetic data of 15 million users on blockchain rails. The foundation announced the initiative in an X post on Thursday, calling the plan its "boldest DeSci bet yet" — referring to the decentralized science movement. Earlier this year, it also launched a $65 million venture capital fund dedicated to DeSci startups building on the Sei network. The foundation said that genomic data security is a national security matter, particularly as 23andMe grapples with financial difficulties. The company, known for its direct-to-consumer DNA testing services, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this week. If the acquisition proceeds, the Sei Fundation plans to integrate 23andMe's data onto its blockchain and give users ownership of their genetic data, ensuring privacy through encrypted transfers and allowing individuals to decide how their data is monetized. "This isn't just about saving a company, it's about building a future where your most personal data remains yours to control," the foundation said. Numerous state attorneys general have warned 23andme customers to delete their data from the platform in recent days since the company's bankruptcy filing. SEI, the native token of the network, climbed as much as 3% following the news before giving back some of the gains. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Yahoo
Southern California woman convicted of operating drug ring, narcotics delivery service
A Southern California woman was convicted for operating a large-scale drug ring and narcotics delivery business. The suspect, Mirela 'Mimi' Todorova, 36, from Hollywood, is a citizen of the United States, Canada, and Bulgaria, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. From June 2020 to March 2021, Todorova operated a 'technology-savvy drug trafficking operation' to deliver drugs to customers across the Southland. She hired drivers and provided them with cell phones and narcotics to carry out the operation. Some of the drugs she sold included counterfeit oxycodone pills that contained fentanyl. Todorova would sometimes deliver drugs to customers herself. Throughout the operation, Todorova visited Mexico several times where she continued managing her drug business 'while tending to her pet jaguar, 'Princess,'' court documents said. Todorova hired Mucktarr Kather Sei, 39, from L.A.'s Koreatown, as a driver and later gave him the keys to her Hollywood drug stash house, allowing him to run the drug ring's operations while she managed him from abroad. 'Despite warnings from customers that the oxycodone pills she was selling were laced with fentanyl and potentially fatal, Todorova continued to sell them,' prosecutors said. From November 2020 to January 2021, three customers who ingested Todorova's drugs experienced near-fatal overdoses. Despite knowing the danger, prosecutors said Todorova continued to sell fentanyl-laced pills until February 2021. In March 2021, search warrants were executed at Todorova's home and vehicle. Authorities found a collection of drug trafficking materials and narcotics, including methamphetamine, cocaine, MDMA and more, at the scene. In December 2021, she was accused of lying to law enforcement when saying she thought the drugs seized from her apartment were vitamins. Officials said she also lied when claiming she never instructed anyone how to package or make drugs and that she had only met her accomplice, Sei, twice before. On March 4, 2025, after a nine-day trial, authorities said Todorova was found guilty of: 1 count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances resulting in serious bodily injury 1 count of distribution of fentanyl 3 counts of distribution of fentanyl resulting in serious bodily injury 1 count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine 1 count of possession with intent to distribute cocaine 1 count of possession with intent to distribute MDMA (Ecstasy) 1 count of making false statements to federal investigators Todorova must also forfeit $498,555 in drug proceeds to the government. She will face anywhere from 20 years to life in prison. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Sept. 12. She has been in federal custody since April 2021. Sei and two other suspects were charged including Christopher Y. Moreno Núñez, 29, of Pacific Palisades, and Ashley Alicia Nicole Johnson, 34, of Los Angeles. In 2024, each pleaded guilty to felony narcotics distribution charges and will be sentenced in the coming months. 'This case highlights the importance of looking at every overdose incident,' said Matthew Allen, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's L.A. Field Division. 'This case started with a single overdose and led to the identification of the dealer responsible for multiple overdoses. This drug distributor had knowledge of the harm she was creating and didn't care.' 'This defendant used her knowledge of technology to peddle the poison of fentanyl – despite knowing the pills she sold ran the risk of killing people,' said Joseph McNally, Acting U.S. Attorney. 'Investigating and prosecuting these cases saves lives. I commend our local and federal partners for stopping this dangerous criminal organization and bringing justice to the victims here.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
