What are the latest crypto news and the price trends of the coins Iota (IOTA), Zama (ZAMA) and Monero (XMR)? Let’s see below their performance and some future forecasts. 

IOTA integrates LayerZero: interoperability and presence in DeFi

The blockchain network IOTA has successfully integrated with the mainnet of LayerZero, marking a significant advancement in blockchain interoperability.  

This development allows IOTA to be recognized as a chain on the LayerZero website, bypassing the EVM testnet and launching directly on the mainnet.

With the integration, the release of the IOTA EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) is imminent, scheduled for June.

The integration of LayerZero offers substantial advantages for IOTA, significantly improving its cross-chain capabilities. Now, IOTA tokens can be connected to other networks, expanding their accessibility and utility.

Users will soon be able to transfer IOTA tokens to various blockchain platforms, significantly increasing their liquidity and presence in the decentralized finance ecosystem (DeFi).

This integration will have a profound impact on decentralized exchanges (DEX). IOTA is expected to be present on major EVM-compatible DEXs such as Uniswap and Trader Joe’s. 

Thus guaranteeing global access to IOTA tokens and allowing users to trade and interact with IOTA within the DeFi landscape.

Waiting for the release of IOTA EVM, the teams working on the Shimmer network, such as MagicSeaDEX and DeeprFinance, are preparing their omnichain tokens to ensure compatibility with the new EVM environment. 

These preparations will probably coincide with the release of the EVM, marking the beginning of an exciting phase of development and activity in the IOTA community.

Zama raises $73 million to develop homomorphic encryption technology

The open-source cryptography company Zama has obtained 73 million dollars in Series A funding to develop applications based on fully homomorphic encryption (FHE). 

That is, a technology that allows data to be processed without decrypting it, potentially protecting privacy in the blockchain and in artificial intelligence.

The funding round, led by Multicoin Capital and Protocol Labs, was announced by Zama via email recently. 

Among the investors are the co-founder of Solana Anatoly Yakovenko, the founder of Filecoin Juan Benet and the co-founder of Ethereum and Polkadot Gavin Wood.

Founded in 2020, Zama defines fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) as the “Holy Grail” of encryption, allowing companies to offer services to users without having to access their data, thus reducing risks.

The most recent product from Zama, fhEVM, is a confidential smart contract protocol for Ethereum-compatible blockchains, which allows on-chain data to remain end-to-end encrypted during processing.

Kyle Samani, managing partner of Multicoin, stated in the press release that FHE is “the most important cryptographic primitive for the next decade of computing.”

Forecasts for the crypto Monero: the comparison with IOTA and ZAMA

Recently, several cryptocurrency platforms have started to delist Monero (XMR) due to its privacy features, creating arbitrage opportunities in parallel markets.

Monero is currently the third most traded currency against Bitcoin (BTC) on the peer-to-peer no-KYC platform Bisq. However, it slightly loses volume compared to the US dollar (USD) and the euro (EUR) on Bisq.

At the moment the “Street Price” index on monero.boats values Monero at approximately $156.75 per XMR. The index is calculated using the latest exchange rate of Monero against Bitcoin, the base pair of Bisq. 

Currently, XMR is priced at approximately 0.00224374 BTC, showing consolidation after the sell-off caused by the delisting on Binance.

The price index of TradingView indicates that Monero is traded at an average of $143.09 on major exchanges. XMR has shown strong momentum recovering from the drop on Binance to $101, testing the psychological support. 

Before this, the exchange rate of Monero against the dollar was above $165, with a year-to-date high of $174.36. 

The technical indicators suggest a bull forecast for Monero, with a price above the 30-day exponential moving average (30-EMA) and a daily relative strength index (RSI) of 67.76, indicating steady growth.

Currently, Monero traded on parallel markets has a premium of 9.5% compared to the price on exchanges, offering traders an arbitrage opportunity that could fuel a price increase in the mainstream. 

However, it is important to note that low-volume markets like Bisq tend to follow the prices of high-volume markets during arbitrages.