Bitcoin Touches $30K as Microsoft Announces Web3 Partnership

On August 9, layer-1 network Aptos and Microsoft teamed up to combine the strengths of artificial intelligence (AI) and Web3. The partnership was welcomed among crypto investors, sending Bitcoin’s price above the $30,000 mark.

Microsoft and Aptos Unite to Solve Web3 and AI Problems

Bitcoin broke above the $30,000 psychological barrier on Wednesday, bringing its 24-hour gains to more than 1.65%. Other significant altcoins were also in the green on the day, with Ethereum, XRP, and Solana climbing 1.5%, 3.8%, and 5.6%.

The upswing in crypto prices comes after Microsoft, one of the largest companies in the world, announced it has partnered with layer-1 blockchain firm Aptos Labs to bridge the gap between AI and Web3. Aptos’s native cryptocurrency, APT, benefited most from the news, shooting up more than 16%.

According to Aptos Labs’s CEO Mo Shaikh, the collaboration will enable Microsoft’s AI models to be trained via the crypto firm’s verified blockchain data. In addition, Aptos will also run validator notes for its blockchain on Microsoft’s Azure, one of the leading cloud computing solutions. Shaikh explained that the move aims to ensure more reliability and security to Microsoft’s service.

“The primary focus for both of us is solving our respective industries problems,” Shaikh said. Microsoft also shared the optimistic sentiment as AI is expected to “be infused into web3 solutions at greater scale in the coming months and years,” noted Daniel An, global director of business development for AI and web3 at Microsoft.

Aptos Controversy

Although it is too early, Aptos’s partnership with Microsoft may be the long-awaited catalyst for the blockchain firm, which has been controversial since last year.

Often hyped as the ultimate Ethereum contender, Aptos came nowhere close to the second-best cryptocurrency. Notably, the token’s price plummeted sharply at launch in October 2022, after the blockchain’s promises of 100,000 transactions per second completely failed to come to fruition.

In particular, after the crypto token started trading, Aptos’s output amounted to just four transactions per second, compared to Ethereum’s 25. However, the novel layer-1 network did witness a resurgence at the start of the year, hitting an all-time high in January, driven by strong NFT demand.

The cryptocurrency was trading at $7.77 at press time.

This article originally appeared on The Tokenist