Blockchain Press Releases
WorldRemit: 40% of countries to pay more than their monthly income on school supplies this year

WorldRemit releases its third year of data, observing the rising costs of educational supplies across 20 countries globally
LONDON, July 25, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Today, WorldRemit, a digital remittances brand within Zepz, releases its third year of global data and findings, to understand how the cost of school supplies impact families around the world. As inflation persists and supply chain issues continue to arise across multiple sectors, it comes as no surprise that on average, countries observed can expect costs to rise.
Across countries where people have higher monthly incomes, Canada, the UK and Australia saw nominal decreases in the percentage of income they can expect to allocate, while France and Spain saw notable increases. In France, families can expect to allocate 5% of their monthly budget this year, while in Spain, they can expect to allocate 7% more than last year on basic school supplies.
In other parts of the world, cost changes were far more drastic, where yearly changes averaged an increase of 78%. 1 in 9 people1 worldwide rely on money sent from friends and relatives who have migrated abroad for work. For families whose incomes simply cannot accommodate the cost of these fundamental supplies, remittances make a world of difference in their ability to afford these supplies, as well as steep costs like tuition, transportation and childcare.
2023 Cost of School Overview |
||||
Country |
Cost Changes YoY |
% of Monthly Household Income |
Highest Item increase |
|
Industrialised Nations |
Canada |
-0.4 % |
9 % |
Gym shoes |
United States |
+28 % |
9 % |
Colouring pencils |
|
United Kingdom |
+2 % |
9 % |
Pencils |
|
France |
+41 % |
19 % |
Colouring pencils |
|
Spain |
+53 % |
20 % |
Pencils |
|
Australia |
+19 % |
9 % |
Pencils |
|
Americas |
Mexico |
+56 % |
84 % |
Polo shirts |
Guatemala |
+75 % |
334 % |
Polo shirts |
|
Colombia |
+81 % |
153 % |
Notebooks |
|
Dominican Republic |
+56 % |
72 % |
Polo shirts |
|
EMEA |
Cameroon |
+97 % |
789 % |
Ruler |
Morocco |
+118 % |
262 % |
Polo shirts |
|
Nigeria |
+162 % |
632 % |
Sharpener |
|
Tanzania |
+62 % |
861 % |
Socks |
|
Zimbabwe |
+6 % |
427 % |
Pencil case |
|
APAC |
Philippines |
+16 % |
51 % |
Pencils |
India |
+129 % |
197 % |
Notebooks |
While practically every country in the study had increased costs, certain items have drastically increased. For example, in Australia a case of 12 pencils has increased more than 4x the cost of the previous year and the cost of notebooks in India is almost 6x as expensive as in 2022.
3.6% or 281 million2 of the global population identify as migrants, a number that has steadily increased over the last 30 years. Similarly, remittances have increased from US $126B in 2000 to more than $700B in 2020, with the US, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and Germany operating as the top 5 sending countries as of 2020.
While rising costs of living have forced migrants to be more conscious about how they allocate funds for remittances, as of July 2022, WorldRemit data indicates education is one of the top 3 reasons people send money.
To learn more about the study and see full results, visit https://www.worldremit.com/en/back-to-school
References
12019: UnitedNations.org, Remittances matter: 8 facts you don’t know about the money migrants send back home
2 2022: IOM UN Migration, World Migration Report 2022
Methodology
In the study, WorldRemit looked at the following countries and researched basic school supplies:
- United States of America
- United Kingdom
- Canada
- Australia
- Philippines
- Mexico
- Uganda
- Tanzania
- India
- Nigeria
- Guatemala
- Colombia
- Dominican Republic
- Morocco
- Zimbabwe
- Lebanon
- Cameroon
- Ghana
- Kenya
- France
- Spain
For 2023:
Using the 2022 items list dataset provided, we identified the 2023 prices for 21 counties for the back to school items. Using the data provided from last year we searched for more up to date and cheaper options if available. Using the quantity of items needed shown in column B, we multiplied the cost of the items (when required) to match the quantity e.g. 6 polo shirts, the price identified for one shirt was multiplied by six.The data was gathered between the 21st and 27th of June 2023. All prices were converted into GBP and US dollars using Google on 29th June 2023.
Once all item prices had been gathered, using the CIA world factbook we updated the fertility rate for 2023 estimates and multiplied the cost of the total school items by fertility rate to showcase an overall cost of going back to school for a family.
We also used the World Bank data (as used in the 2022 dataset) to pull the average Net National Income per capita in US dollars and divided this by 12 to showcase a potential monthly salary. The UK had 2018 data from the World Bank, so instead we used OECD data to get the Net National Income for the UK.
For 2022:
The primary school items were selected based on the most common back to school items. The price of each item was searched for online and the lowest price item was selected from one of the most popular online retailers in that country. The prices were researched in July 2022. The exchange rate from the local currency was calculated on 06/08/2022 at 9:00 BST. The fertility rate and income was gathered from the CIA world factbook.
Media Contact:
Kelsey Costales
[email protected]
View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/worldremit-40-of-countries-to-pay-more-than-their-monthly-income-on-school-supplies-this-year-301884507.html
Blockchain Press Releases
MEXC Announces Listing of Hyperlane (HYPER) with a 165,000 HYPER and 50,000 USDT Prize Pool

VICTORIA, Seychelles, April 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — MEXC, a leading global cryptocurrency exchange, announced the Hyperlane (HYPER) listing on April 22, 2025(UTC).To celebrate this significant addition to the exchange, MEXC is launching a special event with a prize pool of 165,000 HYPER and 50,000 USDT for new and existing users.
Hyperlane is the first permissionless, universal interoperability protocol dedicated to building a truly open and decentralized cross-chain communication infrastructure. As “The Open Interoperability Framework,” it enables anyone to freely expand, utilize, and customize the network, allowing developers to easily and securely build cross-chain applications and token bridges. To date, Hyperlane has connected over 140 blockchains, processed nearly 9 million cross-chain messages, and bridged more than $6 billion in volume through its Warp Routes.
$HYPER is the native token of the Hyperlane ecosystem, with an initial total supply of 1 billion tokens. It plays a critical role in securing the protocol through staking, rewarding validators for verifying cross-chain messages, incentivizing user-driven activity, and enabling community governance over protocol development.
To celebrate the listing, MEXC will launch an Airdrop+ event with substantial rewards for users:
Event Period: April 21, 2025, 10:00 – May 01, 2025, 10:00 (UTC)
Benefit 1: Deposit and share 120,000 HYPER (New user exclusive)
Benefit 2: Spot Challenge — Trade to share 15,000 HYPER (For all users)
Benefit 3: Futures Challenge — Trade to share 50,000 USDT in Futures bonus (For all users)
Benefit 4: Invite new users and share 30,000 HYPER (For all users)
MEXC has established itself as a leading exchange by consistently offering users early access to high-potential crypto assets. In 2024 alone, the platform listed 2,376 new tokens, including 1,716 initial listings. According to the latest TokenInsight report, MEXC led the industry with 461 spot listings between November 1, 2024, and February 15, 2025. During this period, the exchange maintained a high listing frequency, consistently ranking among the top six platforms, demonstrating its agility in capturing emerging market trends. MEXC will continue to expand its asset offerings and help users seize timely opportunities in the fast-moving crypto market.
For full event details and participation rules, please visit here.
About MEXC
Founded in 2018, MEXC is committed to being “Your Easiest Way to Crypto.” Serving over 36 million users across 170+ countries, MEXC is known for its broad selection of trending tokens, everyday airdrop opportunities, and low trading fees. Our user-friendly platform is designed to support both new traders and experienced investors, offering secure and efficient access to digital assets. MEXC prioritizes simplicity and innovation, making crypto trading more accessible and rewarding.
MEXC Official Website| X | Telegram |How to Sign Up on MEXC
Risk Disclaimer:
The information provided in this article regarding cryptocurrencies does not constitute investment advice. Given the highly volatile nature of the cryptocurrency market, investors are encouraged to carefully assess market fluctuations, the fundamentals of projects, and potential financial risks before making any trading decisions.

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Blockchain Press Releases
Introducing Clementine Bridge: Citrea Deploys First Complete BitVM Bridge Design on Testnet

Citrea’s Clementine Bridge marks the first time that a fully programmable layer is tested for settling on Bitcoin.
GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands, April 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Citrea, the first ZK rollup to enhance capabilities of Bitcoin blockspace and enable Bitcoin applications (₿apps), has successfully deployed its Clementine Bridge, the first complete BitVM bridge design on Bitcoin Testnet. Citrea has also recently revealed Clementine’s whitepaper, marking the first real-world implementation of a BitVM-based bridge which extends BTC’s utility to decentralized finance in the most Bitcoin-secured and native way possible. With Clementine’s testnet deployment, Bitcoin is for the first time tested for optimistically verifying a fully programmable layer. The Clementine whitepaper is currently the only documentation of how to use BitVM in a bridge design with clear solutions toward a secure and efficient bridge implementation.
Despite being the world’s largest digital asset, BTC has struggled to build relevance in decentralized finance. A secure bridge between Bitcoin and a secondary layer has always been a bottleneck for using BTC in a programmable environment. This problem has forced users to either keep Bitcoin as a passive store of value or rely on custodians for using BTC in financial activities. Citrea’s BitVM-based Bitcoin bridge Clementine solves this by enabling the safest and most trust-minimized way to bridge BTC and extend its utility to decentralized finance.
Citrea’s Clementine bridge marks a historic moment for Bitcoin and a new beginning for BTC’s utility. “It felt like magic when we saw all the bridge components work smoothly in our internal tests and that any malicious act is stopped by a single honest actor,” said Ekrem Bal, Co-Creator of Citrea. “We’re now ready to test Clementine in a real Bitcoin Testnet environment and make it more battle-tested for Citrea mainnet.”
With the introduction of BitVM by a Bitcoin developer Robin Linus, verifying computations on Bitcoin and building Bitcoin-secured bridges became a possibility. Very soon after its introduction, Citrea team became a core contributor of BitVM and later a founding member of BitVM alliance, where BitVM’s fundamental technology of executing a fraud proof of a zero-knowledge (ZK) proof on Bitcoin was developed collaboratively. Although accomplishing a ZK proof verification on Bitcoin was a prerequisite, there were still critical problems to address to implement this fundamental technology securely and efficiently into a Bitcoin bridge design. A detailed breakdown of this can be found in Clementine’s whitepaper.
Clementine’s design and whitepaper introduce novel solutions to two main research topics in BitVM-based bridge implementation, namely Bitcoin chain fork selection and capital efficiency of operators. These topics have been critical to solve as they ensure both the bridge’s security and efficiency. Citrea’s Clementine bridge offers clear solutions to both of these problems:
- Bitcoin Chain Fork Selection: This is related to ensuring that the bridge follows the longest Bitcoin chain. It has been an open research topic where the BitVM creator introduced superblocks approach but its security was later found to be broken. Citrea introduces a new Bitcoin Light Client design that uses succinct Header Chain Proofs of Bitcoin. These proofs are aggregated by operators into a single BitVM proof.
- Capital Efficiency of Operators: This has been another limitation of implementing BitVM efficiently into a bridge design. With Citrea’s approach to non-standard Bitcoin transactions, operators can now process hundreds of withdrawals in parallel with a single collateral. Disproving only one withdrawal is enough to stop other malicious withdrawal processes.
Clementine’s design relies on zero-knowledge proofs, Bitcoin data availability, a novel Bitcoin Light Client design and BitVM. In the case of a malicious act, an honest watchtower provides a proof of the longest Bitcoin chain. Then the operator generates a proof verifying Citrea’s state, watchtowers’ challenges and payout for the withdrawal. If the operator is malicious, it won’t be able to generate such proof, resulting in slashing the operator. Clementine has three main bridge actors to ensure the system’s integrity:
- Signers enforce BitVM spendings by managing peg-ins through presign transactions
- Watchtowers are tasked with monitoring operators and challenging any malicious behavior by sending a proof of longest Bitcoin chain
- Operators, a group of profit-seeking entities, temporarily cover users’ withdrawals and are later reimbursed with presigned transactions.
Citrea: Bitcoin’s Application (₿app) Layer
Citrea extends Bitcoin’s utility without sacrificing its security. With zero-knowledge technology, Citrea enables Bitcoin to function as a fully programmable layer. With its Bitcoin bridge Clementine, Citrea offers the safest and most trust-minimized way to bridge BTC to a fully programmable secondary layer.
For the first time in its history, Bitcoin Network will be able to support diverse on-chain applications and its utility will be extended to decentralized finance.
Apply to Citrea’s unique incubation program ‘Citrea Origins‘ to build ₿apps.
For more information, please visit: Citrea website | Citrea X Account
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Blockchain Press Releases
BingX Brings Balance (EPT) to Spot with a 200 Million EPT Xpool

PANAMA CITY, April 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — BingX, a global leading cryptocurrency exchange, announces the listing of EPT, the native token for Balance.fun, for both spot trading and also on the BingX Xpool. The spot listing will commence on April 21 at 12:00 (UTC) while the Xpool launch will start on April 22 at 10:00 (UTC). BingX users can stake BTC and EPT in Xpool, though new users will have an additional option to stake USDT to win a bigger share of the reward pool that includes 2,000,000 EPT Points. The first 1000 new users who stake a minimum of 100 USDT will also be able to earn an additional bonus voucher worth 100 USDT.
EPT is the governance token of Balance, an AI-powered web3 experience infrastructure designed for the masses. This new digital asset will fuel the new Balance Platform to create an open and inclusive gaming ecosystem for both gamers and developers with fairness at its core. With the integration of AI and blockchain technology, games can be built and marketed more easily while allowing players to benefit from the enhanced and diversified gaming experience.
Users of the existing Epal platform can transfer their EPT tokens to BingX, enabling a reliable method to trade EPT or, alternatively, purchase EPT for governance purposes. Having a solid exchange to further explore the vast world of cryptocurrencies, this new listing further empowers both Epal and Balance users in the process.
Vivien Lin, Chief Product Officer of BingX, shared her thoughts on the new trading option and Xpool listing: “I think providing users with these new trading and early investment options is our responsibility as a responsible cryptocurrency exchange since some of our users rely on us to introduce such projects with such numerous functions across multiple subcategories”.
Visit bingx.com to join the Xpool starting April 22 and start trading EPT on spot from April 21. Whether you’re a gamer, builder, or crypto enthusiast, this is your chance to be part of a new decentralized chapter in entertainment.
About BingX
Founded in 2018, BingX is a leading crypto exchange, serving over 20 million users worldwide. BingX offers diversified products and services, including spot, derivatives, copy trading, and asset management – all designed for the evolving needs of users, from beginners to professionals. BingX is committed to providing a trustworthy platform that empowers users with innovative tools and features to elevate their trading proficiency. In 2024, BingX proudly became the official crypto exchange partner of Chelsea Football Club, marking an exciting debut in the world of sports.
For more information, please visit: https://bingx.com/

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