The Ankr token (ANKR) surged 51.5% following a press release announcing a partnership between Web3 infrastructure provider Ankr and Microsoft. According to CoinMarketCap, the price of the asset rose from $0.033 to $0.05 in 25 minutes after the announcement. At the time of publication, the token is trading near the $0.049 mark.
Ankr is a Web3 decentralized infrastructure provider. It provides a remote procedure call (RPC) service that allows application developers and users to connect cloud nodes to 19 blockchains, including BNB Chain, Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, and Avalanche. The project makes it possible to create applications and use individual blockchain solutions for business.
As part of the partnership, the two companies will offer a new hosting service for blockchain nodes in Microsoft’s Azure cloud service. The Enterprise Node Deployment Service will offer low-latency global blockchain connections to any Web3 project or developer, the post said.
Microsoft management is known for its interest in technologies related to artificial intelligence and blockchain, but its ambivalent attitude towards cryptocurrencies.
Back in 2020, a corporation founded by Bill Gates patented a mining system that uses human body activity data to mine digital money. And in June of the same year, Microsoft announced the launch of a network of decentralized identifiers (DID), which operates, in particular, based on the bitcoin blockchain.
In December last year, Microsoft banned cryptocurrency mining in Azure cloud services, citing the need to protect online projects from risks such as cyber fraud, hacker attacks and unauthorized access to customer resources. Users must now obtain written approval from the company in order to use Microsoft Azure for mining.