Quick take:

The fundraising also attracted participation from ArkStream Capital, Aquarius Fund, Flowdesk, GSR, Origin Protocol and Mantle EcoFund.

Mezo emerged from stealth in April, raising $21 million in a round led by Pantera Capital.

The company is building a “Bitcoin economic layer” allowing Bitcoin holders to earn yield.

Mezo, a Bitcoin scaling network built by Thesis has secured a $7.5 million strategic round led by Ledger Cathay Fund, the Ledger wallet provider’s venture fund. The fundraising also attracted participation from ArkStream Capital, Aquarius Fund, Flowdesk, GSR, Origin Protocol and Mantle EcoFund.

Mezo has now raised a total of $30 million, following a $21 million funding round announced in April. Explaining how the total raised got to $30 million, Matt Luongo, founder of Mezo and CEO of Thesis told The Block: “There were some additional checks put in following the last announcement that were not included in this strategic round.”

According to Luongo, the Mezo platform has already onboarded 12,000 users who have deposited about 2,376 BTC, currently worth about $160 million.

Mezo plans to use the fresh capital to accelerate the adoption of its network, including integrating with its other products including its Bitcoin staking platform, Acre, which lets users mint liquid staked bitcoin (stBTC) by depositing Thesis’ (tBTC) or WBTC into Mezo. Users can then use stBTC across various applications on the Bitcoin ecosystem to earn yield.

Ledger, whose venture fund led the round also plans to integrate Mezo into its suite of products, Luongo said.

Although Mezo has not launched the MEZO token yet, Luongo maintains such plans will be announced later. The company uses a points-based program dubbed “Proof of HODL”, which generates scores based on the length of time a contributor keeps their Bitcoins in store.

Details about whether the points earned from the “Proof of HODL” program will be converted into Mezo tokens will also be revealed at a later date, Luongo added.

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Quick take:

Kintsu previously built its liquid staking protocol for the Aleph Zero blockchain but has since switched its focus to solely building on Monad.

The protocol is set for launch within the first week of Monad launching its mainnet.

The fundraising was structured as a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) with token warrants.

Kintsu, the liquid staking protocol being built on Monad has raised $4 million in a seed round led by Castle Island Ventures. 

The fundraising also attracted participation from Brevan Howard Digital, CMT Digital, Spartan Group, Breed VC, CMS Holdings and Animoca Ventures, with Brevan Howard Digital’s Alex Matthews and Ross Trachtman, Marin Tvrdic from Lido and Robinson Burkey from Wormhole Foundation among those who joined as angel investors.

The fundraising was structured as a single agreement for future equity (SAFE) with token warrants, Kintsu founder told The Block.

The announcement comes the same day as another Monad-based liquid staking protocol, aPriori announced a $10 million funding round led by Pantera Capital. 

source: Monad on X

On-chain order book, also built on Monad, Kuru, raised $2 million, with Electric Capital leading the seed round, Monad shared via a post on X.

Monad, the EVM-compatible layer-1 is one of the most anticipated blockchains, with a mainnet launch expected later this year. Kintsu said it will be ready to launch its platform within a week as soon as Monad goes live.

Kintsu’s first product was a liquid staking protocol based on the Aleph Zero blockchain, but it has since switched its focus to building on Monad.

“In many ways, proof of stake blockchains like Monad are like digital nation states,” Novenstern said. “Staking creates an opportunity cost for DeFi, which can limit growth at the protocol level. The liquid staking token category, not just liquid, but ‘composable,’ posed a way to fix this and has seen great product market fit across revolutionary blockchains like Ethereum and Solana.”

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Quick take:

ConsenSys, OKX Ventures, CMS Holdings, ABCDE, Gumi Cryptos Capital and others also joined the round.

The fundraising values aPriori at a fully diluted token value of at least $100 million, co-founder and CEO Ray S told The Block.

The liquid staking protocol plans to launch its testnet and mainnet as soon as Monad blockchain does.

Liquid staking protocol aPriori has secured an $8 million seed round led by Pantera Capital, bringing the total raised to date to $10 million. The fundraising also attracted participation from OKX Ventures, CMS Holdings, ABCDE, Gumi Cryptos Capital, Flow Traders, Laser Digital, Chorus One, Everstake Capital and Staking Facilities, the company said in a statement on Thursday.

aPriori is excited to announce a $10M total fundraise, led by @panteracapitalaPriori is building the MEV-powered liquid staking platform for Monad pic.twitter.com/yX6HgUc9Du

— aPriori ⌘ (@aprMEV) July 25, 2024

The fundraising values aPriori at a fully diluted token value of at least $100 million, co-founder and CEO Ray S told The Block.

OurNetwork’s Spencer Noon, Pyth Network’s Marc Tillement, Wormhole Foundation’s Robinson Burkey, TN Lee of Pendle Finance and Zano Sherwani of Jito Labs were among those who joined as angel investors.

Apriori’s liquid staking protocol is powered by the concept of maximum extractable value (MEV), thus increasing validator incentives on Monad.

According to Ray S, his company was previously developing an MEV-powered platform similar to the Ethereum Virtual Machine but has since chosen to focus on building within the Monad blockchain ecosystem. MEV allows miners to earn more beyond gas fees and block rewards.

Although aPriori is fully operational, it is still in devnet, and will be ready to launch its testnet and mainnet as soon as Monad blockchain does, Ray S said. Monad previously said it plans to launch its mainnet in 2024.

According to Ray S, once Monad goes live, users will be able to stake their Monad tokens using aPriori. They will also be able to earn rewards and receive a liquid stake pool that can be used across decentralised finance apps.

“We have strong relationships within Monad’s ecosystem and its builders, with protocols committing to leverage our liquid staking token (LST) going into Monad’s mainnet,” Ray S said.

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Quick take:

Web3 app developers use OpenSocial for managing intellectual property, community relationships, monetization and financial incentives.

The company plans to use the capital to expand its multichain tech offerings and increase ecosystem support for Web3 community apps.

Its infrastructure platform is designed to enhance user retention and user growth while mitigating bot activity.

OpenSocial a Web3 infrastructure platform helping app developers to build multi-chain economic communities has raised $6 million in a strategic round co-led by Framework Ventures and North Island Ventures.

The fundraising also attracted participation from Hivemind Capital Partners, Stratos, Moonrock Capital, Chorus One, HV Capital, X Ventures, Gat Labes, Panga Capital, and Aspen Digital, with Selini Capital’s Jordi Alexander, EigenLayer’s Sreeran Kannan, Pudgy Penguin’s Luca Netz and Polygon Labs’ Sandeep Nailwal joining as angel investors.

OpenSocial has now raised $26 million in total and plans to use the latest funding to expand its multichain tech offerings whilst increasing ecosystem support for Web3 community apps.

The company’s infrastructure platform allows developers to manage intellectual property, build community relationships, integrate monetization mechanisms and offer financial incentives to their communities.

Some of the tools and features that developers can leverage include a Data Availability Layer, Account Abstraction wallets, social graphs and prepaid gas credits, a statement on the OpenSocial website reads. These tools enable developers to focus on building quality apps, accelerating the launch process.

OpenSocial believes the walled garden approach to Web2 social media applications “lacks composability, interoperability across apps, true ownership, and incentives for communities, creators and users who provide the content, attention and value for these networks,” The Block reported.

“OpenSocial hopes to solve this by empowering creators and communities to fully own and realize the value of their social graphs and assets, presenting new avenues for monetization and ownership in the community economy,” the company shared.

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Quick take:

The fund has already invested in RWA-focused modular layer-2 blockchain Plume Network and Ethena.

Galaxy Ventures Fund I is Galaxy Digital’s first fund that is open to outside investors.

The company has previously invested between $30 million and $50 million of its own money into various crypto startups.

Galaxy Digital Holdings has launched its first fund available to outside investors. The Galaxy Ventures Fund I LP has already raised $113 million according to an announcement on Thursday.

The fund targets to raise a total of $150 million by next year at the latest, Bloomberg reported. It will focus on early-stage startups involved in developing crypto software, infrastructure and financial applications.

The fund has already invested in some of the leading DeFi projects including RWA-focused modular layer-2 blockchain Plume Network and Ethena.

Galaxy Ventures Fund I marks a new beginning for the digital asset manager, welcoming outside investors to participate in its investments. The company has previously invested between $30 million and $50 million of its own money into various crypto startups.

“Our macro view is blockchains will be utilized to settle the majority of transactions,” General Partner Mike Giampapa told Bloomberg in an interview. “It’s a one-, two-decade transition that we are betting on.” The fund expects to invest between $3 million and $5 million per project, though the amount may vary, said Will Nuelle, the other general partner for the fund.

This announcement also comes just days after Galaxy announced the acquisition of nearly all of CryptoManufaktur’s Ethereum Assets, bringing its Ethereum staking portfolio to about $1 billion in assets under stake.

Billionaire Michael Novogratz’s New York-based fund now boasts over $3.3 billion in assets under stake according to last week’s report.

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The post Galaxy Digital’s New Venture Arm Secures $113 Million for First Fund appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take:

Caldera offers a Web3 infrastructure platform that helps developers launch rollups or scaling networks on Ethereum.

Some of the networks and chains to utilise Caldera include Manta Pacific, Injective, ApeChain, Plume Network, Kinto, RARI Chain and over 50 others.

The company will use the fresh funding to build a “Metalayer” which seeks to address the fragmentation between layer-2 and layer-3 networks.

Caldera, a Web3 infrastructure platform specialised in enabling developers to launch scaling solutions and rollups on Ethereum has secured a $15 million Series A round led by Peter Thie’s Founders Fund. The fundraising also attracted participation from Dragonfly, Sequoia Capital, Arkstream Capital, Lattice Fund, and others.

Caldera plans to use the fresh funding to build “Metalayer” a new infrastructure platform that is meant to unify layer-2 and layer-3 networks, co-founder and CEO Matt Katz told The Block.

“Metalayer will deliver an improved developer experience for multi-rollup dApps, help web3 teams leverage shared network effects, and enjoy greater scalability, efficiency and security,” Katz said. “We expect the Metalayer to unlock new potential for novel dApp, network and token designs within the Ethereum rollup ecosystem.”

According to Katz, Caldera’s rollup-as-a-service platform has already onboarded more than 50 networks and chains, including Manta Pacific, Injective, ApeChain, Plume Network, Kinto, and RARI Chain, among others.

Commenting on his firm’s leading role in the fundraising, Joey Krug, partner at Founders Fund said in a statement: “Caldera is capturing two core markets: major existing projects looking to launch their own rollup, and new teams that may not have the capital or infrastructure to manually launch their own chain from scratch.”

“This allows developers to focus on their core products while Caldera handles the underlying infrastructure.”

Anirudh Pai, partner at Dragonfly, added: “I believe the Metalayer brings us closer to the end-game of blockchain scalability and will crucially oxygenate the Ethereum ecosystem.”

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Quick take:

The Bitcoin wallet launch joins Proton mail, VPN and Drive in the company’s growing portfolio of services.

Proton wants to make the wallet more accessible to non-crypto native users as it seeks to help make Bitcoin the preferred mode of payment.

Proton Wallet will initially support Bitcoin at launch but may support other currencies later including fiat.

Proton, the organisation behind Proton Mail, Proton VPN and Proton Drive is adding another service to its portfolio, Proton Wallet.

The new self-custodial crypto wallet will allow users to buy, store and transfer bitcoin using their email. Proton says its user-friendly wallet is designed to make it easy for non-crypto native users to start using Bitcoin as a mode of payment, as they transition from centralised institutions, The Block reported.

Proton leverages its existing infrastructure to provide strong security features to users. The wallet’s integrated crypto on-ramps enable users to users in more than 150 jurisdictions to buy Bitcoin.

Users can send and receive Bitcoin via their email addresses (Proton Mail or otherwise) as long as they both have a Proton Wallet. The company seeks to eliminate the complexities of using long cryptocurrency addresses when sending Bitcoin.

Although Proton Wallet will initially support Bitcoin, the company is open to adding support for more cryptocurrencies, including fiat currency, in the future, depending on user feedback, the firm explained.

“By enabling us and the entire Proton community to more easily adopt means of payment which are not controlled by centralized institutions, we better insulate Proton from the risks posed by traditional finance,” Proton founder and CEO Andy Yen said. “Proton Wallet’s ability to support Bitcoin via email now makes Bitcoin transactions as easy to use as PayPal while preserving the decentralized and non-custodial nature of Bitcoin.”

Self-custodial wallets grant users control of their private keys, empowered with secure recovery methods, thus protecting their assets from unauthorised access, including Proton.

The wallet also features a two-factor authentication process that gives users access to Proton Sentinel, Proton’s security feature that uses machine learning, AI and human analysis to block unauthorised login attempts.

According to the firm, Proton Sentinel “protects users’ accounts, even in situations where they have already been compromised or an attacker has gained access to the user’s login credentials.”

The company has already launched the early access versions of the wallet for Web, iOS and Android devices via the Proton Visionary plan.

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Quick take:

Cube Labs will oversee and contribute to the development of a new consumer-focused blockchain tailored for the mass adoption of users to Web3.

Igloo said that the project is incubated under the not-for-profit Abstract Foundation and is set to launch on testnet soon.

Abstract will offer technology that makes the process of developing decentralised apps easier, cheaper, and safer.

Igloo Inc, the organisation behind the popular Web3 project Pudgy Penguins has raised $11 million for a new venture, Cube Labs. The funding was led by led by Founders Fund with participation from Fenbushi Capital, 1kx, Everest Ventures Group, and Selini Capital, the company said in a press material shared with NFTgators.

According to the announcement, Cube Labs will oversee and contribute to the development of a new consumer-focused blockchain called Abstract.

Incubated under the not-for-profit Abstract Foundation, Abstract will offer technology that makes the process of developing decentralised apps easier, cheaper and faster, features that Igloo deems necessary for building massive crypto communities.

Michael Lee, a veteran technology and web3 executive who previously led growth for ZKsync and launched games for Activision Blizzard’s 400+ million players is the co-inventor and CEO of Abstract. He believes that the technology will “open up a new world of possibilities for crypto-native developers and global brands,” which will ultimately create a dominant crypto-consumer platform.

“We are at the beginning of a new era where blockchain technology will reinvent the idea of digital ownership and seamlessly integrate into our daily lives, enhancing how we live, work, connect and play,” Lee said.

Commenting on his firm’s leading role in the fundraising, Joey Krug, Partner at Founders Fund highlighted Pudgy Penguin’s low cost-to-user adoption rate in the crypto space and how they have leveraged the brand to grow Abstract as a shrewd way of onboarding users to the new platform organically.

“They’re leveraging this to grow Abstract, a consumer L2 focused on making on-chain experiences mainstream. By building for users first, and allowing companies and brands to better interface with their consumers, Abstract is well-positioned to onboard the masses to crypto,” added Krug.

Abstract is engineered by some of the notable web3 builders including Cygaar, 0xbeans and stinkypablo. The product leverages the popular zero-knowledge (ZK) cryptography, which enables low-cost, fast, and secure transactions on the blockchain.

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Quick take:

Cube Labs will oversee and contribute to the development of a new consumer-focused blockchain tailored for the mass adoption of users to Web3.

Igloo said that the project is incubated under the not-for-profit Abstract Foundation and is set to launch on testnet soon.

Abstract will offer technology that makes the process of developing decentralised apps easier, cheaper, and safer.

Igloo Inc, the organisation behind the popular Web3 project Pudgy Penguins has raised $11.4 million for a new venture, Cube Labs. The funding was led by led by Founders Fund with participation from Fenbushi Capital, 1kx, Everest Ventures Group, and Selini Capital, the company said in a press material shared with NFTgators.

According to the announcement, Cube Labs will oversee and contribute to the development of a new consumer-focused blockchain called Abstract.

Incubated under the not-for-profit Abstract Foundation, Abstract will offer technology that makes the process of developing decentralised apps easier, cheaper and faster, features that Igloo deems necessary for building massive crypto communities.

Michael Lee, a veteran technology and web3 executive who previously led growth for ZKsync and launched games for Activision Blizzard’s 400+ million players is the co-inventor and CEO of Abstract. He believes that the technology will “open up a new world of possibilities for crypto-native developers and global brands,” which will ultimately create a dominant crypto-consumer platform.

“We are at the beginning of a new era where blockchain technology will reinvent the idea of digital ownership and seamlessly integrate into our daily lives, enhancing how we live, work, connect and play,” Lee said.

Commenting on his firm’s leading role in the fundraising, Joey Krug, Partner at Founders Fund highlighted Pudgy Penguin’s low cost-to-user adoption rate in the crypto space and how they have leveraged the brand to grow Abstract as a shrewd way of onboarding users to the new platform organically.

“They’re leveraging this to grow Abstract, a consumer L2 focused on making on-chain experiences mainstream. By building for users first, and allowing companies and brands to better interface with their consumers, Abstract is well-positioned to onboard the masses to crypto,” added Krug.

Abstract is engineered by some of the notable web3 builders including Cygaar, 0xbeans and stinkypablo. The product leverages the popular zero-knowledge (ZK) cryptography, which enables low-cost, fast, and secure transactions on the blockchain.

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The post Pudgy Penguins Creators Raise $11.4M to Build New Consumer-Focused Blockchain appeared first on NFTgators .

Data from growthepie suggests that the number of daily active addresses on Base and Linea reached new record highs this week, propelling them to the top.

Latest data shows that Linea has the largest number of active wallets among all layer 2s, surpassing Arbitrum One and Base earlier in July. As of this writing, Linea’s 7-day average of daily active users is at over 740,000, slightly down from the record 765,777 registered on Sunday.

Elsewhere, the 7-day average metric for Base is at 738,400, marking the highest on record.

In absolute terms, Base set a new daily record on July 20 with over 806,000, while Linea achieved its peak on July 10 with over 824,000 users.

Meme Coins Drive Base Activity

Artemis data suggests that Base’s increase in active addresses has been driven by decentralized finance (DeFi) and wallet-to-wallet activity, with Uniswap accounting for 75% of active addresses during the last month.

This points to meme coins as the main driver behind Base’s surge in activity.

DEX Screener data suggest that the most traded tokens on Base are meme coins, including Degen, Brett, and Mister Miggles. In fact, out of the top 100 Base tokens by trading volume, 98 are meme coins.

Meanwhile, the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi dapps on Base is at 1.75 billion, inches away from the record high set on June 10.

Linea Mainly Driven by DeFi

The increase in active wallets on Linea has been driven by DeFi activity, especially on DEXs like NILE, Lynex, and PancakeSwap. DEX Screener data shows that the three most traded pairs represent WETH/USDC on the three mentioned DEXs.

Linea saw its TVL updating the record high on July 2 at over $752 million. Today, DefiLlama data shows that the Linea dapps has attracted $738 million worth of crypto.

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Quick take:

The funding values Bitlayer at $300 million and brings the total raised to $16 million following a $5 million seed round announced in March this year.

Stake Capital Group, WAGMI Ventures, Skyland Ventures, Flow Traders, GSR Ventures, FalconX, Metalpha, 280 Capital, Presto Labs, and Caladan also joined the Series A round.

Franklin Templeton’s investment makes Bitlayer the first Bitcoin Layer 2 infrastructure project to receive a strategic investment from an ETF-licensed institution.

Bitlayer Labs has closed an $11 million Series A round co-led by Franklin Templeton and ABCDE. The fundraising values the Bitcoin layer-2 at $300 million, also bringing the total raised to $16 million. Bitlayer raised $5 million in a seed round announced in March this year, which ABCDE co-led with Framework Ventures.

The Series A round also attracted participation from Stake Capital Group, WAGMI Ventures, Skyland Ventures, Flow Traders, GSR Ventures, FalconX, Metalpha, 280 Capital, Presto Labs, and Caladan, with DOMO, the creator of BRC20, Brian Kang, cofounder of FactBlock KBW among those joining as angel investors.

Franklin Templeton’s investment makes Bitlayer the first Bitcoin Layer 2 infrastructure project to receive a strategic investment from an ETF-licensed institution, the BitVM-based startup said in a statement.

The company plans to use the fresh funding for expansion including supporting selected native Web3 protocols built within its ecosystem.

Commenting on the fundraising, Charlie Hu, co-founder of Bitlayer Labs lauded the backing from some of the world’s leading funds as his company looks to accelerate the development of its Bitcoin L2.

“This Series A funding from some of the most respected entities in the blockchain space validates our mission to make breakthroughs in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Our goals include achieving Bitcoin finality, establishing a Bitcoin security-equivalent native Layer 2, and making history in the Bitcoin world,” Hu said.

Bitlayer launched its Mainnet-V1 in April this year and has continued to build V2, a Bitcoin-native rollup powered by a Bitcoin-friendly proof system that combines both ZK and fraud proofs.

Kevin Farrelly, Managing Principal of Franklin Templeton Digital Assets commented: “We believe that Bitlayer’s unique approach and technology has the potential to unlock new use cases and opportunities for Bitcoin, and we look forward to exploring collaboration opportunities with our Bitcoin-focused financial products. This investment underscores our commitment to supporting innovation in the digital asset space.”

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Quick take:

SingularityNet wants to further the development of its Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Ultimately Artificial Superintelligence (ASI).

Some of the funds will also be used to build state-of-the-art High-Performance Computing (HPC) and AI data centres.

The company said its supercomputer is built to optimise the training of Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) and Large Language Models (LLMs).

SingularityNet, the decentralised AI startup building infrastructure for the development of Artificial General Intelligence and ultimately Artificial Superintelligence with Fetch.ai and Ocean Protocol has announced a $53 million initial investment into the project.

Half of the $53 million will be used to build a modular supercomputer dedicated to decentralized AGI evolution and disruptive ASI research, while also building state-of-the-art High-Performance Computing (HPC) and AI data centres.

The advancements will leverage Ecoblox’s ExaContainer modular data centre (MDC) solutions, which are powered by GPUs and CPUs from Nvidia, AMD and Tenstorrent and AI servers from ASUS and GIGABYTE.

According to SingularityNet, its supercomputer is purpose-built to optimise the training of Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) and Large Language Models (LLMs).

SingularityNet will also use some of the capital to build modular compute containers, which can be positioned around the world and relocated as needed, to serve as a decentralized hub for a broader network of heterogeneous computing devices.

“This initiative strategically aims to improve both decentralization and the handling of AI workloads, ensuring scalability and reliability amidst rising computational demands,” SingularityNet wrote in a press material shared with NFTgators.

Commenting on his company’s decision to invest $53 million in the development of AGI and ASI, SingularityNET and ASI Alliance CEO Dr Ben Goertzel said in a statement: “The dramatic progress the AI field has seen recently is the result of the convergence of multiple aspects including sophisticated learning algorithms and cognitive architectures, and massive amounts of data, processing infrastructure and energy.”

“The novel neural-symbolic AI approaches developed by the SingularityNET AI team decrease the need for data, processing and energy somewhat relative to standard deep neural nets, however, even given these advances, the need for significant supercomputing facilities remains.”

Jim Keller, CEO of Tenstorrent added: “Tenstorrent’s heterogeneous compute featuring our CPU, our RISC-V and our AI accelerator technology are the perfect fit to help them accomplish this goal.  Combine that with our open-source software stacks, and I am confident that SingularityNET will have what they need to accomplish their mission.”

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Quick take:

Analysts predict trading on the two ETH Spot ETFs will begin on Tuesday.

This follows news last week that the CBOE was preparing to list five new Spot Ethereum ETFs.

The NYSE said in a statement Monday it approved the listing and registration of common shares of the two funds.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has approved the listing and registration of the Ethereum Trust Spot ETFs for Bitwise and Grayscale. The NY-based exchange announced the clearance of the two funds on Monday, paving the way for trading of the two ETFs to begin.

Bloomberg ETF Analyst James Seyffart shared that he and his colleague Eric Balchunas anticipate the Spot ETF funds to begin trading on Tuesday.

The NYSE statement comes just days after the Chicago Board Options Exchange  (CBOE) indicated it was preparing for the listing of five new Spot Ethereum Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs).

Grayscale’s and Bitwise’s were on the list, and featured post-waiver fees of 0.15% and 0.20%, respectively.

Coinbase is listed as the custodian of the two ETFs, as per the table shared by Seyffart on his X account.

Source: James Seyffart on X.

Seyffart also expects more Spot ETH ETF approvals for Franklin Templeton, VanEck, 21Shares, Fidelity, Ishares, and Invesco, among others.

It is barely six months since Spot Bitcoin ETFs started trading. With Spot Ethereum ETFs now getting the green light, it paves the way for investors to gain access to two of the largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation.

Now all eyes will be on Spot Solana ETFs. VanEck on June 27 and 21Shares on June 28 are among the first to file for Spot Solana ETFs. The filings are still in the early stages with no fees and tickers revealed yet.

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Quick take:

Other investors include Makers Fund, Hashed, Collab+Currency, Sfermion, Mirana Ventures, Bitscale Capital and Mantle EcoFund.

NPC Labs is a project of three former Coinbase employees CEO Daryl Xu, Viktoriya Hying and Sean Geng.

The trio are building B3.fun an on-chain scaling gaming ecosystem built on Base.

NPC Labs, a Web3 gaming startup co-founded by three former Coinabse employees has raised $21 million across two rounds. Founded in April this year by CEO Daryl Xu, Viktoriya Hying and Sean Geng, NPC Labs secured $18 million in a seed round led by Pantera Capital. The Block reported that the company had also raised another $3 million in a pre-seed round.

Other inventors joining the rounds include Makers Fund, Hashed, Collab+Currency, Sfermion, Mirana Ventures, Bitscale Capital and Mantle EcoFund.

NPC Labs is building a Web3 gaming infrastructure called B3.fun that makes transactions faster and at low gas fees. The Base-based scaling platform also allows users to play games from different networks without bridging or switching networks.

The startup has collaborated with the chain abstraction layer ChainSafe to enable a seamless gaming experience on B3.fun.

“We believe by helping to build the best in class infrastructure for developers and a simple, frictionless onboarding for gamers, we’ll be able to build a lasting on-chain gaming culture and ecosystem,” CEO Daryl Xu said.

Describing B3.fun as “a microservices-like Layer 3 ecosystem”, Xu said he and his former Coinbase colleagues noticed the increasing engagement and utility in gaming and recognised the opportunity to “grow the gaming ecosystem exponentially and push further to create a simple, sticky and fun experience to bring more users on-chain.”

NPC Labs is not exclusive to Web3 builders, the founders believe that Web2 game developers have started to recognise the potential of on-chain gaming “both as a distribution platform and a better way to monetize,” Xu said. 

Because building games on-chain is “still difficult” Xu believes B3.fun can be used as a one-stop shop for game developers.

“For developers, we are contributing to unique infrastructure that gives them full control over everything — from publishing to revenue generation and growth. For gamers, we will meet users where they are at and remove crypto barriers to entry,” Xu added.

Although B3.fun currently supports Base, Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains, there are plans to expand to other networks including Solana.

Commenting on his firm’s leading role in the fundraising, Franklin Bi, general partner at Pantera Capital said the rapid growth of the Base ecosystem is one of the reasons Pantera invested in NPC Labs, which he believes has an exciting vision to elevate the ecosystem with B3.

“B3’s infrastructure and tooling will bring a new dimension to Base by empowering developers to build great games and on-chain experiences for consumers.”

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The post NPC Labs Secures $21M Seed and Pre-Seed to Build Web3 Gaming Infrastructure appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take: 

Nirvana Labs provides cloud infrastructure services to Web3 companies.

The seed round brings the total raised over the past six months to $5.7 million, The Block reported.

The company plans to use the funds to enhance its “specialized cloud services, providing a web3-specific alternative to conventional cloud providers.”

Nirvana Labs has announced a $4 million funding round led by Castle Island Ventures and RW3 Ventures. The seed round also attracted participation from BitGo Ecosystem Fund, Hash3, Third Earth and Play Ventures.

This fundraising brings the total raised over the past six months to $5.7 million, The Block reported. Nirvana Labs will use the fresh capital to revamp its “specialized cloud services” offerings, which include providing “a web3-specific alternative to conventional cloud providers.”

“Nirvana Cloud is purpose-built to tackle the distinct workload characteristics of blockchains, emphasizing low latency, high throughput, high availability, and customization capabilities, which are starkly different from conventional web2 general-purpose tasks,” a statement on the Nirvana website reads.

The product has already onboarded the likes of Chainlink, BitGo, Goldsky, DeltaPrime, Thirdweb, Airchains and Pairpoint, among others. Nirvana claims its service can help companies both big and small cut cloud-related costs by about 42%.

Commenting on the announcement, Nirvana Labs founder Devin Bandara in a statement: “At Nirvana Labs, we understand the unique challenges faced by companies building on-chain applications within the limitations of general purpose cloud.”

“Our goal is to deliver unparalleled cloud performance and cost savings for our customers, as the new generation of alternative clouds emerge for the web3 space,” Bandara added.

According to its website, Nirvana’s blockchain cloud service supports multiple blockchains and networks including Polygon, Ethereum, Polkadot, Base, Optimism, Neo, BNB Chain, Avalanche and Arbitrum, among others.

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The post Nirvana Labs Raises $4M in a Seed Round Led by Castle Island Ventures and RW3 Ventures appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take:

As part of the deal, CryptoManufaktur’s 3-person engineering team led by founder Thorsten Behrens, will join Galaxy’s Blockchain Infrastructure team.

Zane Glauber, Galaxy’s head of the blockchain infrastructure said the acquisition bolsters his company’s position as a leading technical partner to protocols and builders.

CMF originally launched to build core infrastructure for Chainlink’s price feeds but has since expanded to become one of the leading blockchain infrastructure providers.

Galaxy Digital Holdings, the digital asset investment and blockchain services company providing institutions, startups and individuals access to the digital economy has acquired nearly all of CryptoManufaktur’s (CMF) Ethereum assets, according to an announcement on Friday.

This acquisition brings the total number of Ethereum “assets under stake” (AUS) at Galaxy to about $1 billion and the overall AUS to $3.3 billion.

The acquisition will also see CryptoManufaktur’s 3-person engineering team led by founder Thorsten Behrens join Galaxy’s Blockchain Infrastructure team as part of the deal.

CMF originally launched to build core infrastructure for Chainlink’s price feeds but has since grown to become one of the leading blockchain infrastructure providers, expanding to running automated, securing Ethereum proof-of-stake (“PoS”) node deployment infrastructure, as well as supporting other oracle and PoS ecosystems.

This acquisition bolsters Galaxy’s diversified business model as it seeks to solidify its position as a leading technical partner to protocols and builders.

“Galaxy is rapidly expanding its blockchain infrastructure and staking capabilities and capacity to provide enterprise-grade technical expertise and support to strategic corners of the digital asset ecosystem,” said Zane Glauber, Head of Galaxy’s Blockchain Infrastructure team, the unit that oversees the company’s staking and validator services to qualified investors, protocols, and digital asset platforms.

Thorsten Behrens added: “Having worked closely with the talented team at Galaxy, we believe that Galaxy is uniquely positioned to serve as the go-to blockchain infrastructure provider and a leading validator across high-performing blockchains.”

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The post Galaxy Ramps Up Staking Portfolio With CryptoManufaktur’s Ethereum Assets appeared first on NFTgators .

The total value locked (TVL) in Solana decentralized apps (dapps) is on track to hit the $5 billion mark, potentially by the end of the day. DefiLlama data shows that the metric is at $4.99 billion, the highest level since February 2022. Solana TVL has gained 4% today and 19% over the last week. The blockchain has attracted $1 billion worth of crypto since July 5.

Earlier this month, Solana surpassed Binance’s BNB Smart Chain (BSC) by TVL, becoming the third-largest blockchain in DeFi after Ethereum and Tron.

Since the start of the year, Solana made two more attempts to reach $5 billion. At the end of March, it rose to $4.89 billion, and at the end of May, it hit $4.97 billion.

As of this writing, the metric is only $60 million away from this psychological level, and it seems likely that Solana will achieve it this time, with more dapps gaining momentum.

Raydium TVL Hits $1 Billion

Raydium, the largest decentralized exchange (DEX) on Solana, saw its TVL breaking above the $1 billion mark on July 16, thus reaching the highest level since January 2022.

Recently, we reported that Raydium’s dominance among Solana DEXs was at a record high.

Jupiter Perpetual Exchange Crosses $500 Million

Another major dapp gaining traction on Solana is Jupiter. While the Jupiter DEX aggregator doesn’t have any TVL, its perpetual trading platform saw its TVL breaking above the $500 million mark on July 16, according to DefiLlama.

It solidified its position as the sixth-largest decentralized finance (DeFi) app on Solana. As of this writing, over $519 million worth of crypto is locked with Jupiter, a new record.

SOL accounts for 46% of the TVL on the exchange, followed by USDC with 25%, and ETH with 10%.

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The post Solana TVL Inches Away from $5B, Hits Highest Since Feb 2022 appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take:

The fundraising also attracted participation from New Form Capital and Chainview Capital.

Truvius offers both active and passive crypto investment options for indices and model portfolios.

The company has partnered with Federally chartered crypto bank Anchorage Digital to provide clients with authorised custody and trading services.

Crypto trading platform Truvius has secured a $3.2 million pre-seed round led by Galaxy Ventures, with participation from New Form Capital and Chainview Capital. The company also announced the launch of its crypto trading platform, which offers products for both active and passive investors.

Truvius allows both individual and institutional investors to explore various crypto sector-specific and size-specific standalone indices and diversified model portfolios for investment opportunities.

Co-founded by CEO Connor Farley and Max Freccia in 2022, the firm traces its roots to quantitative finance, which Farley argues provides them with “a key differentiating edge.”

“We leverage our expertise in fundamentals-driven quantitative investing and institutional portfolio construction and apply it to digital asset markets for sophisticated investor profiles,” Farley told The Block.

Both Farley and Freccia worked at AQR Capital as a product specialist and quantitative specialist respectively, before setting up Truvius.

The company has developed its own separately managed account (SMA) technology stack, which it uses to offer investment strategies, governed by its status as a registered investment adviser with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Our entire platform — from custody and trading to performance reporting to investment offerings — adheres to SEC compliance and regulations,” Farley said.

Although Truvius does not provide non-custodial asset management services, it has partnered with Federally chartered crypto bank Anchorage Digital to provide clients with authorised custody and trading services.

Farley also revealed that the platform has set minimum investment amounts in the range of $15,000 to $50,000 for both passive and active investment vehicles.

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The post Truvius Secures $3.2M Pre-Seed Round Led by Galaxy Ventures appeared first on NFTgators .

Quick take:

The fundraising also attracted participation from Folius Ventures, Hash Global, JSquare, Mask Network and Bodl Ventures.

Chainbase offers an omni-chain data network that consolidates all blockchain data into a single platform.

The company plans to invest the fresh funding in building crypto communities globally.

Chainbase, a chain-agnostic data network consolidating all blockchain data into a single platform has secured $15 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Tencent Investment Group and Matrix Partners China.

The fundraising also attracted participation from Folius Ventures, Hash Global, JSquare, Mask Network and Bodl Ventures. Tencent Investment Group and Matrix Partners China will have representatives on the Chainbase board as part of the deal.

Chianbase’s data network helps developers easily access on-chain data for building and maintaining applications. 

“Our innovations include a real-time data lake for blockchain-generated data flow and ‘manuscripts,’ the crypto industry’s pioneering data format standard,” Chainbase co-founder and chief operating officer Chris Feng told The Block. 

“Leveraging petabyte-level data within our network, we’re pioneering purpose-designed foundational models for crypto. This initiative transforms static on-chain data into dynamic, intelligent models, unlocking substantial new value and expanding the market’s potential.”

According to Chainbase, its network is used by over 15,000 developers featuring 8,000 projects and managing over 500 billion data calls.

Chainbase’s decentralised version is currently in testnet with whitelisted projects only able to access. However, plans are underway for a mainnet launch at the end of this year, accompanied by the project’s governance token CBT. 

The company plans to use the fresh funding to invest in building local communities across the leading crypto hubs globally. Feng believes such communities are crucial for Chainbase to better engage with developers, users and other stakeholders on the ground, as it seeks to improve awareness and adoption of its network.

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The post Tencent and Matrix Partners Co-Lead $15M Series A for Blockchain Data Network Chainbase appeared first on NFTgators .

The market capitalization of top security tokens is at a record high of about $1.2 billion, according to data shared via Dune. The increase has been mainly driven by security tokens issued by Ondo Finance, worth $395 million, and BlackRock, valued at $524 million.

Data from the Security Token Market, which tracks over 600 tokens across 35 marketplaces, indicates that the aggregate market cap of security tokens hit a record high of $39.5 billion in June.

https://stomarket.com/charts

Security tokens are blockchain-based digital assets representing ownership of real-world securities that are regulated by financial watchdogs. For example, companies can tokenize their shares and sell these via digital securities exchange venues.

The largest security token by market cap is the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), which was launched in March 2024. BUIDL is issued on Ethereum via Securitize, a leading tokenization platform.

BUIDL has a constant price of $1 and pays daily accrued dividends to holder’s wallets every month. The fund is invested in cash, U.S. Treasury notes, and repurchase agreements. Holders can transfer their tokens only to pre-approved investors.

Meanwhile, Ondo’s flagship security token, USDY, has a market cap of $323 million, also at a record high.

USDY, priced at $1.05, is a tokenized note backed by short-term US Treasuries and bank demand deposits. The token is accessible to non-US investors and is transferable onchain 40-50 days after purchase.

DefiLlama data shows that the total value locked (TVL) in Ondo Finance is at a record high of $566 million, up from $187 million at the beginning of the year.

Security tokens are part of the broader real-world assets (RWA) sector, which includes other tokenized assets that are necessarily regulated.

The TVL in RWA projects has doubled from June 24, being on track to update the record high reached in October 2023.

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The post Security Tokens’ Market Cap Reach New Record, RWA Sector Revives appeared first on NFTgators .