Fundraisings of the Week
Fedi Raises $17M in a Bid to ‘Accelerate the Adoption of Bitcoin and Lightning’
NFT Marketplace AlienSwap Secured $12M in Funding to Build the Leading NFT Trading Layer
Coinbase Ventures Backs $10M ZkLink Raise Ahead of Mainnet Launch
Tangem Successfully Closes Investment Round, Fueled by Shima Capital
Crypto Firm FARE Protocol Raises $6.2M Ahead of Token Launch
Vibe Accelerates the Development of Its NFT-to-Product Platform with $4M Seed Round
Entendre Finance Raises $4M in Seed Funding
Cosmos-Based Defi Protocol Nolus Raises 2.5M to Build the First Cross-Chain Defi Lease
Portals, the game-changing DeFi aggregator, secures $2M in seed funding spearheaded by Lightshift Capital
OpenTrade Raises Over $1.5M for Building Crypto Structured Financial Products
DeFi
Weekly TVL
Gross: ⬇️$48.09B
Top 3 Apps: Lido ⬆️($12.07B), MakerDAO ⬇️($7.31B), AAVE ⬆️($5.29B)
Top 3 Chains: ETH ⬇️($28.08B), TRON ⬆️($5.5B), BSC ⬇️($4.63B)
Top 7D Change 📈: Community-owned decentralized exchange (DEX) and liquidity provider constructed on Arbitrum — Chronos (+6223%, $244.99m)
DeFi News
[Sui Mainnet Live] Move-based L1 Sui launches its mainnet. Sui parents with Coinbase Cloud and Wormhole to provide staking and bridging infrastructure for devs.
[Uniswap Agora] Uniswap launches Agora, a governance interface that allows delegates to build detailed profiles & delegators to easily find delegates who match their interests.
[Polygon Bridge for zkEVM] Polygon PoS Bridge is now available for Polygon zkEVM. The bridge comes with some UX improvements including a more visible progress bar, tx history, and recent tx panel with color-coded completion status, time estimates for pending tx, and the ability to filter.
NFT
Top 10 Collections by Weekly Volume
NFT News
Apr. 24, ICI Bucharest, Romania’s National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics, plans to promote Web3 adoption in the country by introducing an internal platform for trading non-fungible tokens (NFTs). [Source: Cointelegraph]
Apr. 25, Toonstar, a web3 entertainment studio, is set to launch a new NFT-backed TV series called ‘Space Junk’. The animated series, which follows trash collectors in space, was created by Dominic Russo, producer of ‘Workaholics’, and features actor Jon Heder of ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ fame. [Source: CoinDesk]
Apr. 26, The NFL and NFL Players Association teamed up with gaming technology studio Mythical Games to launch NFL Rivals, their first blockchain-based game available on the App Store and Google Play. Users can take on the role of a general manager and play as their preferred players in arcade-style gameplay. [Source: Fortune]
Apr. 26, MNTGE launches ‘Fruits & Veggies’ drop featuring tokenized vintage jeans. Sean Wotherspoon, a designer, gave new life to vintage Levi’s by adding fresh embroidered finishes and embedding an NFC chip linked to a MNTGE NFT pass. [Source: Decrypt]
Apr. 28, Pharrell Williams and Adidas have teamed up to offer digital and physical clothing to Doodles NFT holders. The bundle includes exclusive merchandise from Adidas and Humanrace, among other brands. [Source: Decrypt]
May. 1, Blend, a peer-to-peer lending platform, has been launched by NFT marketplace Blur. The lending platform, also known as Blur Lending, will enable collectors to purchase high-value NFTs by paying a smaller upfront amount, akin to a down payment on a house. [Source: Twitter]
May. 1, Sotheby’s Metaverse has introduced an on-chain secondary marketplace for NFTs that will allow users to buy and sell on a peer-to-peer basis using the Ethereum and Polygon networks. The marketplace has been specially curated to provide users with an unparalleled selection of high-quality NFTs. [Source: Twitter]
May. 2, Sports Illustrated has teamed up with Ethereum software firm ConsenSys to create “Box Office,” an NFT ticketing platform built on Polygon. Box Office would enable event owners, organizers, and promoters to utilize the plattform to include more engagement possibilities into tickets, including highlights, collectibles, and promotions via a feature known as “Super Ticket.” [Source: CoinDesk]
May. 4, Palm NFT Studio has introduced the Palm Generative Art Maker, an innovative tool aimed at facilitating the minting of generative art collections on the blockchain. Built to connect to the Unreal Engine, a 3D software tool that helps creators develop generative art NFT collections, the product aims to simplify the creation process and allow for a smoother experience for artists looking to tokenize their work. [Source: CoinDesk]
May. 5, Artist Trevor Jones and London’s Evening Standard newspaper have collaborated to create a commemorative NFT for the coronation of King Charles, which can be minted for free on the Ethereum blockchain. [Source: Decrypt]
May. 5, NFT startup Cryptoys revealed the imminent release of digital collectibles centered on the highly popular Star Wars franchise, perfectly timed for May 4, also known as “Star Wars Day.” [Source: Decrypt]
GameFi & Metaverse
[Goals raises $20M to continue development of NFT soccer video game] Goals has raised US$20 million in series A funding to continue development of a NFT-based soccer video game. The round was led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six venture capital, with participation from Northzone, Moonfire and Cassius. The company has now raised $39 million, including $15 million in a seed round last year.
[Flappy Moonbird has raised $2M in pre series B] Flappy Moonbird is produced by Helix Table, a studio of French video game developer and publisher Voodoo, which has developed over 100 casual games with over 10 million downloads and MAU. In the future, the studio will mainly focus on Web3 casual GameFi, deepening the vertical field to introduce more innovative revenue methods for its favorable growth.
[HypeSaints has raised a million-level seed round] HypeSaints is a Web3 on-chain gameboy ecological product. It will introduce gameboy NFT and NFS (Non-Fungible Story) to boost user experience, profit, and creativity. NFS will be “On-chain Story Cassettes”, which users can purchase, experience, sale and rent. Users will obtain immersive experience and earn tokens that can be consumed in the interaction with ‘Story Cassettes’ or for more. Its mission is to provide millions of users with immersive entertainment ecology.
[nChain invests $4M in Transmira] nChain announces that it is investing $4 million and taking a 20% equity stake in Transmira, a metaverse platform. Led by industry leader Robert Rice, Transmira’s platform bridges the physical and digital worlds, blending augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) together. These digital twins offer immersive experiences for both brands and users.
[Libraro receives £2M investment from nChain] Libraro, UK-based blockchain book publishing platform, raised £2m in funding. nChain is making the investment and is taking a 20% equity stake in the company, which will use the funds for development and adoption of its solution. Led by Arsim Shilova, Libraro aims to innovate the book publishing industry with blockchain technology.
[TinyTap raises $8.5M in funding] Animoca Brands’ subsidiary TinyTap has raised $8.5 million in its latest funding round as the platform works towards disrupting the education industry using Web3. The latest round of funding was led by investment firm Sequoia China with additional support from Liberty City Ventures, Kingsway Capital, Shima Capital, Polygon, GameFi Ventures, and a few others.
[Fanton secures $300K pre-seed funding] Fanton Fantasy Football is an innovative online game on Telegram allowing users to create and manage football teams by selecting player cards. The seed round was led by First Stage Labs, Yolo Investments, and Existential Capital, along with business angel Emanuele Costa. This investment puts Fanton’s value at $5 million, allowing the firm to blaze a trail towards unicorn status in the TON ecosystem.
[NEAR Foundation & Cosmose alliance takes AI co’s valuation to $500M] Cosmose AI’s valuation shot up to $500 million after NEAR Foundation’s investment. Cosmose AI product Kai-Kai has been using blockchain operating system for the rewarding system to users. Their partnership developed a payment system that will allow users to deal with shopping using crypto at low prices.
DAO
[Ethereum core developer consensus call discusses progress on Denub upgrade ] The 108th call proposed EIP4788, EIP6987 and EIP6475 as candidate to be included in the next update.
[Terra Classic completed testnet upgrade to V2.0.0 ] The protocol development pushed by a team called L1JTF, who will focus on building a security networth with versatile functionalities.
[ENS community has elected the new director for the foundation] Ex-director Brantly Millegan resigned his position in the foundation, the community has elected Alex Van de Sande as the new director with about 88% of overall votes.
[The Worldcoin is kicking off a Orb world tour] The Orbs will be available in 9 cities in the next 4 month across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. This will be a better chance for people to see Orb and establish their World ID.
[BitDAO and Mantle are proposing to apple “one brand, one token”] Mantle will become the unified ecosystem brand, the existing $BIT token will converted to mantle token with a sounding conversion plan.
[Sui Foundation launches Sui Improvement Process] SIPs follows five steo process includes idea, draft, review, last call and final. There is also a fast track option to bypass extraneous steps in the process if community consensus has gained.
[Cosmos Hub will implement Liquid Staking Module on the Hub] That will enable users to gain liquidity of up to 25% of all staked ATOM.
Regulation & Adoption
- 01/05/2023: (🌍) Monthly crypto trade volume drops for the first time in 3 months,
- 01/05/2023: (🇺🇸) JP Morgan buys First Republic Bank.
- 03/05/2023: (🇺🇸) president Biden proposes a 30% climate change tax on crypto mining.
- 04/05/2023: (🇺🇸) Binance faces US probe of possible Russian sanctions violations.
- 05/05/2023: (🇱🇮) Liechtenstein planning on accepting BTC as legal tender for government services, PM said in an interview.
Macro
- COVID19 emergency over, says WHO.
- ECB raises interest rates by 25bps.
- Fed hikes rates by 25bps, as expected, bringing benchmark rate to the highest since August 2007.
- Eurozone inflation hits 7% in April.
Follow us on Twitter:
