Fundraisings of the Week
Professor behind EigenLabs gets $50 million funding, promises to upgrade Ethereum network
Paradigm Leads $7M Round for Optimism-Based Startup Conduit
Dragonfly Leads $6.5M Round for Aptos Protocol Econia Labs
Web3 protocol Polytrade raises $3.8M to improve global trade
PoseiSwap raised $1.5 million in a strategic fundraising round led by Zebec Labs
Orderly Network Raises $20M for DeFi Infrastructure on Near Protocol
Irene Zhaoās So-Col Raised $4.5M in Two Funding Rounds
Ensemble announces the close of our $1M seed round led by Collab+Currency
DeFi
Weekly TVL
Gross: ā¬ļø$49.65B
Top 3 Apps: Lido ā¬ļø($10.74B), MakerDAOā¬ļø($7.63B), AAVE ā¬ļø($5.52B)
Top 3 Chains: ETH ā¬ļø($29.08B), TRON ā¬ļø($5.28B), BSC ā¬ļø($5.04B)
Top 7D Change š: Earn Interest & Borrow Assets Cross-Chain, Seamlessly ā Radiant (+37.78%, $169.84m)
DeFi News
[RON Staking Live] RON Staking is now enabled on the Ronin blockchain, with the staking rewards kicking start on April 12.
[Euler Hacker Returning Funds] Euler lost ~$200 million in a flash-loan attack on March 13. The hacker has now returned ~84% (approx. $176m) of the stolen funds while the negotiation is ongoing.
[Polygon zkEVM Live] Polygon launches the zkEVM mainnet beta. Itās an Ethereum scaling solution combining the zk proofs and EVM, supporting faster and cheaper transactions.
NFT
Top 10 Collections by Weekly Volume
NFT News
Apr 2, Magic Eden has added multi-chain support for Ethereum and Solana to its NFT marketplace, allowing users to buy and sell NFTs on both networks. The move expands Magic Edenās reach and highlights the growing popularity of Solana as a blockchain platform for NFTs. [Source: NFT Now]
Mar. 29, Art Blocks, an NFT marketplace, now enforces creator royalties on secondary sales with a 10% fee going directly to the original creator. The move addresses the issue of artist compensation in the NFT space and highlights blockchain technologyās potential to enable transparent and fair compensation models for creators. [Source: Decrypt]
Mar. 29, Warner Music has spared its Web3 and AI teams from layoffs, recognizing the potential of Web3 and NFTs to transform the music industry. The move highlights the growing interest in these technologies among traditional industries and their potential to reshape business models and revenue streams. [Source: Decrypt]
Mar. 28, The UK government has canceled its plans to create an NFT marketplace with the Royal Mint due to concerns over the environmental impact of NFTs and their potential links to criminal activity. This marks a setback for the Royal Mintās exploration of NFTs as a means of expanding its business. [Source: The Block]
Mar. 28, The popular NFT collection āy00tsā has moved from Solana to Polygon due to concerns over high gas fees and network congestion. The move is expected to provide greater accessibility and affordability for fans of the collection and highlights the competition between different blockchain networks in the NFT space, emphasizing the importance of scalability and affordability for widespread adoption of NFTs. [Source: CoinDesk]
Mar. 28, Lido, an Ethereum staking provider, plans to use NFTs in its unstaking process, providing a personalized and engaging experience for users. The NFTs will act as digital representations of the staked Ethereum tokens, reflecting the growing interest in combining DeFi and NFTs. The move highlights the potential of NFTs to transform ownership, participation, and engagement in decentralized systems. [Source: CoinDesk]
Mar. 27, Luxury fashion brand Gucci has partnered with Yuga Labs to create digital fashion items for the metaverse, including a Gucci-themed version of Yuga Labsā Bored Ape NFTs and virtual clothing and accessories. This marks Gucciās first venture into NFTs and the metaverse, reflecting the trend of fashion brands using digital fashion and NFTs to engage with a younger, tech-savvy audience. [Source: Decrypt]
Mar. 27, The NFT collection āWassies,ā inspired by Crypto Twitter, has seen a surge in prices following the opening of a themed hotel in Singapore. The hotel features art and decor inspired by popular Crypto Twitter accounts, including Wassies, whose NFT collection is prominent throughout. This reflects the growing adoption of NFTs and mainstream recognition of crypto culture. [Source: CoinDesk]
Mar. 27, Ticketmaster has launched an NFT-powered ticketing system, starting with a concert by Avenged Sevenfold. The NFT tickets act as admission and collectible items, and fans can trade and resell them on secondary markets. The move is a significant step towards mainstream adoption of NFTs and highlights their potential to transform ticketing and event access. [Source: Decrypt]
GameFi & Metaverse
[Muverse raised $6M in seed funding] Muverse, a Los Angeles, CA-based provider of a music NFT exchange and app, raised $6M in seed funding. The round was led by a consortium of investors, including Syndicate Capital, Knights Templar Capital, Zonff Partners, AvatarDAO and angel investors. The company intends to expand the platformās features and services, accelerate user acquisition, and enhance the user experience.
[Collaborative machine learning startup FedML raised $6M] Collaborative artificial intelligence startup FedML has closed on a $6 million seed funding round that will help it bring together companies and developers to train, deploy and customize machine learning models anywhere across thousands of edge- and cloud-hosted nodes. This round was led by Camford Capital and saw participation from Plug and Play Ventures.
[NoCap Meta raised funding from Sunicon Ventures] NoCap Meta, a web3 company that provides a wide range of services including blockchain-based systems, metaverse development, and asset-backed tokens, has raised funding from Sunicon Ventures to enhance its growth in the metaverse and digital technology sectors. NoCap Meta has collaborated with high-profile clients and is known for its premium projects like Femina Miss India, Toms, Metastar Media, Breathe ESG, and Yaap Digital & Neo Asset Management.
[NEC, Animoca Brands, Gryfyn team up for Web3 space collaboration] With the aim of creating and expanding the digital wallet market in the Web3 area, Japanese technology firm Nippon Electric Company has entered a memorandum of understanding with Animoca Brands and Gryfyn, a joint venture between Animoca Brands and Hex Trust. Animoca Brands said that three companies would jointly explore collaboration on expanding the digital wallet business in Web3 space from April 2023.
[Animoca Brands leads OP3Nās $28M round for Web3 superapp] OP3N announced a $28 million funding round led by Animoca Brands. The fundraising attracted participation from Dragonfly Capital, SuperScrypt, Creative Artists Agency and New Enterprise Associatesā Connect Ventures, Republic Crypto, Avalancheās Blizzard Fund, Galaxy Digital and Warner Music Interactive. The latest fundraising now values OP3N at about $100 million.
[Gucci reveals metaverse tie-up with Yuga Labs] Luxury fashion house Gucci is diving deeper into Web3 and the metaverse ā and itās doing so in collaboration with Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs. Gucci teased out an alliance on Twitter, showing Gucci and Yuga Labs branding on a bottle that was previously seen in the trailer for Otherside, Yugaās upcoming Bored Ape-themed metaverse game.
[Yuga Labs announces 2D strategy game Legends of the Mara] Yuga Labs announced a new 2D strategy game Legends of The Mara. This plans to immerse users in a world that carries on from Othersideās Second Trip in the shape of a collection-based game that gives players an insight into the Koda characters, their environment, and the broader story of Otherside. LOTM provides players with a āVesselā while discovering its broader potential.
[Decentraland and its second metaverse fashion week] Decentraland is staging the second Metaverse Fashion Week. The official calendar includes presentations by labels such as Adidas, Dundas, House of Barth, and DressX, and commercial initiatives by Tommy Hilfiger, DKNY, and Dolce & Gabbana. MVFW will showcase and commercialize virtual outfits for avatars in the guise of NFTs.
DAO
[Arbitrum Foundation began to sell $ARB before they got approval for funding] According to AIP-1, Arbitrum Foundation is entitled to 750M $ARB for the purpose of providing special grants reimbursing applicable service provides for total setup costs and covering ongoing admin and operational costs. Patrick McCorry, a member of the foundation later explained that the Foundation mistakenly thought ratification of decisions had been made so the Foundation began to sell tokens. This has raised a mini-crisis with Arbitrumās community.
[Ethereum ACDE call wrap up: Shanghai Incoming] Shapella is scheduled to mainnet for epoch 194048, scheduled for Apr.12, 2023.
[zkSync Era experienced protocol downtime for 5 hours] The problem was later identified as the database for the block queue failed, causing block production to halt. According to Defillama, the total TVL of the network is continuously rising, reaching $44M, unaffected by the incident.
[MEV distribution protocol Rook announced the dissolution of the DAO] The proposal argues that the DAO suffers from a profound misalignment of interests between the management team and the token holders, where the management team can exploit profit from the token holders and make no contribution in the long run. The proposal also suggests that each token holder can get a pro-rata share of the refund from the treasury, which is $54.9 per token.
[EOS EVM testnet Live] This is the testnet before mainnet launch; with further Security Audit complete, mainnet beta is expected to launch on April 14th.
[Iron Fish published Tokenomics] The long-term mining reward will yield 83.7% of the total supply.
Regulation & Adoption
- 27/03/2023: (šŗšø) First Citizens to buy failed Silicon Valley Bank
- 27/03/2023: (šŗšø) MicroStrategy repays 205M BTC Collateralized loan to Silvergate and purchases 6455 BTC worth about 150M USD
- 27/03/2023: (šŗšø) Binance and its CEO sued by US CFTC Regulator.
- 30/03/2023: (š©š°) Denmark to start taxing BTC profits.
Macro
- Kenya to buy oil from Saudi Arabia in the local currency rather than US dollars.
- Brazil and China strike a trade deal to ditch the US dollar.
- The World Bank warns of a ālost decadeā in the global economy.
- German Public debt hit a record high at the end of 2022, topping at 2.37 trillion Euros.
- US PCE Index rose 0.3% in February vs the 0.4% expected.
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