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Yuga Labs Hires Former Rally Executive Chris Fortier as VP of Products

by Blockchain NewsAugust 18, 2022

Yuga Labs, the developer of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), has hired Chris Fortier as its VP of Product.

As the new VP of product at Yuga Labs, Fortier will be responsible for developing Web3, metaverse, NFTs and product planning, the company said.

The new VP of Product will also be involved in simultaneously overseeing the product development of Yuga Labs’ five current collections of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), Bored Apes, CryptoPunks, Meebits, Voyagers and Mutants.

Chris Fortier also previously served as music department director for streaming platform Twitch, addressing Twitch’s existential crisis related to the use of music on the platform.

Fortier served as the VP of Product at the financial software firm Rally. During his time at Rally, he oversaw 60 cross-functional teams (including design, research, product, data, and engineering), creating product roadmaps and executing new weekly releases, including core NFT marketplaces, token minting, fiat economy functionality, consumer-facing bot integrations, and mobile apps.

Yuga Labs is a blockchain technology company that develops NFTs and digital collectables. The company expects his experience will help Yuga Labs bring more people into the cryptocurrency web 3 economies.

Yuga Labs also tweeted a statement about the Ethereum merger, saying that in the event of an Ethereum PoW fork, Yuga Labs will only recognize that NFTs on the Ethereum PoS chain have the relevant license and are eligible to use the utilities provided by Yuga.

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VC Shima Capital to Launch $200m Shima Capital Fund I for Web 3 Industry

by Blockchain NewsAugust 18, 2022

Early-stage venture capital Shima Capital will launch Shima Capital Fund I, the first fund to support emerging digital assets for web3 and crypto startups.

The latest fund will deploy $500,000 to $2 million in pre-seed funding to potential companies for recruiting and retaining talent, building communities, marketing, and conducting technology research and development.

The company points to startups in the fields of decentralized identity, decentralized social media, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), blockchain gaming, Metaverse and decentralized finance (DeFi), decentralized infrastructure, and next-generation blockchain technologies (e.g. Layer 1/2, proof of zero knowledge as the target groups.

This round of funding has raised $200 million from famous investors, including Dragonfly Capital, Bill Ackman, Animoca, OKex, Mirana Ventures, Republic, and Andrew Yang.

Company founder Yida Gao said, “As crypto-focused VC’s continue to raise massive billion dollar plus funds, we identified a pocket of opportunity to support Web3 founders with their first institutional checks that are considered too small for other Tier 1 investors. At Shima, we take the opposite approach and Spend the necessary resources to provide our portfolio companies with surgical support typically found only with larger funds.”

The announcement comes amid a severe downturn in the industry amid the crypto winter. The current market turmoil has prompted several companies to slash their valuations, declare bankruptcy and even close stores.

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Tagged : Bitcoin / Blockchain / Finance / Funding / SHIMA CAPITAL / Web 3

ECB Publishes New Guideline on Regulated Digital Asset Licensing

by Blockchain NewsAugust 18, 2022

The European Central Bank (ECB) has issued new licensing guidelines for regulating digital assets, although it currently does not have a unified regulatory framework governing crypto-asset activities and services.

ECB stands for European Central Bank, the central bank of the 19 European Union countries that have adopted the Euro.

The ECB’s banking regulator noted that the ECB is taking steps to harmonize its assessment of licensing applications as “national frameworks governing crypto-assets vary widely.”

The Presidency of the Council and the European Parliament recently reached an interim agreement on the proposals of Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA).

The agreement requires crypto assets to be placed under a regulatory framework. It uses the Capital Requirements Directive criteria, which has been in effect since 2013, to evaluate licensing applications for crypto-related activities and services.

The ECB proposes that the AML/CFT risk profile will be analyzed as several characteristics of crypto assets, such as their lack of intrinsic economic value or reference assets, make them vulnerable to money laundering.

The report states that crypto companies will be assessed accordingly for their licensing from their business models, internal governance and “fit and proper”.

Due to unique characteristics of crypto assets, such as programmability, the ECB report details that:

“The higher the complexity or relevance of the crypto business, the higher the level of knowledge and experience in the field of crypto should be. Senior managers or board members with relevant IT knowledge and chief risk officers with robust experience in this area are important safeguards.”

Overall, the publication is evidence of how the ECB, among global regulators, aims to present its regulatory activities related to the crypto ecosystem. With the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) Act under active consideration, many believe this year will mark a major shift in European crypto regulation.

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Tagged : Bitcoin / Blockchain / Crypto / Ecb / EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK / Regulation

Fractional Rebrands to Tessera after Raising $20m from Paradigm

by Blockchain NewsAugust 18, 2022

Fractional, a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) based platform, has rebranded its name to Tessera and raised $20 million as it is pursuing avenues to re-affirm its foothold in the digital collectable world.

Tessera, as the startup is now renamed, said the funding round was led by Paradigm, with participation from Focus Labs, Uniswap Labs Ventures, E Girl Capital, and Yunt Capital. Additionally, the funding round was backed by about 50 Angel Investors, the majority of whom have deep expertise in the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and NFT worlds.

As highlighted by Tessera founder and CEO Andy Chorlian, these angel investors will be very instrumental in giving the right feedback and suggestions to improve the protocol.

Tessera’s business model primarily revolves around the splitting of NFTs such that users can earn a royalty on the parts they give out for rent. There are many use cases attached to this, but in all, it prevents users from parting ways with their digital collectable prematurely.

With the new capital injection, Chorlian said it plans to develop a new protocol that will help sustain the integrity of the fractionalized NFTs.

The funding will also be deployed into adding more staff to the 24 persons it currently works with. According to Chorlian, these new hands will span marketing, engineering, and other divisions that are needed for the platform to maintain a healthy brand and enhance product recognition.

In all, Tessera will work towards simplifying its processes such that users can have better experiences using the protocol.

“It was a really, really big barrier for a lot of our users, who are just so used to trading NFTs on OpenSea or any of these other marketplaces, and that level of education and trying to explain how all this works was just a step too far for a lot of people,” Chorlian told Fortune.

NFT-focused platforms are of particular interest to investors, a trend provable with the previous capital injections received by Magic Eden and OpenSea in the past year.

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Tagged : Finance / Fractional / Funding / NFT / Paradigm / TESSERA

Crypto Broker Genesis Cuts 20% Workforce, CEO Michael Moro Stepping Down

by Blockchain NewsAugust 18, 2022

Genesis, a major institutional digital asset market and a full-service digital currency prime brokerage based in New York, on Wednesday announced several leadership changes amid the company’s efforts to boost the next phase of its growth.

Genesis disclosed that its CEO Michael Moro is stepping down, and the firm is slashing 20% of its 260-person workforce. The cut of 20% equates to the loss of around 52 jobs.

The downsizing exercise comes a few months after Genesis reported huge losses tied to the collapse of Three Arrows Capital (3AC) in June.

Derar Islim, the Chief Operating Officer at Genesis, will take over as interim CEO while the firm searches for a permanent replacement.

The company said that Moro, who joined Genesis in 2015 and took over as CEO the following year, will stay on during the leadership transition.

Besides that, Genesis said it recently hired new executives as chief risk officer, chief compliance officer, and chief technology officer to strengthen its governance further and position the company for the future.

Genesis is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, a global enterprise that builds, purchases, and invests in blockchain firms worldwide.

Genesis started its crypto trading desk and lending business in 2013, when Bitcoin was trading just around $80. The New York-based firm is among the largest trading platforms in the crypto market.

Genesis facilitated significantly superior transactions last year when crypto markets were booming. The company’s loan originations soared more than sevenfold to $131 billion, and the firm increased its workforce by 22% to 170 employees. By mid this year, the company’s headcount rose to 260.

The rapid crash in the crypto market this year wiped out companies whose businesses were tied directly to the values of crypto assets. Firms, including Hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), Voyager Digital, and Celsius Networks, among others, filed for bankruptcy after facing financial challenges triggered by volatile market conditions.

Although Genesis weathered the storm better than other participants in the market, the company suffered massive losses due to its exposure to 3AC.

In July, Genesis filed a $1.2 billion claim against the now insolvent Three Arrows Capital because of breached loans.

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Tagged : Genesis / LAYOFF / MICHAEL MORO / News

CoinFund Launches $300m Web3 Fund to Invest in Early Stage Startups

by Blockchain NewsAugust 18, 2022

CoinFund, a New-York based crypto investment firm, announced on Wednesday that it has launched a $300 million venture capital fund to back early-stage blockchain projects.

The venture fund, which is called ‘The CoinFund Ventures I fund,’ will invest in web3 firms showing commercial traction.

David Pakman, CoinFund managing partner and venture investing head, said the new would invest in crypto projects and firms that focus on layer-1 blockchains, web3 infrastructure, DeFi, NFTs and gaming, payments, assets management, exchanges, marketplaces, and decentralized applications.

Pakman further said that through the new fund, CoinFund will aim to continue investing and building crypto firms that align with the “giant landscape web3 entails.”

Pakman is not worried about the ongoing bear market. The executive said: “We are long-term investors and believe that crypto and web3 offer the largest areas for enterprise value creation entire tech industry today. This view is independent of current market conditions. We try not to time markets, and instead invest over long periods of time.”

Established in 2015, CoinFund has invested in over 100 portfolio firms since then. The company is one of the longest-running web3 venture capitalists and has invested an estimated $1 billion in seed-stage startups.

In the past, CoinFund focused on Bitcoin and seed stage investments in decentralized finance (DeFi) projects. CoinFund previously invested in firms that include NBA Top Shot creator Dapper Labs, blockchain infrastructure platform Blockdaemon, and data indexing protocol The Graph, among others.

Unlocking Web3 Opportunities Worldwide

As the crypto market struggles to rebound, venture capital firms and crypto investment arms are betting big on Web3 startups, with blockchain-focused funds being announced week after week.

In May, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), the largest crypto fund of $4.5 billion, announced its fourth crypto fund that targets Web3 startups at every stage.

A16z explained the reason for the launch of its fourth fund – it believes in the golden age of Web3, which has spread all over the globe and pointed out programmable blockchain advances and decentralized applications (dApps) with tens of millions of users. The Web3 industry has been attracting top talent, with some jumping from Web2 platforms.

In June, Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, launched its own venture capital fund. The exchange raised $500 million for a fund dedicated to investing in Web3 startups.

Recently, many more investment firms launched blockchain-focused funds focusing on support for gaming, infrastructure, decentralized finance, content and creators across Flow’s ecosystem.

These firms remain bullish on Web3 as they capitalize on the crypto market downturn for a chance at a higher return on investment when the market recovers.

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Tagged : Blockchain / Coinfund / Cryptocurrency / EARLY STAGE STARTUPS / Finance / WEB3 FUND

UK Group to Run Pilot Retail CBDC, Providing Data to Bank of England

by Blockchain NewsAugust 18, 2022

A UK-based cross-industry group known as the Digital FMI Consortium – Digital Financial Market Infrastructure (DFMI) – was launched on Wednesday to validate CBDC use cases that are expected to deliver benefits for the UK market.

The group plans to conduct privately led pilot trials of new digital currency payment rails like retail central bank digital currency (CBDC).

The consortium constitutes a group of private firms, including IBM, Finastra, and many other fintech with Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as consulting partners and supported by the UK’s Payment Association.

The group will explore retail CBDC in the UK and conduct real-world pilots to address open design questions and mitigate risks. The pilots will generate working data and feedback that the UK central bank and policymakers can use to inform open design questions and enable relevant authorities to make policy decisions.

The group will issue a privately-led Digital Sterling (dSterling), a digital settlement asset similar to a CBDC, to drive the pilot. The pilot will begin in October and run for 12-24 months.

The consortium will focus on real-world testing to assess a future digital currency ecosystem, environment, and economy that includes the coexistence of current forms of money, regulated digital assets (including cryptocurrencies and stablecoins) and CBDC, starting in the UK.

The group plans to use the blueprint set out by the initiative to launch private-sector pilots in multiple jurisdictions worldwide.

Private Sector Entering the CBDC Game

CBDC experiments continue to flourish across the globe. In May, the Bank for International Settlements released a survey showing that 90% of central banks are researching CBDCs while many others are beginning pilots.

The Bahamas, Cambodia, and Nigeria have already launched their CBDCs.

Despite such developments, progress is slow in other markets, which has left many in the private sector impatient for tangible results.

In the UK, the Bank of England’s latest initiative is a consultation. In March, the UK central bank and HM Treasury (HMT) announced plans to launch a consultation to ascertain whether the public sector should advance to a development phase of a retail CBDC. If the answer is yes, then the earliest date for the launch of a UK CBDC would be in the second half of the decade. That is according to a joint statement by the central bank and HM Treasury.

So far, the private sector consortium in the UK has not been satisfied with sitting on the sidelines of digital currency innovation.

In February, the consortium launched a ground-breaking initiative called “Project New Era,” calling for greater collaboration between the central bank, regulators, commercial banks, and other financial institutions on a UK CBDC.

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Tagged : Boe / CBDC / RETAIL CBDC / UK GROUP

Ethereum 2.0: Upcoming Upgrade Will Not Eradicate High Gas Fees

by Blockchain NewsAugust 18, 2022

The growing anticipation of the Merge of the Ethereum network’s Beacon Chain with the current Proof-of-Work (PoW) mainnet to usher in the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) version of the protocol has generated a number of misconceptions from the public.

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has come out to debunk some of these misconceptions, one of which is relative to the issue of gas fees.

The EF said the emergence of Ethereum 2.0 will not be a panacea for lower gas fees as the upgrade is a change of consensus mechanism, not an expansion of network capacity, and will not result in lower gas fees.

“Gas fees are a product of network demand relative to the network’s capacity. The Merge deprecates the use of proof-of-work, transitioning to proof-of-stake for consensus, but does not significantly change any parameters that directly influence network capacity or throughput,” the EF said.

The foundation said future rollup technology upgrades are projected to help taper down the high gas fees. Ethereum’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, has also supported the push of Layer-2 rollups in pushing down the higher gas fees to accepted levels.

Besides the clamour on gas fees, the misconception about the Merge ushering in faster transactions was also corrected. According to the Ethereum Foundation, while there is a slight change in the transaction speed on the Beacon Chain and the PoW network, the chances that the speed of transactions on the Layer-1 protocol will largely remain the same.

The Beacon Chain went live back in December 2020 and has been running parallel with the Ethereum mainnet since then. A lot of debugging has been done since the development of Ethereum 2.0 was made public. With so much work now being put into The Merge, the anticipation for the proposed launch is now being directed to September 15 – 19 – the tentative date.

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Tagged : Beacon Chain / Ethereum / Ethereum 2.0 / GASFEES

Canadian Pension Fund Achnoledges Investemnt Loss for $200m CAD on Celsius Network

by Blockchain NewsAugust 18, 2022

Charles Emond, the Chief Executive Officer of Canadian pension fund Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), has indicated that the company’s investment in Celsius Network is now considered lost, accounting for 200 million Canadian dollars.

Emond made the revelation while addressing reporters about the company’s financial performance, noting amongst many other reasons that the writing off of the investment, pegged at $150 million, is to stay prudent with its expectations.

“It’s an investment that I consider written off because we always have a cautious bias in our valuations,” Emond says, adding that CDPQ is exploring its legal options for the recovery.

The capital injection into Celsius Network was well applauded at the time, with proponents celebrating the entry of institutional investment into the crypto ecosystem. While he acknowledged regret over the investment, Emond said there was a broad-based consultation before the final decision to inject the funds into the now-bankrupt crypto lender was made.

While not apportioning blame, Emond said he believes the firm made its entry into the crypto industry “too soon in a sector in transition, with a company that had to manage extremely rapid growth, even a growth crisis.”

Despite the situation, Emond said the firm is now looking forward.

“No one at the Caisse, myself included, is happy with the outcome of this file,” regrets Emond. “That said, we must not lose sight of the fact that this is an exception in our venture capital portfolio.”

With an estimated deficit of net liabilities loss of $2.8 billion, Celsius Network is considered one of the most indebted bankrupt cryptocurrency lending platforms.

The startup, led by Alex Mashinsky, was the first to halt withdrawals on its platform far back in June, and without a bailout from at least one of its potential investors, including Goldman Sachs and Ripple Labs Inc, the bulk of the company’s creditors may be forced to take up some losses at the end of the day.

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Tagged : CDPQ / Celsius Network / Industry / Investment / Pension

Canadian Pension Fund Writes Off Investemnt on Celsius Network

by Blockchain NewsAugust 18, 2022

“It’s an investment that I consider written off because we always have a cautious bias in our valuations,” Emond says, adding that CDPQ is exploring its legal options for the recovery.

Despite the situation, Emond said the firm is now looking forward.

With an estimated deficit of net liabilities loss of $2.8 billion, Celsius Network is considered one of the most indebted bankrupt cryptocurrency lending platforms.

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Tagged : CDPQ / Celsius Network / Industry / Investment / Pension