Web3-focused startup Contribution Labs has raised $3 million through an equity sale.
Alchemy-backed Contribution Labs is a California-based technology company in stealth mode. The company was founded in January 2022 by Catherine Chang, a former product manager at software company Atlassian, and Kei Yoshikoshi, a former engineer at Microsoft’s Azure blockchain.
Contribution Labs has raised $2,425,000 from two investors since the offering began on Aug 15, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Unlike traditional financing methods, this fundraising involved a simple future equity agreement, or SAFE, where investors pay cash now for future equity in the company.
On its official website, entrepreneur Elad Gil, who has worked at Twitter and Google, is also listed as a major investor. Web3 infrastructure giant Alchemy’s venture capital is also on the list, while Mint Kudos appears in the investing section of Alchemy’s website.
However, the corresponding time and amount were not disclosed.
Alchemy is a pioneer in the blockchain developer platform.
The company also builds Kudos, a token platform based on the Polygon blockchainfor appreciating other people’s work and living on the blockchain as a uniquely generated NFT through unique, peer-verified non-transferable token (NTT) Reward contributions.
The NTT token standard defines a set of standard APIs allowing the identification of statements (called badges) attributed to a public key, such that different dapps and smart contracts can use to filter users or to provide users with different badges and different experiences.
Alchemy has also recently announced the acquisition of ChainShot, a crypto education platform, to help complement its vast portfolio of crypto products.
The company’s near-term plans may include connecting the Kudos token to other blockchains, such as the Ethereum mainnet.
PROOF, the parent company of Moonbirds NFT, has received $50 million in Series A financing in a new round of financing led by a16z.
Other participants in this round of financing were venture capital firms and investors such as Seven SevenSix, True Ventures, Collab+Currency, Flamingo DAO, SV Angel, and Vayner Fund.
The company, a Web3 media startup led by well-known investor Kevin Rose, started out as a podcast.
PROOF Collective was established in December last year, a private community of thousands of people with NFT as the threshold.
PROOF announced that it is creating a decentralized autonomous organization Moonbirds DAO and the third NFT series Moonbirds Mythics (planned to launch in early 2023), which is a 20,000 PFP (file picture) collection.
The Moonbirds DAO will oversee the licensing of the company’s Moonbirds NFT brand and deploy capital to projects that advance Moonbirds’ mission by granting trademark rights.
The Moonbirds NFT series launched by PROOF has generated $446 million worth of transaction volume to date.
Proof also revealed that the PROOF Web3 social platform is also coming soon, and the beta will enable PROOF creators, and holders of Moonbirds and Oddities to create galleries curated by collectors. The platform will integrate content and actions specific to the PROOF ecosystem, including research reports, podcasts, DAO proposals, and more.
“It’s great to have this vote of confidence from some of the most respected investors in Web3, as well as capital to keep delivering great products and services as we mature this business over the long term,” said Proof CEO Kevin Ross.
PROOF also revealed that more details on early plans for the PROOF token will be announced in 2023.
In April, PROOF raised $10 million from Alexis Ohanian’s venture capital firm Seven Seven Six.
Melbourne resident Manivel Thevamanogari and her sister Gangadory Thevamanogari sought a refund of 100 Australian dollars from Crypto.com in May last year but was accidentally returned 10.5 million Australian dollars, according to Australian local media 7News.
However, Manivel has been sued by Crypto.com as she used a portion of the fund to buy a mansion in the Melbourne suburb of Craigieburn for $1.35 million.
Following Crypto.com’s lawsuit, the local Supreme Court ordered the Manivel sisters to sell the house and compensate the remaining $1.37 million, including $1.35 million and $27,369 in interest and fees.
It took seven months for the Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com to discover the error after the refund error. During the company’s inventory and audit last Christmas, the loophole was discovered and remedied in time. Since then, legal proceedings have been launched in Australia to get the money back.
It is reported that the mistake was caused by an employee of Crypto.com who was mistaking the payment amount as an account number instead of the refund amount and therefore entered the payment amount as a long string of account numbers, which resulted in the wrong transfer to their bank account.
According to court records, Manivel and his sister Gangadory did not appear in the lawsuit from beginning to end, and the case is due to reopen in October.
“There’s no doubt that if you saw that in your account you would know it shouldn’t be there, and the onus is actually on you to actually call the sender and to say look that shouldn’t have come into my account,” Justin Lawrence from Henderson and Ball Lawyers.
The court said they did not respond to any letters from the lawyers (Crypto.com), and that by not appearing in court were tacitly acknowledging the allegations in the statement of claim.
In July, Crypto.com, a fast-rising exchange platform secured regulatory approval to operate in the Cyprus crypto market, thereby expanding its European presence.
The South Korean city of Busan and FTX cryptocurrency exchange has signed a business deal to support the establishment of Busan Digital Asset Exchange.
According to the agreement statement, FTX will help the South Korean city build its own exchange called the Busan Digital Asset Exchange and provide it with technical and infrastructure support.
Despite the adverse events surrounding the cryptocurrency ecosystem that has seen the closure of several crypto companies, FTX continues to stand at a high level and the transactions signed to continue to appreciate the public profile of the blockchain industry.
Through this cooperation, the development of Busan’s cryptocurrency ecosystem will be promoted, making it a cryptocurrency centre of global attention.
In addition, the two parties will jointly promote blockchain-specific education in cooperation with universities in the Busan area and various projects to supervise the free zone using the Busan blockchain.
And assisted in organizing the three-day “Blockchain Week” scheduled to be held in Busan from October 27th this year and participating in the three-day “Blockchain Week” held in Busan BEXCO.
Mayor Park Hyung-jun said he would spare no effort to make Busan a blockchain hub and added that: “With this agreement, we will help establish the Busan Digital Asset Exchange and secure a new growth engine for the local economy.”
Prior to this, the South Korean city of Busan announced that it would sign a commercial agreement with Binance on the establishment of the Busan Digital Asset Exchange to build a cooperation system.
On August 27, Yong-beom Kim, former first deputy minister of the Ministry of Planning and Finance of South Korea, will join Hashed Open Research, a blockchain, and digital technology research institute, as CEO.
Samsung Securities, Mirae Asset Securities, and five other giant brokerage companies have applied for preliminary approval to operate a crypto exchange within the first half of 2023.
There is a plethora of crypto slang in the industry, and it can be helpful to know about them as it can quickly explain the different terms used in the industry.
Below are some of the slang commonly used:
1. HODL
HODL stands for hold on for dear life and expresses the intention to not sell under any circumstances, no matter how bad the volatility gets.
2. Diamond Hands
Diamond Hands means that someone will continue HODL-ing an asset, even if the value of their portfolio drops by 20% or more.
3. Paper Hands
Paper Hands refers to traders/investors who quickly sell their position when facing decreasing prices.
4. FOMO
FOMO, or Fear Of Missing Out, is a psychological concept that defines investors’ mentality as the fear of not profiting from upwards price movement.
5. FUD
FUD – fear, uncertainty, and doubt – is spreading uncertainty and misinformation about cryptocurrencies to drive them out of business or reduce their price.
6. Shitcoin
Shitcoin is a way of saying that a certain cryptocurrency is useless. It can be a subjective term as some of the most valuable coins may be shitcoins to some people.
7. Apeing
Apeing means investing in something without doing your due diligence on the coin, which is often due to FOMO.
8. BTFD
BTFD – Buy The F***ing Dip – is a strategy for buying crypto when prices are down in the expectation that prices will eventually rise.
9. Degen
Degen or degenerate is a person with a notably risky investment strategy like buying shitcoins, trading with higher leverage, investing in highly risky projects, or a mixture of all.
10. GM
GM is literally just good morning: a playful way of spreading good vibes. It has turned out to be an omnipresent meme in the web3 space.
11. NGMI
NGMI – Never/Not Going to Make It – characterizes a person or firm who employs the wrong tactics to succeed, e.g. not HODLing or committing to recognized marketing.
12. WAGMI
WAGMI – We Are All Going to Make It – is an expression of positivity. It’s a concept of becoming financially independent or wealthy by investing in cryptos so one can stop working the job they dislike.
13. Boomer
Boomer is a mocking way for people or concepts considered old and outdated in the crypto space. Sometimes even fairly new but popular ideas are considered boomer.
14. IYKYK
IYKYK – If You Know You Know – is commonly used as an inside joke or expression when a person is sharing commonly known information.
15. LFG
LFG – Let’s F***ing Go – is an expression of excitement commonly used by people when the price of the coin they bought has increased significantly.
16. Looks Rare
Looks Rare is a way of saying that an NFT may be of value (random guess). As the value of most NFTs is judged by their rarity, one that is rare or looks rare will net buyers a profit.
17. Few
Few was popularized by @bowtiedbull. It is an ironic way of saying this may be important, but most people are unaware of it.
18. (3,3)
(3,3) refers to payout beneficial to both parties. It refers to the prisoner’s dilemma, where both parties are better off cooperating instead of defecting and receiving a (-3,-3) payout.
19. Shilling
Shilling means paying someone to promote a cryptocurrency. Shitcoins generally rely on shilling to create FOMO and a feeling of being more valuable than they are.
20. Moonbois
Moonbois are people that are overenthusiastic about a coin’s prospects. Going to “the moon” refers to a surge in price through any means.
21. Lambo
Lambo or “when Lambo” is often used by Moonbois overly concerned with profiting from a substantial price increase to be available to afford a Lamborghini. Also used as an expression to mock people that are focusing only on a coin’s price.
22. Wagecuck
In the crypto space, Wagecuck is someone who is regularly employed. Sometimes, the term is also used ironically to self-identify as one.
23. Pleb
A pleb is a person with little or no knowledge of cryptos.
24. Fren
Short for “friend” – Fren in the crypto space can be referred to as a real-life friend or someone you have a jovial relationship with on social media.
25. Ser
Ser is a crypto slang for “sir”. Apparently, it’s a way of trolling Indian and East Asian crypto participants for their excessive use of the word.
26. Gigabrain
Gigabrain is used to refer to someone with an excellent understanding or knowledge of a particular concept in the crypto industry.
27. Gigachad
Gigachad is used to refer to someone that has done something very impressive in a particular aspect of the crypto industry.
28. Smol brain
Smol brain is used to refer to someone considered illiterate or dull about something that is considered common knowledge in the crypto space.
29. Anon
Anon has been popularised in the crypto space to address readers since most are anonymous. For example, “are you going to buy the dip, anon?”
30. -oooor
A way of taunting people or concepts in the crypto space is by adding an -oooor to their name.
31. Rekt
A misspelling of “wrecked”, Rekt is used while referring to someone that has lost their money in the markets.
32. Down bad
Down bad is a way of saying that someone has taken a loss to their position due to the market moving against them.
33. Pump and Dump
Pump and Dump is a tactic used to manipulate the sentiments of the market.
Pump means to hype a cryptocurrency based on fake news and later dump or sell them when the prices go up — which will, in turn, cause the price to drop again.
34. Nuke
Nuke is a term used in the crypto space for a sudden and heavy price correction. Since cryptos are hugely volatile, prices have to go down by 10% or more to be considered a real nuke.
35. NFA
NFA – Not Financial Advice – is a disclaimer used to say that a person is not qualified to give financial advice.
36. Copium and hopium
Copium and hopium describe the unreasonable hope for prices to go up or down.
37. Bulla and bera
Bulla and bera are just a fancy way of spelling bull and bear, which refer to the market sentiment.
38. Funds are safu
Funds are safu refers to the safety of funds in any crypto project. Supposedly, it is also a gibe at the Asian pronunciation of the word safe.
39. Rugged
Rugged or a rug pull gets its name from the expression “pulling the rug out,” and it involves a method of scamming users in the crypto space by removing funds from a smart contract without their knowledge.
40. HSBAF
HSBAF – Holy Shit Bears Are F**ked – is used to relate to bullish market sentiment after an upward price movement. It also makes fun of those that were short.
41. HFSP
HFSP – Have Fun Staying Poor – is used to ridicule those that have no investments in cryptos.
42. Exit liquidity
Exit liquidity is used to refer to naive investors looking for quick and easy profits in fishy coins.
Brazil-based cryptocurrency exchange Digitra.com on Tuesday launched a digital asset trading platform powered by Nasdaq’s cloud-based crypto trading service.
Built on market infrastructure technology from Nasdaq, Digitra.com now uses exchange-grade matching technology to provide 24/7/365 robust and frictionless trading services on Digitra.com for retail and institutional investors worldwide.
Launched in June 2020, Nasdaq’s Marketplace Services Platform is a cloud-based SaaS platform that supports digital assets exchanges and crypto markets for exchanging digital assets, offering services across the lifecycle of a transaction including trading, issuance, surveillance, and pre-trade risk management.
While Nasdaq is offering digital asset services, it is collaborating with Microsoft Azure on designing solutions for next-generation marketplaces.
The Nasdaq’s cloud-based platform allows exchanges to attract liquidity and scale transaction volumes to correspond with different market conditions. The technology also enables exchanges to develop new features for their clients.
Digitra.com founder and CEO Rodrigo Batista talked about the development: “Nasdaq brings extensive experience and expertise in capital markets technology to Digitra.com and our industry. Our technology collaboration gives us a robust foundation to grow and build new features for our clients.”
One feature that Digitra.com is already leveraging from Nasdaq’s Marketplace Services Platform is a new commission and fee structure, called Trade to Earn. Through the newly created structure, Digitra.com has eliminated transaction fees while introducing a monetary incentive program that awards customers with native Digitra tokens (DGTA) on every executed trade.
Although Digitra.com already provides digital assets such as bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and USD coin (USDC) to its customers, the exchange said it plans to use the Nasdaq’s technology to offer 50 additional asset classes and coins by the end of the year.
“By offering additional services on top of cryptocurrency spot trading, we will create new revenue streams that replace the traditional transaction fees,” Batista said.
Nasdaq’s cloud-based Marketplace Services Platform is designed to dynamically scale as the marketplace grows and adds new asset classes to its trading platform.
Nasdaq’s Marketplace Services Platform will enable Digitra.com to grow and scale, which is crucial as the exchange continues expanding and offering new asset types.
Digitra.com will be able to introduce new products rapidly – from cryptocurrencies and stablecoins to security, energy, and carbon credit tokens – as such opportunities arise.
By using Nasdaq technology, Digitra.com said it will be able to respond to the demands of the market and offer new types of services and products that don’t exist today.
The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a public warning to investors, especially those fond of the cryptocurrency ecosystem to be aware of scams specifically targeting the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem.
According to the government watchdog, cybercriminals are known to now deliberately exploit the vulnerabilities in the smart contracts of DeFi protocols to cart away with users’ hard-earned money.
The FBI cited data from Chainalysis which revealed that as much as $1.3 billion was lost to scams in the crypto space in the first quarter of this year with 97% of the targeted platforms being linked to DeFi.
The FBI revealed that there are three major attack models which include initiating a flash loan that can trigger an exploit in the DeFi platform’s smart contracts, exploiting a signature verification vulnerability in the DeFi platform’s token bridge, and manipulating cryptocurrency price pairs by exploiting a series of vulnerabilities, including the DeFi platform’s use of a single price oracle.
Having noted the problem and how susceptible investors could be if they give in to the tricks of the fraudsters, the FBI is recommending that investors should take their time to research platforms, and business models before committing their funds.
With most DeFi protocols highly susceptible to scams, the FBI is urging investors who would want to pitch tents with these platforms to at least ensure that they have conducted a thorough audit from an independent blockchain security firm. Other red flags that the FBI advised to watch out for include investment offerings that come with limited time frames and those with links to crowdsourced solutions.
The DeFi ecosystem has recorded such exploits that range from direct protocol breaches to those perpetrated through phishing links. Either way, most DeFi exploits are a function of the gullibility of the investor, and this has fueled calls for more robust crypto education across the board.
Web3.0 game developer Xterio has secured $40 million in a new funding round which took the Swiss startup’s valuation to $300 million.
As announced by the firm on Tuesday, the funding round was co-led by FunPlus, Makers Fund, FTX Ventures, and XPLA.
The Xterio funding round also enjoined participation from notable venture capital firms and investors in the space including HashKey, Foresight Ventures, Infinity Ventures Crypto, Matrix Partners, and Animoca Brands.
Xterio is a product of multiple years of experience from innovators in the gaming ecosystem with hands-on expertise gained from gaming giants such as FunPlus, Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, and Krafton to mention a few.
With the tenets of player ownership at its core, Xterio is set to debut thrilling game experiences that will enrich the Xterion ecosystem.
According to Xterion, the capital injection will be used to “develop and publish its own games as well as partners’ games, create new world-class IP, and to continue development on the Xterio platform, which will house a marketplace, social community hub, and more.”
“At Xterio, we are building an amazing games platform that bridges how people play today with the power of Web3 for tomorrow,” said Jeremy Horn, Xterion’s co-founder. “We believe that gameplay is enhanced by ownership, but we are most interested in creating long-lasting franchises and rich gameplay experiences. We will build our games to be fun and engaging for both traditional gamers and the Web3 audience in a way that any type of player can enjoy.”
The number of new startups with a focus on the gaming ecosystem is growing by the day. With new capabilities being introduced by blockchain, innovators are harnessing these tech advances to develop and publish game titles that can draw more users into the emerging Wbe3.0 world in the near future.
Samret Wajanasathian, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of BitKub, has been fined by the Thai Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in a rare insider trading case in the local cryptocurrency ecosystem.
According to the English translation of the announcement from the Thai regulator, the total civil fine levied came in at 8,530,383 baht, or approximately $234,000. The SEC alleged that Samret acquired as many as $61,000 worth of KUB tokens well in advance of the announcement of the potential plan by the Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) to take a 51% ownership stake in the trading platform.
As unveiled by the Thai regulator, the acquisition of the KUB tokens was based on insider information that Samret was privy to, and he made a 101% gain when the proposed SCB BitKub collaboration was unveiled later toward the end of last year.
The imposed fine was accompanied by a ban on the Thai digital currency trading platform’s CTO from holding any executive position on a trading platform in the near future. The fined amount involves the refund of the cumulative fund that Samret received as profit as well as the total cost incurred by the SEC in the course of the investigations into the case.
Should Samret refuse the fines, the SEC said he would be charged to the Civil Court where he will be forced to pay the fines up to the maximum and not below what has been earlier charged by the SEC.
The deal with SCB has been terminated as reported last week as the banking giant said it had better take a step back to allow BitKub to resolve the many regulatory challenges that are hanging over the exchanges.
It is not clear if the charges brought against Samret Wajanasathian count as one of those being avoided by SCB, the financial institution said it is open to productive collaborations in the crypto space moving forward.
Switzerland-based crypto lending firm Nexo announced on Tuesday that it approved an additional $50 million for its token buyback program.
The development follows the previous $100 million Buyback which Nexo completed in May this year.
The crypto lender said on Tuesday that it will purchase $50 million worth of its native token NEXO over the next six months.
According to the terms of the buyback program, the firm is now authorized, at the company’s discretion, to periodically repurchase NEXO on the open market.
The repurchase is expected to be completed within the next six months after which the Nexo Board of Directors may decide on whether or not to prolong the buyback.
Antoni Trenchev, Nexo Co-Founder and Managing Partner talked about the development: “The allocation of an additional $50 million to our buyback plan is a result of our solid liquidity position and Nexo’s ability and readiness to spur on its own products, token, and community, alongside its outward-facing initiatives of injecting liquidity into the industry.”
The NEXO Token is the company’s native cryptocurrency which enables token holders to access numerous benefits on the platform.
The NEXO token is an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token used to pay out dividends (interests) from earnings on the platform. The token is currently trading at $0.982 with a market capitalization of $549 million and has risen 4.35% over the past 24 hours.
The firm said it won’t be able to use those repurchased tokens immediately, as it will send the repurchased tokens (buyback tranche) to the company’s Investor Protection Reserve (IPR) with a vesting period of a minimum of 12 months.
The company said that the repurchased tokens will be used for strategic investments via token mergers, and also for daily interest payouts to clients who receive their yields in NEXO.
Trenchev said the ongoing difficult market conditions have consistently moved the NEXO Token consistently with the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum, thus demonstrating the demand for the company’s native asset remains strong. The executive said that the token buyback will ensure added stability as the company emerges from the current market crash.
Crypto credit crisis
Nexo so far has avoided drastic moves associated with the current market downturn and appears to have remained unaffected by some of the worst debacles.
The crypto lending platform managed to avoid headlines in the multibillion-dollar crash of the Terra blockchain and the collapse of the crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital.
This year’s crash in crypto prices has adversely impacted retail depositors while big industry players experiencing huge losses on assets they had lent out in search of yields.
