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Binance Now Ranked as the Second Largest Voting Power in Uniswap DAO

by Blockchain NewsOctober 19, 2022

In a move that has become quite worrisome to Hayden Adams, the founder of the Uniswap decentralized exchange, Binance exchange has delegated as much as 13 million UNI tokens to the Uniswap DAO.

This token automatically springboards Binance as the entity with the second-largest voting power after mega Venture Capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). By the numbers, Binance now holds a 5.9% voting power as against the 6.7% that is commanded by a16z.

Taking to Twitter, Hayden said the UNI token belongs to Binance users, and that he remains unsure of how Binance intends to engage with the Uniswap DAO moving forward.

“..Binance delegated 13M UNI from its books, making it one of the largest UNI delegates (this is only 1.3% of current delegated UNI so governance voting power remains quite distributed). Very unique situation, as the UNI technically belongs to its users,” He said in a tweet shared earlier today.

DAOs are an automated and decentralized governance engine and they help to decide the directions through which the Uniswap protocol will trend per time.

While Hayden acknowledges that the vote distribution is still well optimized and as such, the Binance newly delegated tokens will not affect its integrity, he still called out to the bigger exchange’s founder and CEO, Changpeng Zhao to come to talk or give insights on the trading platform’s plans.

“Normally more gov participation = good, however it’s unclear how binance intends to engage. Binance users would prob prefer to keep these gov rights (similar to what compound has done with cUNI). In the spirit of transparency would love to hear from @cz_binance on their plans.”

DAOs have been proposed as a major alternative, a blockchain-powered corporate tool for running an organization. While some DAOs, like the Uniswap DAO, have functioned perfectly well over time, others, such as the Panda DAO have run into troubles with proposals for the dissolution of the DAO.

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FTX Ventures Leads $300m Series B Funding for Mysten Labs

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 9, 2022

Mysten Labs, the startup behind the highly hyped Sui blockchain protocol, has raised $300 million from top investors in the Web3.0 ecosystem.

The Mysten Labs Series B was led by FTX Ventures and enjoined participation from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as well as Jump Crypto, Apollo, Binance Labs, Franklin Templeton, Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sino Global, Dentsu Ventures, Greenoaks Capital, and O’Leary Ventures amongst others.

Mysten Lab’s mainstream innovation, the Sui blockchain, is yet to be launched. Drawing on the experiences of the 5 Co-Founders with Meta Platforms’ defunct payment blockchain, Diem and Novi Wallet, the protocol was created as a payment protocol that can serve as the gateway for the following billion users to wade into the world of blockchain.

The Mysten team hopes to use the acquired funds to accelerate the launch of the Sui blockchain protocol and invest in the Sui ecosystem while also expanding its footprint into the Asian market.

The Facebook veterans pride themselves in building a multifaceted protocol that offers enhanced user and developer experience. As announced, the protocol will solve the challenges of low scalability and high fees, poor onboarding experiences, and limited use cases.

While taking similarities to the Diem protocol, which was later sold to Silvergate Bank, the Sui blockchain protocol was created through the in-house developed programming language, Move. The Move language was developed by Mysten Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer Sam Blackshear. The Move language was used to create Diem as well as the upcoming blockchain protocol, Aptos.

This Mysten’s latest funding round was first hinted at by The Information, who said back in July that the firm was on track to pull $200 million from investors to top a $2 billion valuation. The report has proven to be accurate as the latest round hit the projected valuation.

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Tagged : A16Z / Finance / FTX VENTURES / Mysten Labs / SUI BLOCKCHAIN

Lightspeed Venture Partners Launches 4 Crypto Funds with $7.1B

by Blockchain NewsJuly 13, 2022

Venture Capital (VC) firm Lightspeed Ventures has announced it has secured the cumulative $7.1 billion to bankroll 4 new crypto funds.

As announced by the VC, the four funds include Lightspeed Venture Partners XIV-A/B LP, Lightspeed Venture Partners Select V LP, Lightspeed Opportunity Fund II LP, and Lightspeed India Partners Fund IV, which will focus exclusively on Indian innovators.

Per the details shared, each of the funds notably closed with $1.98 billion, $2.26 billion, $2.36 billion, and $500 million, respectively.

Besides the announcement of these funds, Lightspeed said it has also launched Lightspeed Faction, an independent team dedicated to building on Lightspeed’s nine-year history of backing exceptional founders in blockchain infrastructure. The Lightspeed Faction team will be led by investors Sam Harrison and Banafsheh Fathieh.

Lightspeed has one of the broadest allowances as a VC supporting the digital currency ecosystem. Its funds are injected into innovative projects irrespective of their stage or a particular geographical location.

“We believe in investing at the earliest stages of innovation, partnering with generational entrepreneurs who have clarity of vision, an insatiable desire to build something enduring, and the conviction and courage to compete and win against all odds,” said Arif Janmohamed, Partner, Lightspeed. “We love to partner with and even incubate companies around core dislocations in the enterprise landscape and to build relationships with prospective entrepreneurs years before they are ready to start building.”

The latest capital accumulation by Lightspeed shows that investors are unbothered by the latest downturn in the crypto ecosystem.

Lightspeed Venture Partners is one of many VCs dedicating funds to support innovative projects in the emerging Web3.0 world. While the combined $7.1 billion capital from the four funds is the largest seen thus far, other outfits like Haun Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) have also previously floated $1.5 billion and $4.5 billion funds, respectively.

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Tagged : A16Z / Crypto Funds / Finance / HAUN VENTURES / Lightspeed Venture Partners

Entropy Closes $25M Seed Round for Building Decentralized Custody Platform

by Blockchain NewsJune 9, 2022

Entropy announced that the crypto asset firm has closed a $25 million seed round, The Block reported.

The crypto asset custodian’s seed round was led by Wallet Street Venture Capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16Z). According to a press release, Dragonfly Capital, Ethereal Ventures, Variant, Coinbase Ventures, Robot Ventures, Inflection and the Komerabi Fund also joined the round.

The funds raised will be used to build the company’s leading embedded payment, card, lending and crypto solutions. Furthermore, the fund would be invested in people and communities, continue its international expansion plans and strengthen strategic global partnerships.

Currently, Entropy is building a decentralized custody platform that uses cryptographic techniques based on multiparty computation.

The Block reported that the firm is led by a self-taught cryptographer and trans activist, Tux Pacific.

As part of the company’s major goal, it aims to beat the standard business model of centralized crypto custodians such as Fireblocks and Coinbase.

According to The Block, Entropy users will eventually implement their own rules for interacting with funds, such as imposing time-gated constraints.

a16Z also recently helped CRB Group, Inc., the parent company of fintech company Cross River Bank, in a $620 million investment along with Eldridge, Blockchain.News reported.

While in January, a16Z rallied investors for a $4.5 billion dual fund targeted at making strategic investments in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, according to a report from Blockchain.News. According to the Financial Times, $3.5 billion was billed to be earmarked for its newest cryptocurrency enterprise fund, while $1 billion will be reserved for strategic investments in crypto startups seeking seed funding.

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Tagged : A16Z / Blockchain / Crypto / Entropy / Finance

Andreessen Horowitz Floats $600M Gaming Fund

by Blockchain NewsMay 20, 2022

After more than a decade of actively investing in the gaming industry, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) wants to further exert its influence in that space.

In order to do this, the investment giant has floated a $600 million fund which it believes will help position it aright to tap enough market share in the more than $300 billion industry.

The company said it floated the fund which it named Games Fund One with the backing of key players in the gaming industry including David Baszucki, founder of Roblox; Jason Citron, founder of Discord; Marc Merrill, co-founder of Riot Games; Mike Morhaime, co-founder of Blizzard; Aleks Larsen and Jeffrey Zirlin, co-founders of Sky Mavis; Kevin Lin, co-founder of Twitch, Mark Pincus, founder of Zynga; and Riccardo Zacconi, founder of King.

The enormous funds will be used to support startups building a wide range of solutions in the space. These solutions border on infrastructure, supporting ecosystems for developers, and outfits developing games directly.

“GAMES FUND ONE is founded on the belief that games will play a pivotal role in defining how we socialize, play, and work over the next century. Over the past decade, games have undergone a radical transformation, from simply being packaged entertainment to becoming online services that more closely resemble social networks and scale-like consumer technology companies,” the firm said in a blog post written by the trio of Andrew Chen, Jonathan Lai, and James Gwertzman, General Managers at a16z who will be in charge of the fund.

As it has gone all out with gaming, Andreessen Horowitz is also bullish on the role blockchain technology and Web3.0 has to play in the long-term future of the gaming industry.

The firm detailed in a report earlier how Web3.0, powered by blockchain is a better offshoot for creators when compared to traditional solutions, and as such, the investment from Games Fund One will be extended to the emerging ecosystem to complement earlier investments in CryptoKitties and Axie Infinity and other notable startups in the space.

Andreessen has also been an active proponent of the blockchain gaming space. The company’s general partner Arianna Simpson has led investments in several high-profile pay-to-earn and crypto-related gaming companies like Axie Infinity maker Sky Mavis.

According to Protocol, the fund will also collaborate with Andreessen’s crypto fund to co-invest in blockchain gaming deals.

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Tagged : A16Z / ANDREESSENHOROWITZ / Finance / Games / VENTUREFUNDING

Irreverent Labs Raises $40m in Funding, Led by a16z

by Blockchain NewsMay 10, 2022

Seattle-based startup Irreverent Labs has once again raised $40 million in funding led by Silicon Valley heavyweight investment firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

Irreverent Labs is building games and entertainment in which all the characters are AI-powered NPCs.

The financing will lead to the development of a blockchain-based fighting game called MechaFightClub, which pits chicken-style fighting games against each other.

The platform will integrate emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and NFTs to run on the Solana blockchain, allowing players to trade fighter jets called “mechanical robots” and play “cruelty-free” fighting games at any time.

The game is Play-to-earn (P2E) mode or GameFi. P2E is a popular business model that exists in the blockchain gaming world that integrates Web3 and blockchain, which corresponds to the F2P (Free to Play) model commonly seen in the real world of the gaming industry.

Players can use their blockchain currency, gold nuggets, to make in-game purchases or withdraw them for use on the wider Solana blockchain.

Investors including Solana Ventures, the venture capital arm of Solana Labs; Michael Ovitz, founder of Creative Artists Agency (CAA), participated in this round of financing. Rahul Sood, co-founder of Irreverent Labs said that:

“Gamers will soon realize that having ownership of the characters within the game and building a relationship with that character over time is actually a really good thing,”

Irreverent Labs has raised a total of $5M in funding over 1 round. The seed round was raised on Oct 29, 2021. a16z also contributed to emerging blockchain startup Irreverent Labs which raised a record $25.2 billion last year, up 713% year-over-year.

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Tagged : A16Z / Finance / Financing / Gaming / IRREVERENT LABS

a16Z to Establishe Crypto Research Lab

by Blockchain NewsApril 25, 2022

Wallet Street Venture Capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz (a16Z), announced establishing its own crypto research lab to conduct blockchain-related academic research.

Led by Tim Roughgarden, adjunct professor of computer science at both Stanford and Columbia, and Dan Boneh, professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford, the lab will combine academic theory and practice to address the environmental problems currently caused by the crypto industry as a whole Discuss and experiment with corresponding solutions.

Andreessen Horowitz said that:

“The crypto and Web3 sector has emerged as a new frontier in technology, and it has matured into an independent field of knowledge that brings together elements of computer science, economics, finance, and the humanities.”

a16Z has rallied investors for a $4.5 billion dual fund targeted at making strategic investments in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

While the a16Z’s plans have not been made public yet, the company is well known for a related fundraiser in the ecosystem. The company pulled $2.2 billion from investors back in June last year to create the Crypto Fund III, the largest at the time.

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Tagged : A16Z / Andreessen Horowitz / Bitcoin / Blockchain / Crypto / Enterprise / Web3

Former a16z Partner Katie Haun’s Crypto VC Fund Raises $1.5 Billion

by Blockchain NewsMarch 23, 2022

Former federal prosecutor Katie Haun’s crypto venture capital fund has raised $1.5 billion to invest in crypto-related startups.

Haun, Andreessen Horowitz’s first female general partner, announced Tuesday to complete a $500 million early-stage fund and another $1 billion for more established startups focused on web3 after leaving a16z in December,

Still, Haun said in an interview that：

“it’s not a bad time to deploy a crypto fund” despite those challenges. The extreme volatility is reminiscent of the first two crypto funds I deployed. What I learned from those funds is that great founders and great projects are going to be built in every cycle.”

Haun said her funds will be deployed for at least two years “and invest in digital tokens and equity in areas ranging from decentralized financial applications to NFTs and so-called decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).”

“I did not fit the mold of the traditional venture investor,” she said in the interview. “I think we need more people who don’t fit the mold. I think web3 really needs those voices.”

Haun Ventures is currently a team of nine, with a roster that includes Sam Rosenblum, who was a general partner at Polychain Capital, and Chris Lehane, who was previously on the executive management team at Airbnb.

In addition, plans to expand the team size.

Lehane, chief strategy officer at Haun Ventures, said he would focus on partnering with different promising cryptocurrency startups, crafting relevant battles to make their products more mainstream, and addressing regulatory issues early.

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Tagged : A16Z / Andreessen Horowitz / Bitcoin / Blockchain / Finance / KATIE HAUN / Venture-Capital

Former a16z Founder Katie Haun’s Crypto VC Fund Raises $1.5 Billion

by Blockchain NewsMarch 23, 2022

Former federal prosecutor Katie Haun’s crypto venture capital fund has raised $1.5 billion to invest in crypto-related startups.

Still, Haun said in an interview that：

“it’s not a bad time to deploy a crypto fund” despite those challenges. The extreme volatility is reminiscent of the first two crypto funds I deployed. What I learned from those funds is that great founders and great projects are going to be built in every cycle.”

“I did not fit the mold of the traditional venture investor,” she said in the interview. “I think we need more people who don’t fit the mold. I think web3 really needs those voices.”

In addition, plans to expand the team size.

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Tagged : A16Z / Andreessen Horowitz / Bitcoin / Blockchain / Finance / KATIE HAUN / Venture-Capital

Meta Alumni Owned Layer-1 Protocol Aptos Raises $200m from a16z

by Blockchain NewsMarch 16, 2022

Former Meta Platforms Inc staff, led by Mo Shaikh, have raised $200 million in a strategic funding round for its new startup Aptos, a layer-1 blockchain protocol looks to continue the innovative work that was being done of the Libra/Diem project.

The funding round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) with participation from Tiger Global, Katie Haun, Multicoin Capital, 3 Arrows Capital, FTX Ventures, and Coinbase Ventures, among others. It is worthy of note to mention that Aptos is also backed by Silvergate Capital, the leading bank for innovative businesses in fintech and cryptocurrency known to acquire the Diem project from the Libra Association earlier this year.

While the Aptos team is notably building the protocol based on the Open Source provisions of the Diem blockchain, none of the Diem IP addresses now being controlled by Silvergate Bank will be used as promised.

“We are the original creators, researchers, designers, and builders of Diem, the blockchain that was first built to serve this purpose. While the world never got to see what we built, our work is far from over,” Aptos CEO Mo Shaikh wrote in a blog post last month.

The funding news was accompanied by the launch of the blockchain’s Devnet, which will allow developers to test out the capabilities of the new protocol. While its work has not yet gone mainstream, the Aptos core developers said companies like “Anchorage, Binance, Coinbase, Livepeer, Moonclave, Paxos, Paymagic, Rarible, and Streaming Fast, are already engaging with the startup, providing feedback and contributing codes on devnet,” according to the TechCrunch report.

Billed to compete with the likes of Ethereum and Solana for most of the innovative products it is heralding, the core goal that investors use to identify with Aptos is likely hinged on its plans to build a protocol that will model the scalability and widespread nature of the rebranded Facebook-backed Diem payments network.

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Tagged : A16Z / APTOS / Diem / Finance / Meta Platforms