Q2 Web3 Startup Funding Declines 76% Compared to the Same Period Last Year

Crunchbase data shows that in the second quarter of this year, Web3 startups raised over $1.8 billion in funding through 322 transactions.  With a slowdown in large financing deals, venture capital investment in Web3 startups during the second quarter of this year decreased by 76% compared to the same period last year. In the second quarter of last year, startups in this industry raised over $7.5 billion. In the first half of last year, Web3 startups raised nearly $16 billion. However, in the first half of this year, the figure dropped significantly to $3.6 billion, a decrease of 78%. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence (AI) startups have become a new focus for investors, with funding reaching $25 billion in the first half of 2023.  

2023-07-19Deep Dive

Polychain Capital Raises $200 Million for Fourth Fund

According to a report from Fortune, citing sources familiar with the matter, blockchain-focused venture capital firm Polychain Capital has raised approximately $200 million in the initial fundraising for its fourth cryptocurrency venture fund.  Fortune magazine reports that Polychain intends to raise a total of $400 million for the fund, aligning with the target amount stated in the Polychain Ventures IV (Parallel) LP fund documents submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in April. According to sources cited by Fortune, the venture capital firm has also laid off three members from its research team of approximately 15 members as it shifts its investment focus.  Polychain Capital was founded in 2016 and is one of the worlds largest digital asset hedge funds. Its founder, Olaf Carlson-Wee, started his career at Coinbase in the customer support department and later served as a product manager and risk manager. He was responsible for overseeing the operation of company products, account security, and fraud prevention.  According to Crunchbase, Polychain Capital has been involved in a total of 199 investments, with 113 of them as lead investors. Among Polychain Capitals investment portfolio, notable projects include Polkadot, Cosmos, Tezos, Dfinity, Compound, and others.  

2023-07-19Deep Dive

Based on S2F Model Prediction, Bitcoin's Next Halving Cycle Could Reach $500,000

On July 19th, cryptocurrency analyst PlanB released an update to the Bitcoin Stock-to-Flow (S2F) valuation model on social media. The update stated, “Based on the latest data and the average S2F ratio and BTC price during the current halving cycle: The model predicts a Bitcoin price of $54,000, while the actual average price is $31,000.During the 2016-2020 halving cycle, the model predicted a Bitcoin price of $4,400, while the actual average price was $5,800. For me, the models margin of error is within an acceptable range, and S2F is not ineffective. However, I believe it is a personal decision. I am focusing on the Bitcoin price reaching $500,000 in the next halving cycle (with a potentially large margin of error).”  PlanB is a popular blogger known for using models to predict the long-term price of Bitcoin. They have gained fame for making several accurate predictions and have amassed a following of 1.8 million followers on Twitter.  In 2021, PlanB used the Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model to predict that the price of Bitcoin would reach $100,000 by the end of the year. However, the actual price of Bitcoin deviated significantly from this prediction. It is worth noting that while the S2F model has gained

2023-07-19Deep Dive

Big Whale Suddenly Transfers All 61,216 ETH To Kraken After 8 Years Of Hibernation

All 61,216 ETH worth $116.3 million was moved by a whale wallet.  After eight years of immobility, the wallet suddenly transferred all ETH to the Kraken exchange, causing the community to panic about a possible big sell-off.  According to speculation from the community, this is likely a wallet related to a member of the Ethereum Foundation or an early investor in the project.  On the morning of July 19, many crypto investors on Twitter were bewildered because the movement of an Ethereum whale wallet containing 61,216 ETH (worth $116.3 million) had resumed after eight years of sleep.  Source: Etherscan.io  Concerns about the ETH mentioned above wallet increased when it immediately transferred all assets to the Kraken exchange, as noted by Etherescan.  Currently, the true purpose of this ETH whale has yet to be discovered. Many people quickly came to the conclusion that $120 million of ETH is about to hit the market.  In particular, this is a pre-mine wallet, meaning that this wallet received ETH before the ICO event of Ethereum in 2015. Therefore, there has been a lot of speculation about the owner of this wallet. It could belong to one of the founders of Ethereum, a private investor or a particular core member of the

2023-07-19Deep Dive

Telegram Founder Reveals New Investments In Toncoin, TON Increases Over 5%

Telegram sees over 2.5 million new daily users and surpasses 800 million monthly active users.  Telegram issues $270 million worth of bonds for continued growth, with CEO Pavel Durov personally investing.  Durov confirms ownership of Toncoin and previous investment in Bitcoin, showing dedication to the crypto space.  Telegram founder Pavel Durov took to his personal Telegram channel on July 18 to reveal some significant milestones and financial updates regarding the popular messaging app.  Durov announced that more than 2.5 million new users are registering for Telegram each day, contributing to the platforms impressive growth. Earlier this year, the app surpassed 800 million monthly active users, a testament to its increasing popularity.  While Durov expressed gratitude for this massive growth, he acknowledged the associated higher expenses on storage and traffic required to serve such a vast user base. However, he reassured users that Telegram is highly efficient in managing expenses and had a successful start with monetization efforts in the previous year. Although Telegram is not yet profitable, Durov emphasized that it is closer to profitability in absolute numbers compared to its competitors like Twitter and Snap.  To fund the apps continued growth until it reaches the break-even point, the company issued approximately $270 million worth of

2023-07-19Deep Dive

Former FTX Executive Emerges At Sino Global Capital Amidst Crypto Crisis

Former FTX executive, Zhe “Constance” Wang, joins crypto venture capital firm Sino Global Capital.  Wang held executive roles at FTX, including Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets.  Sino Global Capital had been an early investor in FTX, and Wang‘s hiring comes after FTX’s collapse and bankruptcy.  Zhe “Constance” Wang, a former executive at FTX, has joined the crypto venture capital firm Sino Global Capital, according to sources familiar with the matter.  According to Bloomberg, Wang held key roles at FTX, serving as the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, the exchange‘s affiliate in the Bahamas. Her responsibilities included overseeing global business expansion, token listings, and public relations and marketing efforts. Wang’s move to Sino Global Capital comes after FTX filed for bankruptcy in November, leading to a subsequent investigation into its operations.  Sino Global Capital, founded in 2015 by Matthew Graham, has revealed that it was an early investor in FTX. The firm had also launched a $200 million fund with FTX as a significant investor. The collaboration between Sino Global Capital and FTX aimed to support the vision of FTX and assist in its growth as a prominent player in the crypto industry. The bankruptcy filing by FTX,

2023-07-19Deep Dive

Solana EVM-Compatible Solution Neon EVM Goes Live on the Solana Mainnet

Neon EVM, the Solana EVM-compatible solution, has announced its launch today, providing a computing environment that allows developers to build Ethereum applications on the Solana blockchain. Neon is implemented as a smart contract on top of Solana, enabling the deployment of Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) code.  The development team has announced the completion of the necessary tools to migrate Ethereum developer projects to Solana. They believe that this move has the potential to reduce operational costs for applications. They express confidence in the integration of their EVM solution with Solanas high throughput capabilities and are currently undergoing extensive testing.  In addition to providing access to the Solana network, Neon EVM aims to enable Ethereum applications to leverage the native features of Solana, including parallel transaction execution.  As widely known, the Ethereum ecosystem has been leading in terms of developer count and activity. According to https://www.developerreport.com/, the number of full-time developers in the Ethereum ecosystem this year is approximately five times that of Solana.  Neo EVM and Solana are complementary products, meaning that they have a positive effect on each other. The launch of Neon EVM can help developers more easily enter the Solana ecosystem. Solana may see the emergence of more innovative products and

2023-07-18Deep Dive

Uniswap Launches Cross-AMM Protocol UniswapX

Due to inherent characteristics such as congestion in the on-chain environment, manipulable miner sequencing , and susceptibility of AMM price mechanisms to market fluctuations , the current DeFi experience struggles to match that of centralized exchanges.  In order to advance on-chain trading and improve the experience of self-custodial swaps, Uniswap has announced the launch of UniswapX, a permissionless, open-source protocol based on Dutch auctions. UniswapX enables trading across AMMs and other liquidity sources.  Currently, a test version of the protocol is being launched on the Uniswap Labs interface, specifically for the Ethereum mainnet, with plans to expand to other chains and Uniswap wallets in the future.  UniswapX aims to gradually achieve the following:  Aggregating liquidity sources to improve exchange rates  Mitigating MEV (Miner Extractable Value) vulnerabilities  Providing gasless transactions for swaps  Zero cost for failed transactions  Expanding to support cross-chain, gasless transactions within a few months.  UniswapX has introduced a network of off-chain node providers called the Relay Network. These nodes are responsible for collecting user orders and establishing a local order book, which is shared among other nodes. This system enables the prevention of MEV and facilitates gasless transactions. The orders are eventually packaged and executed on-chain, completing the state transitions of the orders.

2023-07-18Deep Dive

CoinShares: Net Inflows of $137 Million in Digital Asset Investment Products Last Week

CoinShares latest weekly report shows that there was a net inflow of $137.4 million into digital asset investment products last week. Over the past four weeks, the cumulative inflows amounted to $742 million, marking the largest inflow since the fourth quarter of 2021.  The majority of the inflows came from BTC, totaling $1.4 billion. Although the price of ETH has been rising recently, it did not attract inflows as it saw an outflow of $2 million last week.  The trading volume of investment products remains significantly higher than the annual average of $1.4 billion, reaching a total of $2.3 billion last week. Currently, these trading volumes account for a much larger proportion of the overall cryptocurrency market, representing 11% last week compared to the average level of 2%.  In terms of regions, the inflows are predominantly concentrated in North America, with a slight outflow observed in Europe.

2023-07-18Deep Dive

Gary Gensler Feeling Disappointed About The Court’s Judgment In Ripple Lawsuit

SEC Chair Gary Gensler comments on the recent court ruling in the SECs lawsuit against Ripple, expressing both satisfaction and disappointment with the outcome.  The court ruling determined that institutional sales of Ripples tokens violated federal securities laws, while sales on exchanges and programmatic sales were not considered securities.  The rulings implications for retail investors and the potential for an appeal raise uncertainty about the future regulatory landscape for cryptocurrencies.  US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler has publicly addressed the recent court ruling in the SEC‘s lawsuit against Ripple, stated that while he was disappointed with a district court’s decision in the Ripple case regarding retail investors, he was pleased with the portion of the order that found institutional sales of the tokens did violate federal securities laws.  Last week, Ripple achieved a partial victory as the court ruled that institutional sales of the XRP tokens violated federal securities laws, while sales on exchanges and programmatic sales did not qualify as the sale of securities. The ruling was based on the SECs inability to establish that speculative investors had a reasonable expectation of profits from the efforts of others.  During a talk on artificial intelligence at the National Press Club, Gensler was

2023-07-18Deep Dive
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