STEPN, a Solana-based “move-to-earn” startup that rewards users for exercising, has raised $5 million in a seed funding round.

Sequoia Capital India and Folius Ventures co-led the round, with Solana Ventures, Alameda Research, 6th Man Ventures, Sfermion, and others participating.

Angel investors, including Santiago Santos, a former ParaFi Capital partner, and Zhen Cao, Asia partner of investing platform Republic, also backed the round.

This was STEPN’s first fundraise and realized via a simple agreement for future tokens (SAFT) sale, the startup’s founder Yawn Rong told The Block. The funding will help expand STEPN’s current team of over 30 and further refine its product, said Rong.

What is STEPN?

STEPN is an Australia-based startup that offers a blockchain-based fitness app. It works by letting users buy NFTs that last for a certain amount of time. During this time, the user can exercise in a certain way and earn the platform’s native GST tokens as a reward.

To get started with the move-to-earn app, users have to deposit Solana’s native SOL token in STEPN’s in-app wallet, buy a sneaker NFT from its in-app marketplace, and wait for 24 hours for “energy” replenishment. Energy is how many minutes a user gets for exercising with a sneaker NFT, said Rong.

There are three types of sneaker NFTs available within STEPN: walker, runner, and jogger. One walker sneaker, for instance, gets an average of 10 minutes of energy. Once a sneaker and energy is gained, users can either walk, run or jog depending on what sneaker they bought and earn GST tokens. The current price of one GST token is $1.70, according to CoinGecko.

Earned GST tokens can be swapped to SOL or the USDC stablecoin via STEPN’s in-app swap function and can be withdrawn to an external account.

“Currently, a fresh player can earn $20 to $30 a day through walking/running 10 minutes, and a savvy player can earn $300 to $450 a day through walking/running 60 minutes,” STEPN’s other co-founder Jerry Huang told The Block.

But to be sure, that isn’t completely free money, as users have to first spend money on sneaker NFTs — similar to how most play-to-earn games, such as Axie Infinity, work.

The current floor price of STEPN’s NFT sneakers is around 4.5 SOL (around $615 at current prices), according to NFT marketplace Magic Eden. Magic Eden also sells STEPN’s NFT sneakers, besides its in-app marketplace.

STEPN also has an option to rent NFT sneakers — similar to how play-to-earn gaming guilds offer gaming NFTs on rent. However, with rented sneaker NFTs, GST token earnings get reduced. Huang said owners get to keep 70% of profits, and renters get the rest 30%.

STEPN also has an option of minting new sneaker NFTs and repairing existing sneakers to regain energy. Huang said the current cost of minting a new NFT is around 200 GST (about $350 at current prices), and the cost of repairing a sneaker is roughly 20% of GST earnings.

Gaining traction 

Within a month of its launch, STEPN has gathered users from over 90 countries, said Huang, adding that China, the US, and India are its biggest markets. The app currently has 1,500 daily active users.

As for its business model, STEPN earns fees for various in-app user activities. Rong said the app gets 4% fees on marketplace sneaker trading, 6% on sneaker minting, and 8% on sneaker rentals. “The profit goes to a treasury pool, and the GMT staker can decide how to distribute the profit,” he said.

STEPN has a dual token system. GST is used for rewards and various in-game activities, and GMT is its governance token. GMT is expected to be launched next month or early March, said Rong, adding that STEPN will also hold an initial exchange offering or initial DEX offering to raise funds in a public token sale.

User interest around STEPN may be high because of its current early adopter “double earning” program. The program now offers 16 GST tokens in rewards for one sneaker. But the program ends on January 22, and after that, rewards will get cut to 8 GST tokens for one sneaker, said Huang.

The move-to-earn concept seems to be catching up in crypto. In October, another Solana-based move-to-earn NFT game Genopets raised $8.5 million in seed funding. But the app isn’t live yet.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Andreessen Horowitz (also known as a16z) is planning to raise up to $4.5 billion for two new crypto funds, according to a report by the Financial Times.

Last week, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm reportedly told investors that it will raise $3.5 billion for its venture fund, while another $1 billion will be raised for its seed investments in the web3 space, with plans set to be confirmed in March. The Block has contacted a16z for comment but did not receive a response by press time.

The news comes at a time of funding frenzy in the digital asset space. In November, crypto VC firm Paradigm launched a $2.5 billion fund for web3 companies and protocols. Former a16z partner Katie Haun is said to be raising close to $900 million for a new venture capital firm.

If a16z manages to successfully charm investors, the $4.5 billion haul would be the largest raise by any crypto venture investor to date. It would also be a further sign that investor confidence in crypto is at an all-time high. Last year, a record $18.4 billion was raised by crypto startups, according to Dealroom. 

Most recently, a16z led a $20 million investment in crypto-friendly gaming platform Carry1st, its first investment in a startup headquartered on the African continent. 

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The company behind the popular ‘Exploding Kittens’ tabletop game announced Tuesday that it has partnered with 3D printing company Glowforge to release 10 collectible non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for its new board game, Happy Salmon.

NFT owners will be able to print their NFT onto a Happy Salmon box using a Glowforge 3D printer or sell the NFT on a secondary marketplace, Exploding Kittens co-creator and CEO explained to The Block. The Ethereum-based NFTs may only be printed once and will disappear once used.

Exploding Kittens NFT.

Individuals must enter a social media contest to win one of Exploding Kittens’s NFTs starting January 18 and concluding January 22. Winners will be notified on January 24. 

Exploding Kittens started out as one of the highest funded projects on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter with over $8.7 million raised from 219,000 backers. Among the project’s founders are AR gaming developer Elan Lee and Matthew Inman, founder of The Oatmeal. 

Exploding Kittens follows other game companies releasing digital collectibles. Konami, the Japanese video game developer behind the cult classic game Castlevania, released an NFT collection for Castlevania’s 35th anniversary. 

Other toy and tabletop game companies have looked to NFTs as well. In April of 2021, the toy company Hasbro stated that it was “actively developing” NFT opportunities.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Google is shuffling the proverbial deck on the payments front, tapping a former PayPal executive to lead that division and, as Bloomberg reports it, “set a new course.”

The move to hire former PayPal senior vice president and chief product architect Arnold Goldberg comes months after Google discontinued efforts to form a service akin to digital banking, according to Bloomberg.

Bill Ready, Google’s president of commerce, told the publication that the tech giant wants to broaden the scope of its payments efforts across the spectrum of consumer-facing use cases.

Crypto-related efforts referenced in the interview with Ready highlighted Google’s relationships with industry companies Coinbase and BitPay, both of which announced last year that their customers could connect their respective crypto debit cards to Google Pay’s app. Ready reportedly said that more linkages of this kind are on the horizon.

“Crypto is something we pay a lot of attention to,” Ready told the publication. “As user demand and merchant demand evolves, we’ll evolve with it.” 

Google moved to revamp its advertising policies for crypto exchanges and wallet providers last year, though it still maintains restrictions on topics like initial coin offerings. 

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has signed an executive order consolidating the leadership of offices of technology and innovation. 

Previously, the areas and offices focused on technology and innovation reported to various deputy mayors. Now, that oversight is consolidated under the existing Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT), which has also been re-designated the “Office of Technology and Innovation.”

Adams has committed to revamping tech in New York City, both from a city services perspective and mitigating the challenges of doing business in the city. It’s unclear how those goals will come to fruition, and if crypto will play a more significant role.

So far, no mention of crypto has been made in the documents related to the Office of Technology and Innovation. However, Adams has said he wants to make the city “crypto friendly,” and he’s already committed to taking his first three paychecks in bitcoin.

The city’s disparate offices of Cyber Command, Data Analytics and Information Privacy will all be consolidated under the new office. Their respective directors will now report to the CTO. The Algorithms Management and Policy Officer has been abolished since the new office will govern the algorithm use across city offices. 

“Any additional appropriate actions, including but not limited to the transfer of employees, to be taken in furtherance of the consolidation set forth in this Section shall be taken as soon as practicable after the promulgation of this Order,” said the order.

The head of the office, once the Commissioner of Information Technology and Telecommunications, is now the city’s Chief Technology Officer and report to the First Deputy Mayor. The previous office name and title will still be used in situations that legally require them.

Adams appointed Matt Fraser as CTO back in December, when the role was more limited in scope. He was previously with the New York City Police Department as its deputy commissioner for information technology. Prior to working with the NYPD, he worked at the DoITT as deputy commissioner of IT. 

“The Office of Technology and Innovation will streamline technology operations across the city and revolutionize how New York City does business, as well as how the city provides services to its residents and visitors,” he said in a statement.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Autograph, a sports and entertainment non-fungible token (NFT) platform created by American football player Tom Brady, announced Wednesday that it received $170 million in Series B funding. 

The crypto-focused investment firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and the American venture firm Kleiner Perkins co-led the funding round. Additional participants include the venture firm 01A, Nicole Quinn from Lightspeed Partner and Katie Haun, who recently left a16z to run her own crypto fund. 

Haun will joining the Autograph board along with a16z general partner Arianna Simpson, Kleiner Perkins partner Ilya Fushman. Current Autograph board members include Autograph co-founders Richard Rosenblatt and Tom Brady, The Weeknd’s Abel Tesfaye and Sam Bankman-Fried among others. 

Autograph launched in April of 2021 to allow celebrities in sports, popular culture, fashion and entertainment to sell NFTs. Prominent figures using Autograph include Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, pro golfer Tiger Woods, baseball player Derek Jeter and the musician The Weeknd.

“Autograph has truly shown itself to be a rocketship in the past six months. Their NFT platform is delivering digital experiences that excite mainstream consumers, not just the crypto community,” said Arianna Simpson, general partner at a16z, in a release. 

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Non-fungible token (NFT) sales on the Solana blockchain surpassed $1 billion in total volume in January of 2022, according to the NFT sales tracker CryptoSlam!

Solana’s NFTs gained in popularity in the latter part of 2021 as Ethereum, the most popular blockchain for NFTs, experienced prohibitively high transaction fees.

 The first Solana NFT to break $1 million occurred on September 11, for a Degenerate Ape Academy NFT — part of a collection of 10,000 algorithmically generated 3D primates. The most expensive Solana NFT sold for $2.1 million nearly a month later.

Solana’s highest weekly trade volumes reached $160.39 million on August 29, 2021, according to data from The Block. However, trading volumes for Solana-based NFTs still pale in comparison with the Ethereum-based market, and Solana lacks high-profile NFT projects akin to Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks.

Nonetheless, healthy investment in the Solana NFT space has continued into the new year, as seen with the NFT protocol Metaplex raising $46 million through a SAFT sale on January 18.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Crypto exchange Gemini continues to put to work its war-chest of capital, acquiring trading platform Omniex to offer more institutional services to its clientele.

In a press release shared Wednesday, the New York-based firm said that it acquired Omniex to launch Gemini Prime, a new prime brokerage. The firm plans to integrate Omniex with its existing custody offering and over-the-counter trading services. While Gemini has provided services to large investors for several years with custody and OTC, the acquisition will allow it to provide clients with more complex trading tools and access to external liquidity sources. 

A spokeswoman declined to comment on the terms of the deal. 

“There has been unprecedented demand among institutional investors for access to the full breadth of the digital asset ecosystem over the past year and Gemini has been building an institutional business focused on providing the best crypto trading technology available,” the firm said. 

Founded by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, Gemini raised $400 million in outside capital in its first-ever funding round, clinching a $7 billion valuation. It follows Coinbase, BlockFi, and several other market participants that have entered the prime services market in an effort to diversify revenues outside of the matching buyers and sellers.   

This is the firm’s second acquisition this year. Gemini announced its acquisition of BITRIA, a firm that offers portfolio management services, last week. 

Omniex was founded by Hu Liang and John Burnett. Both will join Gemini’s new prime division. 

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek has confirmed that the crypto exchange did suffer a security breach, as reported this week. Appearing on Bloomberg TV on Wednesday, Marszalek stated that about 400 accounts were affected in the hack.

Marszalek stated that the attackers carried out unauthorized withdrawals from the affected accounts but that the company was able to swiftly stem the tide.

“We very quickly stopped it, we paused withdrawals, we fixed it [and] we were back online in about 13/14 hours and during the same day, all the accounts that were affected very fully reimbursed, so there was no loss of customer funds,” Marszalek stated, during the interview.

The Block Crypto had previously reported that security experts and on-chain analysts had traced suspicious withdrawals from Crypto.com to the tune of about $33 million. The theft is believed to consist of at least 4,830 ETH ($15 million) and 444 BTC ($18.5 million).

Marszalek did not confirm the exact monetary value of the theft, stating that the exchange is still working on a post-mortem on the security breach and that the result will be published on the company’s blog in the next few days.

The Crypto.com CEO did dismiss any significant financial fallout from the breach. Referring to the amount stolen by the hackers, Marszalek said that the number was “not particularly material” given the size of the business.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

NFTs have come under a lot of criticism for “destroying the planet”  — a debatable topic that should largely disappear when Ethereum switches consensus mechanisms this year and its impact on the environment shrinks.

But what’s definitely being destroyed are real-world assets as their owners recreate them using NFTs, in the hope of selling them for more money.

It’s a habit that, quite frankly, needs to stop.

The first major example of this was when NFT platform Burnt Finance literally burned a certified Banksy piece called Morons before recreating it as an NFT and selling it for $400,000 — four times more than the physical artwork was valued.

Then, the owner of a drawing by Jean-Michel Basquiat offered an NFT of the artwork for sale, with the option that, at the buyer’s wishes, the original could be destroyed. Luckily, this was duly cancelled after the estate said that the owner did not have the rights to create such a derivative piece.

A few months later, the founder of audiobook platform MySoundWise, Natasha Che, tweeted: “If you make a NFT of a real diamond, and the diamond itself gets destroyed in a fire tomorrow, you still have the same asset.” After much mockery of this idea, Che set out to do exactly that. She bought a diamond for $5,000, smashed it with a hammer and sold an NFT of it for $17,600. (Although the jury’s still out on whether this exactly proved her point.)

While there haven’t been too many victims of this tokenization trend, the idea is still present and keeps cropping up. The latest proposal is to destroy a rare book and it has certainly ruffled some feathers.

A rare copy of the book Dune

In November, 2021, NFT collector Soban Saqib spent $2.9 million on a rare copy of the book Dune — one that was presented in order to sell the idea of turning it into a screenplay — according to Buzzfeed. He did so on behalf of SpiceDAO, a group of crypto enthusiasts pooling their funds together, in a similar vein to the plan to buy an early copy of the US Constitution. 

The group was excited by the purchase and had big plans for it. They intended to make the book public, produce an animated series inspired by the book and to support community-driven derivative projects based on it. 

Only there was a big flaw: they own the book but not the copyright. This means that the group will struggle to achieve any of the three presented ideas.

While the group appears to be continuing down its path regardless, one of its community members has proposed an alternative solution (although one not necessarily void of the same problems). 

As you may have guessed, he wants to destroy the book.

A plan to burn the book

The person who proposed the idea is a former electrical engineer who goes by the moniker Xatarrer. They’re known for trying to upload a 1 MB image to the Ethereum blockchain through a series of progressive uploads (with each successive image improving in quality). A project that’s so far about 25% there.

Xatarrer wants to apply a similar idea to the Dune book. Except that unlike most NFTs that simply store links to images stored elsewhere on the web, they want to upload images of every page of the book in their entirety to the Ethereum blockchain. 

It’s unclear how many pages there are in the book, but at Xatarrer’s estimates it will cost 18 ETH ($56,000) to upload each page in terms of transaction fees. So if the book has 200 pages, that would cost $11.2 million to create the NFTs.

Once the book has been uploaded to the blockchain in its entirety, it would be available for anyone to access. This would include all of the pages, which is slightly more than what is currently available online (uploaded to just the normal web) but not by a huge amount — begging the question whether it’s really worth it.

And then, Xatarrer proposed, the book could be destroyed as an “incredible marketing stunt” with the goal of enhancing the value of the on-chain images of the book.

They told The Block that in the DAO’s early days, many members joked about doing this and he thought he would create a serious proposal with the burning of the book as an option. “It is my belief that on-chain storage is more likely to survive than the physical object itself. Also it aligns well with a book about science fiction,” they said.

Only the proposal was not received well.

“And we wonder why people hate crypto. I’m ashamed to have enabled someone to even think about doing this,” wrote Ethereum tech lead Péter Szilágyi. 

Rotki app founder Lefteris Karapetsas agreed. He said, “Us non-normies here think that this is a really bad move. Some of the stuff you lay out in that post is really cool. Don’t let it be smeared by actually destroying the physical copy of the book.”

It seems that with this backlash, the proposal to burn the book is unlikely to catch hold. Xatarrer said, “It says (optional) in the proposal and so far the sentiment is quite negative, so I don’t think you need to worry about the book.”

So, at least this time, the rare artifact should be safe.

But perhaps it’s the idea of burning rare items like books — in the hope of making a bit of extra cash — that should be destroyed instead.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.