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Prosecutor turned crypto venture capitalist Katie Haun is looking to raise nearly $900 million for a new venture firm. 

Haun, who joined a16z as a partner for its crypto investing unit in 2018, left the firm at the end of last year, as reported by Axios at the time. Now, Haun’s new firm —dubbed KRH— is in the process of raising the money across different venture funds, according to sources familiar with the investment firm’s plans. 

Haun has secured a16z as a limited partner for the new fund, according to sources. And the two firms are expected to have an informal relationship and collaborate together, a source said. 

The Financial Times first reported details of the firm’s fundraising efforts. 

As per the Financial Times, the two funds will include a $300 million fund that will make early-stage investments in cryptocurrency startups and another $600 million fund will focus on investments in larger companies and digital tokens. 

Crowded market

Haun’s new fund joins an increasingly crowded market of venture capitalists seeking crypto riches. Paradigm and a16z are among the firms that last year announced multi-billion dollar venture funds. Elsewhere, traditional venture capitalists such as Sequoia and Point72 Ventures are keen to increase their presence in the crypto venture market.  

Haun joined Andreessen Horowitz in 2018 as the firm’s first female general partner, where she co-chaired the firm’s three crypto funds and co-led a $2.2 billion fund focused on crypto. Haun currently sits on the board for OpenSea and Coinbase, according to her LinkedIn. 

Earlier this week, Haun’s new fund made an investment in OpenSea’s $300 million Series C funding round. While at a16z, she previously led the NFT platform’s Series A and B rounds.

Haun will be joined by several other a16z colleagues, including Rachael Horwitz, who was a16z’s crypto head of marketing and communications, Nick Pacilio, the firm’s former head of crypto media relations, Tomicah Tillemann, a16z’s former global head of policy and partner focused on web3, and James Rathmell, who had been crypto counsel at the firm. 

© 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.

Pantera Capital, an American hedge fund that manages over $6.4 billion in blockchain-related assets, has now reached $63.7 million in funding from 153 investors for its Bitcoin Feeder Fund, a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing shows. 

Through the Bitcoin Feeder Fund, investors can indirectly partake in Pantera’s Bitcoin Fund — a passive bitcoin tracker that gives investors daily equity without the need to buy and safeguard the cryptocurrency. The Bitcoin Feeder Fund had $18 million and 56 investors this last year, CoinDesk reports. 

In addition to bitcoin, Pantera has invested in a wide-range of tokens as well as equity in crypto startups. In a recent episode of The Scoop, Pantera’s Director of Portfolio Development Franklin Bi mentioned, for instance, that the hedge fund has been ramping up its investments in decentralized finance. Pantera has led multiple funding rounds for various startups such as the crypto staking platform Stader Finance and the non-fungible token (NFT) lending platform Arcade in 2021. 

Pantera Capital was founded in 2013 and currently has 80 early-stage token investments and 85 venture investments in its portfolio, according to the firm’s website.

© 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.

Coinbase is feeling the pain of the broader slump in cryptocurrency coin prices, but Wall Street analysts are rallying behind the company despite a months-long decline in the exchange’s share price. 

Coinbase Global Inc’s shares have fallen nearly 35% since November 9. And the price has fallen even more sharply this week, in line with the broader market for crypto public equities and tokens, which have been upended in part by anxieties that the Federal Reserve will more quickly hike interest rates — potentially limiting the liquidity boom that’s lifted asset prices from tech stocks to commodities. 

Despite this backdrop, Wall Street analysts have become increasingly bullish on Coinbase’s stock. This week, JPMorgan reemphasized its buy rating for the stock, while rival bank Bank of America cheekily suggested to clients to “put some coin into COIN” in its own buy rating. 

Bank of America’s upgrade was rooted in a thesis that Coinbase’s revenue diversification will accelerate away from trading-based transaction revenues, which has been the firm’s primary money maker. The firm charges juicy fees whenever its users buy or sell a cryptocurrency, but since it went public its executives have tried to emphasize promises that it will diversify its revenue base. 

Drivers of diversification for Coinbase will include staking, non-fungible tokens, and decentralized finance, according to Bank of America. 

“In our view, calling of these non-trading revenue streams could also catalyze increased interest in the stock among institutional investors,” Bank of America said. 

“While uncertainty around regulation remains an ongoing potential risk, we continue to believe that COIN’s technology/innovation and brand are positive differentiators as more consumers and institutions engage with various parts of the crypto/digital asset ecosystem,” it added. 

Bank of America’s price target for the stock sits at $340, an upside of more than 45% at the time of writing. The bank also noted potential upside to Coinbase’s projections for the fourth quarter. 

According to its analysis, the Bank of America increased its expectation for Coinbase’s annual revenue per unit to $45 from $30, anchored in the firm’s raised outlook for monthly transacting users. As such, it increased its net revenue forecast to $1.44 billion from $958 million. Coinbase’s net revenue in the third quarter of 2021 clocked in at $1.234 billion. 

© 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.

CoinDesk has formally joined the legal proceedings between Tether and the New York Attorney General in a case centering on the release of company documents to the news outlet.

The conflict dates back to June of last year, when CoinDesk filed a Freedom of Information Law request, or FOIL, in New York requesting documents detailing Tether’s reserve breakdown, which the stablecoin issuer and its parent company iFinex provided to the NYAG as part of a settlement agreement in February. New York’s Freedom of Information Law allows members of the public to submit requests for access to government records, including court documents.

The NYAG FOIL officer denied the request after a push from Tether’s attorneys. However, CoinDesk won access on an appeal.

Tether then attempted to block CoinDesk’s access to the documents it requested by asking a New York court to compel the state attorney general to deny the request on the grounds that the information would compromise its competitive edge. 

The intervention

As the battle over the disclosures continues, CoinDesk has now formally joined the legal proceedings, arguing for the denial of Tether’s petition to block access to the documents. Parties may “intervene” in a case if they are not originally named but have stake in the outcome of that case. It allows them to present their own arguments within the case.

In CoinDesk’s memorandum, the news outlet claimed Tether’s petition should be denied, firstly because the firm has not met its burden to claim an exemption, but more importantly because the public interest outweighs any competitive interest Tether might claim. 

“Petitioners have expressly committed to the OAG and the public to be transparent as to the extent to which Tether is backed by reserves and the composition of such reserves, on which they have a documented history of misleading the public,” said the filing.

It went on: “Yet Petitioners continue to treat the public with disdain, and this is now extended to CoinDesk, the OAG and this proceeding, as one of TOL’s top executives recently tweeted a crude, juvenile meme mocking CoinDesk’s Request. Petitioners’ evasion of public accountability must end.”

The Block had filed FOIL requests similar to CoinDesk’s, to which a FOIL officer responded that the requests could be exempt from the disclosure allowances based on a law that allows an agency to deny access to information disclosed to a public agency if that information contains “trade secrets.” Tether contends that the requested information would compromise its investment strategy, which it considers a trade secret. Additionally, it claims information in the documents could compromise partner relationships. 

For its part, CoinDesk has said that it is only interested in the documents detailing the breakdown of Tether’s reserves, which wouldn’t compromise the trade secrets or relationships Tether is referencing. Additionally, Tether has already committed to making the reserve breakdown public, argues CoinDesk. 

The response

In a response to CoinDesk’s intervention, Tether pointed out that the FOIL officer initially agreed with its request to block the release, and argued that the appeal overturning that decision occurred “without any meaningful explanation.”

It also pointed out that CoinDesk shares an investor, Digital Currency Group, with issuer of the USDC stablecoin, Circle. Tether claims that Circle constitutes a competitor to Tether, and that CoinDesk’s coverage does not disclose DCG’s investment to readers. 

“Weaponizing the media does a disservice to the ecosystem,” Tether said in a statement. “Tether welcomes healthy competition in the space but not when others do so without truth, honour, and respect.”

Today, CoinDesk updated its Jan. 4 article on its intervention in the legal case with an “automatic disclosure” of DCG’s investment.

© 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-focused venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has put out its vision for the future of crypto regulation. It’s the latest in a flurry of such proposals from industry players.

Also known as a16z, Andreessen Horowitz today released its “10 Principles for World leaders Shaping the Future of Web3,” a brief document that aims to ground ongoing international policy debates around crypto.

The principles themselves are not especially bombastic. They emphasize the need “to harmonize standards and regulatory frameworks” among nations and calibrate risk for various web3 activities — sentiments that, on the surface, few would disagree with. But as always with policy, the devil is in the details. 

A16z’s statement of principles resembles similar publications from crypto exchanges Binance, FTX and Coinbase. As the future of crypto seems more and more of a regulatory question, the industry’s largest players have become more vocal about what they think policymakers should do.

These firms have radically stepped up their policy activities since August, part of an industry-wide surge following the fight over crypto tax reporting language in the US Congress’s infrastructure package. Indeed, both authors of a16z’s pillars, Tomicah Tillemann and James Rathmell, joined the firm around the same time. Heavy hitters like former Commodity Futures Trading Commission leader Brian Quintenz and former Department of Justice section chief Jai Ramaswamy subsequently joined a16z as well. 

© 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.

Coinbase, the first crypto exchange to issue stock publicly in the U.S., has had a rocky couple of months. Government data reveals that company insiders and early investors have been part of a significant selloff. 

Per beneficial ownership data gathered by the Securities and Exchange Commission and easier to browse on Dataroma, major players sold $40,631,394 worth of COIN over the course of December. The SEC requires these disclosures of company officers and directors, as well as any shareholders who possess 10% or more of the company’s outstanding stock.

In the three months to date, total sales from insiders amounted to $331,744,516. Those insiders reported zero purchases during either timeframe. 

Co-founder and board director Fred Ehrsam, now also the co-founder of crypto VC firm Paradigm, sold COIN worth $31,369,991 over the course of December. In the same timeframe, chief product officer Surojit Chatterjee sold $9,007,797 worth of Coinbase stock, while chief accounting officer Jennifer Jones sold $253,606.

According to NASDAQ, Coinbase’s all-time high was within days of its April listing, hitting roughly $388. More recently, it peaked at just under $370 a share on November 9, alongside Bitcoin’s all-time high. 

Coinbase’s stock price. Source: NASDAQ

The SEC data shows that Coinbase saw a major insider selloff in early November, featuring many players on the 8th and the 15th. The 4th, however, saw Ehrsam make a single sale worth $63,001,342.

December saw COIN drop from $315 to $252. Today, January 7, COIN is bouncing around the low $220s, with a market cap of $50.095 billion. Relative to that total market cap and daily average volume of over 3 million shares, the sales by insiders are relatively small. 

A representative for Coinbase had not responded to The Block’s request for comment as of press time.

As Coinbase’s November 9 peak reflected Bitcoin’s all-time high, its more recent performance appears to reflect broader declines in both crypto and traditional equities markets. 

© 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.

Latin American cryptocurrency exchange Bitso has inked a three-year sponsorship deal with Brazilian soccer club São Paulo Futebol Clube (SPFC) as it works to expand its reach in the country. 

Bitso said in a press release that the club will feature its logo on its jerseys, and that “both entities are already working together to enable purchases and tickets through cryptocurrencies.” The deal will enable extra perks and experiences for fans of the football club, and “Bitso fans” will have access to a reserved part of the stadium. The sponsorship starts this month. 

Yahoo Sports’ Portuguese site reported on Dec. 15 that the three-year deal was worth $40.5 million Brazilian reais (about $7.1 million). When asked to confirm that amount, a Bitso spokesperson said the value came from an “unconfirmed leak” and that the exchange was not disclosing the amount of the sponsorship. 

Bitso’s CEO Daniel Vogel told The Block in December 2020 that it would use its $62 million in Series B funding to build its presence in Brazil. The exchange then completed a $250 million Series C round in May, making it a crypto unicorn. 

© 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.

© 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 Incentive Ecosystem Foundation, a community-led foundation of Project Serum, has raised $100 million in a new funding round. Serum is a Solana-based decentralized exchange and liquidity infrastructure platform.

Tiger Global, Commonwealth Asset Management, Tagus Capital, executives at Golden Tree Asset Management, and several other investors participated in the round.

This was a token funding round where investors were offered a bunch of different tokens at a discount to their market price, JHL, a contributor to Project Serum, told The Block. These tokens are Serum (SRM), Solana (SOL), Raydium (RAY), Bonfida (FIDA), Oxygen (OXY), Maps.me (MAPS), Liquid Finance (LQID), and Pyth Network (PYTH), said JHL.

All these tokens are part of the Solana and Serum ecosystems. They were offered at a 15% discount to their market price, except for PYTH, which was provided at its latest seed round valuation, said JHL.

Investors face a six-year lock-in period for the tokens — a one-year cliff and then five years of linear vesting daily — said JHL.

Growing the Serum ecosystem

The Incentive Ecosystem Foundation plans to grow the Serum ecosystem with fresh capital in place. Fifteen percent of the money, or $15 million, will be allocated for this purpose, said JHL.

Through this ecosystem fund, the foundation plans to support upcoming Serum projects across areas such as DeFi, NFT, and gaming. The foundation also plans to offer business development and marketing support to such projects.

The rest of the capital will be utilized toward growth initiatives for Project Serum, such as hosting hackathons and hiring, said JHL.

There are currently over 70 projects in the Serum ecosystem. The total value locked (TVL) of these projects is nearly $2 billion, according to tracker Vybe Network.

Project Serum has been aiming to attract more projects and users to its platform. In October, its community approved the launch of a $100 million liquidity mining program. Liquidity mining is a process in which crypto holders lend assets to a decentralized exchange in return for rewards. This program is separate from the ecosystem fund, said JHL.

This is not the first time the Incentive Ecosystem Foundation has raised funds, but it hasn’t disclosed funding amounts of its previous rounds.

The foundation’s latest round is notable because investment giants such as Tiger Global backed it. As The Block reported recently, big venture capital firms are more frequently embracing token deals. Last month, Tiger Global also participated in Braintrust’s $100 million token sale in its first-ever such deal.

© 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.

Quick Take

• This weekly series explores the most interesting insights in NFTs, blockchain gaming, and virtual worlds
• Over the last week, NFT trading activity on Ethereum, in particular, has been celebrating a meteoric comeback
• In the blockchain gaming sphere, the trading card game category is starting to distinguish itself as a flourishing hotbed of innovative game mechanics while virtual world projects are beginning to pop up on other chains

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