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Social token platform Rally has hired Rob Collier, formerly the head of consumer legal for Meta’s Novi, as its general counsel, the project announced Thursday. 

Collier’s hire is the latest in a series of additions to Rally’s executive team. The firm brought on Bremner Morris from Patreon to lead the company as chief executive officer after the exit of Kevin Chou. Chou is working on another project in the digital asset market. 

During Collier’s time at Novi head managed a product counsel team that worked on the launch of Novi’s crypto wallet. Novi’s wallet went live in a beta earlier this year through a partnership with Paxos. Collier also explored opportunities for Meta to enter the NFT market during his time with the company. 

Collier is joining Rally at a period of growth for the project, which helps artists and other types of creators launch blockchain-based tokens tied to the social capital of that person. The project offers a toolkit that allows creators to leverage tokens to engage with their fan base.

The project partnered with United Talent Agency, an agency that represents clients like Demi Lovato, Seth Rogan, and Harrison Ford. The deal provides a pipeline of new creators for Rally and has “boosted business,” according to a spokesperson. 

Metexit 

To an extent, Collier’s departure points to the uncertainty that hangs over Novi.  It also follows that of several other key individuals from Meta — formerly known as Facebook — and its blockchain and crypto efforts specifically.

David Marcus, who led the business overseeing Novi, announced last month that he will be leaving the company at the end of the year. In September, The Block reported that cLabs hired Eric Nakagawa from Facebook’s Novi, where he was in charge of open-source strategy. 

Investment firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) announced earlier this month that it invested in Mysten Labs, a blockchain and Web3 development company co-founded by four ex-Meta employees.

Former Anchorage engineers Riyaz Faizullabhoy and Nassim Eddequiouaq, who were both previously hired to work on blockchain security and infrastructure at Meta, joined a16z Crypto in October.

© 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.

Former first lady Melania Trump announced on Twitter Thursday that she is launching a non-fungible token (NFT) platform.

The first NFT for sale is a watercolor portrait of Trump’s eyes called “Melania’s Vision,” available for 1 SOL (~ $188 USD) between December 15 and December 31, 2021. 

Trump also intends to release more NFTs in January 2022 and will allegedly donate some of the proceeds to children aging out of the foster care system. 

Parler, a right wing social media platform, powers Trump’s new NFT endeavor. Parler had come under fire earlier this year for its connection to the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot and faced difficulty remaining online as major web hosts like Amazon Web Services cut it off. 

The crypto payment infrastructure firm MoonPay is facilitating credit card payments for Trump’s NFTs. Based in the UK, MoonPay has been helping celebrities like Post Malone and Jimmy Fallon get into NFTs.

© 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 Senate confirmed Rostin Behnam as the next chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission amid a flurry of late evening confirmations on December 15.

Behnam has served as the acting chair since the beginning of the Biden administration in January, prior to which he had been a commissioner since 2017. In the role, Behnam will succeed Heath Tarbert, who many viewed as an ally to the crypto industry. 

At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Agriculture Committee in October, Behnam asked Congress to expand the CFTC’s power over cryptocurrency markets.

While the authority in spot rather than futures markets is currently limited to enforcement actions against market manipulation and fraud, there has been a growing push to build a regulatory regime for cryptocurrency spot markets at the CFTC. 

Meanwhile, Gary Gensler, who chairs the Securities and Exchange Commission, has been laying the political groundwork to treat the major centralized crypto exchanges as securities exchanges, putting them within an existing SEC regime that has been none too kind to the securities token platforms that have tried to register within it. 

© 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.

In 2021, The Block Research produced more than 300 unique pieces of research for our research members. The 2022 Digital Asset Outlook Report, commissioned by GSR, looks at the most important cryptocurrency developments in 2021 and looks ahead to the future of the space in the coming years.

The 160-page report covers 8 different sectors within the cryptocurrency industry to watch for in 2022:

1. The state of the market
2. Investment trends
3. Institutional custody
4. Layer-1 and Layer-2 platforms
5. Decentralized finance (DeFi)
6. Web3
7. NFT/Blockchain gaming
8. Macroeconomics

You can download the full report by completing the form below: 

Summary

• Market performance: Layer-1 platforms and doge-themed “memecoins” were the breakout winners in 2021. 
• State of mining: China’s crackdown has created an opportunity for overseas bitcoin mining operations and has already led to an infrastructure boom in North America, Russia, Central Asia and Europe.
• Investment trends: 2021 saw an uptick in unicorn status crypto companies. DeFi verticals and NFT/Gaming verticals received the most funding this year. 
• NFT/Gaming funding: Digital card collectible games will be worth following into 2022, as if any of these projects gain a little traction.
• Decentralized finance (DeFi): Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has soared above $100 billion this year as the ecosystem continues to mature.
• Layer-1: Major developments for cross-chain bridges have become important gateways for enabling the seamless flow of capital throughout the crypto ecosystem. 
• Layer-2: With Ethereum 2.0 shard chains scheduled for 2022, coupled with the possibility of token distribution to decentralize L2 sequencer nodes, rollups are poised for even greater adoption in 2022.
• NFT/Gaming: The gaming business model saw a major shift in 2021
• NFT/Web3: All the developments related to scaling solutions mean that Ethereum is likely to remain the first step in onboarding users to NFTs and web 3.0. 
• Non-dollar stablecoins: Euro stablecoins will likely gain adoption in the coming years. First, Euro is the second-largest group of stablecoins. There already exist two liquid Euro-pegged stablecoins in the DeFi space. 

About GSR

GSR is a crypto market maker and ecosystem partner.

Founded in 2013, we specialize in providing liquidity, risk management strategies and structured products to sophisticated global investors in the digital assets industry.

We have a culture of approaching complex problems with tenacity and imagination. We build long-term relationships by offering exceptional service, expertise and trading capabilities tailored to the specific needs of our clients.

GSR works with token issuers, traders, investors, funds, miners, and cryptocurrency exchanges around the world. GSR is an investor in more than 100 projects building the future of finance and technology. We form lasting partnerships with our portfolio companies through our suite of services and global team of over 190 cryptofinance professionals. Find out more about GSR here.

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© 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.

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this Genesis research on The Block.

Quick take:

• Leading yield platform CoinFLEX is the first centralized exchange to launch a DAO
  
• CoinFLEX will distribute 10% of daily revenue and 10% of quarterly profits to FLEXDAO stakers
  
• CoinFLEX aims to grow the platform collectively through community feedback by decentralizing various parts of their decision-making process

CoinFLEX, a leading crypto exchange and yield platform, has become the first centralized exchange to launch a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), called FLEXDAO, allowing users to receive daily and quarterly rewards from CoinFLEX. FLEXDAO is built on SmartBCH, the sidechain for the Bitcoin Cash blockchain.

FLEXDAO Economics

CoinFLEX uses a deflationary mechanism to buy and burn 10% of their daily revenue and 10% of quarterly profits, according to their whitepaper. CoinFLEX will be distributing these rewards to FLEX Coin stakers. This encourages the long-term success of FLEX Coin, CoinFLEX’s exchange token, by preventing locked tokens from being sold during volatile market activity. 

Users are only required to stake a minimum of 1 FLEX Coin to participate in the FLEXDAO. There are multiple staking periods to choose from, ranging from 2 weeks to 4 years.

This information benefits the existing members of the FLEX Coin ecosystem and potential investors. Specifically, it will provide insight into the number of long-term FLEX Coin holders who have staked FLEX Coin compared to short-term FLEX Coin speculators. 

FLEXDAO Transparency

The launch of FLEXDAO will provide immediate information to FLEX Coin holders, namely a nuanced insight into the activity and behavior of the native platform token.

For example, suppose an investor sees that 30% of the total FLEX supply is being locked for one year. In that case, the FLEX Coin price is theoretically less prone to market volatility as at least 30% of the FLEX Coin supply cannot be sold during that period.

FLEXDAO will also be a more transparent communication channel for the CoinFLEX community, whose members will have governance and voting capabilities to voice opinions on many of the decisions affecting the CoinFLEX ecosystem. 

Democratizing Decision-making

As the first CEX to launch a DAO, CoinFLEX sets a powerful and bold precedent for companies to put their customers’ interests first by decentralizing the platform’s decision-making process. 

CoinFLEX has a vision to build collectively with their community members and believes community feedback will be critical to their growth and success. 

In the long run, their goal is to take discussions around product management to the public and actively engage the community in developing the company’s plans.

For more details about FLEXDAO, you can visit: https://coinflex.com/dao

About CoinFLEX

Founded in 2019, CoinFLEX is the Home of Crypto Yield and is committed to providing passive investors and active traders an easily accessible platform to earn and trade crypto.

CoinFLEX creates innovative solutions to bring investors and crypto markets together through intuitive yield products such as flexUSD, the world’s first interest-earning stablecoin, and AMM+, the most-capital efficient automated market maker in the world. CoinFLEX is backed by crypto heavyweights, including Roger Ver, Mike Komaransky, Polychain Capital, and Dragonfly Capital.

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© 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 analytics startup Nansen has secured its next fundraise at a $750 million valuation, in a round led by Accel, according to several investors close to the deal.

The news was first reported by Reuters, which stated that the startup has secured $75 million in a round featuring existing backer a16z and Tiger Global. But Reuters did not specify a valuation. 

The deal comes less than six months on from the Singapore-based startup’s $12 million Series A raise — which was led by a16z.

Nansen was contacted for comment but did not respond by press time. 

Accel, one of the world’s foremost venture capital firms, has backed a number of blockchain-based businesses — including monitoring startup Tenderly, gaming firm Sky Mavis, and FalconX, the trading platform.

Besides a16z, other earlier backers of Nansen include Skyfall Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, imToken Ventures, Mechanism Capital and QCP Capital.

Data rush

Launched in 2020, Nansen is an analytics platform that pairs blockchain data with ‘millions of wallet labels,’ according to its website. It is known for its ability to track what high-value investors are doing on-chain. Investors use the platform to assess opportunities and to stay on top of their portfolios with real-time alerts.

In a blog post after its Series A raise in June, the company said it had seen revenues increase over 1,000 times from a low base of a few hundred dollars when it first launched. At that time, the business employed 30 people.

Nansen planned to use the $12 million raised in June to offer more personalization for users; for hiring and acquisitions; and to add support for additional blockchains and layer 2 solutions, such as Polygon. Up to now, it has focused on Ethereum data.

Crypto analytics companies have been popular with investors lately, with Kaiko, Messari, Coin Metrics, CryptoCompare, Dune Analytics and DappRadar all raising in recent months.

The types of investors leading these rounds is also eye-catching. Goldman Sachs led Coin Metrics’ $15 million Series B in May, while Steven Cohen’s Point72 Ventures led Messari’s $21 million round in August.

© 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.

While the GameFi space has been pumped plump with institutional investment in recent months, the landscape of playable games in the ecosystem remains limited.

Most titles thus far have tried to emulate the format of Axie Infinity, where success is directly correlated to the hours spent played. Launched Thursday, vEmpire takes a different approach, modeling itself after the many strategy-based card games that have found their place in gaming communities for decades.

The game is a head-to-head battle between two players who can choose to be either Romulus or Remus, the sons of the god Mars and grandsons of king of Alba Longa, in the game (and a nod to the foundational myth of the city of Rome).

Players agree before the start of the game how much VEMP, which is the platform’s in-game digital currency, to wager in a winner-take-all format. Each player is then given a “legion” of 25 cards in their hand, each with different troops of varying abilities.

Both players take turns laying down a different card to earn points, and whoever earns the most points in two of the three rounds is declared the champion. Players can purchase non-fungible tokens (NFT) of specific cards to use to gain a competitive advantage.

vEmpire launched in July as a staking project for metaverse tokens such as MANA and SAND, with a pro-decentralization pitch of “invading” Decentraland. The buildout of the vEmpire world serves as a gaming interface for VEMP holders.

“We have been working to get this game out for the past few months whilst expanding all of our reaches across the metaverse,” Dom Ryder, founder of vEmpire, said via Telegram. “This game is called ‘vEmpire: The Beginning’ for a reason, we have lots more to come and this will be played across all metaverses available on our staking platform.”

UPDATE: (Dec. 16 18:57 UTC): Corrects the background of Romulus and Remus.

Dutch payments company Silverflow said on Thursday that it has raised a $17 million Series A round led by Coatue Management. 

It will use the money to nearly triple its team from 24 people to 70, for expansion into the US, and to strengthen its balance sheet, according to a press release. 

The fundraise is also backed by previous investors Crane Venture Partners and INKEF Capital, as well as angel investors Jason Gardner, founder and CEO of Marqeta, and Gokul Rajaram, a former Square product lead and current Coinbase board member. 

Silverflow hopes to disrupt the world of back-end banking tech, which it says is predominantly run on legacy platforms that are 30 to 40 years old. It claims to be the first cloud-native card payments platform.

The software gives payment processors, acquirers, and merchants a connection to card networks through APIs.

“The global payments industry is up for renewal, and we’ve built the modern payments processing platform to bring it up to date,” said Anne Willem de Vries, CEO and co-founder of Silverflow.

Payments posse

Having launched earlier this year, the startup’s customers already include the likes of Deutsche Bank, PayU, and IXOPay.

Silverflow’s founding team includes heavyweights from the payments world. Willem de Vries previously focused on card acquiring and processing at Adyen, while chief business development officer Robert Kraal was once Adyen’s COO, prior to which he served stints at Worldpay and Bibit. 

“The founder-market fit is the first thing we noted when looking at the Silverflow team,” said Michael Gilroy, general partner at Coatue. “The depth of experience within payments gives this team a unique perspective from which to solve a problem plaguing the industry – outdated infrastructure.”

The deal was first reported by Insider in October, which cited Silverflow’s 13-slide pitch deck. 

© 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.

As 2021 comes to a close, Copper’s head of research Fadi Aboualfa joined The Block’s VP of Research Larry Cermak and host Frank Chaparro to unpack the trends that shaped the crypto market this year as well as the future dynamics that might be on the horizon.

Aboualfa highlighted the ascent of so-called meme cryptocurrencies like dogecoin and shiba inu, which surged in value this year. Aboualfa said their rise is tied to strong social and community elements.

“There’s a social aspect to that price appreciation,” he said. “But we’ve got to remember that bitcoin also started as a social coin. Bitcoin started by a couple of people who really believed in it and started becoming very vocal about it.”

“Crypto markets can be extremely irrational and they can become extremely rational,” he added.

Another trend unpacked by Aboualfa was the race to become the next Ethereum killer. Projects like Avalanche and Solana are among the layer-1s that have seen their price surge as investors appear to believe that these blockchains might be superior to Ethereum.

Ultimately, Aboualfa and Cermak both agreed that the crypto markets won’t face a prolonged bear market akin to the one that occurred in 2018, but markets will face volatility and short-term setbacks. Cermak outlined two major risks in 2022 that markets face:

“One is that, you know, central banks are now starting to hint at tapering measures, starting to hint at being less aggressive when it comes to just responding to Covid and responding to the situation. That, I think, can have a very negative effect when the market starts pricing in that the central banks are going to be way more conservative.”

“Second risk that I think is pretty real, but I think it’s now smaller after what I’ve seen yesterday at the hearing, is the regulatory risk in the US,” he added, referring to the recent hearing on crypto hosted by the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services.

© 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.