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Quick Take

• TransferGo recently closed a $50 million Series C round co-led by Elbrus Venture Fund III and Black River Ventures.
• The Wise rival has been exploring whether decentralized technologies could make the remittance process more efficient.  

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Solana Ventures, the investment arm of Solana Labs, announced Tuesday a new $150 million fund to back blockchain gaming startups.

The fund has been launched in partnership with Forte, a blockchain gaming startup that recently raised $725 million in new funding, and Griffin Gaming Partners, a VC firm focused on the gaming sector and a lead investor in Forte.

The fund backed by the trio is denominated in dollars and not in Solana (SOL) tokens, a Solana Labs spokesperson told The Block. It plans to invest in gaming startups building on the Solana blockchain. Solana Ventures contends that the network’s throughput of 65,000 transactions per second and average per-transaction cost of $0.00025 makes it an ideal blockchain for gaming applications.

The new fund will invest in startups’ equity as well as token rounds and expects to be fully deployed over the next 18 months, said the spokesperson.

This is the second blockchain gaming-focused fund Solana Ventures has announced. Last month, the firm launched a $100 million fund in partnership with Lightspeed Venture Partners and FTX.

Blockchain gaming has seen an increased investment activity in recent months, as The Block has reported previously. 

© 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 United States-based crypto exchange FTX US announced today that it has entered a deal with the Golden State Warriors professional basketball team. As part of the deal, the Warriors will create and launch non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and FTX US will be the main hub for the team’s digital asset launches. 

The Warriors, which are based in San Francisco, intend to release NFTs FTX US’s NFT marketplace beginning in early 2022, according to a release. They will include digital collectibles of the Warriors’ six NBA Championship rings and 10 commemorative ticket stubs. 

In addition, FTX US will also donate one bitcoin to three charities based in the Bay Area, all of which aim to improve diversity in STEM and tech. 

“The FTX US NFT Platform will provide a leading, safe and secure venue for the Warriors international fan base to access exclusive collectibles from the franchise,” said FTX US President Brett Harrison in the release. 

FTX US has made a focused effort to expand into sports and entertainment via its NFT marketplace. In November, it signed a deal with the University of Kentucky basketball team aimed at allowing players to create and sell their own 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.

Quick Take

• In our first of many research pieces on crypto mining, we look at the evolution of the ecosystem over the past decade.
• Since the Bitcoin ASIC mining era in 2013, manufacturers have managed to improve miner efficiency by 100 times. 
• Mining farms have transformed from small facilities to publicly-listed companies with hundreds of megawatts in their production pipelines.

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Quick Take

• Polygon recently announced the acquisition of MIR protocol, a zk-SNARK rollup
• Polygon also recently launched Polygon Miden, the first open-sourced STARK-based rollup framework
• Polygon has previously started exploring the ZK-rollup space, with its acquisition of Hermez Network and partnership with EY for Polygon Nightfall
• Polygon’s PoS chain has seen increased adoption but this success may not translate directly for their suite of ZK solutions by the time they are production-ready

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members of The Block Genesis.
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this Genesis research on The Block.

Crypto financial services firm NYDIG announced Tuesday the completion of a $1 billion funding round that values the company at $7 billion

The round was led by growth equity firm WestCap with participation from other backers like Bessemer Venture Partners, FinTech Collective, Affirm, Fiserv, MassMutual, New York Life, Morgan Stanley, and FIS.

NYDIG said it will use the fresh capital to expand its institutional-grade bitcoin platform including support for Lightning Network payments, smart contracts, and asset tokenization, the announcement stated.

The funding announcement comes on the back of significant growth for NYDIG especially in its push to enable access to bitcoin for U.S. bank customers. A significant piece of the firm’s business is helping large institutions and investors access the bitcoin market. Notably, it helped insurance giant Mass Mutual purchase a $100 million bitcoin stake, which the firm announced at the end of December.

In October, NYDIG acquired British bitcoin outfit Bottlepay in a $300 million stock purchase.

Tuesday’s announcement is also another pointer to the massive investment pull associated with crypto businesses in recent times. Despite the prevailing market downturn, crypto-related businesses continue to attract significant venture capital backing at astronomical valuations.

© 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

• Atomic is a computer science term that generally means “irreducible” and “Atomicity” is the first word in the acronym ACID as it relates to guaranteeing transaction integrity in database technologies 
• In the context of trading, an Atomic Swap or Atomic Exchange means to exchange one asset for another as a single logical transaction (irreducible) that is implemented in a way where it is either a total success or a total failure (guaranteed transaction integrity)
• Bilateral settlement is the opposite of Atomic Exchange and is high risk (e.g., counterparty 1 goes first and sends assets to counterparty 2 and hopes counterparty 2 will send assets to counterparty 1 in return – this is how most of the crypto market functions today and is not acceptable to fiduciaries and regulated institutions) 
• Atomic Exchange on the Bosonic Network is real-time, high-frequency execution on a Layer 2 multi-custodian blockchain network 
• Bosonic’s Layer 2 can support real-time Atomic Exchange between clients with assets at a Custodian, including Fiat currencies, and clients that self-custody Crypto in their own wallet, by leveraging Layer 1 Smart Contracts
• Trade execution on the Bosonic Network is on-chain, i.e., the trade is the settlement  

Cross-chain Atomic Swaps (aka Atomic Exchange) have existed since 2013 with Hashed Timelock Contracts (HTLCs).  In 2018, Bosonic was the first company in the world to perform an Atomic Exchange between Fiat and Crypto using a Layer 2 blockchain solution with no credit or settlement risk for the trading counterparties.

The problem with Layer 1 Atomic Swaps is that they only work for assets that are natively digital and on-chain, and they are processed one-by-one using Layer 1 transactions with standard gas fees and network transaction times, besides the delay of the timelock variable in the Smart Contract.  Atomic swaps are slow and cause the counterparties to be illiquid for an extended period of time and create a “free option” problem due to the length of the timelock variable that extends well beyond initial price discovery.  Atomic Swaps using HTLCs can actually have some counterparty risk because of how the “shared secret” allows for assets on both sides to be withdrawn, which, when coupled with the timelock expiry, could result in one of the counterparties withdrawing both assets.  

While this may be acceptable for one-off trades between technically sophisticated individuals that are willing to take certain risks, institutional and high-frequency trading must operate at much higher velocity without physically moving assets on Layer 1 for each trading transaction, and without such risks.  Layer 2 solutions seek to address this problem, but implementations vary widely and generally are pegged to a particular public ledger protocol, usually Ethereum, and may not be suitable for certain use cases.

The Bosonic Network™ is a permissioned multi-custodian Layer 2 blockchain network that makes it possible to tokenize any asset a custodian holds on behalf of their clients, whether non-natively digital like Fiat currencies or natively digital like Crypto.  This type of Layer 2 network maintains cryptographic provability of the underlying assets and the ownership chain, much like a Layer 1 public blockchain protocol does, but with extremely high-performance Atomic Exchange that is integrated into traditional trading technology.  Because of how the Layer 2 is architected, it can bridge between assets that are not natively digital and all Layer 1 protocols.

An Atomic Exchange on the Bosonic Network is implemented as follows:

1. Clients hold assets in their own accounts at custodians on the Bosonic Network
2. Custodians use the Bosonic provided technology to create blockchain ledgers in their node for each asset they wish to represent client ownership for on the network
3. Custodians can, at client request, tokenize client assets onto the custodial blockchain ledgers after locking them down in the client’s account or wallet, and making them available on the Bosonic Network with cryptographic provability
4. Traditional trading technology components like Bosonic’s real-time, pre-trade risk engine, are reading the client’s UTXO set (their provable assets) off of the custodial blockchain ledgers
5. Orders that clear pre-trade risk are added to the global consolidated order book for matching (with Lit or Dark Pool options)
6. Trades execute as an Atomic Exchange on the custodial Layer 2 blockchain ledgers concurrently (i.e., atomically) changing ownership of the underlying assets on-chain in milliseconds as a single transaction on the two Layer 2 blockchain ledgers 
7. Trade execution as an Atomic Exchange is either a total success or total failure, execution reports are sent to clients after the Atomic Exchange
8. Trades are continuously netted and custodians periodically perform net settlement movements which get recorded on Layer 1 public ledgers and Fiat accounts

Trades are therefore Payment vs. Payment (PvP) with clearing and settlement happening in real time, with no counterparty credit or settlement risk, and with full net settlement automation.  One critical thing to note is that because of this unique implementation, Bosonic does not need to custody client assets.  Delivery vs Payment (DvP) settlement systems require that either (1) the party performing the DvP service custody assets for both sides of the trade for the trading parties (e.g., Paxos) or (2) that one counterparty must make payment first for what is to be delivered, which usually requires some sort of intermediary to use their balance sheet to guarantee the counterparties against loss (e.g., a Prime Broker using balance sheet).

The Bosonic Network also bridges clients with assets held at brick-and-mortar custodians with clients who self-custody using various wallet technologies, e.g., Fireblocks or MetaMask Institutional, by leveraging Layer 1 Smart Contracts secured by the Ethereum network to transact on ETH and the full range of ERC-20 tokens, as well as leveraging RSK for Smart Contracts that transact BTC and are secured by the Bitcoin network.  By tokenizing assets locked in Layer 1 Smart Contracts onto the Layer 2 blockchain network, Atomic Exchange of assets is still executed at high frequency without the cost and slowness of moving assets on Layer 1 public ledgers.  Layer 1 public ledger movements are only necessary for periodic net settlement movements based on the business requirements of the custodians and the clients.

In conclusion, for institutional trading of Fiat and Crypto with no counterparty credit or settlement risk, and the highest velocity of capital and capital efficiency, you need high performance Atomic Exchange of value.  Bosonic’s globally unique multi-patent pending technology can help.  

© 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.

Circle has launched its USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin on the Avalanche blockchain network, the company announced on Tuesday.

The news marks another boost for Avalanche’s stablecoin diversity push following Tether’s launch of its USDT stablecoin in November, as well as e-Money’s suite of interest-bearing, fiat-backed stablecoins earlier in the year.

As part of the announcement, Circle stated that USDC support on Avalanche could empower more developers to build eco-friendly decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.

Avalanche’s DeFi scene has grown over 30-fold since August in terms of total value locked (TVL) from $300 million to $10.6 billion, according to data from DeFi Llama.

With Avalanche being compatible with Ethereum’s smart contract standards, USDC will be available on the Avalanche Contract Chain (C-Chain) to enable the seamless creation of Ethereum-compatible contracts.

Tuesday’s announcement also increases USDC’s multi-chain presence with the stablecoin supported on the Ethereum, Solana, TRON, Stellar, and Hedera networks.

While Tether is still the dominant stablecoin, USDC has become one of its fastest-growing competitors and controls almost a third of the total stablecoin supply, according to The Block’s Data Dashboard.

© 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.

Car manufacturer Tesla will be offering merchandise for sale with dogecoin (DOGE) according to Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

“Tesla will make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes,” tweeted Musk today.

Musk has been a longtime fan of dogecoin. He has invested in it, bought it for his toddler and has even discussed with its developers about making it handle a higher throughput.

When he was named Time Magazine’s man of the year, he said, “Fundamentally, bitcoin is not a good substitute for transactional currency.” Instead, he suggested dogecoin — even though it was created as a joke.

For more breaking stories like this, make sure to follow The Block on Twitter.

© 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.

Nike announced on Monday that it is pushing further into the metaverse with the acquisition of RTFKT (pronounced “artefact”). 

RTFKT is a collectables studio known for making NFTs that merge culture and gaming. 

The brand was first launched in January 2020 by Benoit Pagotto, Chris Le and Steven Vasilev. Nike said in a press release that the team “leverages the latest in game engines, NFTs, blockchain authentication and augmented reality to create one of a kind virtual products and experiences”.  

Nike did not disclose the terms of the deal. In May, RTKFT had raised $8 million at a $33.3 million valuation.

“This acquisition is another step that accelerates Nike’s digital transformation and allows us to serve athletes and creators at the intersection of sport, creativity, gaming and culture,” said John Donahoe, President and CEO of Nike.

“We’re acquiring a very talented team of creators with an authentic and connected brand. Our plan is to invest in the RTFKT brand, serve and grow their innovative and creative community and extend Nike’s digital footprint and capabilities.”  

RTFKT already has a strong track record in the digital realm, having recently launched a lauded partnership with artist Takashi Murakami called CloneX. The project has already seen more than $75 million in transaction volume, according to CryptoSlam.

“Nike is the only brand in the world that shares the deep passion we all have for innovation, creativity and community, and we’re excited to grow our brand which was fully formed in the metaverse,” said Pagotto. 

RTFKT is now a part of the NIKE, Inc. family. 🌐👁‍🗨 pic.twitter.com/5egNk9d8wA

— RTFKT Studios (@RTFKTstudios) December 13, 2021

© 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.