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Around $31 million in a variety of cryptocurrencies has been stolen from MonoX in a DeFi hack.

MonoX is a DeFi platform that offers liquidity pools, where traders can place their tokens and receive tokens in return for providing liquidity.

The funds stolen included $18.2 million in wrapped ether (WETH) and $10.5 million in polygon (MATIC). Other tokens taken were WBTC, LINK, GHST, DUCK, MIM and IMX.

The funds were stolen across two blockchains, Ethereum and Polygon. Polygon, formerly Matic, is a proof-of-stake blockchain that helps to take some of the load off the Ethereum blockchain.

MonoX has not made a statement following the hack. We have reached out to MonoX and will update this story should we hear back.

© 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.

Rachel Mayer 
VP of Product
Circle

A startup makes their cash last longer

Recently, I wrote about how corporate treasurers and institutional fund managers are exploring digital assets to maximize cash returns in an environment of historically low interest rates. I also highlighted how Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary¹ chose to allocate funds at his venture firm into Circle Yield, a crypto investment built on USD Coin (USDC) with bitcoin collateral. 

Today, I want to cover how Circle Yield* can benefit another type of business: startups who want to strategically use their treasury to make their cash last longer while delaying their next funding round and founder dilution. Minds is a blockchain-based social media startup that has recently captured the attention of major media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Wired, TechCrunch and Reuters. They recently closed a $10 million Series B funding round and began considering ways to put the funds to work on-chain, due to the above-average returns in digital asset markets and their commitment to the crypto ecosystem. Minds chose to allocate a portion of their raise into Circle Yield. Here’s a look inside their choice.

Crypto returns, without the volatility

Circle Yield is denominated in USDC, the world’s fastest-growing dollar digital currency, which can be ideal for investing idle treasury balances, paying suppliers and accepting payments from customers. Yield offers a fixed term and a rate** that’s much higher than those available from banks and many fixed income markets, which helps balance growth and security. Importantly, it is overcollateralized with bitcoin that’s held with a third-party custodian for extra security. 

“The ability to create yield on our idle USDC balance is a game-changer,” notes Bill Ottman, Minds’ CEO. “Circle Yield is helping us plan our growth, because we can project future cash flows from the earnings and budget that money into how we scale.”  Circle Yield is available in terms ranging from a month up to a year, and the ability to choose a fixed, short term can be crucial for growing companies with unpredictable working capital needs.

Circle Yield is central to Minds’ treasury diversification strategy. Since it offers a fixed rate, Minds can grow their treasury reserves and minimize volatility while keeping funds on-chain. The company can also operate more simply, with USDC’s stability and liquidity across numerous blockchains and in many wallets and exchanges. Since a number of Minds contractors and suppliers already accept USDC as payment, the company can pay them straight from its Circle Account without needing to reach into its bank account and deal with the friction inherent in traditional funds transfers.

In his own words

“I want to have our balance sheet work for us, and I don’t think this concept should be limited to major public companies. We believe in the crypto space, so we want to leverage Circle Yield along with direct allocations into Bitcoin and Ether to capitalize on the growth and momentum of the industry. Voting with your balance sheet is a major paradigm shift in corporate treasury strategy.”

– Bill Ottman, CEO, Minds

Visit circle.com/yield today to book a meeting with one of our crypto investment experts.

¹Kevin O’Leary has invested in and is currently a stockholder of Circle Internet Financial Limited.
*Offering subject to business approval, geographical availability***, and regulatory authorization, and there is no guarantee that the product will become available in a specific timeframe or to a specific customer or geography. Circle Yield product offered through Circle International Bermuda Limited (“Circle Bermuda”). Circle Bermuda has entered into lending arrangements with one or more institutional borrowers, including Genesis Global Capital, LLC****.  These lenders pledge and transfer Bitcoin into custody with a third party custodian as collateral for their USDC borrowings and Circle Yield investors benefit from a security interest in Circle Bermuda’s security interest in the pledged Bitcoin.

Circle is not a bank; your Circle Account is not a bank account, and any funds are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation or by any US or foreign government agency, insurance fund, person or entity. For investors in the United States, investments described in this communication are offered by Circle Bermuda to “accredited investors” only in accordance with Regulation D, Rule 506(c) of the Securities Action of 1933, as amended. While Circle Bermuda is regulated by the Bermuda Monetary Authority for digital asset business, Circle Bermuda is not engaged in banking and deposit taking activities and is not regulated for these purposes. You should carefully conduct your own investigations and analyses in connection with any participation in this product, including its objectives, risk factors, fees and expenses and the information set forth here and in other Circle Yield materials. Before investing, you should carefully review the risks highlighted in the risk disclosure appended to the line of credit agreement. All prospective participants in the products described herein are advised to consult with their legal, accounting and tax advisers regarding any potential participation. Please read the offering documents carefully before you invest. Additional information is available upon request. 

Circle Account and money transmission services are provided by Circle Internet Financial, LLC. Circle Internet Financial, LLC, NMLS # 1201441, is a licensed provider of money transmission services. A full list of Circle’s licenses can be found here. 
** Rates are purely indicative and are subject to change pending availability, approval and market conditions. In the case of a Fix Term Advance, Lender does not have a repayment right for fixed rate Advances.
***Not currently available in the following U.S. states: Alaska, Minnesota, New York and Hawaii.
****Learn more about Genesis Global Capital, LLC here.

© 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 continuing its acquisition spree. The U.S.-based crypto exchange operator is now set to acquire Unbound Security, an Israeli crypto custody infrastructure firm specializing in multiparty computation (MPC) technology.

MPC technology provides security as well as usability for crypto assets. In other words, it combines the benefits of offline (“cold”) storage and online (“hot”) wallets.

“This technology is critical in making NFTs [non-fungible tokens], DeFi [decentralized finance] and other Web3 applications possible as it negates the need for offline (‘cold’) storage,” a Coinbase spokesperson told The Block. Coinbase plans to integrate MPC technology across its retail and institutional products over time, it said.

The deal’s financial terms haven’t been disclosed, but Unbound Security has raised at least $40 million in external funding to date and has a headcount of over 70, according to its LinkedIn page. The deal is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the coming months, said Coinbase.

The acquisition, once completed, will also establish Coinbase’s presence in Israel as the company will be setting up a “tech center of excellence” in the country. The Unbound Security team will form the core of this new research facility, which Coinbase plans to grow over time.

The move follows Coinbase’s similar announcements in Singapore, India, and Brazil, where the company has been hiring engineering talent recently.

In a similar move earlier this year, Coinbase rival Gemini also acquired a crypto custody infrastructure firm specializing in MPC technology called Shard X.

As for Coinbase, the Nasdaq-listed company has acquired over a dozen firms since its inception in 2012. Most recently, it has acquired crypto wallet provider BRD, crypto data aggregator Zabo, crypto data and analytics platform Skew, staking infrastructure firm Bison Trails, and AI-powered customer support platform Agara.

© 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.

Brazil’s 2TM Group, the parent company of exchange Mercado Bitcoin, has raised $50.3 million in a second closing for its Series B funding round as it eyes Latin America expansion.

The unicorn completed the first closing of the round in July, raising $200 million from the SoftBank Latin America Fund. 

The second closing acts as an extension where more investors can join the round. New investors include U.S.-based equity fund 10T and venture capital fund Tribe Capital, plus Brazil-based firms Traders Club, Pipo Capital and Endeavor.

According to comments from 2TM CEO Roberto Dagnoni in a press release, the crypto-focused company has more than 3.2 million customers and plans to expand into other Latin American countries like Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico.

“LATAM has a diversity that requires local understanding and expertise,” a 2TM spokesperson told The Block in an email. “For example, in Brazil, the main driver is as an alternative investment class. In Mexico, remittances are a significant part of the overall volume drivers. In Argentina, there is a much more intensive adoption of stablecoins to protect from currency fluctuation.”

According to 2TM, Mercado Bitcoin is Latin America’s largest crypto exchange. Dagnoni noted that the Mercado Bitcoin exchange saw trading volumes of 40 billion reais (about $7.1 billion today) between January and October, which is double the amount from when the company launched in 2013.

Despite the name, Mercado Bitcoin supports several other cryptocurrencies like Cardano, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Litecoin and Solana, as well as other assets like utility tokens.

In addition to its crypto exchange, 2TM is investing in other blockchain projects like stock lending marketplace SL Tools, credit receivable tokens with bank Itaú Unibanco, renewable energy tokens and NFT startups.

© 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.

Editorial independence

CoinDesk is a wholly owned subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, one of the largest private investors in the industry and a provider of trading and other investment services for that industry. We operate independently of the parent company. Our office is in the same building as DCG’s but on a separate floor, three stories apart, with different access cards.

DCG has no involvement in editorial or content decisions, and our journalists cover DCG and its portfolio companies and investments as they would any other subjects, without fear or favor.

CoinDesk and DCG have agreed to abide by a strict independence policy that forbids DCG employees from pressuring CoinDesk journalists for coverage or favorable treatment, and encourages CoinDesk employees to come forward and report any such attempts. The full text of the policy can be found in Appendix A below.

DCG reporting disclosure

In the interest of transparency, all CoinDesk articles include at the bottom a disclosure of our corporate ownership, with links to the full lists of DCG’s portfolio companies and cryptocurrency investments. (Those lists appear below in Appendix B.)

Further, any article about our parent company or its other wholly owned subsidiaries (Grayscale, Genesis, Foundry, Luno) includes a prominent disclosure in the body text that CoinDesk is owned by DCG.

Journalistic standards

We strive for the utmost accuracy, fairness, objectivity and responsible reporting, whether surfacing original news or in reviewing and corroborating information from other sources.

Our journalists know their reporting can affect individual and company reputations, and that they must always be patient and persistent in seeking comment from the subjects of their stories. There are usually at least two sides to any story, and CoinDesk will always be diligent in seeking a diverse range of intelligent, sober perspectives.

All factual errors in published articles will be corrected promptly upon discovery, and all corrections and amendments to an article will be disclosed in a note at the bottom. In rare cases where the central idea of an article warrants a correction, the disclosure will be placed at the top and shared on social media, so the correction is broadcast as widely as the original error.

CoinDesk reporters must disclose in their profile pages any cryptocurrency investments of $1,000 or more; update these disclosures upon any material changes; and, in their articles, mention any potential conflicts of interest. They should avoid such conflicts by minimizing their own coverage of assets or companies in which they have a financial interest, or of issues they are involved in as activists. Above all, they may never misuse our platform for personal gain. (See “Personal Investing,” below.)

Editors and reporters may never accept payment from any company or individual for coverage or preferential treatment. Journalists are not allowed to accept gifts from companies or individuals CoinDesk covers or is likely to cover. (Exceptions may be made for items of nominal value, such as a T-shirt, hat or coffee mug, or food or beverages that can be consumed within 24 hours.)

Opinion articles, whether written by outside contributors or staff members, are always clearly labeled as such, with a design that is distinct from news stories.

As with all reliable media outlets, we do not reveal the identities of sources who speak to us on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from the powerful. However, we are also careful about relying on anonymous sources. All stories that originate with an anonymous source require corroboration from at least one other source with firsthand knowledge of the information, and often more, depending on the sensitivity of the story.

Further, we will respect the pseudonymity of credible sources who have established reputations in the crypto community under their online handles. We believe prolific software developers and other influential figures who do not give their legal names have reputational skin in the game when they attach their words to their well-known pseudonyms. In many cases, that attachment is sufficient to expect a sufficient degree of accountability. As such, we will not reveal anyone’s identity without his or her consent, absent an overwhelming public interest in doing so. We reject a model of journalism that needlessly ruins the lives or careers of harmless, obscure individuals for clicks or moral points.

Personal investing

CoinDesk always seeks to prioritize its highest-value asset – the trust of its readers. It is the job of our journalists, researchers and market analysts to be both transparent and accountable to the public, and seek to uphold high standards of conduct.

However, CoinDesk respects that employees may wish to make decisions related to their wealth management. With this in mind, CoinDesk has worked with compliance and legal advisers to develop a strict set of guidelines that balance the company’s vision while respecting our employees’ financial autonomy.

Above all, these guidelines seek to ensure:

• Information obtained by employees of CoinDesk during the course of their duties is not misused for financial gain;
• Employees at CoinDesk are able to research the market through actions that may include the purchase, sale or use of cryptocurrencies or crypto assets;
• CoinDesk employees retain the financial autonomy to make decisions on their personal wealth, provided such decisions are disclosed.

Our policies are designed to promote stringent definitions for transparency so as to ensure the trust of our audience is upheld.

Any employee who buys, sells or trades crypto assets in amounts of less than $1,000 must notify CoinDesk’s compliance officer within 24 hours of the event. Any employee who buys, sells or trades amounts more than US$1,000 must notify the compliance officer at least 24 hours before doing so.

Upon receipt, these notifications will be reviewed by the compliance officer to ensure the trade meets our policies and guidance. Items up to and including the employee’s recent meetings, articles or corporate outreach efforts will be evaluated. Employees must hold all crypto asset purchases for a minimum of 30 days.

Further, trading is forbidden during office hours. Employees are not permitted to short crypto assets or trade futures contracts. As noted, journalists must disclose crypto positions worth $1,000 or more in their profile pages and update them immediately to reflect any changes.

Company stocks: Our policy on owning stocks is more restrictive than for cryptocurrency, for several reasons.

First, using cryptocurrency and related services is often an important part of researching and understanding the field, while setting up and using a brokerage account is not traditionally involved when reporting on publicly traded companies.

Second, companies have management teams, run from the top down, who have direct control over the direction of the project and can try to influence reporters for favorable coverage. While crypto projects have developer teams and other interested parties, there is no one nominally “in charge” with outsize sway over how the project operates. The absence of direct control means there is not the same degree of conflict as with stocks – not enough to outweigh the educational value of reporters using crypto, and little enough to be mitigated by our disclosure rules outlined above.

Third, a reporter breaking a story, positive or negative, about a publicly traded company sometimes has access to material nonpublic information that, once published could move the stock price; reporters covering a cryptocurrency are usually working with information in the public domain (on the blockchain, in code repositories or in developer forums). While there are exceptions where non-public information derived from a company involved in the crypto space could move the price of a token, any potential conflict associated with such instances would be mitigated by the disclosure requirements.

All CoinDesk editors and reporters are barred from owning shares in pure-play crypto firms (e.g. Coinbase). Further, beat reporters and their editors who regularly cover diversified companies involved in crypto (e.g. Square, Tesla, MicroStrategy) are not allowed to own shares in those firms. And any stocks purchased by a CoinDesk employee must be held for a minimum 30 days.

CoinDesk employees who are found to be not in compliance with these rules may be subject to penalties up to and including termination.

Social media

CoinDesk’s mission is to drive the conversation around the future of money, and social media is one of the best tools to do that. Our official brand accounts are the authoritative editorial voice of CoinDesk. We use social media to share our content and to make announcements about events and new products.

Journalists are encouraged to interact with users of our content through their personal handles. In doing so, they are representing CoinDesk’s brand and values. While they may use their own distinctive voice or express personal opinions, they are expected to conduct themselves professionally. They may not make personal attacks or spread unverified information that could damage an individual’s or company’s reputation.

Advertising

One of the ways CoinDesk generates revenue is through online advertising. Aside from maintaining basic standards of quality and content, CoinDesk will refuse any ads that directly promote a token (ads from companies with tokens but are promoting some other aspect of their business may be permitted).

If an entity has announced any fundraising event (such as an ICO or IPO), CoinDesk will refuse any ads from that entity that are not explicitly permitted under Securities and Exchange Commission advertising rules.

Events and partnerships

From time to time, CoinDesk may publish sponsored content on our platforms. This content will be explicitly labeled as sponsored, will never be written by CoinDesk journalists or editorial staffers, and will be clearly delineated from our news, analysis, research and opinion articles. Sponsored content relationships will have no impact on the journalism independently produced by CoinDesk’s editorial team.

Likewise, CoinDesk events may include sponsored sessions. These sessions will be clearly billed as sponsored and wholly separate from the vast majority of sessions that are curated by the content team, Sponsor relationships will have no impact on speaking invitations or event programming.

Giveaways/Contests

CoinDesk journalists may not accept tokens, coins or any other products or merchandise from giveaways, contests, airdrops or other events that may affect their ability to impartially cover digital assets or the companies behind them.

Appendix A: Policy on content independence

Context for CoinDesk

Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention inspired a movement towards the transformation of money. Bitcoin’s open-source economic model helped it thrive as developers, cryptographers, engineers, entrepreneurs or anyone else could contribute to its growth. Later, a similar design was applied to other protocols, some of which managed to “pay for their own” development as open-source technologies.

This decentralized economic model has a familiar challenge: The competition to develop these open-source technologies involves asymmetries between various stakeholders, some private, some public, some for-profit, some non-profit.

Goal for CoinDesk

As a media platform, CoinDesk’s opportunity and responsibility is to provide a forum for stakeholders of all kinds, everywhere in the world, to contribute to the conversation around the transformation of money, regardless of any asymmetry among stakeholders, dependent only on the quality of their work or ideas.

If the asymmetries mentioned above go unchecked, they could lead private, narrow interests to control open-source projects, in effect replicating the centralized system of money these projects seek to transform (or transcend).

Defining Principles

CoinDesk is a wholly owned subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, one of the largest private investors in the industry driving this process of monetary transformation and a provider of trading and other investment services for that industry. As such, both parties have a responsibility to avoid any undue influence or perception of influence over CoinDesk’s content creation operations. For CoinDesk to continue to offer a trusted forum for multi-stakeholder industry development, both parties – CoinDesk and DCG – commit to uphold the following principles with regards to their mutual relationship.

• All CoinDesk content creators will conduct their work independent of any direction from DCG.
• CoinDesk content creators, whether journalists, multimedia producers, researchers or event programmers, are enabled and empowered to pursue their work objectives free from fear of any form of interference or retaliation from officers of DCG. This includes, but is not limited to, promotions, termination or compensation increases. All of these metrics and privileges are under the authority of the CEO of CoinDesk.
• CoinDesk journalists are enabled and empowered to pursue their news gathering objectives free from fear of any form of interference by officers of the commercial operations of either DCG or CoinDesk. Beyond news gathering, CoinDesk journalists are also empowered and encouraged to speak publicly about technology without any form of interference from DCG, subject only to editorial managers for social media and public statement guidelines.
• DCG and its portfolio companies enjoy no special privilege over and above that afforded to all other entities with regards to coverage in CoinDesk articles, multimedia content, social media outlets, social media outlets and events.

Processes for CoinDesk

Based on those principles, both parties will commit to several rules of engagement in the conduct of CoinDesk’s operations:

• Employees of DCG and its non-CoinDesk subsidiaries have no authority over CoinDesk content creators. If any such employee demands that a CoinDesk content creator perform tasks or conduct his or her job in accordance with the employee’s wishes, a complaint shall be elevated to the DCG chief operating officer, who will reprimand the employee. The incident shall be noted in the CoinDesk content creator’s performance record as recognition of his or her adherence to the company’s ethical standards.
• Members of CoinDesk sales or other business units (minus CoinDesk Human Resources) have no authority over CoinDesk content creators. If any such employee makes demands of a CoinDesk content creator establishing a quid pro quo relationship in the service of business objectives, a complaint shall be elevated to the CoinDesk CEO, who will reprimand the employee. The incident shall be noted in the content creator’s performance record as recognition of his or her adherence to the company’s ethical standards.
• If any employee of DCG, its subsidiaries, CoinDesk sales or other business units tell CoinDesk content creators how to cover a story, conduct research, produce a multimedia product or program an event, a complaint shall be elevated to the DCG chief operating officer, who will reprimand the employee. The incident shall be noted in the CoinDesk content creator’s performance record as recognition of his or her adherence to the company’s ethical standards.
• If a representative of a DCG portfolio company uses his or her DCG relationship to attempt to influence a CoinDesk content creator’s coverage, the CoinDesk employee shall immediately notify their manager, who will alert DCG management. The incident shall be noted in the CoinDesk content creator’s performance record as recognition of his or her adherence to the company’s ethical standards.
• CoinDesk will provide agnostic and thorough coverage of DCG subsidiaries, just as with other companies in the industry, with disclosures added where appropriate on the relationship between CoinDesk and DCG.
• CoinDesk staff are under no obligation to attend DCG-organized events.
• DCG employees and management should schedule appointments to visit CoinDesk offices and cannot enter without an invitation.
• DCG employees and management are held to the same rules as every other potential source in terms of speaking at offsite events, etc (see: Interacting with CoinDesk Journalists doc).

Appendix B: Digital Currency Group’s investments

Last updated: September 2020

Wholly owned subsidiaries: CoinDesk, Genesis, Grayscale, Foundry, Luno

Digital assets: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Decentraland (MANA and LAND), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Filecoin, Horizen (ZEN), Livepeer (LPT), ZCash (ZEC)

Portfolio companies:

Abra

Artie

Avanti Bank

Averon

Axoni

AZA (formerly known as BitPesa)

BigchainDB

bitFlyer

BitGo

Bitmark

Bitnomial

BitOasis

BitPay

Bitso

Bitwala

Blockchain

Blockstack

Blockstream

Blokur

Bloq

Bold (Acquired)

Boost VC

Brave

BTCC (Acquired)

Buda

Cambridge Blockchain

Carbon

Chain (Acquired)

Chainalysis

ChangeTip (Acquired)

Circle

Civic

Cobalt

Cognito

Coinbase

CoinDesk

CoinFLEX

Coinhouse

CoinJar

CoinList

Coinme

CoinMetrics

Coins (Acquired)

Coinsetter (Acquired)

Colu

Crypto Facilities (Acquired)

Curv

Custos Media Technologies

Dapper Labs

Decent

Decentraland

Digital Assets Data

Earn (Acquired)

Electric Capital

Elemental

Elliptic

ErisX

EtherScan

eToro

Figure

Fireblocks

Fleek (FKA Terminal)

Flipside Crypto

Gem

Genesis

Grayscale

Gyft (Acquired)

Hedera Hashgraph

Horizen Labs

Horizon Blockchain Games

itBit / Paxos

Jackpocket

Jiko

Jsgenesis

Kintaba

Korbit (Acquired)

Kraken

Layer1

Ledger

Lightning Labs

Livepeer

Logos

Lolli

Lucid Sight

MadHive

Mediachain Labs (Acquired)

Merkle Data (Acquired)

Merkle Science

Mifiel

Money Button

MONI

Multis

Netki

NICKL

Nivaura

Nomics

norbloc

OB1

Omniex

OXIO

Paradigm

Parity

Pipeline

POSaBIT

Protocol Labs

Provenance

Purse

Qohash

Radar Relay

Rainbow

Reserve

Revelator

Ripio

Ripple

RSK Labs

Safello

Scout

SFOX

ShapeShift

ShoCard

Silvergate

Skew

Skuchain

Sonia

Staked

Stratumn

Streami

Tagomi

The Graph

Tierion

Token

TradeBlock

Transparent Systems

Unocoin

Veem

Wyre

Xapo

Zabo

Zcash

Zeppelin

Zepeto, a fashion metaverse ecosystem developed by South Korea’s Naver Corp, has secured a $150 million investment from SoftBank.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the investment is part of a Series B funding round that puts the metaverse platform’s value at north of $1 billion.

Launched in 2018, Zepeto is among several emerging metaverse ecosystems in South Korea and. The WSJ reports that the platform attracts more than 2 million active daily users and it’s mostly popular among females between the ages of 13 and 24.

Users create digital avatars of themselves on the Zepeto platform, which are then used to interact in the app’s virtual space.

The platform’s growing popularity has also attracted attention from global fashion giants like Gucci and Ralph Lauren. These brands have created virtual clothing items for sale on the platform.

Zepeto’s bustling high-fashion scene has also seen the platform’s creator economy become somewhat fashion-centric. “We’re probably the world’s largest virtual fashion marketplace,” Rudy Lee, Naver Z Corp’s chief strategy officer told WSJ.

SoftBank’s involvement in Zepeto’s Series B raise comes shortly after the bank — via its Vision Fund 2 arm — led a $93 million funding round for The Sandbox, another metaverse gaming platform.

Blockchain gaming and metaverse-related startups have begun to attract significant investment attention from venture capital firms. Avocado, a blockchain gaming guild, recently secured $18 million in funding from a group of investors including Solana Ventures.

© 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.

Hxro (pronounced “hero”) Network, a Solana-based derivatives trading platform, has raised $34 million in a token round.

SIG DT Investments (a Susquehanna International Group company), Jump Crypto, and Blockchain Capital co-led the round, with Alameda Research, Chicago Trading Company, Solana Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Commonwealth Asset Management, and others also participating.

The new funding round comes just four months after Hxro Network raised $15 million. The project is building a decentralized crypto derivatives trading platform, including futures and options.

“Think about Hxro Network as being very much B2B2C [business to business to consumer] where the network protocols are just software that sit at the base layer,” Dan Gunsberg, co-founder of Hxro Network, told The Block.

In other words, Hxro Network will consist of several protocols that traders can use. “When composed with a Serum order book and Pyth as a data oracle, you now have the elements needed to generate a market,” said Gunsberg. “This market can be created by anyone who is part of the network.”

Hxro plans to support markets for the “most well-known” cryptocurrencies. The first version (v1) of Hxro Network is expected to launch on Solana from next month across phases, including futures, options, and perpetual swaps.

With the fresh capital in place, Hxro plans to fund the network treasury, support early liquidity, and fund network rewards.

Hxro will primarily derive its value from transaction fees generated within the network. “One hundred percent of the network’s value will accrue to staked HXRO token holders, specialized node operators, the network treasury, and developer pools vital to network scaling and functionality,” said Hxro, in a statement.

Hxro started out with a gaming product called MoonRekt that allows traders to take bullish (MOON) or bearish (REKT) positions on bitcoin in several time frames. Gunsberg said MoonRekt is operated by Hxro.Trade, and not Hxro Network. “When Hxro Network goes to mainnet, Hxro.Trade will likely become an operator at the application layer of the network,” he said.

© 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.

Gaming VC firm Play Ventures is venturing into the blockchain gaming world with the launch of a new fund called Play Future Fund. 

The new fund has $75 million in commitments and will be dedicated to investing in projects that combine gaming with blockchain technology — potentially even the much-buzzed metaverse.

“Web3 and play-and-earn will fundamentally disrupt the way games are designed, played and experienced. Open public blockchains provide a blank canvas for innovators not seen since the inception of the internet,” said the firm in a statement.

Based in Singapore, Play Ventures focuses on early-stage investments into gaming companies. It was launched in 2018 and has typically invested in startups outside of the blockchain ecosystem.

Kenrick Drijkoningen, general partner at Play Ventures, will run the new fund. He has been investing in gaming companies since 2012 and previously ran Lunex Ventures, a blockchain and cryptocurrency fund.

The blockchain gaming fund has already invested in a few companies, including NFT borrowing and lending protocol ReNFT and GuildFi, a decentralized organization providing access to play-to-earn games like Axie Infinity.

The commitments to the new fund bring Play Ventures’ assets under management to $300 million. 

© 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.

Kelly ETFs, an issuer of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), has filed for a U.S. Ether futures ETF. 

The firm filed a Form N-1A dated today with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The N1-A is used by investment companies seeking to form open-end mutual funds, and registers a product under both the Securities Act of 1933 and the Investment Company Act of 1940.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler previously said he was interested in taking a closer look at proposed crypto products under the ’40 Act, especially those holding futures traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Since those comments, the SEC has approved multiple bitcoin futures ETFs, though an Ether-based product has yet to get the green light. 

The Kelly Ethereum Ether Strategy ETF would hold Ether futures contracts that trade on federally regulated exchanges. For now, that means only CME Ether futures. The fund won’t enable direct exposure to ETH price, and is structured similarly to the approved bitcoin futures ETFs. Currently, it’s the only Ether futures ETF before the SEC.

The filing will take effect 75 days from today pending no SEC action. Approval seems unlikely, according to Bloomberg ETF analysts Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart. Balchunas tweeted that the two put the rough odds of approval at about 20% for now. 

© 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

• Polkadot is an open-source cloud computing platform that enables cross-chain transfers of data or assets, without being solely limited to token transfers
• The Substrate blockchain is used by developers to catalyze the building and launching of Polkadot compatible projects and dApps
• The actual workings of Polkadot function through the implementation of a Relay Chain, Parachains, Parathreads, and bridges
• The network contains a native DOT token which plays a substantial role in Polkadot’s governance and staking and bonding features
• The Block has identified 236 projects and tokens across 19 verticals within the Polkadot ecosystem

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