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Variant — the venture capital investment firm founded by a16z alum Jesse Walden — announced Tuesday the close of a new $110 million fund. 

In conjunction with the launch of the new fund, the firm has also acquired Atelier Ventures and brought on its founder Li Jin as a partner investor. Jin is also an alum of venture capital firm a16z, having previously worked on investments like Cadre, LimeBook, and Snackpass. 

Similarly to Variant’s previous fund, which closed in 2020, the second fund will invest in the so-called ownership economy, referring to companies that enable users to share in the ownership of goods and services — in some instances via a token. 

“We believe ownership will be a keystone of all next generation products and platforms,” the firm said in marketing materials shared with The Block. “A new generation of entrepreneurs are rebuilding the internet: from developer-facing infrastructure to financial marketplaces, social media, gaming, digital art and collectibles.”

Variant’s previous investments include lending project Goldfinch, Solana wallet Phantom, and Foundation. Li’s Atelier has backed Substack, Patreon, and Yield Guild. 

The duo, alongside Spencer Noon, plan to back a wide-range of companies, including decentralized consumer marketplaces, blockchain gaming projects, as well as even non-fungible token art pieces. Last year, the firm released an NFT collection created by Jeff Davis. And it plans to commission another collection this year. 

“We are un-opinionated about how the ownership economy plays out,” Walden said, referring to the fund’s broad mandate. 

Looking to the future, Variant has aspirations to create a community for its fund, leveraging its LP-base to help grow their portfolio of companies. To that end, the firm has expanded its investor base to more than 100 market participants, including “builders” from Zora, Uniswap, and Compound. 

“As a smaller firm, we asked ourselves ‘how are we going to scale the organization,'” Walden said. “We can’t hire 100 people, but we can build a network that creates more value for stakeholders by making users of the fund our fund owners.”

A number of new funds targeting early-stage crypto companies have come online in recent months. As The Block previously reported, former ConsenSys executive Kativa Gupta launched a fund aimed at the NFT market and decentralized finance. Arca has also closed a $30 million venture fund. 

In total, venture capital firms have poured around $17 billion into crypto firms from the beginning of the year through the end of Q3, as tracked by The Block Research. As The Block Research’s John Dantoni has noted, the crypto funding market’s hot streak continued into the summer, a typically quieter period for dealmaking.

© 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.

Atlas, which aims to be 100% carbon-free, signed a 100-megawatt “colocation capacity” deal with Compute North to expand its U.S. mining operations, the miner said in a statement on Tuesday.

All of the mining machines will be ASICs and will mine bitcoin only, according to an emailed statement to CoinDesk. Recently, as part of its expansion plans, Atlas also signed a deal with Core Scientific in October to host new bitcoin miners.

With the environmental impact of crypto mining activities in the forefront of many conversations, most miners are trying to source more renewable energy to power their operations.

“To achieve sustainable growth in adherence to its ESG commitments, Atlas is carrying out a mass adoption of renewable energy, with a long-term goal to be 100% carbon-free,” Atlas Chairman Raymond Yuan said in a statement.

Compute North, which works to build and operate at locations where the majority of the energy provided is renewable, will power Atlas’ mining rigs via electrical grids, where a wide variety of fuel sources will be used, the data centers operator said in an email statement to CoinDesk.

“We also work with customers, like Atlas, to enhance their ESG program by helping to provide options for things like tax equity and renewable energy certificates (RECs) to address this challenge and to demonstrate their commitment to investing in renewable energy,” Minnesota-based firm said in the emailed statement.

The decision to expand in the U.S. comes as more miners are migrating their operations to North America, following China’s sweeping crypto ban. In fact, recently the U.S. has taken the top mantle in bitcoin mining and the trend is expected to continue due to geopolitical certainty, access to cheap power and infrastructure.

Altas has contracted more than 400 megawatts of infrastructure capacity with local partners in different regions and plans to add 1GW of capacity in the next 18 months, according to the statement. To date, the miner has purchased more than 200,000 mining rigs and aims to continue to acquire more over the next few years, the miner added.

Compute North’s colocation service entails providing a data center to host mining equipment. The company currently operates three such facilities, in Texas, Nebraska and South Dakota.

Variant Fund and Atelier Ventures, firms founded by Andressen Horowitz (a16z) veterans, are merging and launching a $110 million first-check fund to invest in the “ownership economy,” or products and services that are built, owned and operated by their users. The combined firm will be known as Variant.

Jesse Walden, who focused on blockchain investments at a16z, launched Variant Fund last year with the ownership economy in mind. Around the same time, Li Jin left a16z’s consumer team to found Atelier Ventures to target new platforms that enabled users to “monetize individuality” in a so-called “passion economy.” Last month, The New York Times called Jin “the investor guru for online creators.”

“Both of our funds are notably different in a sea of venture firms: they exist not just out of a desire for financial returns, but to support companies that catalyze greater social and economic equality,” Jin wrote in her personal blog post announcing the merger and the new fund. “Our missions were, and are, two sides of the same coin: ownership is a cornerstone of financial freedom and enables greater enfranchisement of participants in the networks to which they contribute their time and energy.”

Read more: This a16z Alum Is Launching a VC Fund Focused on Platforms You Can ‘Own’

In a group announcement post from Variant general partners Walden, Jin and Spencer Noon, the three wrote that “we believe that ownership will be a keystone of all next-generation products and platforms,” adding:

“The first to realize this were the developers and technologists who contributed to the movement by building and operating the first multibillion-dollar internet scale networks: Bitcoin and Ethereum. Now, a new generation of entrepreneurs are rebuilding the internet with this more meritocratic and competitive model in mind. From developer-facing infrastructure to financial marketplaces, social media, gaming, digital art and collectibles, ownership has unlocked a new design space for scaling products faster than predecessors because users are aligned with their success.”

Previous Variant Fund investments include financial exchange Uniswap, where users who make the exchange liquid are rewarded with fees and given tokens that carry governance rights, and publishing platform Mirror, whose users decide on how to grow the platform.

The new $110 million fund is designed for early-stage investing across a broad range of companies from consumer platforms to gaming to infrastructure to decentralized finance (DeFi). The partners say the fund offers expertise in startup building, protocol design and consumer-focused, go-to-market strategies.

In an interview with CoinDesk, Walden said there’s an opportunity for Web 3.0 startups to build from the “ground up” with user ownership in mind. For that reason, Variant is interested in getting involved with companies at the earliest possible stage. “It’s literally never too early” for a startup to apply for funding, said Walden.

Variant says it is also embracing the concept of user ownership. The firm expanded the investor base to include over 100 members of Web 3.0, crypto and general technology companies, including Uniswap, Mirror and Yield Guild Games. The Variant community will also have an active role in shaping the fund’s future and supporting portfolio projects.

Two veterans of Riot Games have launched Patron, an early stage venture firm focusing on the convergence of games and consumer startups, a space the founders call the “Spectrum of Play.”

Patron’s debut $90 million seed fund is backed by more than 100 limited partners, including Chris Dixon and Arianna Simpson of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Crypto.

“It’s our conviction that games will shape the future. We believe that the biggest opportunities in games will converge into Web 3 (P2E [play-to-earn]/NFTs), and consumer categories like education, fitness, personal finance, and more. It will be built for the gaming-natives who not only grew up with games such as Roblox and RuneScape, but also consumer apps like Discord, TikTok, Robinhood and digital assets like NFTs and crypto,” wrote Patron co-founder Jason Yeh in the announcement blog post.

Patron views games as the “biggest consumer on-ramp to Web 3″ with play-to-earn and non-fungible token (NFT) games “some of the most exciting developments” in the crypto gaming space. “For this reason, we will allocate a significant amount of our capital towards investing in Web 3 native projects and tokens,” wrote Yeh.

Read more: The First ‘Move-to-Earn’ NFT Game Raises $8.3M

Yeh and co-founder Brian Cho both joined venture capital firms early in their careers, which the partners believe differentiates Patron as a fund. Cho was an early hire of a16z, while Yeh was a founding team member of FirstMark Capital, which became a Series A investor in Riot Games.

Yeh joined Riot before the launch of “League of Legends,” the massively popular multiplayer online arena game that has become an esports staple, and left in 2017. Cho was with Riot up until four months ago when he departed to launch Patron.

“Between the two of us, we’ve seen this whole journey of building a free-to-play, community-driven online game, and then expanding beyond games into building one of the most popular sports with young people around the world,” Yeh said in an interview with CoinDesk.

Patron told CoinDesk the fund has already backed four companies. The official announcements will come at a later date, but Patron says more than half focus on the play-to-earn space and one is a token deal.

Revolut, a fintech company with a $33 billion valuation that offers cryptocurrency buying as part of its services, is allowing U.S. customers to trade as much as $200,000 a month commission-free starting today.

Among other free services announced by Revolut are out-of-network ATM withdrawals of up to $1,200 and 10 remittance payments. Users will also be able to send up to 10 international transfers per month fee-free to anyone with a bank account in 30 countries including the U.K., France, Philippines, Japan and Australia.

“By breaking down fees, we’re empowering Revolut’s U.S. customers to achieve financial freedom and drive their own financial journey, whether that be opening their first banking account, trading in new financial markets or sending money to loved ones overseas,” said Ron Oliveira, Revolut’s U.S. CEO.

The London-based fintech firm launched in the US in March 2020, and most recently it emerged the firm is looking to launch its own cryptographic token.

Read more: Revolut to Launch Crypto Token: Sources

Bitcoin market sentiment appears quite bullish as evidenced from the quick absorption of a huge sell order on crypto exchange OKEx during Asian daytime trading hours on Tuesday.

Volume spiked on trades between bitcoin (BTC) and the stablecoin tether (USDT) on the cryptocurrency exchange OKEx between the hours of 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. UTC, according to data from TradingView.

From 2 a.m. to 3 a.m., the trading volume totaled 5,929 BTC on the exchange, and it reached 4,049 BTC from 3 a.m. to 4 a.m., the data showed. The total of more than 10,000 BTC works out to at least $620 million based on the cryptocurrency’s latest price.

The crypto industry blogger Colin Wu tweeted Tuesday that “there is a view that it seems that there was a pending sell order of about 14,000 BTC in the BTC/USDT trading pair on OKEx, but it was subsequently eaten by the buy order.”

When asked to comment on the trades, an exchange spokesperson sent the following, attributed to Lennix Lai, director of OKEx: “We see this as a healthy development within the market and do not currently notice any abnormalities.”

Jason Deane, analyst at Quantum Economics, said the quick digestion of the elevated trading volume might demonstrate the asset’s high global liquidity.

“The fact that such a significant order was apparently absorbed by prevailing trader buying activity is an indication of the underlying strength and bullish bias of the bitcoin market currently,” Deane added.

At press time, bitcoin was trading at $62,079, up 11% over the last week, according to CoinDesk 20 data.

The observed market action came as all eyes were on bitcoin Tuesday ahead of the planned launch of the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF, the industry’s first-ever bitcoin futures-focused exchange-traded fund to be approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Indian cryptocurrency exchange CoinSwitch Kuber is in ongoing talks with the government over regulation of the industry, CEO Ashish Singhal said in an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday.

• Singhal said that conversations with the government and regulators are in a Q&A phase.
• “Regulators are engaging with industry leaders like us and industry bodies and trying to understand cryptocurrencies — and we do understand the stance of the government.”
• However, he admitted that there are “fundamental flaws” in crypto which mean it does not abide with some of India’s laws.
• The Indian government appears to have relaxed its plans to outright ban crypto, which was mooted earlier this year. Instead, the government is said to be in discussions to regulate the use of crypto in illegal transactions.
• CoinSwitch Kuber recently became India’s second crypto unicorn when a $260 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz and Coinbase Ventures gave it a valuation of $1.9 billion.
• With 10 million customers at present, the exchange has set a goal of onboarding 50 million Indians via new crypto products and services such as lending and staking.

Read more: India Could Launch CBDC Trials Later This Year, According to Central Bank Governor: Report

Silvergate Capital’s 3Q net income rose 12% to $23.5 million, or 88 cents a share, topping FactSet estimates of 71 cents.

• Average digital currency deposits grew to $11.2 billion from $9.9 billion in the second quarter.
• The increase was accompanied by a growth in digital currency customers to 1,305, compared with 1,224 at the end of Q2 and 928 a year ago, according to an earnings report published Tuesday.
• Silvergate’s total deposits as of Sept. 30 stood at $11.6 billion, an increase of $9.4 billion, or more than 400%, from a year previously.
• Net interest income (on a taxable equivalent basis) was $39 million vs FactSet estimate of $34.3million. Net interest margin widened to 1.26% from 1.16% in the year-earlier quarter.
• The bank has attributed the growth to an increase in deposits from digital currency exchanges and institutional investors in digital assets. Silvergate continues to benefit as its one of the few banks targeting the cryptocurrency industry. Late last month Morgan Stanley initiated coverage of the stock with an overweight rating and a $158 price target, indicating a 52% upside from the price of the stock at the time The shares, which closed last night around $158, are down about 1% in premarket trading.
• “Silvergate had another great quarter, underscored by record quarterly pre-tax income, continued platform growth, and an expanding balance sheet. In the third quarter we grew average digital currency deposits to $11.2 billion, the highest in our history, added new digital currency customers to the SEN, and further increased SEN Leverage commitments and balances,” CEO Alan Lane said in the statement. “Our strong results and increasingly diverse earnings stream highlight the important roles that we play in serving our customers in the still nascent digital currency industry.”

Galaxy Digital re-stocked its crypto-culture war chest earlier this year with a $325 million venture fund focused on digital entertainment.

The fund, from Galaxy Interactive, which scouts gaming and arts startups for Mike Novogratz’s crypto conglomerate, has been investing in projects such as Art Blocks for months now, General Partner Sam Englebardt told CoinDesk.

“What would you invest in if you believe that the younger generations, in particular, are moving en masse from the physical to the digital world?’” Englebardt said in an interview, noting that Galaxy Interactive has showered $150 million on projects accordingly.

If non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other crypto tech are to form the backbone of this coming metaverse, then Galaxy wants its share of the spine. The same goes for gaming, blockchain or no.

Englebardt was hesitant to label Galaxy Interactive’s strategy a “metaverse” play, however. The term, which refers to virtual worlds users can interact with, is fast becoming a buzzword. He called it “confusing,” in part because it is growing increasingly ill-defined.

Read more: Art Blocks Raises $6M From True Ventures, Galaxy on Strength of Generative NFTs

Full immersion virtual worlds a la “Ready Player One” – a true metaverse – aren’t yet achievable. Even so, technologies today are already blurring the boundaries between physical and digital, creating a mixed world.

“We’re investing in a lot of technologies and businesses that we think are going to be instrumental to evolving us from this weaker concept of the metaverse to the much, much deeper, more philosophically interesting idea,” Englebardt said.

Gaming is a critical part of Galaxy Interactive’s playbook. It participated in 1047 Studios, the company behind a popular free-to-play shooter title, and Elodie Games, which is building a cross-platform gaming experience. Neither are crypto-first.

High-brow digital art projects have also found Galaxy Interactive’s blessing. Masterworks, a securitized art startup with a $1 billion price tag, is a portfolio company. So is Art Blocks, the super-hot NFT platform for generative art.

The fund has more flexibility than Galaxy Interactive’s 2018 venture. That joint partnership with Block.one had $325 million to spend on projects at least tangentially related to the EOS ecosystem, and only in equity rounds. There are no such bounds on this edition: it is chain-agnostic and can invest in equity or tokens.

Investment in crypto and DeFi businesses in Europe has already surpassed quarterly records, just a few weeks into the fourth quarter.

Data from startup analytics platform Dealroom puts fourth quarter investment in crypto businesses in Europe and the United Kingdom at €793 million (roughly $925 million).

The bulk of that total comes from massive fundraises closed by payments firm MoonPay and crypto lender Celsius Network, which have each secured $400 million in the past few weeks. Elliptic, the blockchain analytics platform, announced a $60 million raise on October 11.

The previous investment record came in the first quarter of 2021, when Europe’s crypto firms drew in €715 million (roughly $834 million), according to Dealroom’s records. In that quarter, 25 deals were completed.

After nearly three weeks and with only six investments closed in the fourth quarter, a new high water mark has already been set.

The margin of record could be wide indeed if the pace of fundraising by Europe’s crypto firms continues in the final months of the year. The Block is aware of at least one other major fundraising effort by a European crypto firm, but the process is ongoing and details of the investment are as yet unclear.

© 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.