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Author: Ryan Weeks
ThorSwap, a decentralized exchange (DEX) built on top of the cross-chain liquidity protocol ThorChain, has raised $3.75 million in a private token sale round.
IDEO CoLab Ventures led the round, with True Ventures, Sanctor Capital, THORChain, Nine Realms, Proof Group, 0xVentures, Qi Capital, and others participating.
The new capital will help ThorSwap scale its platform and go through audits, “Cloudpleasr,” an anonymous team member of ThorSwap, told The Block. The ThorSwap team remains anonymous because it was born out of the ThorChain community, and as the ThorChain team is anonymous, ThorSwap also wants to stay aligned with that ethos, said Cloudpleasr.
As a cross-chain DEX, ThorSwap lets users swap tokens between various blockchain networks. It supports over 20 blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Binance Smart Chain. ThorSwap says it aims to become a leading cross-chain aggregator, providing liquidity for traders to enable them to swap tokens across multiple blockchains.
There are currently around 25 people working for ThorSwap and the team is working on releasing more features for its platform, said Cloudpleasr, including “ThorWiki” and “NFT Trophies.” ThorWiki will be an open-source Wikipedia for ThorChain and NFT Trophies will be limited edition NFTs rewarded to “top THORChads,” based on their contribution to ThorSwap and ThorChad DAO.
The private token sale round is ThorSwap’s first fundraise. The project is looking to raise more funds via a so-called initial DEX offering (IDO) in October. In an IDO, a blockchain project makes a token’s first public debut on a DEX to raise funds from retail investors. ThorSwap’s IDO will be launched on Thorstarter to sell THOR tokens, said Cloudpleasr.
The ThorChain protocol is still in its early stages. It has only over $180 million worth of total value locked or TVL, according to DefiLlama. The protocol recently suffered three attacks, losing at least $13 million, as The Block reported at the time.
© 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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Author: Yogita Khatri
Venture firm NFX said Tuesday that it has assembled a new $450 million fund aimed at expanding its efforts at investing in pre-seed and seed-stage companies, including those in the crypto space.
In a press statement, NFX said that the fresh funds would support a greater footprint in the crypto space. “Fund III is projected to support an additional 70 companies whose founders specialize in fintech, marketplaces, gaming, and proptech sectors, and increases investment in tech-bio and crypto.”
Back in September 2020, the firm hired Morgan Beller, co-creator of the Facebook-led stablecoin project Libra (now Diem), as a general partner.
“You can’t have crypto without network effects. Understanding network effects – and the ability to bake in certain principles from the pre-seed/seed stage – gives crypto founders a real advantage. No one is better at understanding that than the NFX team,” Beller said Tuesday.
Some of the crypto-centric funding rounds in which NFX has taken part include Ramp, which raised $9 million in June. The fund is now said to be raising additional funds at a $300 million valuation, per The Block’s Ryan Weeks.
© 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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Author: Michael McSweeney
Trading activity remained vigorous on DEXes in the past few months. Although the broader crypto market was not favorable during that period, data from Dune Analytics shows that the aggregated monthly trade volume of major DEXes maintained at over 56 billion USD from June to September, which is after the massive broader market corrections noticeably higher than in late 2020.
Figure 1a: Monthly DEX Volume by Project
Source: Dune Analytics
Figure 1b: Monthly DEX Volume Grouped by Year
Source: Dune Analytics
This year’s major DEXes’ monthly trade volume has already outpaced the numbers in the last two years. Let’s take September as an example. At the time of writing, monthly DEX trade volume has reached 8.3 billion USD, compared to 2.9 billion USD in the same period last year, and 298 million in 2019.
The numbers are strong proof that an increasing number of crypto crowds have turned themselves into AMM-style trading instead of using traditional centralized methods. Part of the reason for that could be the expanding product selections on DEXes. The DeFi space looks very different from two years ago, from basic asset swaps to derivatives, concentrated liquidity, and private-sale tokens. The innovations we’ve seen in DEXes are undeniably imperative. This transformation of AMM-style trading could also partly explain why the TVL in DeFi has been growing steadily.
Figure 2: TVL in DeFi (USD; 1-year)
Souce: DeFi Pulse
Although AMM has been evolving rapidly, one issue remains the same, when an AMM is built on one chain, their trades and assets will also stay on the same chain and hardly move to another chain. With the increasing adoption of DeFi, this lack of interoperability could be an issue for AMM-style trading and DeFi in general. It could limit its scaling in the long run.
If you believe cross-chain is the future of DeFi, cross-chain AMM is the future of DeFi trading. Imagine what if a DeFi user can trade an Ethereum-based asset through a MoonRiver-based AMM. So, what benefit can the user have, you may wonder. There are several advantages in such cross-chain AMM, and cost would be one of them.
Anyone that has tried to swap assets on any Ethereum-based AMMs would know that all transactions you make there involve a gas fee, and the gas fee could be unreasonably high sometimes due to network congestion.
Undoubtedly, it makes sense that when someone uses the blockchain, they pay for their usage; however, when the fee is too high for everyday users, it seems to defeat the original purpose of DeFi, which is open and accessible. Furthermore, as more users are open to Ethereum-based DeFi trading, the network will be more congested, increasing the gas fee. This cycle will go on and on.
That’s why cross-chain AMM could be a solution for that. For example, if an AMM is built on a high-performance chain with an extra-low gas fee, AMM could trade popular ETH-based assets very quickly, and assets could be swapped across different chains effortlessly.
This cross-chain capability can solve the high gas fee and congestion problem and allow users to trade assets not just on one chain but also on many others. That will open up even more investment opportunities for all DeFi users; also, developers can build their projects with extra flexibility, and the chain itself will not limit their creativity.
Although cross-chain AMM is not a new concept, many existing cross-chain AMMs can only connect small chains with only a handful of assets, and the market still hasn’t seen one that can connect major chains with major assets. Convergence could be the one that can change that.
Convergence started as an ETH-based AMM featuring major assets and exotic assets such as private-sale tokens. It aims to open up the private investment market to the public. Convergence recently announced that its AMM would be deployed to Moonriver, Moonbeam’s first EVM-compatible parachain on Kusama. The deployment will make ConvX a true cross-chain AMM with the technical advantages and efficiency as a parachain on Kusama and enjoy the convenience of full Ethereum compatibility.
As a firm believer of cross-chain DeFi, AMM with cross-chain capabilities is inevitable. Although we have seen more attempts to achieve a seamless cross-chain experience in the space, we believe that building on a flexible high-performance EVM-compatible chain is the best way. We are still in the early days of cross-chain DeFi, innovations in this field will still emerge, and we are just at the beginning of an even more exciting time.
© 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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Author: Sponsored
On Wednesday, Oct. 6, starting at 9 a.m. ET (6 a.m. PT), CoinDesk will host Bitcoin for Advisors 2021. Focused on the changing financial landscape, the annual event aims to equip advisors with the tools to best understand how bitcoin, ethereum and other digital assets can successfully impact their clients’ portfolios.
Once again, Bitcoin for Advisors will be an online-only event. Like with other recent online events from CoinDesk, we anticipate some exciting announcements and insights from our guests.
Subscribe to Crypto for Advisors, CoinDesk’s new weekly newsletter defining crypto, digital assets and the future of finance. Sign up here to receive it every Thursday.
While the sessions will mainly focus on the basics of bitcoin, they’ll take a deep dive into practice management, portfolio theory, and even decentralized finance (DeFi). We’ll be live-tweeting the event as it happens on Wednesday, of course.
In many ways, bitcoin has become less of a speculative asset since the first Bitcoin for Advisors conference in 2020 — certainly when compared to years prior, during which the industry rallied around the “institutions are here” narrative only to have been met with a bear market that brought bitcoin from ~$20,000 to ~$3,000 in 2018.
Yet, somehow in the midst of a black swan event that spurred a global pandemic, lockdowns and unfettered quantitative easing, the institutions are, indeed, finally here. Which means financial advisors (FAs) and registered investment advisors (RIAs) are not too far behind, right?
Well, the headlines may say one thing, but what’s top of mind for advisors right now when it comes to looking at crypto assets for their clients? What’s the biggest challenge they face as we sit here today? We hope to answer these questions and more at Bitcoin for Advisors. Here’s some of what we’re looking out for at the event:
Highly acclaimed financial advisor Ric Edelman is the event’s first keynote. Edelman built the biggest independent advisory firm in the nation and is on a mission to be the face and bridge between old money and new.
According to Edelman, a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) is inevitable, and it’s already arrived in other jurisdictions (notably Canada). However, delays in the U.S. as well as other significant barriers have led financial managers to sit on their client’s cash as the dust settles. In his talk at Bitcoin for Advisors, Edelman hopes to remove the mystery about blockchain and digital assets and help advisors to “get off zero.”
But advisors need more than a man on a mission, they need a multifaceted approach that resonates with their practice and clients. That’s why the conference will explore compliance, practice management and tax implications – the whole package.
Another keynote speaker will offer a nerd’s perspective on the financial planning world. (Yes, we’re talking about Michael Kitces.) Kitces, who is famous for his “Nerd’s Eye View” blog, takes a bit of a more cautious approach to bitcoin. On one hand, he notes, advisors can’t fall behind and not learn about digital assets; on the other hand, the jury is still out.
Nonetheless, advisors will leave this event with a new vocabulary and a better understanding of the cryptocurrency landscape. With the ever-expanding crypto market attracting the attention of Janet Yellen, Elizabeth Warren and Gary Gensler, the financial planning world has no choice but to adapt or be disrupted.
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Author: Stephanie Izquieta
Sky Mavis, the creator of blockchain-enabled, play-to-earn game Axie Infinity, announced on Tuesday a $152 million Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).
The announcement comes a day after The Information reported that Sky Mavis is raising around $150 million in Series B funding at a valuation near $3 billion. Accel and Paradigm also participated in the round, said Sky Mavis.
With fresh capital at hand, Sky Mavis plans to expand its team, scale infrastructure, and build its own distribution platform to support game developers to create blockchain-enabled games.
The platform, dubbed The Mavis Hub, will seek to cut out middlemen and distribute games built on its proprietary Ronin blockchain.
“We are on a mission to create economic freedom for gamers and are making this happen by turning players into owners of in-game assets unlike the traditional model where publishers, distribution platforms and game developers retain control and benefit the most,” said Sky Mavis CEO Trung Nguyen.
As a play-to-earn game, Axie Infinity uses non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to reward players. By participating in the game, players breed, battle, and trade NFTs called “Axies.” Axie Infinity has grown to become the largest NFT gaming ecosystem, with more than 1.8 million daily active users logging into the platform in August. The game’s total volume to date stands at over $2 billion, according to tracker CryptoSlam.
“The game’s growth is a phenomenal testament to how deeply this model is resonating with people around the world,” said Arianna Simpson, general partner at a16z. “The Axie team has triggered an earthquake in gaming and the industry is now forever changed.”
The massive growth probably explains Sky Mavis’s significant Series B round after a small $7.5 million funding round in May of this year. As part of its expansion plans, Sky Mavis is also launching a decentralized exchange for trading Axies, as The Block reported recently.
© 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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Author: Yogita Khatri
Last week, 2,000 people bought into the presale for a collection of digital figurines and were disappointed to receive nothing but sets of emojis in return. The unknown figure behind the NFT sale made $138,000 and disappeared with the money, leaving a deleted Twitter account in their wake.
Only on Sunday did the artist who created the images — that were shown as previews of the collection — hear about the sale for the first time.
“It was kind of upsetting that someone takes and use your work like that,” said 27-year-old artist Ludvig Holmen. “Although it was nice to see the work has been appreciated by somebody, without me knowing it as well.”
Based in London, Holmen is currently studying architecture at the Architectural Association. While he did a lot of drawing when he was younger and some 3D modelling, it was through architecture that he got more serious about making art.
In February, Holmen heard about NFTs when Beeple sold one for $69 million. Shortly after, he decided to do his own run of NFTs, selling a set of rotating 3D NFTs — called GolemFactory — for 17 ETH ($59,000 at current prices).
Holmen also created a set of 25 3D digital figurines, custom designing each one, in a collection called Kingdoms Of Ether. His original idea was to sell them as NFTs but he wasn’t sure how to produce enough to make a reasonably sized collection, given they were all individually made. Plus, as a student, he didn’t have much spare time.
The real artwork (left) versus the artwork that was actually sent out (right). Image: Ludvig Holmen/Iconics.
“We had been discussing the idea of doing something like that. But the difficulty of pulling it off and keeping the standard of models, made us refrain from doing so — it’s a huge undertaking,” he said, referring to his friend who handled the coding side of things on his Golem project.
So he was not only surprised when he found out someone had used his artwork for a pretend NFT sale but that there had actually been high demand for it, with the presale selling out in minutes.
“It’s interesting to see it’s exactly what we had been talking about doing and the guy pretends to do it,” he said.
Holmen said he was aware that some of the victims of the rugpull had banded together to try to find a solution that would benefit those who lost money. While he hasn’t been able to get in touch with them yet, he added that he was open to helping out in some way.
“I really want to reach out to the people who bought into the project and see what they think about the project in the first place. It would be a shame if there was excitement about the project and I certainly don’t want them to think I was the one who pulled this scam,” he said.
Holmen said that something along the lines of free giveaways to people who were affected by the scam might be an option. So while the NFT mint was a sleazy rugpull, it might not be game over.
© 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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Author: Tim Copeland
The Securities and Exchange Commission continues to investigate the stablecoin-focused crypto company Circle, according to a regulatory filing from October 4.
As spotted by CoinDesk reporter Danny Nelson, Circle first received what it called an “investigative subpoena” from the SEC’s Division of Enforcement back in July. The subpoena was first disclosed in an S-4 filing dated August 6 and submitted to the agency by Circle as part of its bid to go public via a special-purpose acquisition vehicle, or SPAC. Much of the coverage at the time focused on Circle’s stated plan to become a kind of bank.
“[I]n July 2021, we received an investigative subpoena from the SEC Enforcement Division requesting documents and information regarding certain of our holdings, customer programs, and operations. We are cooperating fully with that investigation,” Circle said in its filing at the time.
The same language was included in a new filing made public on Monday.
The language itself indicates a broad scope of inquiry, a state of affairs that may not be surprising given the U.S. securities regulator’s stated goal to tighten its oversight of the crypto industry. Last month, SEC chair Gary Gensler said he wanted to bring the crypto market “into the public policy framework.”
The same month that the subpoena was said to have been received, Circle disclosed that 61% of the reserves for the stablecoin USDC were in the form of cash or cash equivalents, with Yankee CDs and U.S. Treasuries making up 13% and 12%, respectively. Just over a month later, Circle said the USDC reserve strategy would shift to include only cash and treasuries.
© 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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Author: Michael McSweeney
Citadel CEO Kenneth Griffin isn’t a fan of crypto, but that’s not why Citadel doesn’t trade it.
During an interview with the Economic Club of Chicago, the billionaire hedge funder said Citadel would trade crypto if there were more regulatory certainty.
Though Griffin teased he would receive hate mail for his less-than-positive views on digital assets, he said his views have little to do with why Citadel has yet to dip its toes into digital asset market-making.
If crypto were regulated, Citadel would trade it, Griffin said. There is a demand for it from the firm’s online partners, and the firm trades related to businesses with which he disagrees. As it stands today, the regulatory uncertainty is just too great.
“Because of a lack of regulatory certainty around cryptocurrency, we just aren’t involved today,” he said. “I believe [Securities and Exchange Commission] Chairperson Gensler is spot-on on the need to have thoughtful regulation around cryptocurrency.”
Regulatory clarity will create greater competition, leading to a smaller market, according to Griffin. The “virtues of the product,” which Griffin says he finds to be “pretty nebulous,” will change as top-tier market makers get involved.
He said he wished the fervency around the developments in crypto were funneled towards building a stronger U.S. economic system.
“It’s a jihadist call that we don’t believe in the dollar,” he said. “What a crazy concept this is that we as a country embrace so many bright talented people to come up with a replacement for our reserve currency.”
© 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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Author: Aislinn Keely
CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot creator Dapper Labs has acquired Brud, a startup that creates computer-generated influencers among other ventures. The firm says the acquisition will help it build a new business unit focused on decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).
Brud is perhaps best known for running the account behind Lil Miquela, a popular CGI influencer. The firm has built a community in the crypto space by minting non-fungible tokens (NFTs) related to its characters. It says it’s focused on “creating community-owned media and collectively built worlds,” according to its website.
Brud founder Trevor McFedries also has an additional business focused on the “future of culture” called Friends With Benefits or FWB. FWB is now an Ethereum-based DAO unified by its social token $FWB. The group is focused on building the web3 world to embody an intersection of technology and cultural communities, according to its manifesto.
Now, Dapper Labs will be using those community-building skills to build out a new unit, called Dapper Collectives, which will be focused on community, decentralized ownership and governance on the Flow blockchain.
The community around Lil Miquela, which numbers in the millions, will be the flagship project, but the Brud team will help build out others. The team will also develop open source tools to help other mainstream communities navigate decentralized ownership and governance on Flow.
The acquisition is the latest installment in a period of rapid growth for the entertainment and gaming-focused blockchain firm. Dapper just closed an additional $250 million round and partnerships with the NFL and La Liga.
The firm has long had an eye on building out its Metaverse offerings.
“We’ve been following Trevor [McFedries], Nicole de Ayora (CPO), and Kara Weber (COO)’s work on virtual influencers and the Metaverse since before CryptoKitties — it’s an honor to work together today,” said Dapper’s announcement. “We’ve also been impressed with Trevor’s work more generally in the decentralized ecosystem, including cofounding the $FWB DAO on Ethereum.”
The announcement closed with a hiring call for the new unit. While Brud team members will make up the core of the new unit, the team is still looking to grow.
“The team will have creative independence to do what they do best — while being able to rely on the infrastructure and expertise of the Dapper Labs mother organization,” said the announcement.
© 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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Author: Aislinn Keely
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