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This research piece is available to
members of The Block Genesis.
You can continue reading
this Genesis research on The Block.

This research piece is available to
members of The Block Genesis.
You can continue reading
this Genesis research on The Block.

Grape Network, a Solana-based “DAO infrastructure” protocol has raised $1.2 million in a seed funding round. 

The round was led by Multicoin Capital, with participation from SkyVision Capital, Definitive Capital, LongHash Ventures, Double Peak Group, and Solana Capital.

The seed funding round comes soon after Grape raised $600,000 via a so-called IDO (initial DEX offering) on Raydium AcceleRaytor, a crowdfunding platform. In an IDO, a blockchain project makes a token’s first public debut on a DEX (in this case, Raydium) to raise funds from retail investors.

But it was chaotic. The IDO caused Solana’s outage last week since too many participants, including bots, tried to participate in it, which created a denial-of-service (DoS) attack on the network. At its peak, the blockchain was trying to handle 400,000 transactions per second.

Like its IDO, Grape’s seed funding round was also raised via a token sale, the protocol’s core contributor Dean Pappas told The Block. With fresh capital at hand, Grape plans to double its current team of 10, said Pappas.

“The demand for our toolset has surpassed every expectation, and we need to double the team size to handle the demand and still develop towards our roadmap,” he said.

Grape provides tools for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) to help them manage their communities more efficiently. Pappas said most DAOs use Telegram and Discord today, which can be “confusing and jarring.”

“The goal of our tools is to direct attention, organize groups and committees more efficiently, and incentivize work that directly advances a community’s mission,” he added.

Grape’s first tool, Grape Access, lets DAOs provide exclusive access to community members based on their wallets balances. It does so by connecting their social accounts to their cryptographic keys. “With Grape Access and our workplace module, DAOs can identify real contributors and delegate responsibilities to further the organization’s goals,” said Pappas.

The Grape protocol is currently only focused on serving the Solana ecosystem. Some popular Solana projects using the protocol include Saber Labs, Degen Ape Academy, SolanaMonkeyBusiness, and others.

Pappas said Grape is working on releasing more tools for DAOs, including an “intra-DAO payments system” that will allow DAOs to program faster token payments.

© 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.

Cryptocurrency exchange FTX announced Thursday that it has signed a long-term sponsorship deal with the Formula One (F1) racing team Mercedes-AMG Petronas.

The length of the deal hasn’t been disclosed, but FTX said it will span multiple race seasons, with the FTX logo being featured prominently on both the cars and the drivers. Part of the FTX branding will be unveiled during the upcoming Russian Grand Prix on September 26, said the exchange.

The FTX logo will also be featured on Mercedes-Benz trucks, in the garage, and hospitality and communications facilities. FTX said it will also have access to the F1 team’s members, including drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, to further expand the reach of its brand to F1’s global fan base. FTX and Mercedes F1 also plan to collaborate on initiatives such as FTX Pay integration, an NFT collection, and corporate social responsibility initiatives.

While FTX has inked many such sponsorship deals in recent months, this is the first time the exchange has partnered with an F1 team. In June, Crypto.com signed a five-year sponsorship deal with Formula 1, which was reportedly worth more than $100 million. Earlier this year, Crypto.com also partnered with the F1 team Aston Martin Cognizant.

FTX itself has spent over $300 million on such deals with various sports organizations, including the Miami Heat basketball team ($135 million) and TSM ($210 million). FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried recently told The Block that the crypto exchange looks to attract non-crypto natives to its platform with such deals.

© 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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© 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 this weekly series, we dive into some of the most interesting data and developments across the Layer 1 blockchain landscape, from DeFi and bridges to network activity and funding
• Layer 1 ecosystems today are continuing to evolve as they undergo network upgrades and build out DeFi and NFT infrastructure
• This week, we dive into Avalanche, Fantom, Tezos, and Polkadot

This research piece is available to
members of The Block Genesis.
You can continue reading
this Genesis research on The Block.

Bitcoin.org, the oldest bitcoin education resource site registered in 2008, appears to be compromised for promoting dubious bitcoin giveaways.

Users first started to notice and share on Twitter early Thursday morning that the homepage of Bitcoin.org is now displaying a pop-up page that asks users to send bitcoin to a dedicated address with promises they will receive doubled amount in return.

Such method is similar to typical crypto giveaway scams that were rampant on Twitter usually initiated by imposters of influential accounts, including that of Vitalik Buterin and Elon Musk.

Meanwhile, all other sub-pages on Bitcoin.org are not functional as the current homepage does not allow clicking into any other pages such as the PDF version of the Bitcoin white paper.

The direct URL for the Bitcoin white paper on Bitcoin.org also shows a “404 Not Found.”

The address that’s displayed on the site right now has received 0.4 bitcoin worth $17,000 over the past hour but it’s unclear if it’s from any victim that fell for it.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Asia-headquartered crypto custodian and asset management firm Cobo has closed a $40 million Series B founding round.

The firm said in an announcement on Thursday that the round was led by DST Global, A&T Capital and IMO Ventures. The latest funding comes nearly three years after Cobo net $13 million a Series A in October 2018 backed by DHVC.

With the proceeds, Cobo plans to advance its services on top of the custody solution including a new offering that will allow institutional custody clients to access and earn yields on decentralized finance protocols via “user-friendly interfaces.” 

Further, Cobo said part of the funding will be used to apply for regulatory licenses as the firm has gradually transitioned its headquarters from Beijing to Singapore over the past years.

Cobo was founded by Jiang Changhao and Mao Shixing, who is the co-founder of F2Pool. Also known as Discus Fish, Mao is a long-time influencer in the Chinese crypto community given his early entrants into Bitcoin and Ethereum mining. Him being an active participant in the DeFi and NFT space since last year has also boosted Cobo’s experience in its DeFi-as-a-service offering.

“In the past, we’d witnessed crypto applications evolve from Bitcoin to DeFi and now NFTs. In due time, I even foresee metaverses will be next to be developed on the blockchain. So, looking ahead, we have the foundational infrastructure in place that will enable us to serve 1,000 institutional investors,” Mao said in the statement.

Building on the success of F2Pool, Cobo started by offering miner customers staking and financial products through its custody and hardware wallet service that was called Cobo Vault. But it has divested the hardware wallet unit earlier this year to focus on service on top of the custody business.

© 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.

Mike Belshe founded BitGo—the crypto financial services and custody firm—in 2013 with the original intention to help solve a pinpoint he identified when entering the bitcoin market early on: how to store crypto holdings safely.

“We forget about how easy loss is”, said Belshe.

Today BitGo is more wide-spanning than just storage and custody, also covering lending, trading, and prime-related financial services. The firm is expected to complete its acquisition by Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital by end of 2021, creating an operation the two Mikes hope will bridge the crypto world with Wall Street.

On this episode of The Scoop, Mike Belshe CEO of BitGo joined host Frank Chaparro to talk about that deal between BitGo and Galaxy, BitGo’s origin story, and why regulators should embrace the openness of the blockchain. 

In Belshe’s view, regulators—including Gary Gensler of the Securities and Exchange Commission—should actually lean into using blockchain to identify nefarious behavior, and say “wait a minute we have this huge tool, let’s use that.”

In the event that the agency deems most cryptocurrencies as securities—a scenario Belshe said was unlikely—Belshe noted that regulators would lock out the US from the market’s innovation.

© 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.

A New Jersey cease-and-desist for new interest accounts at crypto lender BlockFi will take effect on December 1, per an extension that the firm announced on Wednesday.  

The New Jersey Bureau of Securities signed off on this third extension of its cease-and-desist order, according to BlockFi. The securities regulator initially issued its order back in July, the first of a range of state regulators to target the New Jersey-based firm over its offerings. Without backing from the FDIC, BlockFi’s interest accounts fall under the definition of a security, argue the regulators. 

“The order, which calls for preventing the creation of all new [BlockFi Interest Accounts], is not presently in effect and therefore has no impact on our current BIA clients or any of our other products. All existing BIA clients, in New Jersey and worldwide, continue to have access to their accounts. All other products, services and assets on the BlockFi platform are unaffected,” the firm said Wednesday. 

The issue of crypto lending and interest accounts has subsequently ballooned. New Jersey, Texas and Alabama recently began similar proceedings against BlockFi competitor Celsius. 

At the federal level, the Securities and Exchange Commission has been less active, but interactions between the SEC and crypto exchange Coinbase seem to have put an end to the latter’s nascent Lend offering, which would have paid interest out on USDC holdings. 

© 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.