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The web3 video game development firm Mythical Games raised $37 million in a Series C1 funding round led by digital asset manager Scytale Digital.

New investors in the company included Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest, Animoca Brands, PROOF, Stanford Athletics and MoonPay. Existing funders Andreessen Horowitz, WestCap, Gaingels, Signum Growth and Struck Capital also participated.

Terms of the raise resembled a Series C round in 2021, CEO John Linden told The Block in an interview.

“Most of the language was almost identical to Andressen’s round,” he said. “We didn’t want to go to a full Series D yet,” Linden said. 

The road to profitability

In addition to scaling its games and audience reach, Mythical Games intends to use the funding to bring the company to profitability.

“We have the chain working, the marketplace working, we have games in the market, and we think we have a good strategy to actually get the company to profitability,” Linden said. “Once we do that, then we’ll go and raise what we consider a more Series D round, which is definitely a massive growth round.”

Mythical Games plans to close the current round with an additional $20 million to $30 million later this year. 

Mythical Games raised $150 million in the 2021 round and eyed an additional $50 million in in January of this year, bolstering the firm’s valuation to $1.25 billion at the time. As for the firm’s latest valuation after the new Series C1 funding, Linden noted that it had shifted after the acquisition of DMarket but that “it’s still a unicorn status.”

The firm’s most popular games include NFL Rivals and Blankos Block Party, which launched on the Epic Games Store in September 2022. Within the last year, the firm brought in over 2.5 million new users and has grossed $1 million in sales per day. 

© 2023 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.

Crypto asset manager Scytale Digital led the Series C extension round for the NFL Rivals creator.

The Ichimoku cloud, created by Japanese journalist Goichi Hosoda in the late 1960s, is used by traders and analysts to momentum and trend direction

EU lawmakers have agreed on capital requirements for banks holding crypto, as part of a transitional regime until more extensive reforms are implemented.

The bloc’s MEPs agreed Tuesday for a transitional prudential regime for crypto assets and on amendments to enhance banks’ management of ESG risks. The regime will take effect until the European Commission (EC) implements the Basel III banking reforms, and aims “to make sure that banks will have to disclose their exposure to crypto-assets.”

Referring to risk assets such as un-backed cryptocurrencies, MEPs stated “The Commission should come up with a relevant legislative proposal to implement these future Basel standards and specify the prudential treatment of such exposures during the transitional period.”

MEP Jonás Fernandez added the transitional arrangements will include “setting capital requirements for crypto assets until the Commission puts forward a specific legislative proposal.” He added the new banking legislation should lower the risk of future banking crises.

Specific details to follow

The announcement was tweeted by the European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, which stated that “details of the deal will follow.” The deal, which also introduces changes to how banks assess the risk of corporate and home loans, must now be voted on by member states in the EU’s Council and by lawmakers to become legislation.

In January, the European Parliament’s economic affairs committee approved a draft law to implement Basel III capital rules from early 2025. At that time MEPs voted to impose strict restrictions on banks seeking to hold crypto. In a January statement Markus Ferber, the economic spokesman for the Parliament’s largest political grouping, said, “Banks will be required to hold a euro of their own capital for every euro they hold in crypto and such prohibitive capital requirements will help prevent instability in the crypto world from spilling over into the financial system.”

Global standards for regulating bank exposure to crypto assets are being finalized at the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. The details so far suggest a tough line on the prudential treatment for bank crypto-asset exposure. The Basel III agreement was a response to the Global Financial Crisis of 2007/2008. Drafted by the EU and its G20 partners, it comprises several measures to enhance prudential regulatory standards, supervision, and risk management of banks.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The latest price moves in bitcoin (BTC) and crypto markets in context for June 27, 2023. First Mover is CoinDesk’s daily newsletter that contextualizes the latest actions in the crypto markets.

Over 555 stolen ether were swapped from Arbitrum from Ethereum, a security firm said.

Episode 61 of Season 5 of The Scoop was recorded with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Lightspark co-founder and CEO David Marcus.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Please send feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblock.co.

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David Marcus is a renowned entrepreneur and executive in the tech industry known for his leadership roles at PayPal and Meta.

In this episode, Marcus unpacks how his latest venture, Lightspark, is helping transform Bitcoin’s Lightning Network into a real-time global settlement layer for the internet.

Lightspark raised about $173 million last year at a valuation of almost $1 billion at the time, as reported by The Block.

Outline:

2:33 – David Marcus’ Bitcoin journey

5:29 – Lightspark & Bitcoin

9:50 – Lightspark adoption

12:37 – Regulatory tailwinds for bitcoin

16:33 – Merchant payment innovation

23:25 – Lightspark’s partnerships

26:26 – SEN/SIGNET replacement

28:47 – Lessons learned from libra

40:21 – What’s next for Lightspark

43:43 – Closing thoughts

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This episode is brought to you by our sponsors PayPal and CleanSpark.

About CleanSpark

CleanSpark (NASDAQ: CLSK) is America’s Bitcoin Miner™. Visit cleanspark.com/theblock to learn more about the CleanSpark way.

© 2023 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.

With shifting regulatory regimes worldwide, crypto is on the move to find the best locales to put down roots, get licensed, register or just be. Crypto Hubs 2023, our ranking of the top 15 global crypto hubs, is a good place to start.

What is not to like about the tiny Swiss city where Vitalik Buterin and his cofounders launched Ethereum? The No. 1 spot on CoinDesk’s Crypto Hubs 2023 ranking has it all: regulatory clarity, crypto-friendly banks and a lively crypto job market and events calendar.

A fintech hub turned early crypto adopter, Singapore raised billions through ICOs. Cue parties on yachts and at luxury villas. But after the collapse of homegrown crypto darlings Terraform Labs and Three Arrows Capital, the No. 2 spot in CoinDesk’s Crypto Hubs 2023 is searching for the right regulatory balance to encourage crypto without getting burned again.