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Tools for Humanity, lead developer of the Worldcoin project, announced the completion of a $115 million fundraise led by Blockchain Capital.

The news confirms an earlier report, published by The Block in February, that Worldcoin planned to raise up to $120 million. At that time, people familiar with the matter suggested the raise would value the project at $3 billion — as did its previous round — but no valuation was disclosed in today’s announcement.

The San Francisco-based Tools for Humanity was co-founded by Alex Blania, Max Novendstern and Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT developer OpenAI. Its purpose is to drive forwards the Worldcoin project — an audacious attempt to create a cryptocurrency that is global in scope and available to anyone who has verified they are a real person. The main method of doing that is to get scanned by one of Worldcoin’s orbs.

The project is building toward the launch of the Worldcoin token, which company representatives have repeatedly earmarked for the first half of this year.

The age of AI

The cash injection will be used to further develop the recently launched World App, a wallet dedicated to the Worldcoin ecosystem, as well as for continued R&D and growth, according to the announcement.

In addition to Blockchain Capital — an American crypto investment firm with some $2 billion under management — a16z crypto, Bain Capital Crypto and Distributed Global also participated in the round.

“As we embark on the age of AI, it is imperative that individuals are able to maintain personal privacy while proving their humanness. In doing so we can help ensure that everyone can realize the financial benefits that AI is poised to deliver,” said Alex Blania, CEO and co-founder of Tools for Humanity, in a statement.

Building momentum

According to Worldcoin’s website, 1.7 million people — the majority of them in the Global South — have already had their identities verified and are ready to claim their share of the token when it launches.

The project has proven controversial since drawing sharp criticism from privacy advocates when it was first unveiled. More recently, its developers were forced to roll out fresh measures to combat the beginnings of a black market for Worldcoin credentials.

Yet momentum continues to build. The Block revealed in March that Worldcoin had struck a deal with manufacturing giant Jabil to ramp up production of its iris-scanning orbs. With the World App launching in May and fresh capital to hand, everything seems poised for the token to go live.

© 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.

Other investors in the Series C round included Bain Capital Crypto and Distributed Global.

The partnership will enable IoT solution providers to benefit from Amazon Sidewalk’s network and Helium’s network.

Stablecoin issuer Stably is launching a dollar-backed stablecoin for traders of Bitcoin NFTs and BRC-20 tokens.

The latest price moves in bitcoin (BTC) and crypto markets in context for May 25, 2023. First Mover is CoinDesk’s daily newsletter that contextualizes the latest actions in the crypto markets.

Fantom Foundation Director Andre Cronje said the foundation withdrew its funds from liquidity pools on SushiSwap out of caution with respect to the Multichain situation.

“No point to LP at times of uncertainty,” Cronje told The Block via Telegram, referring to Liquidity Providers, or the act of providing liquidity to a pool on a decentralized exchange.

The foundation withdrew $2.4 million of MULTI, the native token of the cross-chain Multichain protocol, on May 24, as noted by on-chain analysts.

“You can see in the wallet the funds haven’t been sold, as soon as Multichain is able to release a statement around this and clear it up we will LP again,” said Cronje.

Unexplained downtime

The Multichain protocol has had five days of stuck transactions and it still has multiple cross-chain bridge pathways — Kava, zkSync, Polygon zkEVM — that are not yet online. The first purported cause was that this was due to an upgrade that was getting fixed, but the explanation was changed yesterday to an ambiguous “force majeure.” There are some concerns over the lack of responses from the project’s leadership team.

The Fantom blockchain is also closely connected to Multichain. According to data from The Block Research, 38% of the total-value locked on the Fantom blockchain is held within Multichain. Plus, tokens issued on Multichain make up 78% of the market cap of tokens on Fantom.

Yet Cronje said he wasn’t particularly concerned about this because the assets are secured by the multi-party computation protocol and the Fantom bridge is unaffected.

“If something did happen, it would impact multichain-issued USDC, DAI, and wBTC. Everything else of significance is natively issued,” he added.

© 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 renewed bias for bitcoin puts is consistent with the increased demand for downside protection seen in the options market tied to S&P 500.

A merger with Thunder Bridge Capital may not be completed by a July 2 deadline, potentially causing a further year’s delay.

Binance’s NFT marketplace has introduced a new feature that enables users to borrow cryptocurrencies using NFTs as collateral, marking its entrance into the NFT lending space.

The Binance NFT marketplace currently supports ether (ETH) borrowing against “blue-chip” NFTs, such as Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), Azuki and Doodles, according to an announcement Thursday. More cryptocurrencies and NFTs will be supported in the near future, a Binance NFT spokesperson told The Block.

The feature means Binance NFT users won’t have to sell their NFTs in case of urgent need of money. “NFT Loans will add a new form of liquidity for NFT holders, allowing them to participate in the market without having to let go of their precious NFTs,” Mayur Kamat, head of product at Binance, said in the statement.

The current interest rate on NFT loans is 7.91% p.a. and loan to value ratio ranges from 40% to 60%, according to the Binance NFT website. There won’t be a gas fee or Ethereum transaction fee charge.

Binance introduced its NFT marketplace in April 2021 and launched it in June of that year. Earlier this month, Binance NFT said it will add support for Ordinals, or Bitcoin NFTs, adding to current blockchains Ethereum, Polygon and its native BNB Chain.

The Binance NFT loan feature comes shortly after NFT marketplace giant Blur launched its NFT lending protocol called Blend earlier this month. Blend allows lenders to set their own interest rates and loan-to-value ratios, as The Block Research‘s analyst Brad Kay reported recently. “Blend’s meteoric rise in the NFT lending market is undeniable. As it continues to break new ground, the protocol is proving that a market-driven approach can successfully revolutionize the lending landscape,” according to Kay.

© 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.

Binance, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange, has temporarily suspended deposits for 10 tokens due to ongoing issues with the Multichain bridge project.

This decision affects users of these bridged tokens on BNB Smart Chain, Fantom, Ethereum and Avalanche blockchain networks. The affected tokens include AVA-ETH, SPELL-AVAXC and FTM-ETH, per Binance. Deposits of these assets on other networks will continue uninterrupted, and users were told to refer to Binance’s deposit page for further information.

“We are temporarily suspending deposits for the following bridged tokens-network while we await clarity from the Multichain team,” said Binance. 

The suspension of these tokens follows a five-day long crisis experienced by Multichain users, which has impacted the processing of transactions, leading to multiple stuck transactions. Several of Multichain’s cross-chain bridge pathways — including Kava, zkSync, and Polygon zkEVM — are still not yet operational.

The Multichain project initially attributed the problem to technical issues. However, as discontent among users escalated, the explanation was updated to an ambiguous “force majeure.”

Multichain’s issues come alongside unverified rumors on Twitter that the core leadership team may have been arrested in China. The Multichain team has not yet responded to the rumors regarding their alleged arrest. In the meantime, the platform’s users and the broader crypto community are left grappling with uncertainty and apprehension as they await clear information. 

The project’s Discord server and Telegram groups have provided no substantial updates to community members so far. 

In response, crypto projects are reacting to the team’s silence. In a separate development, the Fantom Foundation withdrew 450,000 MULTI tokens ($2.4 million) from liquidity on the decentralized exchange SushiSwap. Yesterday, crypto investment firm HashKey Group moved $250,000 to the crypto exchange Gate.io, and Tron founder Justin Sun withdrew 470,000 of the USDD stablecoin from the Multichain protocol itself.

© 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.