Crypto Finance will provide Apex with the digital infrastructure needed to issue structured investment products.
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Author: Jamie Crawley
Crypto exchange Bitget acquired a controlling stake in crypto wallet BitKeep with an additional $30 million investment at a $300 million valuation.
“The investment in the wallet is an important move for Bitget as it will expand its business territory to the wallet sector and help it provide native storage and asset management services,” Bitget said in a statement.
The controlling stake is well above 51%, Bitget’s managing director Gracy Chen told The Block in an interview. She declined to comment on the specific stake percentage and how much Bitget has previously invested in BitKeep. But she noted that Bitget invested in BitKeep in 2021 and 2022 without making the information public.
Non-custodial growth
The acquisition of a controlling stake comes amid crypto and bank collapses. Chen said the demand for non-custodial wallets has jumped due to recent events like the bankruptcy of FTX and will continue to grow, and that’s why it made a deal with BitKeep. “It is also part of our new ‘go beyond derivatives’ strategy to offer DeFi and other services,” Chen said.
Bitget was founded in 2018 as a futures trading platform and now also provides a copy trading platform. The company serves 8 million users, mainly from Asia, Latin America and Europe, said Chen.
“We are the largest web3 wallet in Asia with around 9.5 million users,” Moka Han, chief operating officer of BitKeep, said in an interview. BitKeep’s monthly active users have jumped to 1.6 million, and its total transaction volume to date has crossed $4 billion, Han said.
BitKeep’s rapid growth in recent months is the main reason for a big jump in its valuation, according to Han. The wallet provider was valued at $100 million in May last year when it raised $15 million in Series A funding.
Similar to Binance and Trust Wallet?
Bitget’s BitKeep deal can be seen as similar to Binance’s purchase of Trust Wallet in 2018, according to Chen. But she said that Bitget does not plan to challenge Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange.
“Crypto is a big industry and instead of cutting pies from them, we would much like to grow the pie together,” Chen said.
BitKeep will continue to operate as an independent entity, said Han. The wallet plans to add more features, including support for ZK-rollup-based Layer 2 networks, and ultimately aims to onboard the next 1 billion users to crypto, Han said.
As part of the Bitget deal, Kevin Como, BitKeep’s pseudonymous CEO, is stepping down and Karry Cheung, the current chief product officer of BitKeep, is getting promoted to CEO, Han said.
Bitget and BitKeep currently employ around 1,300 and 100 people, respectively, according to Chen and Han.
© 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.
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Author: Yogita Khatri
Non-censoring relays such as Agnostic and ultra sound are delivering more data blocks on Ethereum than Flashbots, the one-time king of MEV-delivering relays.
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Author: Margaux Nijkerk
XRP tokens have jumped 20% in the past 24 hours as Ripple defendants heralded a positive view in its ongoing case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
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Author: Shaurya Malwa
The process is just getting under way and the company, which employs just over 300 staff, said it cannot put an exact number on job losses.
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Author: Ian Allison, Will Canny
Crypto Exchange Luno Rejigs Leadership Roles as It Seeks to Boost Investor Base, Eyes Public Listing
CEO Marcus Swanepoel is moving into a new role as executive chairman, and COO James Lanigan has been promoted to CEO.
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Author: Sam Reynolds
Nexon, one of Korea’s most prominent gaming developers and publishers, is teaming up with Polygon to power its MapleStory Universe in-game economy. This will allow players to develop and manage NFTs in the game, the project’s production director Sun-young Hwang said in a company release.
First released in Korea in 2003, MapleStory is a massively multiplayer online game with more than 180 million registered players. Since its launch, it has brought in more than $4 billion in revenue for the publisher, according to a company presentation. The MapleStory Universe is an NFT-powered spinoff of this IP.
So far, large gaming shops have been reluctant to integrate NFTs and crypto into their games — with some opting to experiment with new products rather than tinkering with their most valuable IP. Nexon’s play for NFTs via MapleStory could mark a departure from this.
What’s the MapleStory?
In the game, players create their characters and embark on quests, battle monsters and interact with other players in a virtual world. The game features 2D side-scrolling graphics.
Currently, players buy and sell items with one another using the game’s currency. In its web3 iteration, players will acquire NFTs through gameplay (i.e., hunting monsters and completing quests) to unlock multiple benefits and utilities in various games and applications in the ecosystem.
The game’s crypto elements are set to work via Polygon’s Supernets — an extension to the core blockchain which allows it to scale up and perform more complicated tasks. Supernets are known for allowing blockchain gaming with low-to-no transaction fees — a factor that has previously put larger gaming shops off from entering the space.
“We will work closely with the team at Polygon Labs to develop and market the game,” said Sun-young Hwang in the release.
Polygon has also struck deals with gaming industry heavyweights such as Square Enix, Neowiz, Midnight Society, Jam City and Tilting Point, and e-sports teams and streamers, including Cloud9 and DrDisrespect.
© 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.
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Author: Lucy Harley-McKeown
Over 8.4 million bnb tokens have been committed to the Space ID token sale, which was raising $2.5 million from exchange users.
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Author: Shaurya Malwa
Tether sold at a slight premium earlier this month even as most stablecoins were dented.
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Author: Shaurya Malwa
MapleStory Universe will launch a private Supernet on Polygon for the new game.
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Author: Shaurya Malwa
