Interpretation of 7 interesting Web3 projects that have recently completed financing
Compilation of the original text: Bai Ze Research Institute
Compilation of the original text: Bai Ze Research Institute
One way to keep up with trends in the crypto industry is to track the moves of venture capital firms. Despite the bear market, capital doesn't seem to be stopping the flow to the crypto industry. Compared to the previous year, it was at a much slower pace, but in any case, a small number of project development teams were able to continue to complete their projects without worrying about market conditions.
1、Renegade
Renegade, a startup building a new kind of decentralized exchange, is developing an on-chain version of dark pools based on multi-party computation (MPC) and zero-knowledge proofs. In short, Renegade is an anonymous decentralized exchange offering products related to security, privacy, MEV protection.
According to the white paper, Renegade promises “complete anonymity for users throughout the lifetime of the exchange.” It comes at just the right time:
1. When CeFi proves itself untrustworthy through FTX.
2. When regulators are hostile to cryptocurrencies. Recently, the US Securities and Exchange Commission banned Kraken from providing Staking services to US customers.
3. When MEV tries to disrupt your transaction in some way.
Recently, Renegade closed a $3.4 million seed round led by Dragonfly Capital and former AngleList CEO Naval Ravikant, with Balaji Srinivasan (former a16z Partner), Lily Liu (Solana Foundation Chairman), Tarun Chitra (Robot Ventures ), Symbolic Capital and other angel investors participated in the investment.
The project is currently in internal testing and is expected to open a public testnet to traders in the coming months, and applications can now be added to the waiting list.
Official website: https://renegade.fi/
2、Alongside
The name is loud because it sounds like BAYC's metaverse project Otherside. Although it turns out that there is no relationship between them, they are backed by the same investment institution - a16z.
Alongside is a crypto index platform that allows investors to invest in cryptocurrencies through indexes, just like you invest in TradFi through SP 500 or Nasdaq. Instead of buying individual crypto assets, you buy index tokens, like buying ETH that tracks SP 500.
Attempting to give the crypto market an index is nothing new. There have been projects done in the past, but to no avail due to the unpredictability of the market.
Recently, Alongside completed $11 million in financing, led by a16z, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Franklin Templeton Investments, Village Globa, Not Boring Capital and others. Generally speaking, DeFi project financing usually ranges from US$1 million to US$4 million, and venture capital usually has a forward-looking vision, so Alongside and the encryption index track cannot be ignored.
Official website: https://alongside.xyz/
3、OPNX
Can't help but be interested in Zhu Su's new project?
The fallen former Three Arrows Capital "commander" (Zhu Su, Kylel Davies) returned to the market and established a new exchange. Originally, it was called GTX, and after much protest and ridicule from users (which is similar in name to FTX), they eventually renamed it OPNX.
OPNX is a crypto claims solution, as crypto companies including FTX, Voyager, Celsius, Genesis, BlockFi have gone bankrupt (or are filing for bankruptcy) over the past year, plus Mt. The market size has reached about $20 billion, and every claimant is waiting.
OPNX allows claimants to instantly unlock the value of their claims and trade it for cryptocurrency, or use it as margin collateral. The platform hopes to simplify the claims process and at the same time build a public market for claims transactions, thereby releasing billions of dollars of trapped capital and providing users with the opportunity to "rebuild".
That is, OPNX mints your locked funds into derivatives, which can be used for trading. It works a bit like a liquid collateralized derivative like stETH - but not quite.
Because of Su Zhu's reputation, one might be dismissive of the notion of claims resolution. Some potential I can see is that the bankruptcy repayment may still take years, which makes it possible for Su Zhu to flex his muscles here. My curiosity is more about the mechanism of OPNX, how they will issue derivatives for locked assets and make them tradable assets.
OPNX hopes to raise $25 million in funding to develop and operate, and they have now launched an official website and opened a waiting list, although the exact amount of funding they received remains a mystery.
Official website: https://www.openx.com/
4、Superplastic
Now, let's look at a "weird" project.
Superplastic, a global entertainment and product brand, has partnered with the world's most recognizable artists, brands, and celebrities to bring 3D NFT characters, NFT products, and virtual events to the community. It looks like the project offers NFTized characters that have the potential to be TV show stars.
Superplastic has previously partnered with BAYC, Gucci, Epic Games, Fortnite and other brands to launch NFTs on Ethereum.
Recently, Superplastic completed a $20 million A-4 financing led by Alexa Fund, the venture capital arm of Amazon, with participation from Google Ventures, Galaxy Digital, Sony Japan, Animoca Brands, Craft Ventures, etc., bringing the total funds raised by Superplastic to date to 58 million Ten thousand U.S. dollars.
Official website: https://superplastic.co/
5、Monad
Founded by the former team of TradFi giant Jump Trading, Monad Labs is developing Monad, a new proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain and decentralized computing platform that maximizes performance and portability. Monad aims to achieve 1 second block time and 10,000 tps performance while maintaining EVM compatibility of applications and infrastructure through algorithmic improvements to virtual machine design and Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus mechanism.
In short, Monad will adopt PoS consensus mechanism and will be compatible with EVM. Regarding performance, they revolve around "asynchronous, parallel execution", which reminds me of Fantom...
Recently, Monad Labs completed $19 million in financing, led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Placeholder Capital, Lemniscap, Shima Capital, Finality Capital, Naval Ravikant, Cobie, and Hasu.
Funding is being used for development, and Monad will launch a testnet in the coming months, with a mainnet deployment planned for later this year. So far, I'm not impressed with the technology they offer. However, with the backing of well-known VCs in the crypto industry, if there is an airdrop, it can generate madness just as much.
Official website: https://www.monad.xyz/
6、Phi
Cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and DeFi have been hit hard in 2022 amid macroeconomic headwinds, Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the bankruptcy of several crypto firms. Despite these challenges, blockchain gaming is doing well in 2022.
Clearly, this momentum is continuing into 2023. As evidenced by the willingness of VC investors to invest in them.
Phi is a social gaming platform, based on ENS, which is creating an open and inclusive metaverse land system. Through familiar game styles such as Sim City and Animal Crossing, it aims to make it easy to visualize identities on the chain. It encourages users to interact with various Web3 protocols, which provides a positive feedback loop for the entire crypto ecosystem.
After exploring Phi in depth, I'm sure it's a good project to introduce newbies to Web3/DeFi. Phi invites users to go on "crypto adventures," such as claiming NFTs, exchanging tokens, or buying NFTs. There are tasks and competitions, and there will be corresponding rewards.
This is a project suitable for beginners in cryptocurrency and DeFi. It is interactive and can perform tasks on multiple chains such as Ethereum, Polygon, etc. When you complete a mission, you are rewarded with tokens. Rather than earning coins, it is Learn-To-Earn (earn while learning).
Most recently, Phi closed a $2 million seed round led by Chapter One and Delphi Digital, with Polygon Ventures, Ryan Sean Adams (Bankless), David Hoffman (Bankless), Kartik Talwar (ETH Global), Scott Moore (Gitcoin Joint Innovation) and others participated in the investment.
This round of financing will be used to accelerate the design and development of Phi's improved UI/UX and new social/gaming features, and create a community to expand cooperation with more protocols, while also creating derivatives of Phi.
Official website: https://philand.xyz/
7、Space ID
ENS has been online for five years, and its success has inspired major public chains to launch their own domain name services. Nowadays, domain name service is not a rare thing.
Space ID is one of them.
Space ID completed a seed round of financing led by Binance Labs in September 2022, subsequently launched its .bnb domain name registration, and quickly gained approximately 370,000 registrations and 175,000 uniques within 6 months. domain name holder. At the same time, .bnb domain name service has been integrated with more than 100 leading projects and protocols including BSCScan, Trust Wallet, etc. In February 2023, the Space ID team announced a 2.0 upgrade and merged with Arb ID, launching the .arb domain name registration.
Space ID is becoming a domain name service network with multi-chain domain names and generic domain names, allowing users to discover, register, trade, and manage Web3 domain names.
Currently, Space ID supports three blockchains (Ethereum, BSC, and Arbitrum), with more expected to follow in the future. The "universal domain name" is the most interesting, with it, no matter which blockchain, you will have an identity that can be used universally across the entire crypto ecosystem.
Recently, Space ID completed a US$10 million strategic round of financing led by Polychain Capital and dao 5, with participation from Foresight Ventures and others.
summary
summary
As the bear market deepens, VCs and investors must think twice before investing. I like it this way because they'll be encouraged to look for an item that's actually worth the money. On the other hand, the competition among project founders is also getting fiercer, and everyone has to do their best to gain the attention of investors.
According to the "Notice on Further Preventing and Dealing with the Risk of Hype in Virtual Currency Transactions" issued by the central bank and other departments, the content of this article is only for information sharing, and does not promote or endorse any operation and investment behavior. Participate in any illegal financial practice.
risk warning:
According to the "Notice on Further Preventing and Dealing with the Risk of Hype in Virtual Currency Transactions" issued by the central bank and other departments, the content of this article is only for information sharing, and does not promote or endorse any operation and investment behavior. Participate in any illegal financial practice.
