The institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies has been gaining momentum over the past couple of years due to venture capitalists and money managers looking to the crypto market as the next investment class that will offer the greatest return. The Boba Network (BOBA) is the most recent protocol to benefit from institutional interest and the long search for an Ethereum (ETH) layer-two scaling solution capable of low-cost transactions and fast processing times. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that BOBA has gained 50.71% over the past week and a half after climbing from a low of $1.24 on March …

Hybrid computing platform Boba Network has joined the “crypto unicorn” rankings after raising $45 million in Series A funding, underscoring the investment appeal of Ethereum layer-2 scaling solutions. The funding round had participation from several crypto-focused venture funds including Infinite Capital, Hypersphere, 10X Capital, Hack VC, GBV, Sanctor Capital, Shima Capital, Kinetic Capital, IOST and ROK Capital. Contributions also came from the Will Smith-led Dreamers VC, Paris Hilton’s M13 and several crypto industry founders from projects such as Origin Protocol, The Graph, FEI Labs and exchange giants Crypto.com and Huobi. The Series A valued Boba Network at $1.5 billion, giving …

Venture capital (VC) firms focused on Web3 projects and crypto businesses are accumulating billions of dollars worth of assets under management as more capital is injected into the sector. The assets under management figure for Web3 and crypto investment firm Paradigm has recently been revealed. Filings show that the firm has $13.2 billion in assets, a growth of 343% compared to the $2.98 billion reported in a filing in December 2020. The filings were reviewed by business journalist Eric Newcomer. Writing for his newsletter, he looked at recent applications with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for some of …

Cryptocurrency exchange and financial services firm, Blockchain.com, has reportedly raised new funding at a valuation of $14 billion. According to Bloomberg, the financing round was led by global venture capital firm Lightspeed Ventures and Baillie Gifford & Co., an investment management firm renowned for its early involvement in growth stocks such as Tesla. The funding round — which is yet to be publicly confirmed by Blockchain.com or the investors — reportedly saw the firms’ valuation increase from $5.2 billions to $14 billion. The total amount of funding raised is yet to be announced. Founded in 2011, Blockchain.com is now one …

On Wednesday, LayerZero Labs, a firm that develops protocol to enable omnichain decentralized applications, or dApps, to span multiple blockchains, announced that it raised $135 million in its latest funding round. The deal values LayerZero Labs at $1 billion and will accelerate the development of its namesake protocol. The round was led by notable venture groups and investors such as Sequoia Capital, FTX Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and with participation from Coinbase Ventures, PayPal Ventures, Tiger Global, Uniswap Labs, and more. It aims to unite applications such as gaming, nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, marketplaces, media apps, etc., so they are operable …

While crypto markets are still in a state of “fear,” as evidenced by Bitcoin’s Fear & Greed Index, the industry as a whole is giving us reasons to be bullish. Large venture funding rounds, growing adoption of decentralized governance models and new institutional-grade product offerings suggest that crypto is more than just daily chart patterns. This week’s Crypto Biz newsletter looks at a new Grayscale product that’s giving accredited investors more ways to bet on the so-called “Ethereum killers.” We also document two funding stories and draw your attention to the latest developments surrounding El Salvador’s Bitcoin (BTC) bond. Grayscale …

MINA, a utility token backed by a "lightweight" smart contracts platform of the same name, continued its upside move nine days after rebounding from $1.58, its lowest level to date. The coin rallied by about 75% to reach $2.75 as of March 24 as traders weighed a high-profile funding rounds involving the sale of $92 million worth of MINA tokens to Three Arrows Capital, FTX Ventures, and other venture capitalists. An overall recovery sentiment across the crypto market also assisted in pushing MINA's price higher, since altcoins typically move in tandem with Bitcoin (BTC). Additionally, Coinbase's announcement on March 23 …

ApeCoin (APE) continued its rebound move Thursday as the firm behind it raised hundreds of millions of dollars in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. APE's price surged 7.5% intraday to reach around $14.50 per piece. Notably, the token's upside move came as a part of a retracement rally that started at the beginning of this week when it was changing hands for as low as $9.50. That pushed APE's week-to-date profits up by 50%, making it one of the best-performing digital assets since March 21. Big VC booster To recap, ApeCoin digital currency came to existence on March …

Former Polychain Capital general partner Tekin Salimi has launched a new blockchain-focused investment fund that will eventually be converted into a founder-owned decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), offering a novel way for startup leaders to be rewarded for their contributions. The $125 million fund, known simply as “dao5,” will invest in blockchain and cryptocurrency projects in their pre-seed and seed stages. In the startup world, a pre-seed round usually helps company founders get their operations running. The seed stage is the first official equity funding round. The fund will invest primarily in projects specializing in layer-1 blockchain infrastructure, privacy technology, decentralized …

Katie Haun, crypto investor and board member for Coinbase and OpenSea announced that she had raised $1.5 billion for her new fund, Haun Ventures. On Tuesday, March 22, Haun posted an article on Twitter, briefly introducing the firm and sharing that the funds would be used to invest in Web3 projects. Introducing @HaunVentures, a firm built for the next generation of the internet. We’ve raised $1.5 billion across two funds to invest in web3. An exciting first step, but the real work begins now. https://t.co/tBeE4OEJkD — Kathryn Haun (@katie_haun) March 22, 2022 The firm will invest through two funds, a …

Yuga Labs, the creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and new owners of the CryptoPunks and Meebits brands, announced it is now valued at $4 billion after its latest $450 million seed funding round. VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, led the company's first institutional investment, marking one of the largest seed rounds for any nonfungible token (NFT) collection to date. Other investors included Animoca Brands, FTX and MoonPay, as well as LionTree, Sound Ventures and Thrive Capital. The company plans to use the funds to scale its team, attract more creative, engineering and operations talent, as well as …

Digital asset analytics provider The TIE has closed a strategic investment round backed by some of blockchain’s most prominent investors, underscoring heightened demand for crypto data and software services. The TIE raised $9 million in Series A funding at a valuation of $100 million, making it one of the largest crypto analytics services in the market. The funding round was led by Blizzard, an Avalanche-focused investment fund, with additional participation from executives at Golden Tree Asset Management, Nexo, Gemini, Frontier Fund, Republic Capital, Hudson River Trading and New York Digital Investment Group, better known as NYDIG. The TIE said the …