The ICON Foundation announced plans to launch an interoperability incentive program for 200 million ICX, or approximately $200 million at the time of publication. The foundation supports the development of the ICON network, South Korea’s largest public aggregator chain. The foundation said that it hopes this program will incentivize the ICON community and its partner networks to adopt ICON’s blockchain transfer protocol, or BTP. The incentive program aims to distribute up to 200 million ICX tokens over a period of five years, primarily funded by the ICX reserve allocation raised during the 2017 token sale. ICON intends to attract development …

Proof-of-stake blockchain NEAR Protocol has raised $150 million in seed investments to accelerate the adoption of Web3 technologies. The team announced that the fund would be used to develop regional hubs and raise awareness for blockchain and decentralized tech. NEAR Protocol aims to use the fresh funds to foster the adoption of Web3. According to the announcement, the funding will be used to “help billions of people learn and use blockchain.” With this, projects building on the NEAR blockchain will have the opportunity to connect with new audiences. The investment round was led by hedge fund Three-Arrows Capital, with additional …

Alternative sports organization Fan Controlled Football (FCF) has raised $40 million in Series A funding from crypto and blockchain gaming firms to support the league’s expansion plans, including four new teams and an NFT project. The FCF was founded in 2017 by Sohrob Farudi, Patrick Dees, Ray Austin and Grant Cohen and hosted its debut season inside a bubble environment in Atlanta amid the pandemic last year. The FCF features an indoor version of American football in a seven vs seven-player format, and the games are streamed live on Twitch. The unique feature of the league is that the teams …

Fintech startup Seashell has raised $6 million in seed investments from some of crypto’s biggest venture funds and project founders as it seeks to build out an inflation-resistant finance app — a timely initiative as consumers struggle with the pressures of rising costs. The investment round was co-led by Khosla Ventures and Kindred Ventures, with additional participation from Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev, billionaire investor Mark Cuban, former U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair J. Christopher Giancarlo and Coinbase Ventures. The founders of crypto-focused projects Terra, Polygon, Avalanche and Solana were also among the investors. Seashell is launching a consumer app …

Citadel Securities announced that VC firms Sequoia and Paradigm made a $1.15 billion combined minority investment in the market maker, bringing its valuation to $22 billion. The partnership with Paradigm, a Web3-focused investor, signaled Citadel Securities’ shift toward new asset classes such as crypto. Sequoia, who led the round, with investment from Sequoia Heritage, Sequoia Capital Global Equities and the Global Growth Fund, will also get a seat on the Citadel Securities Board of Directors for Sequoia Partner Alfred Lin. We are proud to announce that Sequoia and Paradigm have made a $1.15 billion minority investment in our firm. https://t.co/EIbWKduS1h …

Binance Labs, the venture capital (VC) arm of the Binance cryptocurrency exchange, announced Tuesday that it will contribute to Oasis Foundation’s $200 million ecosystem development fund, sending a strong signal that major investors were still keen to back emerging projects on alternative blockchain networks. With the investment, Binance Labs joins other prominent VC firms in supporting the Oasis Network, an alternative smart contract platform that intends to compete with Ethereum. As Cointelegraph reported in November, Oasis Foundation initially launched a $160 million development fund to lure promising startups to its blockchain. In addition to Binance Labs, other notable VC firms …

From the very beginning of the cryptocurrency movement, the societal potential of Bitcoin (BTC) has been one of the fundamental selling points. The decentralized design of crypto-based systems introduces the possibility of bringing individuals together to work toward shared goals, as well as enabling them to pool resources while remaining insulated from outside control. 2021 saw a number of cases that could serve as evidence of this emancipatory power of digital assets. ConstitutionDAO: $49 million raised in a few days Arguably, the most high-profile case of a massive fundraising effort enabled by a decentralized autonomous organization in 2021 was ConstitutionDAO. …

Spanish LGBT-related token MariCoin (MCOIN) has responded to the community following skepticism around the project’s concept and goals. Some had even criticized the project for its name, which played on a homophobic slur in Spanish. But according to key people in the project, they have simply misunderstood. MariCoin CEO Francisco Alvarez told Cointelegraph that the project’s name is about “turning an insult into a fortress,” referring to peculiarities of tackling homophobic language as the very word word “gay” is still being used as an insult in some communities. “In Spain it is very common for members of the gay community …

The Human Rights Foundation announced on Jan 4 that it intends to distribute 425 million satoshis — the smallest divisible unit of a Bitcoin — to various contributors as a part of its ongoing Bitcoin Development Fund. Launched in May 2020, the Bitcoin Development Fund launched with a primary focus on improving the Bitcoin network’s privacy, usability and security. The foundation said that it will focus this particular round of grants on expanding Bitcoin education and translation as well as Bitcoin core, lightning, and wallet development. According to the organization’s press release, it will divide these grants between a number …

Sun Hung Kai, one of the largest property developers in Hong Kong, continues betting on the cryptocurrency industry by investing in Swiss crypto outfit Sygnum. Sygnum officially announced Thursday that it closed a $90 million Series B round led by Sun Hung Kai, a real estate giant and alternative investment firm in Hong Kong. According to Sun Hung Kai’s group executive chairman Lee Seng Huang, the company has a strategic vision to expand its fund management offerings into digital assets. “Amidst growing institutional demand and regulatory oversight of this sector, Sygnum, with its track record as a fully-regulated digital asset …

Digital asset curator Metaversal announced Tuesday that it has completed a $50 million funding round to further expand its investment capabilities in the nonfungible token (NFT) and metaverse sectors. The Series A funding round was co-led by investment firms CoinFund and Foxhaven, with additional participation from Collab+Currency, Dapper Labs, Digital Currency Group, Franklin Templeton, Rarible, Theta Blockchain Ventures, Galaxy Vision Hill and others. Metaversal said it will use the funding to expand its NFT-focused business, including acquiring high-profile digital collectibles and supporting projects that are being bootstrapped by its venture studio. The funding also enabled Metaversal to secure partnerships with …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) liquidity provider WOO Network has secured additional funds in a Series A funding round. Incubated by quantitative trading heavyweight Kronos Research, WOO Network has pocketed an additional $12 million strategic investment in a a Series A+ funding round led by Binance Labs. The fresh funding, announced by Binance Labs on Tuesday, builds upon WOO Network’s $30 million Series A funding round. WOO Network is known for adding liquidity to tens of institutions, exchanges, trading teams, wallets and decentralized applications. DYDX, Matcha, ParaSwap, 1inch and DODO are the primary protocols supported by the DeFi platform. WOO claims to …