Looking at the winners and losers of the past week clearly shows that traders endured some serious heat as the total crypto market capitalization dropped by 12.7% when Bitcoin fell to $41,000. This sharp downside move knocked the figure from $2.37 trillion to $1.92 trillion on Dec. 3 and a total of $2 billion long future contracts were liquidated. Bitcoin (BTC) price retraced 14.6% over the past week, effectively underperforming the broader altcoin market. Part of this unusual movement can be explained by the performance seen in decentralized applications which held up better than most of the market. Data shows …

Mysten Labs, the research and development firm founded by former engineers from social media giant Facebook, has announced the completion of a $36 million funding round towards its goal developing a Web 3.0 infrastructure platform. In a Monday announcement on Medium, the team behind Mysten Labs said the firm had raised $36 million in a Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from Redpoint, Lightspeed, Coinbase Ventures, Electric Capital, Standard Crypto, NFX, Slow Ventures, Scribble Ventures, Samsung NEXT, and others. According to a CNBC report, CEO Evan Cheng said Mysten would use the funds to build the …

Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency trading firm founded by crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, has led a $35 million investment in the automated crypto trading app Stacked. On Dec. 9, the startup officially announced the successful completion of a Series A funding round co-led by Alameda and Mirana Ventures, a venture partner of Bybit exchange and BitDAO. The new funding will reportedly help Stacked grow its 40-person team to over 100 employees in 2022 and continue scaling its suite crypto portfolios and automated lending products. According to Alameda Research Ventures’ partner Brian Lee, Alameda started investing in Stacked over a year ago …

Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Animoca Brands are launching a $200 million investment program to incubate early cryptocurrency-focused gaming projects building on BSC. BSC and Animonica announced Dec. 6 that they are co-investing up to $100 million each to support game projects in the GameFi sector. One of the largest blockchain ecosystems, BSC will be investing from its $1 billion accelerator arm for decentralized finance (DeFi), nonfungible tokens (NFT) and GameFi. The fund was set up earlier this year to extend BSC ecosystem services and drive mainstream adoption across the fintech sector. Animoca Brands is a major player in blockchain …

Crypto converted another Wall Street veteran this week after former Citi executive Matt Zhang launched a $1.5 billion digital asset fund. A new funding mechanism allowing users to access early-stage crypto startups shined the spotlight on Cardano’s massive community. One of Latin America’s biggest crypto exchanges raised $50 million in private funding to expand its operations. 1inch Network raised another $175 million from some of crypto’s biggest venture funds to expand DeFi liquidity. These were just some of the week’s biggest headlines from the world of crypto. Every Thursday, Cointelegraph’s Crypto Biz newsletter gives readers a pulse of the business …

Digital asset investment firm Maven 11 Capital has announced a $120 million funding round for its private investment establishment, Venture Fund II, in a move that will further expand its financial footprint across emerging sectors of decentralized finance (DeFi) and Web 3.0. The funding round builds off a successful inaugural raise of $40 million in June of this year. Established in May 2017, Maven 11 Capital has invested in 27 companies exclusively within the DeFi and Web 3.0 space. The firm was the lead investor in private seed rounds for data oracle service RedStone and metaverse stack firm Odyssey in …

Decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch Network has concluded a sizable Series B investment round, raising $175 million as part of a broader effort to expand protocol utility and increase access to liquidity within the decentralized finance, or DeFi, market. The investment round vastly exceeded the initial target of $70 million amid active participation from leading venture funds, 1inch Network disclosed Wednesday. Crypto-finance unicorn Amber Group led the funding round, which comprised roughly 50 investors. VanEck, Jane Street, Fenbushi Capital, Alameda Research, Celsius, Nexo, Tribe Capital and Gemini Frontier Fund were among the investors. 1inch Network will use the funds to increase …

Global blockchain security firm CertiK has concluded an $80 million investment round backed by some of crypto’s biggest venture funds, putting the company on track to reach the lofty $1 billion valuation mark in the foreseeable future. The Series B2 investment round was led by Sequoia, a California-based venture fund, with additional participation from Tiger Global, Coatue Management and GL Ventures, CertiK announced Wednesday. In the startup world, Series B or B2 financing refers to the second round of funding for a business through either private equity or venture capital. CertiK has now raised over $140 million over the past …

Avalanche ecosystem accelerator Colony has raised $18.5 million in seed investments to bootstrap the next generation of Avalanche blockchain projects, underscoring heightened demand for the proof-of-stake ecosystem. The investment round was led by the Avalanche Foundation, an organization overseeing ecosystem development grants, with additional participation from Shima Capital, HashKey, GBV Capital and Bixin Ventures. Members of the Avalanche community also participated in the seed round. Colony will use the funds to finance early-stage projects building on the Avalanche network and to provide liquidity for decentralized finance, or DeFi, protocols. Colony’s community will also have the opportunity to invest in early-stage …

2TM, the parent company of Brazilian cryptocurrency exchange Mercado Bitcoin, has received $50.3 million in fresh financing to expand its operations across Latin America, sending a strong signal that venture capital sees growth potential in the region. The Series B fundraiser had participation from United States-based funds 10T and Tribal Capital, as well as Brazilian companies Traders Club, Pipo Capital and Endeavor, the company disclosed Tuesday. The funding round further cements 2TM’s status as a crypto unicorn after the company raised $200 million from SoftBank in July. At the time, Mercado Bitcoin was the second Latin American cryptocurrency exchange to …

A Wall Street veteran with over 14 years of experience has launched a new venture fund dedicated to cryptocurrency and blockchain startups, offering further evidence that smart money investors are pivoting to the emerging world of digital assets. On Monday, former Citi executive Matt Zhang introduced Hivemind Capital Partners, a $1.5 billion multi-strategy fund designed to bootstrap promising crypto plays and “institutionalize crypto investing.” The fund will prioritize projects focused on building crypto infrastructure, virtual worlds and programmable money, and will also trade digital assets as part of its underlying strategy. Hivemind’s first technology partner is Algorand, a proof-of-stake protocol …

DeFi banking protocol MELD recently made headlines for attracting more than $1 billion worth of staked Cardano (ADA) to its protocol through a novel funding mechanism called an initial stake pool offering, or ISPO, marking an important innovation in how early adopters support blockchain startups. Cointelegraph had the opportunity to connect with MELD CEO Ken Olling to discuss the significance of the ISPO as well as Cardano’s role in facilitating widescale participation in the stake pools. ISPO: An overview The ISPO is a novel way for investors and other early adopters to support a project by delegating cryptocurrency to public …