The debut of Nifty’s social NFT platform came with much fanfare on Monday after the company announced a major partnership with Warner Bros. and $10 million in seed investments from some of blockchain’s biggest venture firms. Through its Warner Bros. partnership, Nifty’s will launch a collection of limited-edition NFTs featuring characters from the upcoming movie Space Jam: A New Legacy, the company announced Monday. The movie will be released in theaters and for streaming on Friday, July 16. The Space Jam NFTs were developed with the technology of Palm NFT Studio, which was developed by Ethereum software company ConsenSys. The …

Ethereum-based DeFi aggregator, Zerion, has raised $8.2 million in a Series A funding round. The non-custodial aggregation platform facilitates access to more than 60 Ethereum-based protocols, such as Aave, Yearn.finance, and Curve. Zerion has processed more than $600 million worth of volume in 2021 so far with a median trade of $1,000. The raise was led by Mosaic Ventures, and also featured participation from Placeholder, Digital Currency Group, and Blockchain.com Ventures, among others. Mosaic co-founder and partner, Toby Coppel, and venture partner at Placeholder, Brad Burnham, have joined Zerion’s board of directors as part of the round. The company has …

Solrise Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol for the Solana network, has successfully concluded a $3.4-million raise for its non-custodial asset management platform, offering further evidence that the venture capital world continues to seek broad exposure to the digital asset market. Some of the biggest venture capital names in blockchain supported the Solrise funding round, including Alameda Ventures, Delphi Digital and CMS Ventures. Jump Capital, ParaFi Capital, DeFi Alliance, Reciprocal Ventures and SkyVision Capital rounded out the participants. The capital raise will go toward making DeFi more accessible to a wider class of investors, Solrise announced Tuesday. This includes reducing …

Digital asset manager and Bitcoin (BTC) ETF proponent Valkyrie Investments recently concluded a $10 million Series A funding round, once again highlighting growing investor interest in crypto-focused firms. In addition to Charlie Lee, who is a well-known entrepreneur in the cryptocurrency industry, the funding round also saw participation from XBTO, BTC Media, UTXO Management, Consolidated Trading and 10X Capital. Interestingly, former Major League Baseball pitcher CJ Wilson was also among the investors, as was Tron founder Justin Sun. Valkyrie CEO and World Bank veteran Leah Wald said her firm is focused on broadening investor access to cryptocurrencies in a “managed, …

Decentralized derivatives platform, Tracer DAO, has announced a successful $4.5 million fundraising round to expand its team and product suite. They hope to launch innovative derivatives for “any market with an oracle price feed,” with plans to one day allow ordinary consumers to hedge the cost of commuting and other household bills using tokenized derivatives. This week’s raise saw participation from crypto venture heavyweights, including Framework Ventures, Maven 11, DACM, and Apollo Capital. The investors will share 10% of the project’s governance token supply, which will be vested linearly over two years. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Pat McNab, Tracer DAO founder …

Soros Fund Management, the private investment firm of billionaire George Soros, is reportedly trading Bitcoin (BTC) as part of a broader exploration of digital assets, according to financial news website TheStreet. People familiar with the matter told author Michael Bodley that Dawn Fitzpatrick, the chief investment officer for Soros Fund Management, gave the green light to trade Bitcoin and possibly other cryptocurrencies in the last few weeks. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the sources said Fitzpatrick and her team have been exploring cryptocurrencies for some time and that the latest venture is “more than just kicking the tires” on digital …

Several venture capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz have thrown their weight behind Nansen, an up-and-coming blockchain analytics platform for the DeFi sector. The $12 million Series A funding round included participation from Skyfall Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, imToken Ventures, QCP Capital and Mechanism Capital, Nansen announced Tuesday. Nansen said the funding will be used to hire additional talent, grow its analytics platform and provide additional services to networks like Polygon and Binance Smart Chain, among others. As a blockchain analytics platform, Nansen analyzes the activity of over 90 million Ethereum wallets. The platform integrates massive data sets and translates them into …

Colombia’s capital of Bogotá is funding blockchain development as part of the city’s broader investment in innovative technologies. According to a Monday announcement on the city of Bogotá’s official website, the municipal government will provide 8.8 billion Colombian pesos ($2.3 million) to local companies as part of four new programs in the city’s Innovation, Technology and Creative Industries Fund, or FITIC. The new funding includes a contribution of of 2.8 billion pesos, ($739,000) to the development of local blockchain startups through a program called “Hub Blockchain Bogotá.” The project aims to support 100 blockchain-focused companies in order to boost their …

Describing itself as a provider of “virtual worlds blockchain infrastructure,” the Rangers Protocol will open its testnet to users starting in July. In a Thursday announcement at the Global DeFi Summit, Rangers Protocol co-founder Mary Ma said the project would be aiming for a mid-July launch of its testnet following $3.7 million seed and private equity funding rounds. According to Ma, the protocol will have decentralized apps, or DApps, on its network, and will include a cross-chain protocol, nonfungible token protocol and Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible system. "In the past three years, we have solved many problems by tackling down …

Blockchain analytics company Chainalysis has secured $100 million in Series E financing, bringing its total valuation to a staggering $4.2 billion and highlighting once again the tremendous growth of the cryptocurrency industry. The round was led by global investment manager Coatue, with additional participation from 9Yards Capital, Altimeter, Blackstone, GIC, Pictet, Sequoia Heritage and SVB Capital, Chainalysis announced Thursday. Chainalysis said the funds will go toward expanding its blockchain data capabilities, which includes investing in new data tools, software and APIs. “We believe blockchain data is the asset that can help public and private sector organizations understand the risks and …

Andreessen Horowitz is launching a new crypto-focused fund dedicated to expanding the size and marketability of blockchain projects, offering further evidence that venture funds believe in the staying power of digital assets. Crypto Fund III, a $2.2-billion venture fund co-led by Andreessen Horowitz general partners Chris Dixon and Katie Haun, was officially announced Thursday morning. The fund will be used to finance cryptocurrency networks and teams that are contributing to the new decentralized economy. “This fund allows us to find the next generation of visionary crypto founders, and invest in the most exciting areas of crypto,” Andreessen Horowitz said. “We …

Major venture capital firms responsible for crypto investments have led the latest $14.2 million fundraising round for Rarible, the online marketplace behind many nonfungible token listings. In a Wednesday announcement, Rarible said crypto investment group Coinfund and Venrock — the venture capital arm of the Rockefeller family — had led a $14.2 million Series A fundraising round for the nonfungible token, or NFT, platform. Rarible said it will use the funds to hire new team members. Other participants in the fundraising round include 01 Advisors. In addition, Rarible said it would be launching an NFT marketplace on the Flow blockchain, …