While it’s encouraging to see that the number of female crypto investors is on the rise, women participation within the blockchain technology sector remains low. This was recently confirmed in a report from the World Economic Forum, which found that the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed back gender parity by an entire generation. Vesselina Ratcheva, new economy and society lead for the World Economic Forum, further told Cointelegraph that women indeed remain a minority in the blockchain industry. Funding of women-led blockchain projects Fortunately, a number of new funding initiatives are being offered to drive female participation within the blockchain sector. …

Bitrue crypto exchange has announced a $50-million investment fund geared toward supporting cryptocurrency and blockchain startups. According to a recent announcement, the investment fund will target crypto projects working on use cases with the potential to advance the development of the emerging blockchain ecosystem. Of the $50-million sum, 70% will be in the form of Tether (USDT), while the exchange also plans to fund the remaining 30% via its native token, Bitrue Coin (BTR). As of the time of writing, BTR is trading at $0.20 and is up about 578% over the last year, according to data from CoinGecko. Projects …

Hashdex, the Rio de Janeiro-based crypto asset manager with over 4 billion Brazilian real ($765 million) in assets under management, has raised $26 million in a new funding round from investors. According to Bloomberg on Wednesday, venture capital firm Valor Capital Group led the funding round with participation from Coinbase Ventures — the VC arm of American exchange giant Coinbase — and SoftBank. The $26-million capital influx comes as Hashdex is set to pursue its expansion outside Brazil. Indeed, the company is reportedly planning to open as many as 75 new locations across the world before the end of the …

Vanessa Grellet, a five-year veteran of Ethereum software company ConsenSys, will be joining crypto investment group CoinFund as its new head of portfolio growth. In an announcement from CoinFund on Thursday, the investment group said Grellet would be responsible for guiding its portfolio of more than 50 companies and projects. The new head of portfolio growth will be aiming to “bridge the gap between the worlds of traditional companies and decentralized networks” by forming alliances between blockchain projects and protocols. “My team will serve as partners who support and guide founders and their teams during their journeys from early-stage to …

Blockchain analytics firm Coin Metrics has raised $15 million in a funding found led by financial giant Goldman Sachs. In an announcement today, Coin Metrics said Goldman Sachs, Castle Island Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, Fidelity Investments, Avon Ventures, Communitas Capital, Collab+Currency and others had contributed $15 million to the analytics firm to “accelerate the company’s global expansion” as well as reach more places in the crypto market. Coin Metrics co-founder Nic Carter called the funding a “huge validation” for the firm as a provider of crypto data for institutions. "Data is critical for the mainstream adoption of cryptoassets by traditional …

Digital avatar developer, Genies, has raised $65 million to build an NFT marketplace for digital avatars on the Flow blockchain led by several heavyweight investors, including Flow’s developers, Dapper Labs. SEC filings dated May 3 reveal the California-based company recently closed a $65 million Series B funding round led by investment firm Bond, alongside Coinbase Ventures, Tull Investment Group, Breyer Capital, and Dapper Labs. The $65 million is slated to fund the development of Genies’ NFT Marketplace, which will allow users to create and trade tokenized avatars, in addition NFT clothing worn by the avatars. Genies expects to launch its …

American rapper and cryptocurrency investor Nasir Jones, better known by his stage name Nas, has invited fans to join the cryptocurrency industry in a newly released track. Released last week, “Sorry Not Sorry” is a collaboration between DJ Khaled, Nas, Jay-Z and James Fauntleroy, with Nas rapping about Coinbase, the United States’ largest crypto exchange that went public on Nasdaq on April 14. “Winner in life, fuck a coin toss / I’m coin-based, basically cryptocurrency Scarface / Join us, there’s gotta be more of us,” Nas raps in the new collab. Released on YouTube last Friday, the official music video …

Paxos, a major cryptocurrency company and PayPal’s crypto collaborator, has completed a massive fundraising round shortly after receiving preliminary approval to form a national trust bank. On Thursday, the firm announced a new $300-million Series D funding round bringing Paxos’ valuation to $2.4 billion. The new funding round included previous Paxos investors — PayPal Ventures, Declaration Partners, Mithril Capital, Senator Investment Group, Liberty City Ventures, WestCap and others. The newly raised funds will help Paxos continue investing in the development of enterprise-grade infrastructure and further grow its commitment to regulation, security and compliance, as well as expand operations, the firm …

A new global cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, Globe Derivative Exchange — or GlobeDX — continued its preparation for the platform's launch by securing another major raise. GlobeDX announced Wednesday that the firm successfully raised $18 million through a new funding round featuring investors like seed money startup accelerator Y Combinator and Tim Draper’s Draper Dragon fund. Other investors included crypto exchange OKEx, Pantera Capital, Republic Crypto, CMT Digital and Wave Financial. Scheduled for launch in early May, GlobeDX will allow users to trade major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), as well as decentralized finance tokens with up to 100x …

Baillie Gifford, a 110 year-old asset management firm known for its early bets on firms like Tesla, has invested $100 million in major cryptocurrency wallet service Blockchain.com. Blockchain.com co-founder and CEO Peter Smith announced Wednesday that Baillie Gifford’s contribution to its $300 million funding round in March has become the largest single investment in the company so far. Smith stated that Baillie Gifford’s participation in the round marked “one of their first investments in a crypto company.” “It’s also a validation that a balanced and diversified retail/institutional business has incredible growth potential in the coming years,” the CEO wrote. With …

The Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger is jumping into the nonfungible token craze to help independent music venues that have been adversely affected by the pandemic. In an announcement from the music legend on Thursday, Jagger said he had started a 24-hour auction on Nifty Gateway featuring a nonfungible token, or NFT, based on a new song with Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl. The digital piece designed by artist Oliver Latta, also known as Extraweg, features a loop of a figure running through two human heads, with Grohl and Jagger’s “Eazy Sleazy” song playing in the background. “The 30-second …

New York Digital Investment Group announced the completion of a growth capital funding round as well as the launch of a business initiative relating to Bitcoin. In an announcement today, the New York Digital Investment Group, or NYDIG, said it had secured $100 million in funding from major insurance providers including Starr Insurance, Liberty Mutual Insurance, and others in addition to its existing strategic partners, New York Life and MassMutual. A provider of Bitcoin-related technology and investment services, NYDIG also said it would be launching “Bitcoin-powered solutions for U.S.-based life insurance and annuity providers.” This comes as the firm announced …