Ripple, the firm behind the third biggest cryptocurrency XRP, has led an investment round in Bitso, one of the biggest crypto exchanges in the Spanish-speaking world. The first Mexican crypto exchange An early partner of Bitso, Ripple has led the new investment round to support the first cryptocurrency exchange in Mexico, the company officially announced on Oct. 14. As reported by crypto publication The Block, the new investment round also involves major investors including United States-based crypto exchange and wallet provider Coinbase, Jump Capital as well as existing investors such as Digital Currency Group and Pantera Capital. The amount of …

Pantera Capital has led a $5 million strategic seed round of decentralized derivatives protocol Vega. According to an announcement published on Oct. 3, the round included participants such as Ripple’s investment arm Xpring, Hashed, NGC Ventures, gumi Cryptos Capital, Rockaway Blockchain, KR1, Eden Block, Focus Labs, Greenfield One, Monday Capital, RSK Ecosystem Fund, and a group of unnamed private investors. Against “profiteering, monitoring and control” Vega is currently focused on designing and implementing its core protocol for secure and non-custodial decentralized margin trading. The software aims to disintermediate derivatives trading — eliminating the “rent-seeking middlemen endemic to traditional capital markets” …

Pantera Capital founder Dan Morehead discussed how Bitcoin (BTC) could hit $42,000 by the end of 2019, and even has the potential to reach $356,000 within a couple years. Morehead delivered his comments on an episode of the Unchained podcast on July 23. Morehead specifically said that he predicts BTC will hit $42,000 by the end of the year, and climb to $356,000 by 2022. Morehead claimed that this would be consistent with the top cryptocurrency’s logarithmic growth rate: “Graph the price of Bitcoin logarithmically [...] its trend is going to grow at 235% compound annual growth rate and [...] …

Managing director and quant strategist at Fundstrat Global Advisors Sam Doctor suggested in a Twitter post published on July 19 that Bakkt’s Bitcoin (BTC) futures contracts will launch this quarter. According to the post, which includes a summary of Fundstrat’s takeaways from the Bakkt Digital Asset Summit held on July 18, the firm’s futures will launch in the current quarter. The launch is set to follow tests announced last month, which are scheduled to start next week. The firm believes that the launch will be a catalyst to accelerate entry of traditional institutional investors. The post notes: “There appears to …

The United States-based startup Sparkswap has completed a successful seed funding round to create a decentralized exchange based on the Bitcoin (BTC) Lightning Network. A blog post revealed the development on Monday, April 8. According to Sparkswap’s founder Trey Griffith, the company raised $3.5 million from investors including Initialized Capital, Pantera Capital, Foundation Capital and Y Combinator. The startup intends to create a decentralized exchange that will be protected from hacks, while still processing transactions on blockchain. Sparkswap started testing its mainnet on Jan. 2, 2019, which is driven by Bitcoin’s Lightning Network. Its core technology, Atomic Swap, allows users …

Offchain Labs, a blockchain startup co-founded by a professor at Princeton University, has raised $3.7 million in a seed round led by crypto hedge fund Pantera Capital, TechCrunch reports on April 3. The new funding round was also supported by Compound VC, Raphael Ouzan of Blocknation, Jake Seid, managing director at Stone Bridge Ventures and others. With the investment, Offchain aims to solve major problems associated with enterprise blockchain implementations by bringing more scalability and privacy. By deploying its own protocol, Arbitrum, Offchain developers intend to bring make smart contracts more scalable. Offchain co-founder Ed Felten said that the firm …

Cryptocurrency hedge fund Pantera Capital is close to completing funding for its third venture fund, already raising $160 million, the company announced in a blog post оn March 27. Pantera, which debuted its first fund in 2013, has since risen to become a conspicuous player in the crypto startup industry. Its latest project, dubbed Venture Fund III, has a fundraising target of $175 million. “We project making a total of 35 investments, with an average deal size of $3.5 million, and an 11% target average equity stake,” the blog post revealed. Activity among entities building out the cryptocurrency-related ecosystem has …

Crypto hedge fund Pantera Capital has already sealed $130 million out of a $175 million target for its third crypto venture fund. The development was shared with Cointelegraph in private correspondence with Pantera president Bill Healy on Feb. 22. For Pantera’s debut fund in 2013, the firm had raised $13 million, rising to $25 million for its second. As reported in August 2018, Pantera raised the game for its third offering, saying at the time that the $175 million target was “a function of how fast the space is moving, the talent coming in, the opportunities, and the sizing of …

Major crypto investment firm Pantera Capital has lead a seed funding round for crypto staking startup, Staked, the company announced in a blog post Jan. 31. The startup, which targets institutional investors of proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies, announced that it raised $4.5 million in the investment round. According to the post, in addition to Pantera Capital, major firms that participated in the round include Coinbase Ventures, Digital Currency Group, Winklevoss Capital, Global Brain, Fabric Ventures and Blocktree Capital. Furthermore, the company also reported that Pantera Capital partner Paul Veradittakit is set to join Staked’s board of directors. Pantera Capital reportedly first contacted …

Blockchain and cryptocurrency-focused investment firm and hedge fund Pantera Capital has warned that a quarter of its ICO projects could be found to violate the United States’ securities laws. According to the company’s most recent newsletter cited by a Bloomberg article Dec. 13, the ongoing crackdown by U.S. regulators means many ICOs, which have already felt the pinch from declining markets, may have to repay investors. “While we believe the vast majority of the projects in our portfolio should not be affected, approximately 25 percent of our fund’s capital is invested in projects with liquid tokens that sold to U.S. …

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp has been acquired by Belgium-based investment firm NXMH in an “all cash deal,” Reuters reports today, Oct. 29. Nejc Kodrič, CEO of the Luxembourg-registered exchange, reportedly revealed the deal had been closed Oct. 25, but declined to share the full terms. The CEO told Reuters that in 2016 Bitstamp was valued at $60 million, up from $39 million in 2014. NXMH is a family investment holding firm — operating as a subsidiary of Barclays — which has over 2 billion euros in assets under management and makes European consumer and tech investments. As per its LinkedIn profile, …

Cryptocurrency markets could increase ten times over from 2020, blockchain investment firm and hedge fund Pantera Capital’s co-CIO told Bloomberg Tuesday, Oct. 16. Speaking in an interview, co-CIO Joey Krug said that scalability improvements for Bitcoin (BTC) were essential to spark a shift in the deflated prices seen throughout this year. He told the network: “These are all markets, and so if you don’t have scalability, you don’t have market makers.” The comments came days after new developments on the institutional trading side of Bitcoin markets, with Fidelity Investments revealing it was testing a regulated custody solution for investors and …