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 …

With digital currency comes innovation, efficiency, and perhaps most importantly, equality. However, before this happens, digital currencies must become simple enough for everyone to use and accessible so that anyone can do so. As it stands today, most crypto services are difficult to use and hard to understand. Moreover, functionality such as participating in spot transactions, futures trading or staking services are not readily available for those already active in traditional markets. Therefore, for mass adoption to become a real possibility, the entire process from purchasing coins to executing a more complex trade needs to be straightforward. The leading crypto …

Cryptocurrency fintech startup MoonPay has closed its first-ever venture capital round, reaching $3.4 billion in post-money valuation. The firm officially announced Monday that it closed a $555 million Series A funding round led by prominent industry investors like American investment firm Tiger Global and tech-focused investment manager Coatue. Other participants included Blossom Capital, Thrive Capital, Paradigm, and the New Enterprise Associates venture capital firm. The raised capital is the first funding secured by MoonPay in 2.5 years since the company was founded in 2019 by two young entrepreneurs, Ivan Soto-Wright and Victor Faramond. The firm says it has processed more …

Private bartering blockchain Anoma Network has raised $26 million (24 million Swiss francs) from some of crypto’s biggest venture funds as it seeks to reimagine the age-old practice of exchanging goods without using money. Anoma Network will use the proceeds to advance its proof-of-stake blockchain, which has been designed to facilitate private transactions using “asset-agnostic bartering.” Bartering refers to the exchange of goods and services for other goods and services without money as the intermediary. In the case of Anoma, traders have the ability to convert assets without the need for a base currency. (In traditional exchange markets, the base …

Blockchain infrastructure provider ConsenSys has reached a lofty valuation of $3.2 billion after closing a $200 million funding round, joining over a dozen other crypto-focused companies to reach coveted unicorn status this year alone. The $200 million financing round saw participation from several new investors, including Marshall Wace, Third Point and Think Investments, who contributed alongside existing investors such as Dragonfly Capital, Electric Capital, Spartan Group, Coinbase Ventures, HSBC, DeFiance Capital and Animoca Brands. ConsenSys also announced that Ethereum wallet and browser extension MetaMask has achieved roughly 21 million monthly active users, having more than doubled over the past four …

Developer group Oasis Foundation has launched a $160 million ecosystem fund to bootstrap promising projects building on top of Oasis Network, a privacy-enabled blockchain with a focus on decentralized finance (DeFi) and the so-called data economy. The fund was established to attract new developers to the Oasis Network so that they can build the next generation of decentralized applications that support DeFi, nonfungible tokens, data tokenization and the metaverse, Oasis Foundation announced Wednesday. Startups and existing projects building on Oasis Network are both eligible to receive grants, the Foundation confirmed. In addition to Oasis Foundation’s contributions, the ecosystem fund was …

On Tuesday, pSTAKE, a liquid staking protocol from decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Persistence, announced in a statement provided to Cointelegraph that it had closed a $10 million strategic funding round from venture capital firms. Tendermint, the core developer behind the Cosmos network, powers Persistence blockchain with its consensus engine. Liquid staking is the practice of users “double-dipping” with their crypto assets — i.e., allowing them to stake their crypto in one pool and use their staked assets to farm yields in a liquidity provider pool, or vice versa. The process enables higher compounded yields, as assets generate returns in two …

Crypto investment firm Paradigm has revealed a new $2.5 billion”New Venture Fund” to expand its investment into cryptocurrency companies and protocols. According to a Nov. 15 announcement, Paradigm co-founders Fred Ahrsam and Matt Huang stated that “the fund and its size are reflective of crypto being the most exciting frontier in technology.” The Financial Times reported that the funding pool is now the largest among VC crypto funds, edging out Andreesen Horowitz’s (a16z) $2.2 billion raise in June of this year. The announcement did not state which sectors within the cryptocurrency industry the New Venture Fund will be allocated to. …

We have seen a steep adoption of crypto-based systems this year, including decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) such as digital art, crypto-centric gaming, and increased adoption of cryptocurrencies as investment and payment tools. One of the more recent developments is the emergence of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). DAOs have existed since 2016, when The DAO organization, a new form of investment vehicle that attracted a sizable portion of Ethereum (ETH) tokens, raised more than $150 million at the time. Many saw The DAO as the ultimate form of human coordination. Yet, due to a reentrancy exploit, hackers stole …

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian has teamed up with Solana Ventures to launch a new investment fund dedicated to Web3 and social projects, potentially setting the stage for the next wave of budding crypto startups. Ohanian announced Tuesday at the Breakpoint conference in Lisbon, Portugal that his Seven Seven Six venture firm and Solana Ventures have allocated $100 million to Web3 and “decentralized social projects.” In an accompanying news release, the internet entrepreneur touted his venture firm’s expertise in “identifying and investing in early social and crypto trends,” which include Reddit, Patreon and Coinbase, among others. Raj Gokal, the COO of …

DeFi development firm Neon Labs has concluded a $40 million private token sale as part of its ongoing efforts to create an Ethereum-compatible environment on Solana, underscoring heightened investor demand for scalability and liquidity solutions in the rapidly growing decentralized finance market. The private sale of NEON tokens was led by Jump Capital, a Chicago-based venture firm, with additional participation from Shu Zu’s Three Arrows Capital, Solana Capital, Rockaway Blockchain Fund, Ethereal Ventures and CoLab Ventures, among others. Over 60 angels and ecosystem partners participated in the token sale, the company confirmed. Proceeds from the sale will go towards Neon …