Tether leads $10m round for cross-border payments firm Mansa

  • Tether has backed the $10 million round for cross-border payments firm Mansa.
  • Venture capital firm Polymorphic co-led the round, which saw investors raise $7 million to add to $3 million raised earlier.

Tether, issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin USDT, led the $10 million funding round of MANSA, a cross-border payments provider.

MANSA announced the close of the $10 million financing round on Thursday, Feb. 20, noting that the capital injection would be key to the fintech company’s plans to bolster cross-border payments by addressing liquidity challenges facing providers.

Venture capital firm Polymorphic Capital co-led the round, which also attracted the participation of top VC platforms Octerra Capital, Faculty Group and Trive Digital. Mansa had previously raised $3 million in a pre-seed round, with the $7 million secured from investors in the latest raise bringing the total to $10 million.

Per details in a blog post, the company plans to use these funds on its Latin America and Southeast Asia expansion effort. The funding will also go into fresh bespoke liquidity as well as ancillary solutions set to bring payments on-chain.

“By bringing payments on-chain and leveraging efficient liquidity solutions, we are addressing critical challenges in cross-border transactions—making payments faster, cheaper, and more reliable worldwide,” Mouloukou Sanoh, chief executive officer & co-founder of MANSA, said.

Payments firm eyes global expansion

MANSA launched in August 2024 and has grown rapidly amid major partnerships in the payment space.

Its footprint includes integrations with payment providers in Africa, Asia, and South America.

The company’s growth saw it notch $11 million in on-chain transactions in January 2025, a figure that represents a 574% year-over-year increase. Growth comes amid increased stablecoin adoption. USDT is a major player in this effort.

“By leveraging USDT for real-time settlements and instant payouts, MANSA is solving critical pain points for payment companies operating in emerging markets. We are proud to collaborate with MANSA and support their efforts to reshape global payment infrastructure.” Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, added.

The post Tether leads $10m round for cross-border payments firm Mansa appeared first on CoinJournal.

Hyperliquid launches its general-purpose EVM and unveils bug bounty program

  • Hyperliquid has launched its general-purpose EVM dubbed HyperEVM.
  • The HyperEVM integrates with Hyperliquid’s L1 consensus mechanism for security.
  • The Hyperliquid Bug bounty offers up to $1M for identified bugs.

Hyperliquid, the layer-1 blockchain platform, has launched HyperEVM, its general-purpose Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

This move marks a crucial step in Hyperliquid’s mission to integrate comprehensive financial programmability into its high-performance ecosystem.

HyperEVM is integrated into Hyperliquid’s L1 consensus mechanism

The HyperEVM will not operate as a standalone chain but is deeply integrated into Hyperliquid’s existing layer-1 consensus mechanism, known as HyperBFT. This integration ensures that the EVM inherits the robust security features of Hyperliquid’s base layer.

Notably, the blocks of HyperEVM are constructed as part of the L1 execution, providing seamless interaction between the EVM and native components of the Hyperliquid network. This setup allows for the HYPE token, native to Hyperliquid, to be fungible with the gas token used within the HyperEVM, enhancing the platform’s liquidity and user experience.

HyperEVM has been assigned a chain ID of 999, and a JSON-RPC server has been made available to encourage node operators and other builders to host their own servers, thereby decentralizing access to the network.

In addition, recognizing the nascent state of tooling and analytics around the new EVM, Hyperliquid is streaming raw HyperEVM block data to S3 in real-time. This approach allows developers to index the blockchain without the necessity of running their own nodes, easing the burden on new entrants to the ecosystem.

While the initial release includes key features like spot transfers between native HYPE and HyperEVM HYPE, and the deployment of the WHYPE system contract for DeFi applications, Hyperliquid plans to introduce general ERC20 transfers and precompiles in future upgrades.

This staggered rollout strategy aims to minimize disruption to existing users while adding new functionalities, demonstrating Hyperliquid’s commitment to both innovation and stability.

The Hyperliquid bug bounty program

In tandem with the EVM launch, Hyperliquid has introduced a comprehensive bug bounty program. This initiative is designed to fortify the system’s security by incentivizing developers to find and report vulnerabilities.

Rewards under the bug bounty program can scale up to 1 million USDC, depending on the severity of the security issue identified.

The program covers a broad spectrum of potential vulnerabilities, including those that might cause system outages or errors in the nodes or API servers.

For the HyperEVM on the mainnet, bug hunters can report issues related to the integration of EVM with Hyperliquid’s native functionalities.

The post Hyperliquid launches its general-purpose EVM and unveils bug bounty program appeared first on CoinJournal.

Bitcoin Pepe’s stage four presale nears completion, raising $2.7m

Key takeaways

  • The Bitcoin Pepe presale is moving fast, with the fourth stage nearing completion.
  • The presale has raised over $2.7 million within a week since its launch.

What is Bitcoin Pepe?

Bitcoin Pepe is a project seeking to leverage the liquidity and security of the Bitcoin blockchain. According to the whitepaper, the team will use Bitcoin’s position in the market to introduce memecoins to its ecosystem. 

It is a layer-2 network building on the Bitcoin blockchain. This project is a meme-specialized layer-2 solution built on top of Bitcoin, bringing Solana-style scalability to the Bitcoin network.

The team explained that Bitcoin Pepe would become home to all memecoin trading and move all this economic activity to the BTC ecosystem. This project will unlock decentralized finance (DeFi) and meme trading on top of BTC.

Bitcoin Pepe will be the perfect fusion between BTC’s security and the unstoppable force of memecoins. It is also the first-ever meme initial coin offering (ICO) on the Bitcoin blockchain. 

With Bitcoin Pepe, BTC Maxis will be able to trade memes, and combining high levels of trust (BTC) with high levels of performance (SOL) will lead to high levels of retail mass adoption.

Bitcoin Pepe presale raises $2.7m within a week

Bitcoin Pepe’s presale is moving fast, with the fourth stage now near completion. The official Bitcoin Pepe website shows that the project has raised over $2.7 million. This is an incredible feat as the presale only began a week ago. 

Investors can purchase the $BPEP tokens (Bitcoin Pepe’s native token) using various cryptocurrencies, including ETH, USDT, USDC, BNB, and SOL. 

In this current stage, $BPEP is going for $0.0243 and is set to increase to $0.0255 in the next stage. 

The presale could be an opportunity to purchase $BPEP at a discount. Solana’s SOL currently trades at $196 per coin. However, it was sold for $0.22 during its presale in 2020, indicating how early investors benefit from partaking in presales.

Will Bitcoin Pepe advance the Bitcoin ecosystem?

Bitcoin is the leading cryptocurrency, with a market cap of nearly $2 trillion. While it has liquidity and security, the Bitcoin blockchain offers less utility than smart contract blockchains like Ethereum and Solana. 

However, Bitcoin Pepe plans to open up the blockchain further by allowing the launch of memecoins and other narratives on the network. 

Introducing memecoins on the Bitcoin blockchain will enable it to become home to a crazy high-octane meme experience. The Bitcoin Pepe team believes the BTC bridge will unlock $2 trillion in dormant BTC capital and make it available for memecoin trading.

Bitcoin Pepe will launch as a layer-2 network, providing the necessary infrastructure for all memes to migrate to BTC and ensuring security and liquidity for investors and users. 

Its native $BPEP token will power several activities within the Bitcoin Pepe L2 network. 

Should you invest in the Bitcoin Pepe presale?

Thanks to $BPEP’s utility, the presale allows investors to participate early in the Bitcoin Pepe project. 

Presales allow investors to gain early exposure to projects. For instance, while Solana’s SOL is trading at $167 today, it was sold for $0.22 during its presale in 2020, indicating how early investors benefit from participating in presales.

Bitcoin Pepe aims to be a leading L2 network on Bitcoin, offering users security and liquidity. By introducing memecoins to the Bitcoin ecosystem, Bitcoin Pepe could be an important project on the blockchain, similar to Ordinals.

The post Bitcoin Pepe’s stage four presale nears completion, raising $2.7m appeared first on CoinJournal.