Kategorie: Crypto Business

Andreessen Horowitz’ first major investment in the crypto sector was the 2013 bet on Coinbase.

Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm with over $28 billion in assets under management, has announced a $4.5 billion fund targeted at investments in the crypto and blockchain space.

The fund will primarily look to invest in crypto projects and equity during the current bear market, the company said on Wednesday.

The crypto winter is the best time to invest in projects, the a16z’s general partner Arianna Simpson told CNBC. According to her, bear markets offer developers the opportunity to “focus on building” without distraction occasioned by the market’s price activity.

At the moment, most cryptocurrencies are nursing massive price declines, with the broader market hit by negative sentiment cascading from the stock market.  Andreessen Horowitz wants to use the opportunity to bet on the next Coinbase, Avalanche, or Dapper Labs – top projects that the firm took an early bet on.

a16z has now raised $7.6 billion in four funds towards investments in the crypto sector. In 2022, crypto startups raked in over $25 billion from venture capitalists.

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NGC Ventures is an early backer of Algorand and Solana and will use the new fund to invest in early-stage DeFi, NFTs and Metaverse projects.

Singapore-based institutional investor NGC Ventures, which focuses on venture funding for projects in the blockchain space, has announced a new fund targeted at early-stage projects in the Web3 and metaverse ecosystems.

The fund, the company’s third in its crypto-focused programs, has secured $100 million in funding from various investors as it looks to help projects build and launch across the industry.

According to an announcement the company made on Wednesday, participating investors included Huobi Ventures, Babel Finance, Nexo Ventures, and GBIC.

Per the venture firm, the new funds will go into early-stage projects in decentralized finance (DeFi), blockchain gaming, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and the metaverse.

Selected projects will also benefit from expert input on tokenomics, with access to major industry influencers, launchpads, market makers, and exchanges also available.

NGC is an early investor in several projects, including Algorand and Solana. Recently, it participated in the $8 million funding round for Africa-based DeFi startup Cassava Network.

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• Bitcoin price could still drop to the 200-MA at $22,000, with possible downside wicks to $19,000 and then $15,500. 
• Bounces off these levels have offered huge investment returns for long-term investors, says crypto analyst Rekt Capital.

Bitcoin (BTC) is tracking fresh losses below $30,000, with the broader crypto market seesawing in the red amid new downsides for stocks. BTC, which has tanked nearly 58% from its all-time high, could still see further selling to reach new multi-year lows.

But for investors looking to enter the market, this could come with a massive opportunity if prices ended up at a key historical support level.

Top crypto analyst Rekt Capital says this has been the case whenever BTC price hits or wicks below the 200-week moving average (the 200-MA).

Historically, #BTC tends to bottom at or below the 200-MA (orange)

The 200-MA thus tends to offer opportunities with outsized ROI for $BTC investors (green)

Wicks below it are the point of peak opportunity

So how much does BTC wick below the 200-MA?

A thread#Crypto #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/b3TLfsafUe

— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) May 24, 2022

“Since 2015, the 200-MA has been touched on 4 occasions to form generational bear market bottoms. And 3 out of 4 of those Bear Market bottoms ended with downside wicking,” Rekt noted in a Twitter thread on Tuesday.

The downside wicks have been between -14% and -28%, with the latter happening after the March 2020 market collapse. According to the analyst, Bitcoin’s current price means bears need to pull the flagship cryptocurrency’s value down by 28% to reach the 200-MA that currently sits at around $22,000.

Below this historical support level, a -14% to -28% return would bring BTC/USD to $19,000 and $15,500.

This means investors who likely missed the last bull market could have a chance for a low entry point at these levels.

However, while the analyst says downside wicks off the 200-MA have largely presented periods of “peak financial opportunity for long-term BTC investors,” the market at these times is usually at extreme fear and maximum pessimism.

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Pebble, a fintech startup whose crypto app seeks to bring about a “money revolution” by paying its users to save, spend and send money, has announced a $6.2 million seed funding round.

The platform’s financing round attracted investments from leading venture firms, including Y Combinator, the financial startup said on Monday.

Others to back Pebble’s mission are Lightshed Ventures, Soma Capital, Montage Ventures, Eniac Ventures, Global Founders Capital, and East Ventures.

Angel investors who joined the round included National Football League (NFL) star Odell Beckham Jr, Quantstamp CEO Richard Ma and Muse band’s lead singer Matthew Bellamy.

5% APY interest and 5% cashback

Pebble offers its customers a savings account through which they can earn 5% in interest. What happens is that the app converts users’ fiat deposits into the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) and then lends the funds to regulated institutions. 

The borrowers pay a commission to access the loans, which are over-collateralized by 150% and according to the startup, all the processes are off-chain.

Apart from the 5% APY rewards, Pebble customers also have the benefit of a 5% cashback program, which is open to all transactions recorded across 56 partner merchants. Some of the big names in this program include Amazon, Uber, Chipotle, and Airbnb.

Pebble offers unlimited 5% cash back at our 56 partnered merchants such as Uber, Amazon, Chipotle, Airbnb, Southwest Airlines, and more — with plans to expand our offerings later this year. Cash back gets paid out instantly as you spend, and goes back into your wallet to earn 5%!

— Pebble (@Pebble_HQ) May 23, 2022

Other features available with the app include payroll connection and bill management. Users also benefit from flexible and seamless functionality via mobile access.

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PayPal has its eyes set on an eventual integration of everything crypto and blockchain across its services, the payment giant’s Vice President Richard Nash has hinted.

In an interview with Cointelegraph at the World Economic Forum (WEF 2022) in Davos, Switzerland on Monday, May 23, Nash revealed that the company has plans to embrace every possible service related to cryptocurrency and blockchain.

According to the PayPal VP, the company is working with others within the space to offer customers all that is possible – including digital wallets and CBDCs.

Also speaking at the event, Nash urged governments and regulators to look at policies and regulations that will help the crypto sector. A tweet by HCL Technologies summarized his take:

„Governments and regulators need to get comfortable with crypto at scale. Policy and regulatory discussions are almost as exciting as the technical side of blockchain, and there is a real opportunity in the industry to accelerate adoption“ – Richard Nash, PayPal #HCLTechAtDavos pic.twitter.com/BWcg44l6kK

— HCL Technologies (@hcltech) May 23, 2022

PayPal launched its crypto buy, hold and sell feature for Bitcoin (BTC) in the US in 2020, indicating at the time that the service would be progressively rolled out across the globe.

In March 2021, the payments giant announced a check-out feature that allows customers to pay merchants using cryptocurrencies.

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