Kategorie: Crypto Business

Cake DeFi, Singapore-based decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, has launched a new corporate venture arm called Cake DeFi Ventures (CDV). Cake Defi has invested $100 million in the new venture targeting Web3, gaming, and fintech startups.

The new corporate venture arm shall go a long way in empowering Cake DeFi’s user base that spans over half a million registered users.

The Cake DeFi Ventures (CDV)

The CDV shall focus on investing in tech startups across the metaverse, Web3, gaming, esports, and NFTs space that will bring value to Cake DeFi’s main business. The venture shall not only focus on startups in Singapore but look for global investment opportunities.

The CDV is led by Cake Defi’s co-founder Dr. Julian Hosp, Cake DeFi’s CEO, and Cake DeFi’s CTO U-Zyn Chua. These three are the founders of Cake DeFi and the main objective of the project was to build the world’s leading investment platform for DeFi and upcoming alternative assets in Singapore.

The startups that make it to the CDV portfolio can expect to receive strong support from Cake DeFi besides being able to access the many Cake products, users, connections, and resources around the world.

Julian Hosp said:

“By launching Cake DeFi Ventures, we strive towards bringing cryptocurrency and blockchain capabilities to the world. With Cake’s current status as Singapore’s and Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing platform, projects which we invest in can expect to receive strong support scaling globally.”

U-Zyn Chua went ahead to add:

“As an extension of our multiple blockchains support and having built up an R&D arm with cryptography deep tech capability and specialization, investing in companies that bring synergies to Cake DeFi’s core business will allow us enhance our Web3 offerings.”

Applying for funding from the CDV

To apply for funding from the new venture capital, startups should send an email to contact@cakedefi.vc explaining their project details.

The team at Cake DeFi will then contact the shortlisted projects.

The venture capital is also open for Venture capital firms or investment funds interested in co-investment opportunities or strategic partnerships.

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Yenwen Feng says Perpetual Protocol and True plan to increase the asset cap in the protocol-to-protocol lending portfolio from $5 million to $20 million if the initial trial succeeds.

Perpetual Protocol (PERP), an Ethereum-based decentralised derivatives exchange and TrustToken, the company behind  digital asset lending platform TrueFi and popular stablecoin TrueUSD (TUSD) recently signed a deal that saw the latter launch a $100 million liquidity pool for market makers.

As part of the partnership, TrueFi unveiled a protocol-to-protocol lending portfolio on Perpetual Protocol, with a $5 million initial plough from the $100 million targeted by end of the year. With the funds, market makers on the PERP platform can now offer more liquidity, allowing the platform to scale its services to more professional and institutional investors.

Commenting on the critical role played by liquidity providers, Perpetual Protocol co-founder Yenwen Feng said:

“Committed market makers are crucial for any user-driven decentralized exchange, as they are the engine that keeps it going. By teaming up with TrustToken, we bring our market makers more liquidity to tap into as they support our own trading pairs. This grants liquidity providers more confidence through greater market stability and reduced slippage which ultimately results in a better trading experience for all of our users.”

Yenwen Feng on TrueFi partnership and 2022 outlook

After Perpetual and TrustToken announced their partnership, we wanted to know more about the $100 million liquidity pool and what the PERP team is looking forward to in 2022.

Feng elaborated on several points, including plans to increase the LP funds’ pool from $5 million to $20 million following an initial trial period. He explained the importance of providing support to market makers via a dedicated lending portfolio, with a note on why this could be crucial to the derivatives market.

Feng is also convinced layer 2 solutions will play a key role in the future of on-chain derivatives starting in the second half of 2022.

There’s more the Perpetual Protocol co-founder said.

CJ: When do the Perpetual Protocol (PERP) ecosystem market makers begin to tap into the huge liquidity?

Feng: After this initial trial we should be able to fine-tune the parameters of the program before opening it up to other market makers. 

CJ: Briefly tells us about the $5 million lending ceiling and why start with only 5% of what could rise to $100 million by end of the year?

Feng: We wanted to start with a small enough amount to initially test the waters to see what kind of an impact it would have on the market-making activities on Perp. This approach is another route for us to bring more liquidity to the platform and if it goes well, we’ll increase it to $20 million for the next round and more in the future.

CJ: What’s your outlook on the crypto derivative markets, especially if we see a crypto winter in 2022? Any advice to investors?

Feng: New L1/L2 development: Rollup technologies and new L1 chains are launching this year. It should further increase the bandwidth and lower the gas fees. The landscape for L2s will become really competitive in the second half of 2022. 

For example, zkSync recently launched their public testnet and the Optimism team are working on reducing the fees by 10x, so we’ll likely see a boost to trading volumes as on-chain derivatives become cheaper and more widely accessible. 

Awareness of institutions: More and more institutional traders are testing out crypto trading and bringing in more markets.

CJ: What do you say about the 2022 crypto market outlook?

Feng: I feel that the bearish market will only be short-lived. In the 2018 bear market, people were leaving crypto and never came back. At that time, we were in the Binance Accelerator program and I think around half of the projects there at the time quit the crypto market completely. 

However, the difference this time is that even if crypto market valuation drops, most people will remain in the space and there are many builders and new innovations. 

There’s still a lot of appetite for cryptocurrency, such as in Silicon Valley, so I think by the second half of the year, the market will be in a much better position. 

CJ: Any new projects and protocols that have looked at your partnership with TrustToken and as a result expressed intention to build on top of the Perpetual Protocol?

Feng: Market makers and online strategy providers are very interested in this partnership.

CJ: What compliance issues, if any, has the platform faced or had to address as a result of sealing a partnership with TrustToken?

Feng: TrueFi creates a great environment to help us navigate through the complexity of regulations. TrueFi is like a fund manager, where Perpetual Protocol is the lender and market makers are the borrowers. Because we are using their platform, we don’t have to be too preoccupied about regulations, as TrueFi handles those issues. 

Also, once we grow more, we can utilize their platform to become the borrower. 

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The listing is a leap towards financially empowering creators, Chingari CEO said

India’s first social cryptocurrency GARI announced its listing on the country’s leading crypto exchange CoinDCX in a press release earlier today.

With over 35 million users in India, the native token of video sharing platform Chingari previously made headlines after trading tokens worth $100 million within 24 hours of going live.

The token is listed in various leading exchanges in the world including Kucoin, MEXC, Bitmart, Zebpay, Huobi, FTX and the decentralised exchange Raydium.

GARI’s latest listing on CoinDCX will enable another avenue for the exchange’s 10 million users to access one of the largest projects on the Solana blockchain. The listing will also allow GARI to improve its liquidation and pursue its ambitions of penetration into wider global communities.

GARI’s parent project Chingari is India’s fastest growing short-video app, supported by prominent crypto Venture Capitalists including Alameda research and Republic Capital. 

Speaking on the CoinDCX listing, Mr Sumit Ghosh, CEO and Co-founder Chingari said:

“This listing is a huge moment for us as it will allow the creators from every nook and corner of the world to trade the GARI token. This has come as a giant leap towards our goal of financially empowering creators on our short video app, Chingari, who have largely been ignored by the global short app platforms.” 

Chingari rewards creators with GARI tokens whenever they create a video on the application and allows influencers to earn via their content through three options: watch-2-earn, engage-2-earn and play-2-earn.

GARI prides itself on being a disruptive force in the creator economy as the token is focused on enabling creators to monetize their content on the blockchain. The listing on CoinDCX has been facilitated to cater to the ever-growing demands of millions of creators across the globe, the press release stated.  

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Gavin Wood, the founder of the blockchain platform and cryptocurrency Polkadot (DOT), has just donated $5.8 million worth of DOT to Ukraine.

According to a DOT transaction the Polkadot founder just shared, the total donation is 298,367 DOT tokens.

Given DOT/USD is trading around $19.33, Wood’s donation stands at around $5.8 million.

Wood had this week promised to donate $5 million to the Ukrainian government if they posted a Polkadot address in addition to the Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tether (USDT) addresses opened after last week’s Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Wood pledged $5 million if Ukraine added a DOT address

Earlier on Tuesday, 1 March 1, 2022, Ukraine announced that it was now accepting crypto donations in Polkadot.

In a tweet posted from the official government account, Ukraine authorities thanked the global community for the donations received so far. They released a DOT address and noted that they could accept donations in other cryptocurrencies too.

“The people of Ukraine are grateful for the support and donations from the global crypto community as we protect our freedom. We are now accepting Polkadot donations too: $DOT: 1x8aa2N2Ar9SQweJv9vsuZn3WYDHu7gMQu1RePjZuBe33Hv. More cryptocurrencies to be accepted soon,” the tweet read.

Gavin Wood made his pledge via a reply to the Ukrainian government’s earlier plea for more donations. While he could have simply donated in BTC, ETH, or USDT, Wood’s request for a DOT address appears not to be such a bad move after all for the Ukrainian government.

The addition of the Polkadot cryptocurrency could open up the donation basket to more people, boosting the effort to support the battle against Russia and to offer humanitarian aid to a growing number of people.

The DOT address has just over $6 million at the time of writing, but the amount could grow quickly as witnessed with BTC and ETH over the past week.

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• Crypto VCs Sanctor Capital and GBV co-led the funding round
• The Manchester start-up plans to use the funds to innovate and build an NFT platform that allows for a democratised access and usage by artists and collectors.

UK-based non-fungible token (NFT) platform KnownOrigin has raised $4.85 million in its series A funding round the startup said in a press release shared with CoinJournal.

Venture capital firms GBV and Sanctor Capital co-led the financing round, with participation from D1 Ventures, Cultur3 Capital, LD Capital, MetaCartel Ventures DAO, and Pluto Digital. The round also attracted support from Future Arts, Yin Cao and Colborn.

KnownOrigin ‘KO’ is a pioneer NFT platform, co-founded in 2018 by David Moore, Andy Gray and James Morgan. The platform has over the years allowed for a democratised art world where artists showcase and sell their digital artwork via simplified transaction processes.

The Manchester-based startup plans to use the new funds to reinvest in its NFT digital art marketplace, with the aim of ensuring creatives continue to benefit from new technologies in the space like Web 3 and Metaverse.

Partnerships include Netflix and Adidas

According to co-founder James Morgan, the $4.85 million will help the startup to grow, innovate and to build an ecosystem that will benefit the broader NFT space.

To help achieve these goals, the KnowOrigin team has looked for investment and expertise from prominent crypto investors and blockchain innovators in the NFT space. It has also partnered with top brands such as streaming giant Netflix, Europe’s largest sportswear firm Adidas and US-based computer software company Adobe.

Commenting on the investment, co-founder Morgan said the aim is to offer “a permissionless, transparent, fair thriving ecosystem where creators and collectors can engage in culture excellence and experience.”

Bringing NFTs to the community

KnownOrigin has over 5000 creators on its platform, with sales of over $30 million in the past year alone netted from a growing market of NFT collectors from across the world.

As well as providing an ecosystem that favours NFT creators and artists, KO has built a new royalties system that allows artists to receive royalties instantly after every sale.

But their work does not end with the platform participants, the team noted in the press announcement. The startup has sought to bring the NFT world to the Manchester community, including events that feature both local and global NFT talent.

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