A venture capital firm focused on cryptocurrencies, web3 and blockchain startups has raised its third investment fund of $650 million.
Dragonfly Capital raised previous funds in 2018 and 2021 of $100m and $225m respectively.
Based in San Francisco, it has backed almost 60 companies to date including Avalanche, a lightning-quick verifiable platform for institutions, enterprises and governments which came out of nowhere months ago to break into the top 10 most valuable currencies by market cap.
The new fund includes heavyweight VCs Tiger Global, KKR and Sequoia Capital China.
Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly, wrote in a blog post that the new fund will back “the most disruptive founders, protocol builders, and hackers of this generation”.
“We used to talk about how the revolution was coming. Well, it’s here now. Crypto has gone mainstream, but we’ve been doing this from the beginning, before any of it was obvious,” he said.
“We’ve been early supporters of projects like Avalanche, Near, Bybit, Matter Labs, Anchorage, Amber, Frax, Cosmos, Dune Analytics, MakerDAO, Compound, 1inch – to name just a few.
“Back then, most of these were half-baked ideas… with the right team and enough ingenuity, a crazy idea can change everything. We’ve seen it enough times to no longer doubt it. The landscape is not fixed, no matter how much it seems like it might be.
“We’re excited to be a small part of how the future of crypto gets built.”
Crypto donations platform launches carbon offset programme
Pledge, a fundraising platform for crypto donations, has introduced a carbon offset initiative.
It says that as the mining process connected to how cryptocurrency is logged on the blockchain uses significant energy and contributes to global carbon emissions, every pledge made to a non-profit through PledgeCrypto will support carbon offset projects.
“At Pledge, we fundamentally believe that unlocking crypto donations will provide an abundant new source of funding for non-profits around the globe, but the process needs to be done in a sustainable way,” said CEO James Citron.
“Inspired by our core values of care and community, we wanted to respond to environmental concerns about crypto, which is why we are proud to lead with the first-of-its-kind patent-pending invention to ensure that every crypto transaction through Pledge will support UN-verified projects.
“This ensures that PledgeCrypto will not only be the most accessible way for donors to donate their digital assets and for non-profits to receive them, but also in the most environmentally conscious way in the industry.”
Cryptocurrency shorts
Revolut chief revenue officer Alan Chang has told an AltFi panel that the digital bank has a dedicated team of almost 100 people working on crypto and web3. Its app features the ability to withdraw around 60 cryptocurrencies at present.
EU legislators are finalising new rules which could ‘track and trace’ people’s cryptocurrency holdings to combat money laundering. The final round of negotiations over the Transfer of Funds Regulation begins today and could require companies to check who is sending and receiving funds.
Blockchain security firm CoolBitX has unveiled Sygna Hub, an API solution for incorporating anti-money laundering tools from the likes of Chainalysis and Elliptic and intended to help virtual asset service providers (VASPs) meet evolving crypto regulations.
Crypto prices
The overall market cap of the more than 19,100 coins is at $1.8 trillion, up 1.3% in the last 24 hours.
Market leader Bitcoin – the original cryptocurrency created by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto – climbed 2% to above $39,300 at the time of writing (7am UK). BTC is down 5% in a week.
Ethereum, the second most valuable crypto coin – created as a decentralised network for smart contracts on the blockchain – gained 1% to around $2,880. ETH, set for a huge upgrade soon, is 6% down over the course of a week.
Binance Coin is a cryptocurrency created by popular crypto exchange Binance to assist its aim in becoming the infrastructure services provider for the entire blockchain ecosystem. Its BNB token dropped slightly to $389, leaving it 7% down over seven days.
Solana is a blockchain built to make decentralised finance accessible on a larger scale – and capable of processing 50,000 transactions per second. Its SOL token gained 1% to $99 and is down 7% compared with a week ago.
The XRP token of Ripple, a payment settlement asset exchange and remittance system, acts as a bridge for transfers between other currencies. XRP dropped 1% to below 65 cents, which leaves it 14% down over seven days.
Terra, described as a programmable money for the internet, rose 1% to $89.27. Its payment token LUNA is 4% lower than its price a week ago.
Cardano is an open source network facilitating dApps which considers itself to be an updated version of Ethereum. Its ADA token, designed to allow owners to participate in the operation of the network, remained below 84c. It is 11% down over the course of a week.
Avalanche, a lightning-quick verifiable platform for institutions, enterprises and governments, came out of nowhere months ago to break into the top 10 currencies. Its AVAX token fell 1% to $69.16 and is 12% down in a week.
Meme coin DOGE was created as a satire on the hype surrounding cryptocurrencies but is now a major player in the space. DOGE dropped 1% to below 14c while it is more or less where it was a week ago.
Polkadot was founded by the Swiss-based Web3 Foundation as an open-source project to develop a decentralised web. Its DOT token, which aims to securely connect blockchains, dropped 1% to $16.87 and is 12% lower than its price a week ago.
To see how the valuations of the main coins have changed in recent times – and for round-ups of recent cryptocurrency news developments – click here.
For valuations of the top 100 coins by market cap in US dollars, plus 24-hour price change, see below.