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💵 Weekly Crypto Fundraises & Deals

Here are all the crypto fundraises we heard about this week, ranked by size…

1. Zama, an open-source cryptography company builds fully homomorphic encryption technology that is focused on data confidentiality, has raised $73M in a Series A round, co-led by Multicoin Capital and Protocol Labs

2. Eclipse Labs, a firm is developing an Ethereum Layer-2 solution using the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM), aiming for scalability and composability, has raised $50M in Series A funding, co-led by Placeholder and Hack VC.

3. Elixir, modular network project, has raised $8M in a Series B funding round, co-led by Sui blockchain developer Mysten Labs and Arthur Hayes’ family office, Maelstrom

4. NFTfi, a non-fungible token (NFT) lending protocol, has raised $6M in its latest Series A1 funding round, led by Placeholder VC

5. Cosmology, a development platform focused on the Cosmos ecosystem, has raised $5M in seed funding, led by venture firms Galileo and Lemniscap

🗞️ Crypto News Recap: The Top 5 Stories

Welcome back to This Week in Crypto… everything you need to know in one scannable format. Here are the top 5 stories of the week… 

1. 🚀 Bitcoin breaks through $73,000 to fresh highs: Bitcoin has broken above the $70,000 mark for the second time in the last few days, first surpassing this milestone on March 8. Bitcoin climbed above $73,000 following surging inflows into newly launched ETFs. ETF daily inflows reached a record $1.05 billion on March 13, surging 108% from the previous day.

   

2. 🚀 Ether price hits $4,000 for the first time in more than two year: The price of ether has reached $4,000 for the first time in over two years. This comes amid ongoing speculation that spot ether exchange-traded funds could be approved in the U.S.

   

3. 🤝 Grayscale, Coinbase meet with SEC about spot ether ETFs:Grayscale and Coinbase held another round of talks with federal regulators this week, making headway in the companies' plans to launch an ether spot exchange-traded fund. 

   

4. 🚀 Spot bitcoin ETF cumulative trading volume crosses $100 billion:On Friday, the crypto-based financial instruments achieved another major milestone when they passed $100 billion in cumulative trading volume, according to Yahoo Finance data compiled by The Block. While it took the new products more than a month to clear $50 billion in cumulative trading volume, they completed the second half of the milestone in roughly two weeks as activity accelerated across the board. 

   

5. ⚖️ Do Kwon to be extradited to South Korea after court reverses extradition to US: A court in Montenegro decided Thursday that Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon will be extradited to South Korea, according to local media. 

   

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💬 Tweet of the Week

📊 Key Stats of the Week

Here are the most important and interesting stats in crypto this week...

1. South Korea's Web3 ecosystem is dominated by gaming, making up 45.25% of the sector, influenced by its robust gaming community. Infrastructure & Crypto Financial Services follow, at 13.41% and 11.17%. The government backs blockchain tech but discourages the use of native tokens.

2. Solana Stablecoin Supply Rises 50% to $2.34B. Solana's revival has led to a 50% increase in its stablecoin supply to $2.34B, ranking it fifth among major blockchains.

3. Another week, another record shattered. This time over $2.6B of inflows into Bitcoin ETFs (a new weekly record), marking the sixth consecutive week of net inflows of at least $500M, and bringing the year-to-date total to $10.3B.

4. Livepeer’s treasury hits ATH with 112,101 LPT tokens, 10.8% MOM growth — new grants focusing on AI integrations.

5. 60,000+ vehicles are earning DIMO Rewards

6. Top Moving Coins From the Top 100

📝 Highlights from the Top Crypto Reports

Here are the top highlights from the best crypto research reports this week…

Web3 Social Landscape - VeradiVerdict - Issue #287

About the Author: Paul Veradittakit, is a Managing Partner at Pantera Capital, one of the oldest and largest institutional investors focused on investing into blockchain companies and cryptocurrencies. This is an excerpt from the full article, which you can find here.

Introduction

Previously, I wrote a high level primer on the future of social networks:

Future of Social Networks - Part 1

Future of Social Networks - Part 2

Future of Social Networks - Part 3

At Pantera, we are excited about how web3 is unlocking new approaches for social platforms that enable users to connect and interact with creators, influencers, and fellow users. Last month, decentralized social protocol Farcaster saw a surge in popularity following its introduction of Frames, a feature that allowed developers to create interactive, embeddable posts for their audience. Soon enough, users were minting NFTs, claiming rewards for completing surveys, playing Doom, and even buying Girl Scout cookies directly through Warpcast, Farcaster’s flagship client. 

Such seamless in-app experiences were previously impossible through traditional web2 social media platforms. Identity, ownership, tokens, and payment rails-these are all features of the blockchain that have enabled the creation of new social features such as Frames. In this article, we’ll look at distinct social protocols and platforms, with a focus on how they use web3’s building blocks to build new experiences. 

Farcaster and Lens

In web2, data is siloed and controlled by the platform itself. This means developers cannot create alternative platforms that present content in new ways. X (Formerly Twitter) limits users to their platform, offering no flexibility for an interface that utilizes a different algorithm. Furthermore, users do not own their account-if they get banned, they lose their audience reach and ability to make posts to that account.

Farcaster and Lens, two popular social protocols, adopt a unique approach: they make data openly available and give users control of their accounts. Farcaster stores its post data on a decentralized storage network known as Hubs, so it is accessible to all. Moreover, Farcaster profiles are linked to users’ Ethereum accounts on the Optimism platform, ensuring users truly own their digital identity.

🎧 Top Crypto Podcasts of The Week

Here are the crypto podcasts that are worth listening to this week...

1. Bankless - AI Crypto Coins

2. The Defiant - How Solana Is Winning in the Crypto Bull Market

3. Coin Bureau - Billionaires Are SELLING!! Here's Why & What it Means For You!!

4. Nathaniel Whittemore: Is the Crypto Cycle Overheating Already?

5. Glassnode: Bitcoin Breaks to $72k Setting a New ATH - The Week On-chain 11, 2024 (Bitcoin Onchain Analysis)

Additional Coinstack Sponsors

Hive Digital is a leader in providing SEO and PPC services for blockchain, DeFi, Web3, and crypto companies. If you want to expand your organic presence and paid leads from Google and Facebook, get a proposal from Hive Digital at www.hivedigital.com.

💬 Join The Coinstack Telegram Community

Join our Telegram Channel here to chat with our community, ask questions, and learn more about the future of money as we move to a decentralized internet and the creation of a new open global monetary system that works for everyone.

💬 The People We’re Following Closely on Twitter

1. Vitalik Buterin

2. Justin Drake

3. Hayden Adams

4. Hasu

5. Ryan Adams

6. Vance Spencer

7. Camila Russo

8. Ryan Selkis

9. Anthony Sassano

10. Lyn Alden

11. Gavin Wood

12. Cathy Wood

13. Beniamin Mincu

14. Barry Silbert

15. David Hoffman

16. Preston Pysh

17. Willy Woo

18. Ultra Sound Money List

19. Polkadot Ecosystem List

📚 How To Get Started With Crypto Learning

1. Crypto: Explain It Like I’m 5 (Article)

2. The Infinite Machine by Camila Russo (Book) 

3. Crypto Theses for 2021 by Messari (PDF)

4. Bankless - The DeFi community (Substack + Podcast + Discord)

5. Understanding Polkadot - The Next Generation Blockchain Tech (Website)

6. The Ethereum 2.0 Report from Messari (PDF)

7. Blockgeeks Video Tutorials (Video)

8. The Coinstack Website (Website)

9. 2008 Bitcoin Whitepaper (PDF)

10. 2013 Ethereum Whitepaper (PDF)

📰 The Coinstack Newsletter:

Tracking the most important blockchain stories of the 2020s, including a decentralized internet and the creation of a new open global monetary system that works for everyone. As always, published for informational purposes only. Please do your own research. Just our opinions. Not intended as financial advice as we are not financial advisors. We may own some of the digital assets we write about as we believe strongly in the sector. Please do your own research. Published and written weekly by Ryan Allis and Mike Gavela. 

Coinstack is a news and analysis newsletter for the digital asset industry. None of the information here is a recommendation to invest in any securities or other types of investments. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Any historical returns, expected returns, or probability projections may not reflect actual future performance. All investments involve risk and may result in loss.

Comments and thoughts are welcome on our Telegram channel:

• Website at Coinstack.co

• Substack at Coinstack.substack.com

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