Weekly Report: BitDAO makes bold bet with $633 million allocation

Here are some of the interesting headlines you might have missed in the cryptocurrency sector this week:

Rarify gets a $10 million boost in a funding round led by Pantera Capital

Rarify, an infrastructure firm that provides businesses and institutions with a platform to natively incorporate non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has completed a $10 million funding round.

The raise, which now puts the firm’s valuation at $100 million, was led by asset management company Pantera Capital, with the involvement of other investors including Slow Ventures, Greycroft, Protocol Labs, Hyper, and Eniac Ventures.

By providing infrastructure to support enterprise-scale NFT integration, Rarify helps companies jump into the NFT scene with ease. According to the firm’s co-founder Revas Tsivtsivadz, the firm aims to achieve such simplicity as Square provided to facilitate accepting payments with ease.

Tsivtsivadz’s point of view is that Rarify can help cut down on the complexity of interacting with NFTs, such as the “14-step process” one must complete to get an NFT off OpenSea.

Via Rarify’s application programming interface (API), companies can debut and integrate their own marketplaces. The API also enables them to mint and port the digital collectables across blockchains while allowing them access to historical data they can leverage when creating their DeFi or NFT products.

BitDAO gambles $633 million into DAO innovation

BitDAO, one of the largest decentralised autonomous organisations, has allocated $633 million into projects across its DeFi ecosystem. According to a recent announcement, the blockchain-invested firm will fund projects in sectors including blockchain infrastructure, gaming, and education – BitDAO intends to enhance the growth of its DAO ecosystem altogether.

In addition, BitDAO is also asking community members to actively participate in growing the ecosystem by enlisting proposals that would likely impact voting, governance, and enhancement of BitDAO products.

Through the three projects that BitDAO has zeroed in its investment on – zkDAO, EduDAO and Game7 DAO – it wants to support developers and, in effect, demonstrate how far DAOs can go really. On its part, zkDAO will direct grants and investments to projects in the zkSync ecosystem by targeting security, research, and education sectors.

Game 7 is built to focus on gaming projects in the blockchain space via efforts including grants, education, and strategic initiatives. EduDAO, on the other hand, purposes to enhance innovation in universities by eliminating the existing boundaries between university ecosystems. The organisation supports collaboration and information sharing between them.

Praxis gets $15 million closer to building a revolutionary crypto-powered city

Praxis, a blockchain start-up that aims to build a city for the future, has completed a $15 million Series A raise in a recently-concluded funding round.

A number of market-dominant venture capital firms were involved, including Alameda Research, Three Arrows Capital, and Paradigm Capital. Praxis wants to create a crypto-powered city built away from “artificially scarce metaverses” but focused on environmental tech and functional architecture.

Praxis’ only prior funding was the $4.2 million seed investment the firm collected late last year, in which crypto exchange Coinbase, the Winklevoss twins, and tech investor Balaji Srinivasan were involved.

At the moment, Praxis is yet to acquire prime land on which to develop its project, but according to co-founders Dryden Brown and Charlie Callinan, the firm is considering coping a piece in the Mediterranean. In addition, as per a recent interview, Brown said that Praxis would look to establish collaborative efforts with a government to build the city rather than seek total autonomy.

With the new capital boost, Praxis will expand its staff in critical areas for the project’s development, including real estate and engineering. It also wants to improve its personnel hires in governance.

Malaysia’s Deputy Finance Minister questions crypto’s use to complete payments and as a store of value

According to a recently published report by Malaysian news outlet The Star, Deputy Finance Minister Yamani Hafez Musa has brought into question the utility of cryptocurrencies in the country.

Answering a question by MP Nurul Izzah Anwar of the lower house of the Parliament on the government’s role in regulating crypto, the deputy minister said that Bitcoin and Ethereum do not display the innate traits of money. He held that crypto assets are not fit as payment instruments, adding that they remain unsuitable as a medium of exchange or a store of value.

Retelling that crypto is not regulated in Malaysia, Musa pointed to the assets’ volatility caused by speculative investments to verify his argument. The government official then highlighted a number of matters he deems problematic about crypto.

He talked of the environmental impact due to its high energy use, the risk of loss, cyberattacks and the inability to compete with the high transaction volume that Visa completes.

The deputy finance minister, however, recognised crypto as an asset class that investors can put their money in, hence why they are under the regulatory arm of the Malaysian Securities Commission (SC).