📬 Inbox Dump #39

Hello Defiers! Welcome to Inbox Dump where we include the updates and announcements that flood our DMs each week and didn’t make it to The Defiant’s content platforms. Sometimes announcements here didn’t meet the bar to become a news story, sometimes they may have slipped through the cracks, or they came late and we haven’t had a chance to cover.

At The Defiant we cover the most important DeFi-related news and developments but we know many of you are hunting for projects before they are fully developed and before they are newsworthy. Our goal with this installment of the newsletter is to help you find them. Look at this as the starting point to DYOR.

We also include a compilation of DeFi and crypto funding rounds in the past week so you have these in one handy place.

Keep in mind these have been unedited. With that —here we go!

[This post is exclusive to subscribers]

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Inbox Dump!

The Costacos Collection Announces Launch of Sports NFT Marketplace Built on the Flow Blockchain

LOS ANGELES & SEATTLE--Today, the Costacos Collection announced its second NFT drop in partnership with four legendary NFL quarterbacks: Troy Aikman, Warren Moon, Jim McMahon, and Dan Marino. Following the company’s inaugural drop with baseball GOAT Willie Mays, the QB Legends Collection re-imagines the four quarterbacks’ iconic ‘80s/‘90s Costacos posters in new digital form.

Yotta introduces first of its kind DeFi product where users earn an average 4.0% APY and win prizes up to $10 million every week

Yotta, a NYC based fintech startup, has taken a different approach to the competitive digital bank landscape by offering a suite of engaging and entertaining financial products to set its users up for success. The company announced this morning that it’s launching a new product called “DeFi Buckets” that allows any Yotta user to earn an average 4.0% Annual Percentage Yield (APY) along with the chance to win $10 million every week.

Coachella and FTX Release Lifetime Festival Experiences as NFTs in First Move in Long-Term Partnership

Los Angeles, CA (February 1, 2022) -- Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival announced today a long-term partnership with leading US-regulated cryptocurrency exchange, FTX US (“FTX”). The relationship, which will span multiple years, will focus on pioneering crypto-powered experiences at the music festival. and digital collectibles, all verifiable through blockchain technology.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis, Kimbal Musk, & Vitalik Buterin will join ETHDenver this February to accelerate blockchain innovation

February, 2022, Denver, CO -ETHDenver, the world’s largest annual Web3.0 Community Innovation Festival, is returning in February 2022 with Colorado Governor Jared Polis, South African Entrepreneur & Colorado Resident Kimbal Musk, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, and more coming together to accelerate blockchain adoption and the State of Colorado’s mission to become the First Digital State in the U.S.

Cryptocurrency hedge fund ARK36 appoints Chris Krokides, Tetyana Martyneko, and Marilena Iacovou

Larnaca, 3rd February 2022 Cyprus-regulated cryptocurrency hedge fund ARK36 is strengthening its team in Cyprus by appointing Chris Krokides as Cryptocurrency Trader, Tetyana Martyneko as AML Officer and Marilena Iacovou as Office Manager.

The Sandbox Partners with Warner Music Group to Create Music-themed World in the Metaverse

HONG KONG – January 27, 2022 –The Sandbox, a leading decentralized gaming virtual world and a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, announced today that it has partnered with Warner Music Group (WMG) to create the first music-themed world in The Sandbox gaming metaverse. A combination of musical theme park and concert venue, the Warner Music Group LAND in The Sandbox will feature concerts and musical experiences featuring WMG’s leading roster of artists.

Aoki, Masked Wolf and Tigerlily play at a free closing party of AO Metaverse this Sunday ET, Monday AEDT

Sat 29 Jan: Tennis Australia in collaboration with Decentraland, Vegas City, Run it Wild and Lucky NFT will close it’s Australian Open Metaverse experience Sunday 30th January ET CET / Monday 31st January AEDT with an epic lineup of artists. Headlining the closing party is Steve Aoki, superstar DJ and producer, A0K1VERSE & Dim Mak label founder, as well as prominent advocate for NFTs.

Rapyd Completes Acquisition of Neat, Expanding Suite of Cross Border Trade Capabilities for Businesses

Hong Kong and London — Rapyd, a global Fintech-as-a-Service company announced today that it has completed the acquisition of Hong Kong-based Neat, a cross-border trade enabling platform for SMBs and startups.

WARNER MUSIC GROUP FORMS LABEL-WIDE PARTNERSHIP WITH LEADING GREEN WEB3 COMPANY “ONEOF” FOR ARTIST AND MUSIC NFTS

LOS ANGELES, CA — January 31, 2022: OneOf - the Green Web3 Company built for music – announced it has formed a first-of-its-kind preferred partnership with Warner Music Group (WMG) that will see the company create exclusive NFTs for a range of artists across WMG’s legendary catalog of music content. OneOf’s Green NFT platform mints NFTs that are up to 2M times more energy efficient than the competition, and are specifically designed with the music community in mind, offering NFTs from collectible and generative PFPs, to music royalties and IRL experiences.

Welcome to Chinatown launches Lunar New Year NFT fundraising campaign to celebrate Chinatown and benefit struggling small businesses

NEW YORK, NY – Non-profit organization Welcome to Chinatown (WtC) is launching its first NFT collection on Solana’s Metaplex to support their Longevity Fund, a grant program and accelerator for at-risk small businesses. The inaugural collection features 6 AAPI artists and their interpretations of a “Tray of Togetherness” (a platter of treats often enjoyed and gifted during Lunar New Year) split into 8-9 NFTs.

Elvis Block Party aims for highest Guinness World Record for most Elvis impersonators in the Metaverse

31 Jan 22: Run It Wild has partnered with Elvis Presley Enterprises to attempt to set the highest Guinness World Record (GWR) for the most Elvis impersonators in Decentraland, one of the largest metaverses as part of a broader Elvis-On-Chain strategy and NFT drop. The GWR Elvis Block Party Decentraland event will be held in February and can be accessed at events.decentraland.org. For live updates, follow @onchainmafia.

ConsenSys and Gnosis Safe partner to introduce self-custodial digital asset solutions for enterprises looking for Web3 adoption

3 February, 2022 - Gnosis Safe, a leading multi-signature (multisig) wallet provider and digital asset management platform, collaborated with market-leading Ethereum blockchain technology company ConsenSys, to bring self-custodial digital asset solutions to enterprises - providing a solution to single point of failure for ‘private keys’ and lowering the barrier of entry to web3 and digital asset adoption for businesses.

Wrestling Icon “Nature Boy” Ric Flair Takes Blockchain Brawlers to the Next Level on WAX

LOS ANGELES, Calif, February 1, 2022 /BusinessWire/ --WAX ($XB Market Cap), the #1 metaverse blockchain for video games and NFTs and the most utilized blockchain in the world with over 12 million accounts and 20 million daily transactions, is thrilled to announce that entertainment legend “Nature Boy” Ric Flair is coming to the Blockchain Brawlers in a series of 100 NFTs in early March. The collection of legendary NFTs will play a key role in the soon-to-launch play-to-earn (P2E) game launching at the beginning of Q2 on the WAX blockchain.

Butterfly Protocol and Cortex Application are launching free new “dot human” Top-Level Domains on Polygon

February 1, 2022 Butterfly Protocol and Cortex Application are launching free new .hmn (“dot human”) Top-Level Domains (TLDs) on Polygon, signaling a breakthrough for web3 identities. These full NFT domains are free and cross-chain with lifetime ownership. Made to be given away to any human who wants one, .hmn domains resolve across Ethereum, Polygon and legacy DNS (current web) using name.hmn.link. They also bridge to other crypto projects, like ENS, with name.hmn.eth.

Public Mint Partners with Celsius to Expand Diversified, High-Returns EARN Program

DOVER, Del., – Feb. 3, 2022 — Public Mint, the first fiat-native public blockchain and frictionless money system, has begun using Celsius, the leading platform for lending and earning yield on cryptocurrency, adding to Public Mint’s diversified, high-yield returns program called EARN. The collaboration with Celsius further diversifies EARN’s offerings, which allows users to benefit from crypto-based returns — without holding any crypto.

Mysten Labs Partners With 0L Network to Expand Move For Secure Smart Contracts

[Palo Alto, CA] – Mysten Labs, a Web 3.0 infrastructure company, announced a partnership with 0L Network, an open and permissionless version of the Diem blockchain. Together, Mysten Labs and 0L will build tools and resources for the Move smart contract programming language. Move, released as part of the Diem technology stack, is uniquely effective for secure smart contract development. In line with the partnership, the projects plan to roll out joint Move hackathons and mentorship programs starting in March 2022.

PORTUGAL THE MAN LAUNCHES GROUNDBREAKING CRYPTOCURRENCY PRE-SAVE CAMPAIGN FOR NEW SINGLE, “WHAT, ME WORRY?” OUT FEBRUARY 9

(New York, NY – January 31, 2022) Multi-platinum, GRAMMY Award-winning alternative rock band Portugal The Man have announced their highly-anticipated return with the forthcoming single, “What, Me Worry?” set for release next Wednesday, February 9. In announcing the new single, the band is launching a groundbreaking campaign to reward fans who pre-save the track with 1 $PTM of PTM Coin, the band's very own community-built social token (a type of cryptocurrency).

Bitso Enables the First Crypto-Funded Transfer of a Female Soccer Player

Mexico City, February 1, 2022 — Bitso, the leading cryptocurrency platform in Latin America with more than 4 million users, has announced the first transfer of a female player through the use of cryptocurrency. With the help of Bitso, Tigres Femenil, one of the most popular women’s soccer teams in Mexico, has become the first team in Mexico to execute the global transaction of a female player, Stefany Ferrer, funded entirely by crypto.

ConsenSys Acquires MyCrypto to Strengthen MetaMask Partnership and Enhance Web3 Experiences

New York, NY, February 1, 2021 — Today, ConsenSys announced the acquisition of MyCrypto, a deep-rooted Ethereum interface, to team up with the market-leading Web3 wallet, MetaMask. MetaMask and MyCrypto will be combining their efforts under a shared banner to further improve the security of all the products and create a cohesive user experience across desktop, mobile, extension, and browser wallets.

World Renowned Multimedia Artist DALEK To Drop NFT Collaboration With Generative Artworks on Doodle Labs Platform

NEW YORK – January 2022 - Doodle Labs Corp, the non-fungible token (NFT) company dedicated to bringing established artists and brands to the blockchain in an authentic manner, has announced their partnership with masterful artist James Marshall, AKA “Dalek” and prolific artist duo Generative Artworks. Dalek is well known for his graffiti art, murals, illustrations, and most notably, the iconic Space Monkey character.

Funding

Cross-DEX Platform Primex Finance Closes $5.7 Million Funding Round

Primex Finance has closed a $5.7 million strategic funding round co-led by Stratos Technologies and CoinFund. Alongside these companies, Hypersphere and GoldenTree Asset Management also participated in the funding program. In addition, leading liquidity providers such as Wintermute, GSR, and LedgerPrime also joined.

DeFi Platform Company Giddy Raises $8 Million

Giddy — a mobile app that enables mainstream DeFi adoption — recently announced that it has raised $8 million in seed funding. This funding round was led by Pelion Venture Partners and also includes Divvy founder and CEO Blake Murray, Galileo CEO Derek White, Traeger CEO Jeremy Andrus, angel investor Scott Paul, Brand Whisperer Shaun Neff, and real estate mogul and owner of Skinwalker Ranch Brandon Fugal.

SolanaPrime closes seed round for primary-market GameFi and DeFi DApp on Solana

Feb. 4, 2022 — SolanaPrime, the Solana-powered, fully decentralized IDO launchpad platform, has closed its seed round and is set to launch in March 2022. The impressive rise in popularity of NFTs, DeFi and gaming projects in the last two years have brought about the need for quality launchpads to help projects gain the funding and liquidity needed for a successful launch.

DeFi Infrastructure Provider Qredo Raises $80M at $460M Valuation

Decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure company Qredo has raised $80 million in an oversubscribed Series A round led by 10T Holdings, the crypto investment firm of hedge fund manager Dan Tapiero, at a $460 million valuation.

RareCircles Raises $7.5M Seed Round, led by Tiger Global

February 2, 2022 [New York, NY] – RareCircles, the all-in-one platform for building powerful NFT memberships, today announced that it has raised $7.5M in a Seed round of funding. Tiger Global led the round with participation from White Star Capital, Hashed, Alpaca, Crew Capital, Global Founders Capital, Alumni Ventures and Detroit Venture Partners. Packy McCormick (Not Boring), Joe McCann, Austin Rief (The Morning Brew), Mike Dudas (6th Man Ventures) and Greg Isenberg (Late Checkout Fund), Julien Smith (Practice) are also joining as investors.

DeFi startup Pillow raises $3M led by Elevation Capital and marquee angels

Singapore, February 04: Pillow, a DeFi (decentralized finance) startup that helps generate yields on crypto, has raised $3M in seed funding led by Elevation Capital and a host of prominent crypto angels, including Scott Lewis (Co-founder, DeFi Pulse), JD Kanani & Sandeep Nailwal (Co-founders, Polygon), Prabhakar Reddy (Co-founder, FalconX), and Aniket Jindal (Co-founder, Biconomy) and industry stalwarts like Ramakant Sharma (Livspace), Farid Ahsan (Sharechart), Kush & Sambhav (FamPay), Mukund Jha (Dunzo) amongst others. The funds will be used to build alpha-generating DeFi strategies for popular crypto assets (including $BTC, $ETH, and popular stablecoins), accelerate global expansion, build a strong user community, and grow the Pillow brand to make DeFi accessible worldwide.

Tribal Raises $60M in Oversubscribed Series B Led by SoftBank Latin America Fund

SAN FRANCISCO — February 3, 2022 — Tribal, a B2B payments and financing platform for emerging markets, has raised $60M in Series B funding led by SoftBank Latin America Fund. Coinbase Ventures also joined the round, which saw participation from existing investors BECO Capital, QED Investors, and Rising Tide. In addition to the $60M Series B, secondary shares were tapped into to add high-value crypto and strategic investors: Circle Ventures, AGE Fund, Third Prime, Canas Capital, and Acuity Ventures.

The Future of Decentralized Gaming: Ajuna Secures $2m Seed Funding

February 1, 2022, Zug — Ajuna, a Swiss-based decentralized gaming platform, announced today that it has secured $2 million in seed funding. The funding is led by Fundamental Labs, an Asian investment and venture capital firm specialized in the blockchain sector.

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