📬 Inbox Dump #53

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 ...

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]

🙏 Together with:

  • Matcha: Matcha makes sure you’re getting the best possible price by routing orders across all the various DeFi exchanges, now with an integrated fiat on-ramp. Start trading at matcha.xyz/defiant
the-defiant

Inbox Dump!

✉️ Balancer Launches on Optimism

New York, June 2 – Balancer Protocol has launched on leading Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution Optimism to significantly reduce gas costs and scale DeFi liquidity with the scope for sustainable, scalable, innovative growth that is highly competitive in the L2 network.

✉️ Bifrost Wins 18th Polkadot Parachain Slot and is Ready to Combat the Bear Market

Singapore, June 2 - The cross-chain liquid staking derivative protocol, Bifrost is now planning on bridging from Kusama to establish liquid staking on both Kusama and Polkadot, using the Polkadot multi-chain infrastructure to bring cross-chain liquid staking to over 80% of public PoS chains

✉️ Router Protocol Adds Harmony and Cronos to its Cross-Chain Messaging Protocol Following Governance Vote

SINGAPORE, June 2 - Router Protocol, an infrastructure layer enabling communication between blockchains, today announced it has added Harmony and Cronos to its platform. The integrations were the first to be selected by the community following a vote in April.

✉️ THE META DAISIES IGNITE ROCK IN THE METAVERSE

London, June 2 - In a world-first, new metaverse rock band The Meta Daisies has released its debut single and accompanying meta-cinematic ‘Radiance’, propelling the music industry forward into a new virtual era.

✉️ Voltz Labs Launches Interest Rate Swap Protocol w/ Amber and Wintermute as LPs

LONDON, JUNE 01 - Voltz Protocol launches DeFi's first synthetic, capital-efficient interest rate swap (IRS) AMM, providing the framework for DeFi to compete with TradFi's $1,000T IRS exchanged per annum and unlocking a new realm of possibilities for dapps to serve the financial needs of the world.

✉️ SUPERRARE CELEBRATES PRIDE AND GENDER VARIANCE ON THE BLOCKCHAIN

New York, June 1 - During June, and every day, we celebrate Pride and take pride in boldly diversifying the future of art and Web3. To that effect, we are launching a series of initiatives, SUPERQUEER. Kicking off Pride and SUPERQUEER, is a 6-week online guest-curated exhibition by transgender artist Laurel Charleston titledSuperTrans.

✉️ Decent DAO launches with $250k available for potential hackers

MIAMI, JUNE 01 - Decent Labs, a Web3 accelerator and venture studio, launches Fractal on mainnet, a turnkey solution for developers to utilize in building, funding, governing, and scaling the decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) of the future.

✉️ NEW FILM DISTRIBUTOR MOVIEFARM SET TO TRANSFORM THE MOVIE EXPERIENCE WITH NFTs - LAUNCHING WITH THE LATE ROY SCHEIDER’S LAST EVER FILM – BEAUTIFUL BLUE EYES

London - New film distributor MOVIEFARM is thrilled to launch with its first film release, starring the late iconic two-time Oscar-nominated actor Roy Scheider (Jaws, The French Connection, Marathon Man, Klute, All That Jazz), in a mesmerizing final performance, to be released this summer on July 22.

✉️ XTIXS announces first disruptive Defi-Funded event in partnership with GET Protocol

Ticketing solution XTIXS in partnership with GET announced a DeFi funded event when Lewis Capaldi plays on August 23rd in Reykjavik. The show is backed up by a bespoke application of blockchain technologies; DeFi, NFT, and GET Protocol's utility token $GET, where future ticket inventory serves as collateral for a loan.

✉️ Swarm launches institutional-grade liquid staking integrated with DeFi

Berlin-based Swarm, the regulated multi-asset DeFi platform, today announces the launch of institutional-grade liquid staking tokens that can integrate into DeFi automated market maker (AMM) pools to generate additional yield in a protected environment.

✉️ Neo Announces the Winners of Polaris Launchpad Hackathon

Singapore, May 31 - Neo Global Development (NGD) has announced the winners of the Polaris Launchpad Hackathon phase. NGD dedicated a total prize pool of up to US $500,000 to the event, which saw close to 600 registrants.

✉️ MULTIVERSE PLATFORM, VRJAM, UNVEILS FIRST ARTISTS TO JOIN ITS REVOLUTION AND AUCTION SALE OF ITS FIRST NFT

London, May - VRJAM, a leading multiverse platform for live entertainment, has unveiled the first artists to join its Creator Guild. VRJAM will offer live virtual reality and interactive content across streaming platforms, websites, VR, and mobile devices powered by blockchain technology.

✉️ INFINITE DRIVE: THE WORLD’S FIRST DRIVING METAVERSE

MONTREAL & LYON- The Tiny Digital Factory, a leading developer and publisher of world-class racing and motorsport games, is thrilled to announce Infinite Drive: the world’s first real driving metaverse. Infinite Drive rolls out worldwide on mobile devices in Q4 2022.

✉️ Gate.io Marks 9th Birthday With New Brand Identity

May 30th – Gate.io, one of the world’s earliest cryptocurrency exchanges, is celebrating its 9th birthday. Alongside an exciting host of activities, the company has also announced a brand refresh. As part of the revamped brand identity, Gate.io is unveiling a new slogan, color scheme, and logo.

✉️ DeFi Saver, a popular Ethereum DeFi management app, expands to Arbitrum and Optimism

Belgrade, Serbia - One of the leading applications for creating, managing, and tracking DeFi positions on Ethereum, today announces the launch on two leading Layer 2 networks, Arbitrum, and Optimism.

✉️ PRADA LAUNCHES TIMECAPSULE NFT COLLECTION AND PRADA CRYPTED COMMUNITY

Milan, May 30 — Prada announces a further expansion and creative presence in Web3 with its new Timecapsule NFT Collection, which is linked to both a gender-neutral physical product and a gifted NFT.

✉️ EVRYNET AND VELO ANNOUNCE STRATEGIC MERGER TO BUILD THE FUTURE OF CEDEFI

BANGKOK, THAILAND - EvryNet, a financial services platform for building centralized and decentralized applications in DeFi, has today announced a strategic merger with Velo Labs, a leading blockchain infrastructure company focused on improving international remittances.

✉️ SeedOn launches its wallet for direct SEON vesting and staking

Romania, May – SeedOn, a blockchain-based crowdfunding platform, launches SeedOn Finance, its new wallet app. The wallet will enable global investors to stake its native SEON tokens directly from SeedOn Finance, without third-party platforms, and collect their vested tokens from select SEON sales.

✉️ World’s first decentralized inheritance solution unveiled by Kirobo

Tel Aviv, June - Kirobo, the decentralized application developer creating a safer and more secure infrastructure for Web3, adds a first-of-its-kind automatic, decentralized, and community-based inheritance feature to its Liquid Vault.

Funding

💰 SoftBank co-led $66 million round for blockchain-focused InfStones

InfStones, which aims to help clients build applications across a number of blockchain platforms, closed a $66 million round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and GGV Capital, the company announced on Wednesday.

💰 Utopia Labs raises $23M Series A to scale DAOs

Utopia Labs closed a $23 million Series A funding round led by Paradigm with continued support from our earliest seed investor, Kindred Ventures, as well as participation from Circle Ventures, Gusto, Coinbase Ventures, Infinity Ventures Crypto, Distributed Global, and Fourth Revolution Capital.

💰 Canonical Crypto Closes $20 Million to Back Developers Building infrastructure on the Blockchain

The new fund is backed by family offices and individuals from the venture capital and tech communities, including Shan Aggarwal, Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, Judith Elsea, Lux Capital, Mar Hershenson, Haseeb Qureshi from Dragonfly Capital, Dan Romero, Semil Shah, Amy Wu from FTX Ventures and Bilal Zuberi, among others.

💰 Athleisure icon Ty Haney raises $9.8M in fresh funding for her blockchain rewards startup

TYB has closed on the $9.8 million round with new investors Unusual Ventures and Sogal Ventures leading the funding alongside existing investor Castle Island, a spokesperson for the company told.

💰Dework raises $5M seed to scale gig-work platform for DAOs

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve raised a $5M seed round led by Paradigm and Pace Capital, with additional participation from Balaji Srinivasan, Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal and more.

💰 Move-to-earn wellness project Walken seals $4.7M funding round

Walken, a Solana-based move-to-earn and win-to-earn blockchain game, has raised $4.7 million in a funding round led by Infinity Ventures Crypto and Shima Capital, with participation from Morningstar Ventures, Ghaf Capital Partners, Huobi Ventures, Dex Ventures, Yield Guild Games (YGG), and many others.

💰 Playdex raises $2M to build NFT rental marketplace for blockchain gaming

Philippines-based Playdex, a play-to-earn rental marketplace, has raised US$2 million in a seed funding round with PDAX, iSeed Ventures, and OrangeDAO participating.

banner