📬 Inbox Dump #54

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

Inbox Dump!

✉️ Cool Cats Reels in Sian Morson as Vice President of Community

Tampa, Florida –June 6, 2022 – Cool Cats, producers of the widely known Cool Cats and Cool Pets NFT collections, today announced that Sian Morson has joined the company as its Vice President of Community. One of the most respected voices in Web3 and NFTs, Morson will create programs and content that delight the community and educate them on the amazing world of Cooltopia.

✉️ Circle Announces Support for Polygon USDC to Help Developers Seamlessly Build and Transact in Web3’s Largest Ecosystem

BOSTON, June 7 — Circle Internet Financial, LLC, a global financial technology firm that provides internet-based payments and financial infrastructure to businesses of all sizes, and the issuer of USD Coin (USDC), today announced support for Polygon USDC on Circle’s payments and treasury platform.

✉️ Cake Defi Pays $317 Million Rewards to Customers and Manages over 1 Billion in Assets

Cake DeFi, the fastest-growing Singapore-based Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platform, celebrated its third anniversary today with a key milestone. The company announced that it has paid out over $317 million in rewards as of the end of Q1 2022 while continuing to see robust business growth of an average of almost 90% quarter-on-quarter since 2019.

✉️ Neo’s community chooses new projects to be supported on the N3 chain

Singapore, June 8th: Having introduced Neo Hackathon winners on May 30th, Neo’s Polaris Launchpad event moves to its final phase, the community-led Polaris Plus phase. Polaris Plus is a bonus funding round in which Neo will give its community the final say as to what projects will see business incubation and support on Neo’s N3 chain.

✉️ CARL JONES AND WAGMI BEACH LAUNCH GROUNDBREAKING NFT PROJECT WITH BUBBLEGOOSE BALLERS

June 7, New York – Veteran animation producer, Carl Jones (The Boondocks, Black Dynamite), with graphic artist and illustrator Moko Ko, in collaboration with NFT & Web3 native entertainment studio WAGMI BEACH, announced the debut of their highly anticipated NFT project, Bubblegoose Ballers.

✉️ Galaxis - From fantasy books to NFTs

​​Singapore, June 07 - The two Hungarian-born illustrators Zoltán Boros and Gábor Szikszai have been painting their dreams on book covers and designing characters for well-known game programs since the dawn of the computer age. In early June, they will launch their collection Girls, Robots, Dragons, which uses the latest - dynamic - NFT technology.

✉️ WORLD’S FIRST WEB3 NEWS ORGANIZATION, TRUTHDAO, DEBUTS CELEBRITY INTERVIEWS ON FIRESIDE MULTIMEDIA PLATFORM

AUSTIN, TX (June 7, 2022) – Gun control, global unrest and free speech are among the many topics that will be tackled on TruthDAO’s Celebrity POV, a show at the intersection of fame and news where A-list celebrities, up-and-comers, trend makers and cultural influencers discuss real issues affecting the world.

✉️ ONEOF LAUNCHES ONEPASS—A VIP NFT MEMBERSHIP TO UNLOCK EXCLUSIVE ACCESS TO ICONIC MUSIC, SPORTS AND LIFESTYLE NFTS, EXPERIENCES AND IRL BENEFITS

June 7, 2022 — OneOf unveils the OnePass, a collection of NFTs that give holders access to collection across music, sports, and lifestyle, allowlist to premiere drops, a rollout of free NFTs every year, rewards, members-only events, and IRL privileges across 1.6 million partners in dining, nightlife, entertainment, travel, and retail around the world.

✉️ Checkout.com becomes the first PSP to unlock weekend settlement for merchants, powered by Fireblocks’ crypto payouts debut

LONDON, June 7th — Checkout.com unveils its stablecoin settlement solution, leveraging Fireblocks’ new crypto payment technology. This offers merchants the flexibility of 24/7 settlement including weekends and holidays — increasing access to cashflow and significantly reducing operational complexity.

✉️ Trading Technologies and Talos enter into strategic partnership, vastly expanding TT crypto offering

CHICAGO / LONDON, June 7 – Trading Technologies International, Inc. (TT), a global provider of high-performance professional trading software, infrastructure, and data solutions, and Talos, the premier provider of institutional digital asset trading technology, announced today that the firms have partnered.

✉️ Thetanuts Finance Launches Stronghold Vaults With Organic Yield Generation & Risk Diversification

Panama City, June 7th / Thetanuts Finance, a structured DeFi platform that simplifies the process of options trading, today announced the launch of the Thetanuts Stronghold index vault, a new trading product that offers non-inflationary return opportunities, thoughtful risk management, and a radically simpler user experience.

✉️ Monstercat Teams Up With Raf Grassetti to Launch Second Series of IDOLS Under RELICSxyz

Electronic music’s leading independent record label and gaming music pioneer, Monstercat, today announced a partnership with one of the world’s biggest video game and 3D designers, Raf Grassetti, to usher in its second series of IDOL music NFTs with the Monstercat x Raf Grassetti IDOL.

✉️ Brazilian tattoo artist launch a NFT Tattoo collection for Dia dos Namorados (Lovers Day), like Valentine’s Day in Brazil but celebrated in June 12th.

June 6, In Brazil this month is a time when couples in love look for gifts that mark and leave a positive and lasting impression, expressing the happiness they live in their relationships.

✉️ Flovatar Releases Anticipated Tokenomics In The New DUST Token Article

United States, June 6. Flovatar, the next generation PFP crypto project, releases the long-awaited information on the $DUST tokenomics. Flovatar is a fully on-chain, composable NFT 2.0 with 1% lifetime royalty, full commercial rights, and a $DUST token (coming soon) currently operating on the Flow blockchain.

✉️ TID hNFT Research Institute Launches the World’s First NFT Studio Dedicated to Learning About History Through Digital Art

Barcelona, May 31 - TID hNFT Research Institute announces the start of a groundbreaking NFT project that applies the highest standards of legacy publishing to the production of blockchain art. The institute is launching six collections for the 2022-23 season that will appeal to both online and offline collectors with a passion for art, history, and culture.

✉️ Australia Zoo announces first NFT drop date, pricing & much more

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA - 6 JUNE: Australia Zoo has today announced further details for its highly anticipated first NFT (non-fungible token) drop as part of its 20th anniversary “Wildlife Warriors” project, in partnership with Australian startup Meadow Labs and created on Algorand - the world’s first carbon-negative blockchain with 0.01 gas and transaction fees.

✉️ Aura Blockchain Consortium is joining HRH The Prince of Wales’ Sustainable Markets Initiative Fashion Task Force

Geneva, London, June 6. Aura Blockchain Consortium, founded by LVMH, Prada Group, Cartier, part of Richemont, the OTB Group and Mercedes-Benz, is joining the Sustainable Markets Initiative Fashion Task Force, a private-sector coalition aimed at accelerating the transition towards a more sustainable future in the global fashion, textile and apparel sector.

Funding

💰 Felix Capital Raises $600M Targeting Crypto and Web3 Investments

London-based Felix capital, which calls itself a venture capitalist for the “creative class,” raised $600M for its fourth fund, bringing its total capital commitment to over $1.2B that will benefit 20 to 25 companies in North America and Europe.

💰 Arrington Capital Launches $100M Fund to Fuel Moonbeam Ecosystem

Arrington Capital, a digital asset management firm in blockchain-based capital markets, and the Moonbeam Foundation announce the launch of a new $100 million ecosystem fund dedicated to support projects building on Moonbeam, the top destination for multi-chain applications on Polkadot.

💰 Cathay Innovation and Ledger Launch €100M ($110M) FundDedicated to Unlocking the Opportunities of Web3 and Cryptocurrencies Worldwide

June 8, Paris. The early-stage venture fund is dedicated to unlocking the opportunities of Web3 worldwide, covering cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance (DeFI), blockchains, NFTs, DAOs, and the tokenization of everything. Supported by French public investment bank Bpifrance.

💰 Ledgible Closes $20M Series A Round with Key Institutional and Strategic Investors

ATLANTA, June 7, 2022 -- Ledgible, the leading professional-first crypto tax and accounting platform, today announced $20 million in funding for its Series A Round led by EJF Capital LLC ("EJF") through its affiliate, the EJF Silvergate Ventures Fund.

💰 Crypto DEX ApolloX Secured Seed Funding

7 June 2022 - ApolloX, one of the top 10 decentralized exchanges (DEXes) on CoinMarketCap as of June 2022, announced today that it has secured an undisclosed amount in seed funding from investors including Binance Labs and Kronos Research.