Friend.tech hype grows, Tornado Cash founders go for a spin and FBI’s monitoring North Korean hackers

Welcome again to Chain Reaction.

To get a roundup of Ztoog’s largest and most essential crypto tales delivered to your inbox each Thursday at 12 p.m. PT, subscribe right here. Follow me on Twitter @Jacqmelinek for breaking crypto information, memes and extra.

If you haven’t heard about pal.tech this week, you’re most likely residing beneath a rock. But that’s okay, we dove deep into the hype and checked out what skeptics are frightened about for the brand new software.

There was additionally a lot of speak round Tornado Cash as the 2 founders behind the crypto mixer had been charged on Wednesday by U.S. federal companies. Details on that and extra beneath.

This week in web3

1. Two founders behind crypto mixer Tornado Cash charged by U.S. federal courts
2. FBI says North Korean hackers making ready to money out after high-profile crypto hacks
3. Friend.tech hype is skyrocketing, however will it really attain the celebs?
4. Solana Pay integrates plug-in with Shopify for USDC funds
5. Checkout.com cuts ties with Binance, which is mulling authorized motion in response

The newest pod

For this week’s episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Erik Svenson, co-founder, president and chief monetary officer at Blockstream, a bitcoin and blockchain-focused infrastructure agency.

The firm was based in 2014 and has its personal sidechain expertise, Liquid Network, in addition to bitcoin mining operations and {hardware} wallets for Bitcoin and different belongings. It most lately raised $125 million in January and has raised greater than $400 million to this point.

Erik beforehand labored on Wall Street as a VP for AIG investments and was a co-founder and advisor of different startups. The final startup he co-founded earlier than Blockstream was Dan’s Plan, a well being tech firm.

We mentioned how the present macroenvironment is impacting Bitcoin-focused companies and the place Erik sees essentially the most alternatives for startups right this moment.

We additionally talked about:

• Blockstream’s mining operations
• Surviving a bear market
• Transitioning from TradFi to crypto
• Advice for startups

Subscribe to Chain Reaction on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite pod platform to maintain up with the most recent episodes, and please go away us a evaluation if you happen to like what you hear!

Follow the cash

1. Crypto lender Maple Finance raises $5 million to enter Asia amid regulatory readability
2. Vessel Capital emerges from stealth with $55 million fund centered on web3 infrastructure and apps
3. Berlin-based Anytype raises $13.4 million for its open sourced software
4. Nodal Power raises $13 million to make use of landfill to energy bitcoin mining facilities
5. Decentralized credit score protocol PADO Labs raises $3 million in a seed spherical

This record was compiled with data from Messari in addition to Ztoog’s personal reporting.

What else we’re writing

Want to department out from the world of web3? Here are some articles on Ztoog that caught our consideration this week.

1. Nvidia’s Q2 earnings show it’s the massive winner within the generative AI increase
2. 5 developments in VC funding for pre-seed startups (TC+)
3. Chronic technical debt could possibly be holding your organization again (TC+)
4. The late-stage enterprise market is crumbling (TC+)
5. Introducing the Startup Battlefield 200 firms at Ztoog Disrupt 2023