Welcome again to Chain Reaction.
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This week I’ve been in San Francisco for Ztoog Disrupt 2023. It’s been a three-day journey jam-packed with panels, cubicles and conversations round tech, AI, house, safety and, after all, crypto. You can try all the news protection right here.
During the occasion, 20 startups pitched their corporations reside as a part of Ztoog Startup Battlefield at Disrupt 2023. These corporations had been chosen as the better of the Startup Battlefield 200 and competed for an opportunity to take dwelling the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000. Here are the six finalists.
As for me, I moderated 4 onstage panels, together with two separate hearth chats with main VC gamers like a16z’s Arianna Simpson and Haun Ventures’ Chris Lehane. (Details on that beneath.)
And don’t fear, we’ll be rolling out extra crypto protection from the convention — together with a narrative on the blockchain-focused panel I moderated with Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder and CEO of Solana Labs; Grace Torrellas, VP of product and product lead at Polygon zkEVM; and Mo Shaikh, co-founder and CEO of Aptos Labs.
Anyways, let’s get into it.
Crypto at Disrupt 2023
- After slicing ties with Binance, Checkout.com says crypto corporations are about 4% of its complete processing quantity
- a16z’s Arianna Simpson believes crypto can be simply positive, thank you for asking
- Libra’s co-creator had geopolitical motivations to construct the digital forex (TC+)
- Alpha3D needs to speed up digital asset and AI-powered technology via cheaper, hyperscaling expertise
This week in web3
- PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin is now accessible on Venmo
- Aptos Labs provides Coinbase Pay to its Petra crypto pockets
- 8 web3 gaming consultants talk about hurdles and alternatives in the street to wider adoption (TC+)
- Blockchain Capital launches two new funds for a complete of $580M
- Web3 adoption might come by way of the enterprise, however the actual increase can be via startups (TC+)
The newest pod
For this week’s episode, Jacquelyn did a reside interview with Chris Lehane, chief technique officer at Haun Ventures, at Ztoog’s Disrupt 2023 in San Francisco.
Prior to becoming a member of the agency, Chris was an government at Airbnb. He additionally co-founded a strategic consultancy agency, Fabiani & Lehane, that suggested political, company, expertise, leisure {and professional} sports activities purchasers. In the Nineties, Chris held numerous authorities roles like press secretary to Vice President Al Gore and was particular assistant counsel to President Bill Clinton.
After quite a few a long time working throughout totally different industries, Chris landed in the world of crypto at Haun Ventures, a web3-focused enterprise capital agency that has two funding automobiles: a $500 million early-stage fund and a $1 billion acceleration fund. Aside from Haun, he’s additionally a member of Coinbase’s Global Advisory Council.
We mentioned Haun’s funding technique amid U.S. and international regulatory challenges, how the agency advises portfolio corporations to navigate the ever-changing surroundings and whether or not Chris discover’s the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s regulation ways productive, amongst different issues.
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Follow the cash
- Mesh, which helps individuals handle their digital property, raised $22 million
- Former Farmville co-creator raised $33 million for its blockchain gaming startup Proof of Play
- Lens Protocol-based app Orb raised $2.3 million to develop web3 social
- Crypto analytics platform CoinScan emerges from stealth with $6.3 million increase
- Decentralized market protocol Freatic raises $3.6 million in spherical led by a16z
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.
- Cisco to amass Splunk in $28B mega deal
- As Robinhood eyes international growth, CEO says: ‘We’ve made a variety of progress’
- How Reed Jobs’ enterprise agency tackles most cancers
- Shaquille O’Neal talks investing in edtech and startups which might be going to ‘change people’s lives’
- Why is Y Combinator so defensive recently?
Follow me on Twitter @Jacqmelinek for breaking crypto news, memes and extra.