NFT Seoul Conference 2023 to Picture the Future of Digital Innovation

Symbiotic, a shared security protocol project that seeks to create a marketplace for blockchain network economic security, has raised $29 million in a Series A funding round.The funding round related to the Dubai-headquartered project was led by American venture capital and hedge fund firm Pantera Capital. Other funding round participants included Coinbase Ventures and a long list of angel investors, including Aave CEO Stani Kulechov, 1inch co-founder Anton Bukov, Conduit founder Andrew Huang and Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal.Photo by Markus Winkler on UnsplashBuilding out ‘universal staking’Announcing the Series A funding on social media, the project stated that it is building “universal staking” and with that, transforming “how blockchains implement security and economic alignment.”Symbiotic started out as an Ethereum-centric restaking project. It announced last August that its staking infrastructure had been deployed across 14 blockchain networks. Symbiotic co-founder Misha Putiatin told Blockworks that in now working towards building out a universal staking framework, it's going to double the number of supported blockchain networks. He stated: “This isn’t a pivot, it’s an expansion — a natural progression of the vision we started with.” In a press release publicizing the funding round, Pantera Capital Managing Partner Paul Veradittakit described universal staking as “the next step in blockchain infrastructure.” Describing Symbiotic’s business proposition, he said that the firm “unlocks economic coordination between assets and networks that were previously impossible,” allowing these assets “to easily serve as economic security while enabling entirely new use cases across DeFi.” Team & product expansionThe funding will also be used to expand the project’s current team. It will also expand its product offering beyond restaking, putting support in place for other staking activities. Symbiotic stated that beyond blockchain network security, the protocol supports other use cases, including insurance and other financial products.Putiatin told CoinDesk that the company is building infrastructure, and that its task going forward “is to improve on that by a huge margin.” The Symbiotic co-founder added that the company is catering to the needs of market participants who don’t want to share their security. He added: “They want to build their own security vertical and their own alignment, just using us.” Symbiotic emerged in June 2024 with backing from Konstantin Lomashuk and Vasiliy Shapovalov, co-founders of the Lido liquid staking protocol. At that time, the project attracted $5.8 million in seed funding, with the funding round having been led by crypto investment firm Paradigm and tech-oriented investment company cyber•Fund. It initially introduced a devnet on the Ethereum Holesky testnet. Following a considerable period of development, the project eventually launched on the Ethereum mainnet in January. The same month, the firm added customizable slashing capabilities to its restaking system. Slashing refers to a penalty system imposed on validators of proof-of-stake (PoS)-based networks.Symbiotic was introduced to the market as an alternative to EigenLayer, the restaking protocol with the largest share of total value locked (TVL). It differs from the market leader insofar as Symbiotic’s users can deposit any ERC-20 token into the protocol, whereas EigenLayer only facilitates ETH.

Rotonda Signs Deal with The Sandbox for Blockchain Ecosystem ExpansionRotonda, a subsidiary of Korean crypto exchange Bithumb and the operator of the Web3 digital wallet Burrito Wallet, announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with metaverse platform The Sandbox to expand its blockchain ecosystem.Photo by Shubham Dhage on UnsplashA space for creativity and monetizationThe Sandbox is a global metaverse platform that allows users to easily create and participate in games, avatars, and items. It also provides free three-dimensional content creation tools called VoxEdit and Game Maker, and users can monetize their content. It has partnered with over 400 major companies, including Netmarble, LINE Studio, Ubisoft, and Zynga, securing some five million subscribers worldwide. “We expect that users will be able to enjoy a new Web3 experience within the metaverse, where they can create their own content,” said Max Minchul Shin, CEO of Burrito Wallet.Elevating the metaverse experienceThrough the new partnership, Burrito Wallet will support wallet integration within The Sandbox’s platform by unifying the on-chain experience across services. Burrito Wallet users will thus have more convenient access to various content within The Sandbox, including LAND — the platform’s virtual real estate space for interacting and showcasing creativity — as well as personalized avatars and assets, and an NFT marketplace. Additionally, the company plans to enhance wallet utility by supporting the multi-chain functionality of SAND, The Sandbox’s utility token.“Our partnership with Burrito Wallet will make it easier and more convenient for users to enjoy The Sandbox,” said Cindy Lee, CEO of The Sandbox Korea.“We will continue to collaborate with companies from various fields to advance the Web3 market and establish ourselves as a distinguished wallet service in the global market,” Shin added.Rotonda’s global initiativesRotonda is actively collaborating with global projects to promote the mass adoption of Web3 and blockchain technology. Last month, it launched the iOS version of Burrito Wallet in a move to expand availability for Web3 users on all operating systems. The company also recently co-hosted Next Block 2023 with its parent company Bithumb to promote business collaboration and build an ecosystem for accelerating Web3 projects.

South Korean cryptocurrency-only exchange Cashierest to close its doorsCashierest, a cryptocurrency-only exchange based in South Korea, announced on Monday (local time) that it will be closing its doors. A cryptocurrency-only exchange is a type of trading platform that supports trading of tokens but not fiat currencies. In South Korea, there are only five exchanges — Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax — that provide trading with the Korean won.As of 11 a.m. KST on Nov. 6, the services for token deposits and new sign-ups have been discontinued. Trading activities on the platform will cease at 11 a.m. on Nov. 13. Additionally, the ability to transfer tokens from Cashierest to other exchanges will end at 1 p.m. on Dec. 22.Photo by Lisa Bresler on UnsplashEarlier layoffs and CEO resignationSpeculation about the potential sale of Cashierest has been circulating since earlier this year, following layoffs and the resignation of its former CEO, Park Won-joon, in July. These events are largely seen as a result of low trading volumes on the platform, which many attribute to its lack of support for trading in Korean won.Lack of fiat support leading to low trading volumeA detailed study by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) under the Financial Services Commission (FSC) revealed that, out of 21 Korean crypto-only exchanges, 18 are experiencing a deficit in shareholders’ equity as of the first half of this year. Furthermore, 10 did not generate any revenue from transaction fees.During the same period, the five exchanges that support fiat-to-crypto transactions had an average daily trading volume of KRW 2.9 trillion (approximately $2.2 billion), while the collective daily trading volume for all crypto-only exchanges was just KRW 1 billion. This indicates that the market size of crypto-only exchanges is merely 0.03% of that of their fiat-supporting counterparts.