CipherBlade Opens Singapore Office

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.

At the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) 13th Ministerial Conference (MC-13) in Abu Dhabi, a consortium of major global institutions including distributed ledger project IOTA came together to ink a landmark pact aimed at enhancing digital trade, including the tokenization of real-world assets. The agreement, termed the Teaming Agreement, signifies a collective effort to propel digital trade forward, emphasizing the creation of an open, non-profit and inclusive digital infrastructure for trade data sharing. The initiative involves IOTA’s recently-formed Abu Dhabi-based IOTA Ecosystem DLT Foundation.Photo by Belinda Fewings on UnsplashCapital pledgeThe Foundation has pledged an investment of $10 million towards early-stage startups focusing on digital trade and the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs). These investments, to be unveiled publicly over the next few weeks, will support TradeTech or trade finance technology ventures and provide assistance to startups utilizing IOTA through an accelerator program. The signatories to the Teaming Agreement include esteemed organizations such as the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Institute of Export and International Trade, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), the IOTA Foundation, TradeMark Africa and the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation (GATF). This collaboration brings together a diverse range of expertise and resources, blending tech and trade proficiency to streamline supply chains and customs procedures. More efficient cross-border tradeThe primary objective of the agreement is to foster collaboration and information sharing across global supply chains, with the aim of reducing barriers and enhancing inclusivity in international trade. By leveraging digital infrastructures, the coalition aims to minimize the time and cost associated with cross-border trade, thus promoting greater participation in global commerce. The timing of this agreement is particularly pertinent, given the multitude of challenges facing global supply chains. Threats such as attacks on shipping routes and the potential rise of protectionist policies underscore the necessity for enhanced information sharing and cooperation across trade networks. Trade Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP)At the core of this initiative lies the Trade Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP), a public global trade infrastructure developed by TradeMark Africa in collaboration with the IOTA Foundation. Leveraging open-source technology, TLIP facilitates seamless information exchange in international trade, promoting transparency and inclusivity while empowering participants to retain control over their data. The implementation of TLIP is expected to address challenges such as document loss, information discrepancies and fraud, thereby fostering a more efficient and secure global trade ecosystem. Commenting on the development, IOTA Co-Founder Dominic Schiener stated:"By investing in the future of TradeTech, we are not just facilitating smoother trade transactions; we are laying the groundwork for a more interconnected and efficient global trade ecosystem. Our collaboration with leading organizations through the TLIP is a testament to our commitment to innovation and excellence in this field." In a separate positive development for the IOTA project on Feb. 29, Jelle Millenaar, the co-founder of Impierce Technologies and a former IOTA software engineer, outlined that his company intends to develop a digital identity wallet on top of the IOTA Identity framework. The intention is to build a wallet that is compliant with digital identity regulation within the European Union.

Taiwan’s Comma3 Ventures Raises $45M Crypto FundTaiwan-based Comma3 Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on Web3, has closed funding on a $45 million Web3 fund.The raise was achieved through the participation of a diverse range of institutional investors, high net worth individuals and family offices based in Taiwan and Singapore.In a press release published on Friday, the company stated that the funds raised will be allocated to blockchain infrastructure projects at an early stage of development, focusing on dApps, zero-knowledge proof technology, cross chain bridging projects, as well as layer one and layer two blockchain networks.Photo by Frolda on UnsplashSingapore tiesWhile Taiwan-based, the venture capital has strong ties with Singapore, given that Nicole Liu, one of the firm’s general partners, was formerly an investment manager with Jubilee Capital Management.Liu leads the firm alongside fellow general partners, Ivan Li and Denny Yang. Among the previous projects the trio have invested in are Zilliqa, a smart contract blockchain network that focuses on throughput and scalability, Ethereum layer two side-chain network Polygon, South Korean enterprise blockchain Klaytn, blockchain-based esport game producer Thetan Arena, and a project called Highstreet which seeks to re-imagine retail in the metaverse.Earlier this month, Cetus, a decentralized exchange (DEX) and concentrated liquidity protocol built on the Sui and Aptos blockchains, secured funding from Comma3 Ventures, alongside AC Capital, Adaverse, Animoca Brands, Coin98 Ventures, IDG Capital, KuCoin Ventures, Leland Ventures, NGC Ventures and OKX.Funding 80 to 100 Web3 start-upsAccording to Comma3 Ventures, crypto start-ups that have the potential to scale within the Web3 space within niches such as DeFi and GameFi, will be prioritized for funding. With a spend of $45 million at its disposal, the venture capital firm intends to target around eighty to one hundred start-ups, with a capital funding variance of between $250,000 to $1 million depending on the particular project.In a press release Liu stated: “We regard ourselves as an early-stage investor, so team background and previous experience are very important for us. And on the other hand, we are looking for entrepreneurs who really know what blockchain and Web3 are and how to rebuild their businesses empowered by decentralization technology and token economics. We are dedicating ourselves to investing in and supporting early-stage blockchain infrastructure such as L1&L2, cross-chain, and ZK, as well as DAPPs with the potential to bring traffic to Web3, such as DeFi, GameFi, and creator economies.”In a 2021 podcast, Ivan Li explained that his first allocations in the crypto space were to Bitcoin and Ethereum. Those successful investments were reinvested and allocated to blockchain, data analysis and cyber security projects. From 2021 onwards, Li explained that institutions in the TradFi space in Taipei started to approach him with an interest in trying to get exposure to crypto. That led to him forming Red Building Capital in 2018. Comma3 Ventures followed in 2022.