Crypto

The NFT auction marketplace OpenSea had a blockbuster 2021 and as a result is seeing its private valuation grow more quickly than almost any other startup. The crypto firm announced late Tuesday that it closed a $300 million Series C round led by Paradigm and Coatue. The raise valued the startup at

Governments around the world have been looking at adopting, regulating and even banning cryptocurrencies since the inception of Bitcoin. Ever since, the crypto ecosystem has been a rocket ship ride to the moon and back (multiple times). Today, it seems that more people than ever have hopped on for

As a remote island nation in the middle of the South Pacific, New Zealand is experiencing the stirrings of a burgeoning startup scene. The country has historically been capital-starved, but recent investments from the government and foreign investors have significantly increased access to early-sta

If you've visited a crypto company's website recently, you've probably visited a URL ending in “.xyz” instead of its cheugier counterpart, .com. From fintech Block, formerly known as Square, to venture firm Paradigm, to blockchain startups like Mirror, .xyz has become the go-to

The technewss Global Affairs Project examines the increasingly intertwined relationship between the tech sector and global politics. Skeptics of the flourishing web3 industry attack it for a number of reasons. One critique that resonates in Washington is that digital currency could undermine the

Back in 2012, a Brooklyn-based mobile apps development startup was hired to do a job by the 83-year-old trading card company Topps. For that Brooklyn outfit’s president, Erich Wood, a UCLA graduate who’d studied economics and loved trading cards, the opportunity not only sounded fun but

Despite billions in VC investment, many web3 crypto platforms are still pretty hostile places for users new to the crypto world. Case in point, today Justin Kan’s NFT platform Fractal suffered a security breach when a scammer hacked the announcement bot for the startup’s Discord which s

The United States' financial sanctions against countries like Iran create a messy regulatory environment where cryptocurrency startups have to pick their battles carefully. So far, the battles these companies aren’t picking are having real effects on users and can sometimes directly contr

Bitcoin and broader cryptocurrency prices have skyrocketed in 2021. Stories abound of pandemic-era crypto millionaires that have struck it rich in the sector. The cryptocurrency narrative is a private sector one by design. Bitcoin and other crypto projects began with the intent to create an immutab

Jeff Morris Jr., founder and managing partner of the LA-based venture firm Chapter One, just closed a $40 million early-stage fund to focus on web3 investments, and he’s in the process of raising a separate $20 million opportunity fund. Even in this go-go market, where digital assets are sudd

Japan-based messaging app Line Corporation, which is wholly owned by Z Holdings, will launch an NFT service next year via its new organization LineNext to provide the marketplace for companies and individuals to trade NFTs globally, excluding Japan. Line is separately operating its NFT market beta

As crypto investors widely know, China has declared all cryptocurrency transactions illegal and outlawed crypto mining activities. Lately, a court decision further reasserted the government’s attitude to stifle any bitcoin mining activity possible. On December 15, the court of Beijing’s

This year, we’ve seen plenty of evidence that NFTs can shake up the economics of selling visual art, but there’s been less activity when it comes to web3 upending the economics of different verticals in the art world, including music. Sound.xyz is a new startup looking to help recording

Katie Haun, who co-leads Andreessen Horowitz’s $2.2 billion crypto fund, is splitting off from the firm and taking a number of colleagues with her — including operating partner Rachael Horwitz — to start a new crypto-centric fund, Axios reports. Haun joined the firm in 2018 after