Foresight Ventures · 216

Next-generation Perp DEX PopDex closes $30 million funding round led by Foresight Ventures

According to the news, PopDex, the new generation of Perp DEX, announced the completion of a $30 million financing round, led by Foresight Ventures. PopDex is a decentralized perpetual contract trading platform with traders as the core. It focuses on capital efficiency, trading experience and value allocation mechanisms, and aims to build an on-chain derivatives trading platform driven by real transaction contributions.

92d ago

The Block appoints former Azuki COO as new CEO, and Foresight Ventures promises an additional $10 million investment

Comparatively, The Block announced the appointment of Steve Chung, a senior media and technology executive, as CEO to drive the company's institutional expansion. Meanwhile, Foresight Ventures promised an additional $10 million investment to support its next phase of development. Former CEO Larry Cermak will continue as president, focusing on research and product business. Steve Chung began his career at Goldman Sachs, where he served as Fox's Chief Growth Officer, Fox Television's Chief Digital Officer, CJ ENM America CEO, and Azuki Chief Operating Officer. He said AI will be used to increase the depth, speed, and utility of insight to make The Block a global platform for digital asset investors and decision makers. Zac Tsui, partner at Foresight Ventures, said Steve's background in capital markets, media, and crypto makes him an ideal leader to lead the company into a global institutional platform.

117d ago

OpenGradient raised $9.5 million, a16z crypto and others participated

Comparatively, according to Prnewswire, the verifiable AI computing layer OpenGradient announced the completion of $9.5 million in funding, a16z crypto, Coinbase Ventures, SV Angel, Foresight Ventures, Pragma, SALT, Symbolic Capital, Canonical Crypto, Black Dragon, NEAR, Angel investors such as Celestia and Thanefield Capital and former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan participated. This round of funding will be used to build and expand decentralized AI infrastructure, provide model hosting, execution and cryptographic verification services, enable open, auditable, and verifiable AI models to operate on a chain, and establish a foundation of trust for AI agent economy and decentralized intelligence applications. This article is sponsored by GENG, Build Your Fortune on GENG (https://geng.one)

130d agoburnking

Can Open Source AI Platform Sentient Really Challenge OpenAI's Dominance

Author: Wenser Original title: Kill OpenAI? The ambition of Sentient, an open source AI platform, is not limited to this. AI is devouring the entire world at an unprecedented speed, but the world is quietly expanding into 2 fields. One branch line is the expansion of the AI landscape under the monopoly of technology giants: Nvidia became the world's first listed company with a market capitalization of 5 trillion US dollars with chip and video card resources; Google and Amazon have successively entered chip manufacturing to seek an advantageous position; AI giants such as OpenAI and Anthropic have jumped to hundreds of billions of dollars in valuations; the other branch line is the rapid development of the AI industry at the micro level: “AI Agent is expected to become the next robotics industry and industry” CES2025 “Trillions of dollars” is gradually being tested, and tens of millions of AI agents are gradually penetrating all aspects of human society every day. This also means that tech giants are gradually becoming key players “holding the key to the AI world.” Based on the development history of the Internet industry in the past, many people may wonder: is AI about to become “another game for tech giants?” Sentient's answer was “No.” As an open source AI platform adhering to internet fundamentalism, it previously received $85 million in seed funding, with leading investors including Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, and Framework Ventures. On the path that AI must take to eat the world, Sentient chose a very different path from the giant companies. And this is the “Open Source AGI Prologue” that the Daily Planet Daily will dismantle the system today. Exploring Sentient: Holding high the banner of open source AI and facing the 100 billion market capitalization monopoly giant In July of last year, Sentient announced the completion of a $85 million seed round, and the investment institutions behind it are luxurious — leading investors include Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, and Framework Ventures; participants include Ethereal Ventures and Robot A series of well-known VC investment institutions in the crypto industry, such as Ventures, Symbolic Capital, Delphi Ventures, Hack VC, Arrington Capital, HashKey Capital, Canonical Crypto, LD Capital, and Foresight Ventures. You need to know that seed funding rounds have always been able to obtain this digital cryptographic project, not to mention the strong endorsement of a series of star capital behind this investment. Previously, only a few Tianwang-level L1 public chain projects were able to receive such strong support. For a while, “What made Sentient so popular with capital” became one of the hot topics of discussion in the crypto community at the time. Soon, this question was answered. The sword pointed to OpenAI, and the Sentient team faced competition from giants. In subsequent media interviews, several partners at Sentient's leading investment agency gave their own answers — Founders Fund partner Joey Krug said that the main reason for investing in Sentient was their team, which co-created people such as Sandeep (founder of Polygon) and Pramod (Princeton University professor) is commendable; Pantera Capital managing partner Paul Veradittakit said that if AI development remains closed source, many key aspects of society will be vulnerable to the concentrated effects of scrutiny and rent-seeking. Sentient's open, monetized, and loyal (OML) AI model “has huge potential to disrupt the AI development industry”; Brandon Potts, partner at Framework Ventures, also gave high recognition in terms of team and technology, and bluntly stated, “The Sentient team is the most...

246d agoburnking

Crypto VCs are facing an existential crisis. What kind of reshuffle will the industry face?

Article: Ada, Shenchao TechFlow Original title: Coin Circle VC is almost over In April 2025, ABCDE, a well-known crypto VC founded by Du Jun, announced the cessation of investment in new projects and the second phase of fund-raising. This once active investment agency has shifted its focus to post-investment management and exit arrangements for projects it has already invested in, which is a microcosm of the current state of crypto VC. In 2024, we reported on a “wave of rights protection” for crypto VCs. At the time, a group of senior partners dropped out of the “VC” aura and turned to the project party or secondary market just because of the saying: “Being a VC doesn't make money.” A year has passed, and the bull market has actually arrived. Bitcoin continues to stand steady at $100,000, Ethereum returns to $4,000, and the secondary market is getting rich from time to time. However, when the lens turned to the primary market, crypto VCs had a harder time than the previous round. I didn't make any money; instead, I went back on the scolding. They are being suppressed by exchanges, market makers, and project parties in the ecological chain; their investment logic was completely shattered after the narrative collapsed; they were unable to raise money, and they were also questioned that “they are not as effective as KOL.” Cryptographic VC, where to go? What about crypto VC? In the last cycle, crypto VCs were used to betting fast. They are chasing a narrative outlet and are willing to spend money on projects that don't have a product or even a full team. As long as the story is enticing enough, they can let the LP and secondary markets pay for it. It was an age where “storytelling is more important than making products”, but in 2024-2025, this logic suddenly failed. So, how are the once-active Asian crypto VCs now? According to data from RootData, compared to 2024, the number of Asian crypto VC launches in the primary market from 2025 to now has shown a cliff-style decline. As an example, SevenX Ventures' last public investment was made in December 2024. Foresight Ventures' number of investments plummeted from 54 to 5, and HashKey Capital also dropped from 51 to 18. In 2024, OKX Ventures topped the list with 72 runs, but this number has been drastically reduced to 12 in 2025. According to Jack, a crypto VC partner, observed that crypto VCs are currently seriously divided. Small to medium sized VCs are particularly difficult, and many have been forced to transform. He gave his own observations: from 2023 to 2025, about 5-7% of crypto VCs switched to marketing/KOL agency business; about 8-10% of crypto VCs switched to incubation/post-investment driven institutions, and the size of post-investment teams expanded by 30-50%; more institutions responded by shifting to the secondary market, or extending the fund cycle, reducing management costs, and even pursuing compliance exit paths such as ETF/DAT/PIPE. In other words: VC became a service provider, or simply became a “big player among chives.” Mark, a former crypto VC investor, put it bluntly: “An institution that only invests at the first level now is almost tantamount to suicide.” LD Capital transformed into a secondary market, and the founder, Yi Lihua, became the “king chess player” of ETH, and still has a strong presence. Additionally, some crypto VCs are being “forced” into investing in AI. As early as March, IOSG founding partner Jocy posted on social media that another project in his portfolio was being transformed into AI. As more and more crypto investors discover that they have inexplicably more AI entrepreneurs in their portfolios, they are also forced to vote with their feet. For example, Bixin Ventures drastically reduced its investment in the crypto industry and chose to invest in emerging companies in the AI field, such as Intelligen AI, to focus on the AI healthcare circuit. The transformation was also considered a positive form of self-help, and other institutions directly announced that they would stop investing. ABCDE, a well-known crypto VC founded by Du Jun, announced in April 2025 that it would stop investing in new projects and phase II fundraising, and will focus on post-investment management and exit arrangements for already invested projects. “ABCED is more honest and publicly says they won't do it, but there are more crypto VCs that are secret and don't feel sad”, interviewed about the VC industry...

310d agoburnking

Foresight Ventures Establishes $50 Million Stablecoin Infrastructure Fund

In comparison, Foresight Ventures announced the launch of a stablecoin infrastructure fund with a total size of 50 million US dollars. As the first fund in the industry to focus on the upstream and downstream stablecoin industries, the fund will focus on investing in infrastructure such as stablecoin issuance, coordination, exchange, compliance with deposits and withdrawals, and payment chains, as well as the application of stablecoins in innovative fields such as RWA, AI, on-chain foreign exchange, and merchant billing. Since 2023, Foresight Ventures has continued to lay out the stablecoin payment ecosystem and has invested in many representative projects such as Ethena, Noble, Codex, Agora, and WSPN. Alice Li, partner at Foresight Ventures, said: Stablecoins are rapidly evolving into the core settlement layer of the global financial system, and we hope to promote the integration of stablecoins into traditional financial frameworks in a more compliant and efficient manner through this fund, so as to achieve seamless connection and widespread adoption.

325d ago

Bio Protocol closes $6.9 million seed round led by Maelstrom Fund

In comparison, Bio Protocol announced the completion of a $6.9 million seed round, led by Maelstrom Fund, with participation from Mechanism Capital, Animoca Brands, Zee Prime Capital, Panga Capital, Mirana Ventures, Foresight Ventures, and Big Brain Holdings.

339d ago

Sahara AI data service platform will open beta

Comparatively, Sahara AI announced an open beta version of its data service platform (DSP). As an open chain platform, DSP allows users to contribute to build high-quality, verifiable AI data sets and receive rewards. Users can complete special tasks supported by ecosystem partners to earn Sahara Points and partner rewards (such as tokens, points, etc.), and high-quality contributions can unlock higher rewards. Last August, Sahara AI, a decentralized AI blockchain platform, announced the completion of a $43 million funding round, led by Binance Labs, Pantera Capital, and Polychain Capital, Samsung, Jingwei Ventures, Thai Foreign Exchange Bank, Foresight Ventures, dao5, Alumni Ventures, Geekcartel, Nomad Capital, Mirana Ventures and others participated.

480d ago

Demystifying Solana's big MEV business

Written by Foresight Ventures Research Director @0xmaggie5过去一年, The Memecoin frenzy made Solana a gold mining mecca for traders. Countless people are chasing meme coins that have skyrocketed and plummeted in an attempt to seize the opportunity with Trading Bot. But few people realized—profiteering businesses that actually make steady profits don't jump on the K-line chart, but are hidden deep in the dark forest of blockchain. This is MEV (maximum extractable value). Compared to publicly visible bot revenue, MEV's revenue is often hidden in block construction and ranking mechanisms, and it is often an “invisible hand” that controls on-chain power and infrastructure. Many people don't know because the operating threshold of this system is high, the information is extremely asymmetrical, and the controllers are extremely concentrated. When you use bots to hunt down internal orders and prevent pinching, MEV catchers control transaction sequencing behind the scenes to accurately capture arbitrage space; when retail investors compete for speed and strategy, large institutions with staking advantages and node authority have taken advantage of structural advantages to stay at the top of the revenue pyramid. On Solana, MEV is not only a trading opportunity; it is also an infrastructure-level power — it is controlled by a very small number of people, forming a capital game with a high threshold, high monopoly, and high profits. Today, let's uncover Solana's big MEV business. 1. First, what is MEV? MEV is called value that miners can extract, which means that when packing blocks, miners can include, omit, and sort transactions to earn as much additional revenue as possible. Due to the memeCoin boom and active DeFi, MEV is huge. From a business perspective, MEV usually includes: liquidation, arbitrage, and sandwich attacks. Liquidation: Liquidate borrowing positions that are on the verge of default to receive rewards. When borrowers fail to maintain the collateral ratio required for the loan in the loan agreement, their positions will be eligible for liquidation. MEV searchers monitor these undercollateralized positions on the blockchain and perform liquidation by paying off part or all of the debt in exchange for partial collateral as a reward. Arbitrage: Trade on different DEXs at the same time and profit from the spread. The simplest form of arbitrage is when two DEXs have different prices for the same trading pair, the arbitrator earns the difference in price from a single transaction. Sandwich Attack: Buy before the target trade and then sell for profit. A sandwich attack is an arbitrage strategy in the DeFi market. The attacker achieves profit through three atomic bundling transactions: first, an unprofitable preemptive transaction pushes the asset price to the highest level allowed by the victim's slippage, then the victim's transaction is executed at a high level to further boost the price, and finally the attacker sells the asset at an inflated price through a repurchase transaction (post-transaction) to offset the initial cost and obtain net profit. In terms of behavior, a distinction is generally made between front-run (early trading) and back-run (back-run) early trading: Early access trading means that the MEV seeker identifies another trader's buy or sell order in the memory pool and places the same order before that trader to profit from the price impact on the other transaction. Post-transaction: A post-transaction is a counterpart of a preemptive transaction. It is a specific MEV strategy that uses a temporary price imbalance caused by another transaction, and this imbalance is usually due to improper routing. Once the user's transaction is executed, the reverse trade seeker will balance the price of each pool by trading the same asset and ensure profit. Liquidation is back-run, most arbitrage is also back-run, and sandwich attacks are front-run+back-run. For specific MEV cases, you can refer to Helius's report, which has very detailed explanations and examples. 2. How big is MEV's business? According to some unverified statistics, trading robots made 1.1 billion US dollars last year, pump earned 500 million US dollars, MEV earned 1.5 billion US dollars, AMM earned 1 billion US dollars, and famous related parties such as Trump made 500 million US dollars, and were taken away from the market. On the Solana network, MEV earnings on Solana also rose sharply as network activity increased and the 2024 Memecoin boom arrived. As seen from Helius' report, Jito's arbitrage detection algorithm analyzed all Solana transactions, including those outside of the Jito bundle, and the algorithm identified 90,445,905 successful transactions over the past year...

487d agoWendy#DEX #Jito #MEME #MEV #Solana #Early access to deals #robots #nodes #pledge

KiloEX stolen $7.5 million: the market capitalization is not enough to pay, and the decentralized trust crisis erupts again?

By ChandlerZ, Foresight News On April 15, the perpetual contract DEX KiloEx announced that its treasury had been attacked, and the situation has now been contained. KiloEX platform functionality has been suspended, and the team is working with security partners to track the flow of funds and is planning to launch a reward program. KiloEX is analyzing attack paths and affected assets while collaborating with ecosystem partners to try to recover funds. The full report will be released soon. According to on-chain data, KiloEx addresses were stolen and lost around $7.4 million, including $3.3 million on the Base network, $3.1 million on the OpBnB network, and $1 million on the BNB Chain. According to the market, KILO fell by more than 33% in 24 hours, the lowest price hit 0.033 USDT, and is currently reported at 0.0346 USDT. According to Cyvers Alerts monitoring, the root cause of this hacking attack may be an access control flaw in price oracles. Simply put, oracles were supposed to have a trusted actor update price information, but due to a lack of necessary permission restrictions, attackers were able to bypass the verification mechanism and arbitrarily tamper with asset prices to manipulate contract logic. A preliminary analysis of one of the attack deals by PaiDun shows that this is a price prediction issue. Using this vulnerability, the attackers set the initial price of ETHUSD at 100 when opening a position, then immediately closed the position at an inflated ETHUSD price of 10,000. This transaction alone made a profit of about $3.12 million. What is KiloEX? KiloEX is a decentralized perpetual DEX that focuses on risk management, capital efficiency optimization, and ecosystem integration of LST tokens. KiloEX participated in BNB Chain's recent airdrop alliance campaign and the Renew Paradigm campaign on Manta Pacific to obtain stablecoin earnings by staking STONE. Additionally, KiloEX plans to launch hybrid treasury and hybrid margin trading features. KiloEX itself is a Perp DEX with orbital pricing similar to GMX. Its core innovation is that the stable coin neutral LP copy transaction with its own hedging Copy Trading token economy draws on today's advanced mechanisms. In terms of financing, kiloEX received investment from Binance Labs and was incubated during the sixth season of its MVB. Additionally, it has received investments from Foresight Ventures, Crescendo Ventures, Manta Network, 7UP DAO, Poolz Finance, GTS Ventures, and some angel investors. KiloEX completed an exclusive TGE on Binance Wallet on March 27, attracting more than 70,000 users to participate in the launch, and the subscription amount exceeded 300 times. According to data from its official website, KiloEX's total trading volume is $3.764 billion, and the current TVL is $33.84 million. According to DeFilLama data, the average daily trading volume of KiloEX is about 100 million US dollars, and the 7-day trading volume is about 500 million US dollars. The security incident revealed a crisis of trust and community questioning. Although the project party immediately suspended platform functions and cooperated with security agencies to track the flow of funds, the actual loss of this attack was almost the same as its current market value of 7.3 million US dollars, and its fully diluted valuation was only about $34.49 million. The theft of large sums of money in a project of this size has undoubtedly dealt a heavy blow to users' confidence. What is even more worrisome is that up to now, the KiloEx team has not released any detailed statements about user compensation mechanisms, recovery plans, or team funding response plans, making the line between “hacker attacks” and “whether the project party is responsible” increasingly blurred. On social platforms, many community members expressed strong dissatisfaction, believing that KiloEx lacked a clear commitment to protecting users' interests at a critical moment. On social platforms, some users accuse the project party of “running away from a bear market”, “high-profile fundraising and low-key aftercare,” etc., and are concerned about platform governance and financial transparency issues. The rapid shift in market sentiment also caused the KILO token to drop sharply by more than 30% in the short term. KiloEX's accident, although still in the early stages of incident handling...

494d agoburnking#KiloEX #Trust crisis #decentralizing #contract