STEPN · 327

Multicoin Capital leads Trasia Labs' $1.75 million seed round to lay out Hyperliquid's Asian perpetual exchange market

According to the news, Multicoin Capital, as the sole institutional investor, invested $1.75 million in seed funding to Trasia Labs and officially entered the Hyperliquid ecosystem. Trasia is a perpetual contract trading platform built natively on Hyperliquid and is mainly aimed at the Asian market. Trasia was co-founded by former Multicoin Capital partner and former Stepn Team Chief Revenue Officer Edison Chen and Web3 practitioner Edison Chen, officially launched its first web version on July 17, supporting both Chinese and English. The mobile app is expected to launch in August, and has already launched an invitation-based Asia Points program. The platform currently uses an unmanaged model to access Hyperliquid's native perpetual market. The next plan is to launch its own perpetual contract based on the HIP-3 agreement, focusing on asset classes that have received high attention from Asian investors, such as AI infrastructure and pre-IPO. Officials said it has invested more than 35 million US dollars in HYPE and USDC to support the sustainable growth of the Asian stock market and related ecosystems.

33d ago#financing

Chairman of the Solana Foundation: Chain gaming is dead, and the industry's multi-billion dollar investment may become one of the worst bets

Comparing news, Solana Foundation Chairman Lily Liu said blockchain games will not return. She believes that although the industry had hoped to drive the development of Web3 and the metaverse through on-chain assets and an open world, the actual performance fell far short of expectations. Solana was once regarded as one of the public chains with the greatest potential to support large-scale chain games, supporting real-time interaction with high performance and low cost. However, although projects including Star Atlas and Stepn received attention for a while, the overall GameFi circuit has continued to decline since its peak in 2021. Market opinion points out that chain games have long relied on token incentive models such as play-to-earn, but they lack the ability to actually attract core players in gameplay and content construction, resulting in insufficient user retention and ecological sustainability. Institutions including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Framework Ventures, and Animoca Brands have invested billions of dollars in this field, but the returns have been poor. However, some companies are still exploring transformation paths, such as Mythical Games and Gunzilla Games, gradually weakening blockchain elements as optional features rather than core mechanisms to improve user experience and market acceptance.

154d ago

Crypto VC turns to AI: a “coming-of-age ceremony” that began with a collapse of belief

Author: DoraB Dream, Deep Wave TechFlow Original title: Kyle has left the crypto industry, I'm a bit sadded* This article expresses my personal opinion. On February 5, a morning that began in the midst of a sharp drop, I blotted on Twitter as usual, and Kyle Samani, a well-known crypto VC Multicoin partner, suddenly popped out of the information stream. My finger stopped on the screen for a few seconds, and my heart fluttered. Why him? I know Kyle, a “one-way acquaintance” to be exact. In my junior year in 2020, I first read Multicoin's “Call to Order” paper. It was refreshing, and Thesis-Driven (Thesis-Driven) was imprinted in my mind. It turns out that VC can write something like this. Instead of using the PPT-style “We are optimistic about the long-term value of the XX circuit” and say something ambiguous, it directly gives a clear logic of long and empty, discord, and a clear opinion. Kyle's image on Twitter has always been clear: aggressive, mean, and offended countless people. He dared to publicly empty its expansion path when everyone was optimistic about Ethereum, to bet firmly when no one else was optimistic about Solana, and to publicly and transparently disclose losses and review decisions as soon as FTX exploded and Multicoin lost heavily. A lot of people in the Western crypto community hate him and think he's too arrogant, but I've always felt that the industry also needs people like him. Now he's gone. Move to AI, longevity technology, and robots. I'm suddenly a little sad: I don't even want to play with Kyle, what's wrong with this industry? When Kyle left me sad, it wasn't just another VC turning to AI, who hasn't talked about AI this year? What saddens me is that Kyle from Multicoin is, in my opinion, a very determined person. What is the investment logic of most Crypto VCs? Cast a wide net, bet on the racetrack, say pretty things but never make judgments, or just know how to throw. Looking back at the investment reports of well-known institutions, it's always “We believe in the future of decentralization” and “We are optimistic about innovation in the XX field”, but you'll never see a firm phrase “We believe Project A will outperform Project B”. This is not prudence; this is a world accident. Anyways, no matter who wins, they can say “Look, we've already laid out”. Kyle, or Multicoin, is not like that; he dares to make a “life or death judgment.” In 2017, it was publicly stated that Ethereum's fragmentation route was a dead end. Betting on EOS failed, and in 2018 they also bet on Solana. Helium strongly believes that DePin is the only non-financial scenario where Crypto can be implemented. Yes, he missed a lot and made big mistakes. EOS and FTX are bloody lessons. But he never hid it up; he revealed as much as he lost; there were quite a few mistakes to admit. He's not the smartest VC, not the gentlest evangelist, but he's the most “real” one. His departure symbolizes that some kind of “honesty and sharpness” is disappearing from the industry. What bothers me even more about that tweet that was deleted in seconds was the one he posted before he left, even though it was deleted in seconds. “Cryptocurrency isn't inherently as fun as many crypto enthusiasts would expect,” he said. I used to believe in the Web3 vision and in dApps. Now I don't believe it. Blockchain is mainly an asset ledger. Although it can reshape finance, it has limited potential in other fields. “Why delete it in seconds? Because they call it “infidel.” Why can't you help but post it? This is a person stuck between faith and reality. It took 8 years, invested hundreds of millions of dollars, and finally came to a conclusion. I understand this feeling very well, because this is my intention this year. What did we believe when entering 2021? Decentralized social networking will disrupt Twitter, on-chain identity (DID) will let users control their own data, and GameFi will allow players to truly “own their assets.” In the Twitter timeline back then, everyone...

198d agoburnking#AI #FTX #Kyle #Solana #VC #Ethereum

Why are Web3 Chinese entrepreneurs losing their voice in the new era

Author: Hu Tao, ChianCatcher Original title: The Plight and Future of Web3 Chinese Entrepreneurs At a time when the crypto industry is becoming more and more mainstream, Chinese entrepreneurs seem to be getting farther and farther away from the center of the stage. Once upon a time, projects founded by Chinese people already occupied half of the industry. Familiar cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget, Gate, HTX, and Bitmart were all founded by Chinese. This is even more true in the mining industry. Projects such as Bitmain, Jianan Yunzhi, and Starfire Mining Pool all occupy an important position in the industry. What they all have in common is that they were all founded in 17-18 or even earlier. Although Zhao Changpeng, Xu Mingxing, Wu Jihan, and Sun Yuchen are still active in the industry, after the 2020 DeFi Summer boom, a general consensus has gradually formed: the visibility and voice of a new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs in the global crypto industry has declined, and so far there have been no leaders who can stand side by side with the previous generation of industry figures. Under the gap, what did the Chinese entrepreneur ecosystem actually experience? Where are the future opportunities? Regulation and geopolitical reshaping: The first impact of ecological faults and the most important factor that cannot be ignored in the past five years is a drastic change in the regulatory and geopolitical environment. Beginning in 2021, China's governance of crypto-related activities increased dramatically, and scenarios that were originally scattered in the gray zone, such as trading and mining, were quickly cut off. In recent years, almost any popular concept will be named and matched by regulators. From previous ICOs, NFTs, and digital collectibles to recent payments and real-world assets, this will undoubtedly limit the inflow and support of high-quality resources into the Chinese crypto ecosystem to a certain extent. These attacks have not only led to the accelerated migration of mining and exchange businesses, but more importantly, they have caused Chinese entrepreneurs to lose a local market with natural advantages of network effects, talent density, and capital concentration, and be forced to develop in an unfamiliar overseas environment. In the early crypto ecosystem, many explosively growing Chinese projects rapidly accumulated users under the mobilization mechanism of the Chinese Internet community: WeChat group fission, KOL networks, media matrices, offline gatherings... These channels were once one of the most efficient encrypted narrative transmission systems. However, changes in regulatory policies made this system basically ineffective for a while. What followed was a rapid shift in the center of industry power to Europe and the US — US compliance dominance, the influx of institutional capital, and the growing maturity of the regulatory framework began to shape a completely different industry order from 2017 to 2018. The new narrative, new regulatory landscape, and new capital structure are naturally more biased towards English-speaking markets and compliance-oriented entrepreneurial teams. Cryptographic projects with certain gambling properties, such as the prediction market, are difficult to be born in a Chinese-speaking market environment where gambling is strictly regulated. In such an industry environment, it is also more difficult for a new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs to obtain the “default trust” of global media, regulators, capital, and users. Compared with similar European and American projects, it is necessary to invest more trial and error costs in marketing, compliance, etc. Changes in capital preferences: The secondary impact of the ecological fault is if the institutional gap caused by regulation and the geographical environment is the first one, then the “shift in structural preferences” from the capital market side has further exacerbated the marginalization trend of Chinese entrepreneurs in the new cycle. In today's industry environment, without strong VC funding and resource support, projects will be in a weak state in terms of user acquisition, coin listing, and narrative, and Chinese entrepreneurs are already at a disadvantage on the financial side in the first place. Affected by the poor overall trend of altcoins and a sharp decline in return on investment, VC with a Chinese background has basically drastically reduced the investment frequency in the last 2-3 years, or even completely stopped. Whether in terms of financing or exit paths, the space for Chinese entrepreneurs to choose is very limited. In the face of VCs dominated by Europe and the US, Chinese projects have an unspeakable advantage due to language and cultural differences, so the amount and amount of financing received by Chinese projects has also been declining in recent years. The number of projects in mainland China and the share of financing amount in the industry Source: RootData Since this year, the crypto industry has set off a wave of IPOs and mergers and acquisitions. Companies such as Circle and Gemini have successfully listed on US stocks, and Coinbase and Ripple have frequently taken over. This can be described as greatly increasing confidence in entrepreneurs and even VCs, but these are basically unrelated to Chinese projects. Arguably, European and American projects are enjoying the institutional dividends of the crypto industry's mainstreaming. In terms of mainstream capital, European and American projects have compliance, cultural identity, and withdrawal...

250d agoburnking

Harvard and Yale join the market: Top universities on the new crypto battleground

Source: Shenchao TechFlow Author: Yanz, Liam Original title: When Harvard and Yale entered the crypto industry in August 2025, the price of Bitcoin surpassed 120,000 US dollars, and the former “marginal assets” were once again brought to the mainstream stage. This driving force was not only Wall Street hedge funds, but also the most conservative and savvy fund managers on the Ivy League campus. On August 9, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) 13F filing revealed a market-side detail: the Harvard University Endowment Fund (approximately $53.2 billion) held a Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) worth $116 million in the second quarter of 2025. This position ranked its fifth largest investment, after Microsoft, Amazon, Booking Holdings, and Meta, and even surpassed Google's parent company Alphabet and Nvidia's share of positions. Harvard is no exception. Brown University, Emory University, and Austin University have all publicly disclosed their cryptocurrency positions. It wasn't an impulse for these “savages” in ivory towers to start embracing cryptocurrencies; it was just a moment in the face of a multi-year layout. The capital, talent, and technology of famous universities have long been deeply rooted in the crypto industry. Just this time, they were pushed to the front of the stage. Investing in crypto amid a bursting bubble 2018, the cryptocurrency industry's darkest hour. With the collapse of the ICO bubble, the global market value of crypto assets evaporated more than $630 billion to less than $200 billion, Bitcoin fell to $3,000, Ethereum fell to $80, retail investors left the market one after another, cryptocurrencies were labeled a “Ponzi scheme,” and even Facebook announced a ban on crypto-related advertisements. At a time when no one could avoid it, the Yale University Endowment Fund made a decision that seemed to “go against ancestral teachings.” Under the leadership of legendary investor David Swensen (David Swensen), in October 2018, Yale University joined top institutions such as Harvard and Stanford to invest in Paradigm's first $450 million crypto fund, founded by Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam and former Sequoia Capital partner Matt Huang. Meanwhile, Yale is also involved in the first $4 billion crypto fund set up by a16z. Looking back, this investment at a low point not only affected the development trajectory of Paradigm and a16z, but also accelerated the historical progress of the crypto industry to a certain extent. According to the original plan, Paradigm will invest 60% of its capital into crypto assets and 40% into shares in crypto startups. However, after receiving funding, Paradigm chose to take a risky step — through the investment trading platform Tagomi, undercut Bitcoin and Ethereum, and it cost about $4,000 to open a Bitcoin position. Just a few months later, in the first half of 2019, the price of Bitcoin once surpassed 10,000 US dollars. As far as university endowments were concerned, it was impossible to directly buy Bitcoin at the time, and there were no compliant ETF products, so having Paradigm hold crypto assets on their behalf was considered a “curve entry” strategy. Even in the event of a loss, the foundation was able to achieve risk isolation at the level of compliance and responsibility. At the time, it seemed like a mystery how Matt Huang convinced Yale Fund to invest in a newly established crypto fund to invest in cryptocurrencies. Although Matt Huang's mother, Marina Chen, is a former computer professor at Yale University, there is no information to prove that Marina Chen influenced Yale's investment paradigm. Through Matt Huang's 2020 article “Evangelizing Bitcoin for Enlightened Skeptics,” we may be able to get a glimpse of how Matt Huang persuaded investment leaders of various university funds back then. In Matt Huang's view, the bubble is not a flaw, but rather a necessary path for Bitcoin to gain wider acceptance. Each bubble expands Bitcoin's awareness and acceptance. Bitcoin will not challenge the US dollar's medium of exchange in the short term. In the future, it will go hand in hand with gold, become a hedge tool for investment portfolios, and will be held by institutional investors until finally, the central bank may use bitcoins...

369d ago深潮TechFlow#Booking Holdings #Amazons #blockchain #Harvard #Microsoft #Bitcoin #Yale #BlackRock

Web3 developer education platform HackQuest completes $4.1 million Pre-A round of funding, co-led by Animoca Brands and Open Campus

In comparison, Web3 developer education platform HackQuest announced the completion of the $4.1 million Pre-A round of financing, co-led by Animoca Brands and Open Campus, with participation from Gate Ventures, Hash Global, HashKey Capital, Bytetrade Labs, StepN, and Outlier Ventures. Angel investors include Public Works founder Scott Moore, Signum Capital partner YY, Outlier Ventures ecosystem leader Riccardo, and Jambo co-founder James. HackQuest said the financing will be used to accelerate the construction of a developer platform and further expand its influence in the global developer community through the acquisition of high-quality platforms on the same track.

376d ago

HackQuest closes $4.1 million in funding led by Animoca Brands and Open Campus

According to businessinsider monitoring, HackQuest completed a $4.1 million round of financing, led by Animoca Brands and Open Campus, with Gate Ventures, HashKey Capital, Hash Global, Find Satoshi Labs (StepN), Outlier Ventures, Bytetrade Labs, etc. participating . This round of funding is being used to expand its developer platform. The platform closes the Web3 talent gap through education, on-chain credentials, and ecosystem support, and has now attracted 90,000 developers from over 30 countries.

378d ago

Meme coins decline, revenue capture rises: Reviewing the new logic of Pump.Fun and Hyperliquid

Original article: The Rollup Compiled/Collation: Yuliya, PANews “The era of worthless tokens is coming to an end; the real revenue model is the future. “In the new episode of The Rollup podcast, Mike Dudas, general partner of 6th Man Ventures, shared the reasons for Pump.Fun's success, Hyperliquid's buyback mechanism, the decline of pure Meme coins, and the lessons he learned from his VC career. PanNews has transcribed this conversation. 6th Man Ventures introduces Mike: I'm currently a general partner at 6th Man Ventures, a venture fund focused on early-stage crypto investments. Our primary focus is on the application layer, not the infrastructure layer. If you imagine a typical venture fund, they usually invest in large L1 or L2 chains, but that's not our strategy, nor our area of expertise. I'm in my 40s and had extensive experience in the traditional business world before entering the crypto industry, and we understand the underlying logic of “building a business.” What we are concerned about is how founders can use the power brought by public chains to build businesses that cannot be established in the Web2 world. This could be DeFi, DePin, stablecoins, payments, speculative entertainment projects or even trading apps, etc. About the Pump.Fun craze host: How is Pump.Fun competing with these new platforms recently? Mike: The success of Pump.Fun shows that there is an extremely strong demand for tokenized assets in the market. Users want to be able to easily tokenize various things and issue new assets for different application scenarios. Its revenue scale has become the most explosive revenue event on the chain in addition to traditional perpetual contracts and spot markets, which have existed for 10 years. We can say that Pump.Fun is an innovation “from 0 to 1” in this cycle. This mechanism has given birth to many new assets on Solana. Just as Bitcoin and Ethereum initially created crypto assets for the crypto ecosystem, now we have Meme coins and tokens that can be issued instantly. This is a new original asset structure. Frankly speaking, I was surprised that no platform has actually been able to seize Pump's market share in the past year. Now, at last, a few platforms are starting to try Pump.Fun, and I think that makes sense. Moderator: What do you think of the innovations of challengers like Bonk? Mike: Some imitators have indeed proposed interesting new models, such as letting token holders capture platform value. The token economy design of these projects is more complicated. Bonk, for example, has been doing quite well recently. But let's be honest, most of the challengers are either not well-designed or just cause concern. What interests me more are platforms that claim that the tokens they issue are “related” to a business or enterprise. I won't name these platforms because I know many of the founders are still rapidly experimenting and iterating. But the problem is: you can't control the expectations of token buyers. For example, some platforms allow users to issue a token and then advertise that the token is related to a certain business, such as the revenue or operation of a company. This is extremely dangerous. Even if you state in the white paper or disclaimer that “this token is not directly related to the enterprise,” the user's hearing will not follow the legal provisions, but rather interpret them selectively. We've already seen this misunderstanding during the NFT bubble. Users would take it for granted that buying an NFT “is tantamount to holding the right to the future benefits of the project.” I have worked on a golf NFT project myself, and I have experienced this kind of gap deeply. The market is full of misunderstandings about the value binding between “token and enterprise,” and this misunderstanding is disastrous. By contrast, Pump.Fun very clearly emphasizes that these tokens are “worthless meme coins.” Of course, in the future, some ecology may spontaneously form around these coins, such as community and trading activities, but the platform itself has never claimed any legal or economic value for these tokens. Platforms that advertise that “buying this token early is tantamount to participating in a major project”, although they have written disclaimers in their disclaimers, suggest some kind of financial benefit in terms of marketing, which constitutes what I think is “hidden misleading.” Even though I'm already an extremely risk-hungry investor myself, I'm uneasy about these games. If even I feel unwell, then the average user is even more wary. I'm interested in combining tokens with “vibe cod...

442d agoLuxurytracy#6th Man Ventures #HYPERLIQUID #L1 #L2 #Pump.fun #VC

STEPN and the Argentine Football Association reached a partnership to launch an NFT launch

Comparatively, the Web3 lifestyle app STEPN announced the establishment of a new global partnership with the Argentine Football Association. The two sides will launch the first batch of lottery tickets later this month, and STEPN and the Argentine Football Association will also launch a series of physical rewards, including official signed jerseys and AFA game tickets, to provide fans with ways to interact with their favorite teams online and in real life. (Chainwire)

479d ago

Web3 Gaming Weekly Report (2.24-3.02)

Review last week's blockchain gaming overview and check out the latest data reports from Footprint Analytics and ABGA. [2.24—3.02] Web3 game industry trends Solana second-tier game chain Sonic SVM announces official launch Mobius mainnet Immutable announces cooperation with Tokyo Beast. The latter will develop the game Hamster Kombat on Immutable, launch a layer 2 blockchain based on TON, Hamster Network social game company ACID Labs wins 8 million With US dollar financing, a16z Speedrun and NFX lead the parallel trading card game to launch the mobile version [2.24-3.02] Web3 game rankings New Player Growth Weekly Top 10: Balance, Pixudi, and Sunflower Land lead BalancePixudisunflower Landchess CoreCore on March 18 TetrisMoonVeilSlotana Coin FlipThe SandboxPlayzap GAMESSTEPN Weekly New Player Retention Rate Top 10: Balance, Sunflower Land, Pixels lead BalanceSunflower LandPixelSaxie InfinityPixel Heroes AdventureCrystal CavesCatizenSloana Coin Flipton StationMiner's Rush Weekly Active Player Growth Top 10: World of Dypians, Pixudi, and Chess Core lead World of DypianSpixudichess CoreBalanceCore TetrisGas HeroSunflower LandPlayZap GamesCrystal CavesMomoAI Please note: The above User (Users) data analysis is based on the chain analyzed by Footprint Analytics. Weekly Token Growth Top 10: Exeedme, Sunflower Land, Yield Guild Games Lead ExeedMeSunFlower LandYield Guild GamesBurgerCitiesMistVictoria VRPlayMiningThe SandboxageOfGodsSidus NFT Heroes More Web 3 Games Explore the exclusive dashboard of the Blockchain Gaming Weekly Report to get more insight into blockchain game data. The content of this article is for industry research and communication purposes only, and does not constitute any investment advice. Markets are risky, and investments need to be cautious. About Footprint AnalyticsFootprint Analytics is a comprehensive blockchain data analysis platform that streamlines complex analysis for businesses and projects in the Web3 ecosystem. It provides customized solutions, eliminating the need for extensive expertise and infrastructure maintenance. The platform provides long-term growth tools designed to help gradually establish and manage communities, emphasizing sustainable growth and user loyalty. By combining powerful analytical tools and community management tools, Footprint Analytics enables projects to effectively use blockchain data for decision-making and growth strategies, covering various fields such as GameFi, NFTs, and DeFi. Official website | X/Twitter | blog...

537d agoFootprint Analytics#Footprint Analytics #Gamefi