Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week.
This week marked another historic milestone for the crypto industry. On July 23, the first spot Ether (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) launched for trading in the United States.
The debut of spot ETH ETFs was accompanied by other key developments, such as blockchain intelligence firm Nansen launching the first Ether ETF dashboard to create more transparency around institutional inflows.
In other news, venture capitalist (VC) interest is finally returning to Web3 as institutional investors seek out the next big blockchain startup.
Galaxy Asset Management raises $113 million for new crypto venture
Galaxy Asset Management raised $113 million for a new crypto venture fund that could bring significant new capital for cryptocurrency startups building new use cases.
Billionaire Michael Novogratz’s new venture will invest in early-stage crypto startups, mainly focused on cryptocurrency software, infrastructure and financial applications.
The new fund, called Galaxy Ventures Fund I LP, aims to initially invest in 30 companies and will continue raising funds until it reaches the $150 million target, which is expected to happen by 2025 at the latest, according to a statement shared with Bloomberg.
Nansen launches industry-first Ether ETF analytics dashboard
Nansen, a popular blockchain analytics provider, has launched the industry’s first Ether ETF analytics dashboard.
The free-to-use dashboard will track the performance of the highly-anticipated United States-based spot Ether ETFs, offering a real-time overview of the most critical data for traders, such as an interactive ETF flow chart and total ETF issuer balances.
The approval of the Ether ETFs marks a significant milestone for the industry, wrote Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik in an announcement shared with Cointelegraph:
“We’re thrilled to launch our ETH ETF dashboard, showcasing how Nansen empowers investors with real-time insights. As the first of its kind, it provides crucial information on ETF flows, supporting informed decisions.”
Web3 venture funding stabilizes after rocky 2023 — Crunchbase
Venture funding for Web3 startups is stabilizing after a year-long decline that started in 2023, with crypto ventures locking up some $2 billion in financing in the second quarter of 2024, according to Crunchbase.
The Q2 numbers are only slightly higher than the $1.8 billion raised in the prior quarter but reverse a downtrend that saw Web3’s quarterly venture funding totals drop by roughly half last year, from $2.3 billion in Q1 of 2023 to $1.4 billion in Q4, according to Crunchbase.
A drop in the total volume of deals mirrored the decline in funding. Total deal volume fell from a peak of 681 in Q1 of 2023 to 284 in Q4. Despite the most recent quarter’s rebound in funding amounts, deal volume continues to languish, with only 291 financing rounds closing in Q2 of 2024, according to the data.
Vitalik Buterin introduces Circle STARKs for blockchain efficiency
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has introduced a new cryptographic protocol called Circle STARKs (scalable transparent arguments of knowledge) that promises to improve blockchain security and efficiency.
In his latest post, Buterin explains that this technological leap utilizes smaller fields like Mersenne31 to significantly improve proving speed without compromising security measures.
“The most important trend in STARK protocol design over the last two years has been the switch to working over small fields.”
WazirX hacker consolidates $57 million ETH into new wallets
The WazirX hacker has transferred $57 million worth of the stolen funds to two new cryptocurrency addresses in the latest onchain movement of the stolen funds.
The hacker has transferred 16,350 Ether worth over $57 million to two new crypto wallets in the latest attempt to funnel the stolen assets.
The lion’s share (over $54 million) was sent to address “0x58d,” according to a July 22 X post by blockchain security firm PeckShield.
DeFi market overview
The majority of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market cap have ended the week in the green, according to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView.
Out of the top 100, Solana-based memecoin cat in a dogs world (MEW) was this week’s biggest gainer, rising over 89% on the weekly chart, followed by the Helium (HNT) token, which rose over 24%.
Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.