Ben Strack

<div id="highlights-block_631b41e9906f7" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The capital will help SkyBridge buy $40 million of crypto to hold on its balance sheet long-term</li>
 <li>FTX Ventures recently led the $300 million Series B round for Mysten Labs, which was announced Thursday</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The venture arm of crypto exchange <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/tag/ftx/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">FTX</a> is set to acquire 30% of alternative investment firm SkyBridge Capital, the companies revealed Friday.



SkyBridge, founded by Anthony Scaramucci in 2005, will use part of the proceeds to buy $40 million in cryptocurrencies for its corporate balance sheet as a long-term investment, with the remaining set aside to fund new initiatives.



An SEC-registered investment adviser, SkyBridge managed roughly $2.5 billion, as of June 30, including about $800 million in digital assets. 



Scaramucci called <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/tag/sam-bankman-fried/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried</a> a “visionary” in a statement, noting that the business will remain a diversified asset management firm that invests heavily in blockchain. 



The investment follows a partnership between FTX and SkyBridge to sponsor <a href="https://www.salt.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SALT</a> conferences in North America, Asia and the Middle East, as well as to co-present April’s <a href="https://www.cryptobahamas.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Crypto Bahamas</a> conference, where FTX <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/bahamas-becoming-crypto-hub/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">earlier this year</a> pledged to set up a headquarters.



&#8220;We saw there was an opportunity to work closer together in ways that could complement both our businesses,&#8221; Bankman-Fried said in a statement. &#8220;We look forward to collaborating closely with SkyBridge on its crypto investment activity and also working alongside them on promising non-crypto-related investments.&#8221;



Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed. Spokespeople for the companies did not immediately return a request for comment.&nbsp;



The investment comes a day after <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/tag/ftx-ventures/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">FTX Ventures</a> revealed investment in Mysten Labs, builder of the Sui blockchain. The fund <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/mysten-labs-300m-fundraise-values-business-at-more-than-2b/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">led its $300 million Series B round</a>, which valued Mysten at more than $2 billion. 



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FTX Ventures Buys 30% Stake in Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital

<div id="highlights-block_631a0a1f1033c" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Other participants in the funding round were a16z, Binance Labs, Franklin Templeton and Coinbase Ventures</li>
 <li>Sui, launched in March, forgoes consensus for most transactions, allowing it to speed up transactions</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Mysten Labs is putting its fresh round of funding toward powering more Web3 applications and speeding up the adoption of its new blockchain, the company revealed Thursday.



The California-based Web3 infrastructure company <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/mysten-labs-launches-blockchain-platform-sui/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">launched decentralized blockchain platform Sui</a> in March. Mysten Labs CEO Evan Cheng said in a statement Thursday that Web3 infrastructure is currently “in the dial-up era.” 



“It’s slow, expensive, capacity constrained, insecure, and simply hard to build for,” he added.



The Mysten Labs team said it can build a better blockchain. As an example of one novelty to improve scalability, Sui forgoes consensus for most transactions, allowing it to parallelize the execution of them and reduce latency, a technique known as “casual ordering.”



The project was expected to launch an incentivized testnet in August and has <a href="https://medium.com/mysten-labs/validator-registration-open-9464c31ff9f6?source=collection_home---6------2-----------------------" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">solicited prospective validators</a> to participate, but the team has not announced a launch date. A token, SUI, is also planned, which will be used to participate in the proof-of-stake network after mainnet launch, also on an unknown future date.



Cheng had spent the last 16 years at tech companies such as Apple and Facebook, which is <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/zuckerberg-says-facebooks-new-name-will-be-meta/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">now known as Meta</a>. He and three other former Facebook employees — Sam Blackshear, Adeniyi Abiodun and George Danezis — worked on Meta’s Novi Financial team to help develop <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/facebook-led-crypto-project-diem-to-be-sold-off-for-200m-report/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the Diem stablecoin</a> and <a href="https://medium.com/coinmonks/overview-of-move-programming-language-a860ffd8f55d" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Move</a> programming language.



Sui’s use cases, according to Mysten Labs, include facilitating airdrops to millions of people in a single, low-cost transaction; creator-owned decentralized social media networks; and developing blockchain gaming interactions such as equipment crafting, character leveling and battle records stored on-chain.



FTX Ventures led the Series B round. Other participants included a16z crypto, Jump Crypto, Apollo, Binance Labs, Franklin Templeton, Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sino Global, Dentsu Ventures, Greenoaks Capital and O’Leary Ventures.



FTX Ventures Partner Amy Wu said in a statement that Sui’s parallelizable agreements and “object-centric architecture” were key technical innovations that make it a next-gen platform for Web3 builders.&nbsp;



Arianna Simpson, a general partner at a16z added: “We believe that Sui’s novel architecture will meaningfully improve scalability and lower transaction costs, unleashing new web3 applications and experiences for a broader audience.”



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Mysten Labs’ $300M Fundraise Values Business at More Than $2B

Shalini Nagarajan

<div id="highlights-block_62cd2335d4261" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The $2 billion target valuation is said to be much higher than Mysten’s Series A round, according to The Information</li>
 <li>But that level could change if equity investors get additional rights</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/tag/mysten-labs/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Mysten Labs</a>, a startup focused on Web3 and blockchain infrastructure, is reportedly in talks to raise a Series B round at a $2 billion valuation.



<a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/startup-founded-by-former-meta-crypto-execs-seeks-2-billion-valuation" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Information</a> reported on Monday that the startup is currently in discussions to raise at least $200 million in the round led by FTX Ventures, the venture capital arm of <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/tag/FTX/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cryptocurrency exchange FTX</a>. It’s already said to have raised $140 million by investors so far.



Mysten’s $2 billion target valuation is much higher than its previous round, two people familiar with the matter told the outlet. This is noteworthy given that some companies have recently been grappling with <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/tag/firing/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">layoffs</a>, down rounds and uncertainty. 



But that target could reportedly change depending on whether equity investors secure added rights to buy tokens compatible with Mysten’s blockchains, and the strike price to exercise those options.



The startup raised $36 million in a Series A fundraising round led by <a href="https://a16z.com/2021/12/06/investing-in-mysten-labs/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Andreesen Horowitz</a> in December, according to a <a href="https://medium.com/mysten-labs/introducing-mysten-labs-building-foundational-infra-for-web3-7e5ec3df1ccb" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">blog</a> posted by the firm, but the valuation of that round isn’t clear. Other backers include Lightspeed, Coinbase Ventures, Electric Capital, Standard Crypto, NFX and Slow Ventures.



Founded in 2021, Mysten is focused on building blockchain infrastructure to enable decentralized applications, including crypto gaming. Its co-founders — Evan Chang, Sam Blackshear, Adeniyi Abiodun and George Danezis — are former employees at Novi Research, Meta’s cryptocurrency research and development team, where they helped develop the <a href="https://techmonitor.ai/technology/emerging-technology/facebook-diem-stablecoin-cryptocurrency" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Diem stablecoin</a>. 



<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/four-former-facebook-developers-launch-web3-startup/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Blockworks reported</a> in February that the one-time Big Tech personnel felt restricted at their previous employer and wanted the liberty to exercise their own vision.



Mysten didn’t return Blockworks’ request for comment by press time.



Investor anxiety within the crypto industry has ballooned as a result of plunging asset prices and the recent insolvencies of <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/3ac-files-for-bankruptcy-as-co-founders-location-unknown/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Three Arrows Capital</a> and <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/voyager-files-for-bankruptcy-days-after-freezing-withdrawals/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Voyager Digital</a>. Despite this outward backdrop of fear, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/funding-roundup-despite-bear-market-money-is-still-pouring-into-crypto/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">money is still pouring</a> into blockchain-based companies as investors seek out opportunities to capitalize on the sector-wide downturn.&nbsp;



If Mysten were to reach its fundraising goal this time around, it would suggest firm belief in not just the startup’s potential, but a turnaround for the overall crypto industry.



“In today&#8217;s bear market, you&#8217;re seeing some of the worst-case scenarios,” Daniel Tal, project lead at ICHI, told Blockworks in an interview. “From a positive side, this is the best time to build.”



“The bear market exposes these holes that we have in some of our protocols. And now we see different kinds of communities building to cover those holes and create protocols that are much more resilient,” he added.



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Startup From Ex-Meta Devs Seek $2B Valuation: Report

Morgan Chittum

<div id="highlights-block_62334f9f52f94" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Participants include Pantera, Brevan Howard, Alan Howard, Amber Group, Blockchain.com, Circle Ventures and Finality Capital Partners</li>
 <li>The capital will go toward “opening up more grant programs, such as a more robust grant program to support developers,” according to Mina Foundation’s Evan Shapiro</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Blockchain protocol Mina secured $92 million in a funding round led by FTX Ventures and Singaporean hedge fund Three Arrows Capital.



The capital will go toward “opening up more grant programs,” to “support developers,” Evan Shapiro, chief executive at Mina Foundation, told Blockworks.&nbsp;



“This [investment] from some of the most respected entities in crypto bolsters our aim to ensure that Mina becomes the go-to privacy and end-to-end security layer for Web3 while remaining powered by participants,” Shapiro said.



Other investors in the round include Pantera, Brevan Howard, Alan Howard, Amber Group, Blockchain.com, Circle Ventures and Finality Capital Partners.



Mina is the creator of a proof-of-stake protocol which bills itself as the “world’s lightest blockchain.” The project uses recursive zero-knowledge proofs to keep the state of the network at a tiny 22 kilobits (kb) — about 2,800 characters or 10 tweets. For comparison, Bitcoin’s blockchain <a href="https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_blockchain_size" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">is currently</a> about 396GB, while Ethereum <a href="https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_chain_full_sync_data_size" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">weighs in</a> at 601GB to sync the full chain.



Imagine taking a picture of a sunset while on vacation in Hawaii to prove you were there. Now, someone takes a picture of your picture. Only, unlike with snapshot photos, a cryptographic technique known as <a href="https://minaprotocol.com/blog/what-are-zk-snarks" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">zk-SNARKS</a> allows the second picture holder to prove with certainty that you were there in Hawaii just as well as you yourself could.



In theory, the blockchain&#8217;s small size means Mina could more easily <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/measuring-decentralization-is-your-crypto-decentralized/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">decentralize</a>, because node operators do not require a significant investment in hardware. Developers of both Ethereum and Bitcoin have plans to allow for so-called “<a href="https://eth.wiki/en/concepts/light-client-protocol" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">light clients</a>” that would use similar techniques to function without a full copy of the chain history.



But on Mina, all participants act as full nodes and take part in maintaining consensus, <a href="https://minaprotocol.com/blog/what-is-ouroboros-samisika" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">using a variation</a> of the Ouroboros proof-of-stake protocol that was first developed for Cardano.



The system relies on another network participant dubbed a “prover” (a bit like <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/the-investors-guide-to-bitcoin-mining/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a Bitcoin miner</a>, but without the energy use) which does need to store the full state.



There is a downside to computing zero-knowledge proofs, however: <a href="https://youtu.be/EugpncZGNnU?t=345" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Mina’s 1 transactions-per-second</a> (TPS) rate makes it considerably slower than alternative layer-1 chains like Cosmos and Solana, and even slower than the Bitcoin network’s 7 TPS.



The team prefers to focus on a different mental model for scalability, <a href="https://minaprotocol.com/blog/solving-the-scalability-trilemma" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">they call ScaDe</a>, for Scalability-per-unit-of-Decentralization.



Mina is “built for mass adoption at both the user and application level,” Brian Lee, a partner at FTX Ventures, told Blockworks, adding that it will “enable a new generation of Web3 applications.”



Last year, the blockchain <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2021/05/05/lightweight-mina-blockchain-raises-187m-in-coinlist-token-sale/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">raised $18.7 million</a> in its token sale on CoinList.&nbsp;



Macauley Peterson contributed reporting for this story.



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FTX Ventures, Three Arrows Capital Lead $92M Raise for Mina Blockchain

Macauley Peterson

<div id="highlights-block_61e1a7c79358d" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>“We think games can onboard the next 100 million, even 1 billion people into Web3,” Wu told Blockworks </li>
 <li>FTX is a portfolio company of Lightspeed, which has collaborated on FTX commercial initiatives in the past</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



FTX has launched a $2 billion venture capital fund focused on backing teams building within the digital assets ecosystem as the company is focused on advancing blockchain and Web3 adoption. The crypto derivatives exchange also revealed that Amy Wu, most recently a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, joined FTX to lead ventures, gaming, M&amp;A and commercial initiatives. 



The fund, FTX Ventures, will invest broadly across crypto and Web3, Wu said, noting that the unit is particularly excited about the number of talented teams in the Web3 gaming space.



Gaming is huge — a $200 billion annual industry in content alone and growing fast,” she told Blockworks.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Gamers pioneered the usage of digital assets and now can own them, and we think games can onboard the next 100 million, even 1 billion people into Web3.” </blockquote>



FTX, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Solana Ventures joined forces to create a $100 million Web3 gaming investment initiative, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/ftx-solana-ventures-and-lightspeed-create-100m-web3-gaming-investment/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the companies announced</a> in November. 



FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said during a panel at the <a href="https://www.bloomberglive.com/event/bloomberg-financial-innovation-summit-november-4/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bloomberg Financial Innovation Summit</a> that month that <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/sam-bankman-fried-gaming-nfts-have-mainstream-potential/">gaming NFTs could be a driving force</a> behind bringing crypto to the mainstream.



At Lightspeed Venture Partners, a $10 billion multi-stage venture fund, Wu led crypto and gaming investments, including <a href="https://lsvp.com/portfolio/ftx/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the fund&#8217;s investment in FTX</a>.



“Our investors at FTX have made a deep impact in supporting our growth and development,” Bankman-Fried said in a statement. “We strive to do the same at FTX Ventures and are excited to find the brightest minds and disruptive innovation in tech.”



As part of FTX Ventures, Wu will lead a team of eight people, which includes general partner Ramnik Arora and advisor Armani Ferrante.



Arora has worked as FTX’s head of product since October 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile. Ferrante has been a software engineer at Alameda Research since September 2020, a quantitative cryptocurrency trading firm and liquidity provider founded by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.



Venture money has poured into the crypto space over the last year. An all-time high of $17 billion <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crypto-venture-funding-is-at-an-all-time-high-this-is-where-the-money-is-going/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">had been invested</a> into crypto projects in the first half of 2021. 



Circle <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/circle-launches-venture-fund/">revealed plans in November</a> to launch a venture fund to invest in early-stage blockchain projects and companies.&nbsp;



Last month, Silvergate Capital and EJF Capital <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/silvergate-and-ejf-launch-joint-venture-fund-to-invest-in-early-stage-companies/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">teamed up</a> to launch a venture fund, and Kraken Ventures <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/kraken-ventures-raises-65m-for-fund-focused-on-crypto-fintech/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced its first fund</a> after raising $65 million to invest across crypto and fintech.



FTX has participated in the funding rounds of a variety of crypto startups in recent months, including crypto infrastructure provider <a href="https://medium.com/toruslabs/web3auth-raises-13m-series-a-to-drive-mass-adoption-on-web3-applications-and-wallets-via-simple-948b6008cdb5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Web3Auth</a> and <a href="https://www.drivewealth.com/news-page/drivewealth-raises-450m-series-d-valuing-the-company-at-2-85b" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DriveWealth Holdings</a>. 



“Some existing investments from FTX will be folded into the new Venture fund,” Wu said. “At FTX Ventures we’re excited to co-invest with our close partners and investors, so it’ll be a natural way to continue partnering with Lightspeed as well.”



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