Crypto Startup Funding Rises to $2.7B in Q2
Venture capital funding for crypto startups increased 2.5% in Q2 compared to Q1, reaching $2.7 billion despite a 12.5% drop in total deals.
Infrastructure projects led Q2 funding, with notable raises including Monad’s $225 million Series A, BeraChain’s $100 million Series B, and Babylon’s $70 million early-stage round. Two “mega-rounds” saw Farcaster raise $150 million and Zentry secure $140 million.
While 2023 funding remains well below the peaks of 2021-2022, Pitchbook projects $10.8 billion could be raised this year at current rates. The report also noted increasing competition for early-stage funding but less so for later stages.
Crypto News: Ethereum Gas Fees Hit 5-Year Low
Ethereum transaction fees have plummeted to a five-year low, with median gas prices dropping to 1.9 gwei on August 10. Low-priority transactions now cost around 1 gwei or $0.07. This represents a 98% decrease from the March 2023 high of 83.1 gwei.
The dramatic fee reduction follows Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade, which introduced data blobs to lower costs for layer-2 networks. As layer-2 activity increases, some concerns have been raised about sustaining Ethereum’s base layer. Gnosis co-founder Martin Köppelmann suggested raising the gas limit to generate more layer-1 activity and fund staking rewards.
Zcash Founder Joins Shielded Labs, Pushes for Hybrid PoS Upgrade
Zooko Wilcox, founder of privacy coin Zcash, has joined Shielded Labs as head of product to accelerate the protocol’s upgrade to a hybrid proof-of-stake system. Wilcox aims to implement the Zcash Sustainability Fund and “Crosslink” hybrid consensus mechanism as quickly as possible while maintaining security.
The upgrade aims at enabling ZEC staking, providing transaction finality, reducing confirmation times, and allowing safer interoperability with other networks. Shielded Labs, an independent Swiss organization supporting Zcash, has received donations from prominent figures including the Winklevoss twins and Vitalik Buterin to fund these initiatives.
Crypto News: Venezuela Blocks Binance and X
Venezuela’s government has blocked access to cryptocurrency exchange Binance, social media platform X, and other online services amidst unrest over disputed presidential election results. Anti-censorship group VE sin Filtro detected a DNS block affecting Binance’s website and mobile app on August 9.
Binance assured users that funds remain safe and recommended using a VPN to bypass restrictions. The block follows President Nicolas Maduro’s order to ban X for ten days.
Canto Blockchain Suffers 33-Hour Outage
The Cosmos-based Canto blockchain has been down for over 33 hours due to a consensus issue. The team plans to implement an upgrade on August 12 to address the problem and resume normal operations.
Canto, launched in August 2022, is a permissionless blockchain designed for DeFi applications. The outage began on August 11. Despite the disruption, Canto assures users that all funds are safe and normal activities will resume once the chain is back online.
This setback comes after Canto reversed its decision to migrate to Ethereum as a layer-2 network earlier this year. The blockchain has seen declining activity in recent months, currently ranking 80th in total value locked according to DefiLlama.
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