KR1 plc (KR1:AQSE) is Europe's leading digital asset investment company focused on decentralised and open-source blockchain networks. Founded in March 2016 and publicly traded on London’s AQSE Exchange, KR1 plc has been an early investor in many foundational projects in the emerging digital asset industry.

Winklevoss Capital Management partners with a select number of early stage companies to provide investment with a full service approach to driving growth.

Winklevoss Capital

Ethereum Foundation

Disrupting the traditional financial system using blockchain

Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

Connext is a network of cross-chain liquidity pools that enables users to swap value using fast, fully-noncustodial transfers between EVM-compatible Layer 2 networks. It leverages the Ethereum blockchain with its own routers, acting as the foundation of the network to earn fees by providing instant liquidity for user swaps. Users can earn additional yields by restaking tokens that have been locked to validate other Layer 2 networks, without bridging their assets onto the Ethereum mainnet.&nbsp;Additionally, the platform enables developers to create cross-chain dApps and tokens. The protocol allows dApps to seamlessly interact with funds and data across multiple blockchains simultaneously. The protocol operates as a DAO governed by its native token, NEXT.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsThe company has reported rapid growth since the release of the second version of its platform in February 2023, adding more than 20,000 new users by April 2023. It also claimed that 35 companies were actively building on top of its protocol as of June 2023, including Metamask, Planet IX, and DODO. As of the same date, the network had facilitated over 1.2 million cross-chain transactions.Funding and financialsIn June 2023, Connext raised USD 7.5 million in new funding from Polychain Capital and Polygon Ventures, among others, at a valuation of USD 250 million. The company planned to use the funds to establish the Connext Foundation, which will oversee the protocol’s development and be responsible for issuing grants and funding to community initiatives.

Based in Israel, StarkWare Industries provides infrastructure solutions that address the scalability issues of the Ethereum blockchain. The company offers two platforms: 1) StarkEx, a scaling engine for Ethereum, and 2) StarkNet, blockchain infrastructure for building decentralized applications. The company’s solutions work together to cut transaction costs by reducing the amount of information sent to the Ethereum blockchain. This results in faster transactions due to the reduction of blockchain congestion.This technology supports a number of use cases including NFT minting, derivative trading, automated market making, spot trading, payments, and DeFi pooling. As of May 2022, the platform was used to mint over 52 million NFTs. The company also planned to decentralize StarkWare but has not disclosed whether the process would involve a token.In November 2024, Starkware<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/36556"> launched a staking mechanism</a> that allows users to earn rewards by validating transactions on its network. The staking feature includes two participation methods: solo staking for users with over 20,000 native protocol tokens (STRK) who can validate transactions directly and delegation for users with fewer tokens who can delegate to validators. The system includes a 21-day waiting period for withdrawing staked tokens and rewards.

Puffer Finance offers an open-source remote signing tool named Secure-Signer that enables users to restake their Ethereum while mitigating the effect of software bugs and user errors. Built on Ethereum staking platform EigenLayer, the platform’s permissionless Node Operator (NoOp) participation features enable users to stake upwards of 2 ETH and operate their own node in return for Puffer’s native liquid staking token, pufETH. This token accrues value via shared execution rewards and can be used to govern the protocol via its DAO.Furthermore, the platform prevents Ethereum validators from committing slashable offenses by limiting access to validator keys and is integrated with ZK-2FA to improve the security and efficiency of layer-2 solutions.In November 2024, Puffer Finance<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/35868"> launched UniFi testnet</a>, a new L2 scaling solution for Ethereum. UniFi features based sequencing that allows Ethereum validators to handle transaction sequencing, pre-confirmations for near-instant transaction feedback, sub-second transactions, and one-minute asset withdrawal from L2 to L1.&nbsp;&nbsp;

A decentralized version of the web powered by the blockchain

Web3 Ecosystem

Everclear provides a blockchain interoperability protocol that empowers developers to construct cross-chain dApps accessible from any network. The protocol allows dApps to seamlessly interact with funds and data across multiple blockchains simultaneously. It offers the protocol as a public good, and, as of August 2023, it was being developed by an open community of developers. Everclear addresses the challenge of fragmentation within modular blockchains by providing a clearing layer solution. It aims to enhance interoperability across different blockchain ecosystems, enabling liquidity management and ensuring transaction finality on a larger scale.Key customers and partnershipsThe company has reported rapid growth since the release of the second version of its platform in February 2023, adding more than 20,000 new users by April 2023. It also claimed that 35 companies were actively building on top of its protocol as of June 2023, including Metamask, Planet IX, and DODO. As of the same date, the network had facilitated over 1.2 million cross-chain transactions.Funding and financialsIn June 2023, the company raised <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19431">USD 7.5 million in a strategic funding round </a>, valuing the company at USD 250 million. The round witnessed participation from various investors, including Polychain Capital, NGC Ventures, Polygon Ventures, and IOSG Ventures. It was to use the fresh funds to establish the Connext Foundation, which would provide development grants and funding to initiatives built on the Connext platform.

Based in Israel, StarkWare Industries provides infrastructure solutions that address the scalability issues of the Ethereum blockchain via two platforms–StarkEx and StarkNet. These platforms use STARK (Scalable Transparent Arguments of Knowledge) proof technology and support a number of use cases including NFT minting, contract trading, automated market making, spot trading, payments, and DeFi pooling.StarkEx is a customizable app-specific scaling engine run on a cloud. It is a compression service that bundles and validates transactions with a cryptographic computation, which is sent in a STARK proof to the Ethereum blockchain for finality.StarkNet, launched in February 2022, is a permissionless decentralized ZK-rollup solution that works on top of the Ethereum blockchain. It allows developers to scale dApps by bundling transactions and producing STARK proofs off-chain and verifying the proofs on-chain in Ethereum. The company also reported that StarkEx dApps can migrate to StarkNet if developers choose to.Key customers and partnershipsThe company partnered with Herodotus to launch <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/26480">Cairo Verifier </a>, a system that enables the verification of cryptographic proofs on its layer-2 network, StarkNet. Additionally, they collaborated to develop <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/29348">Integrity Verifier </a>, a tool that will allow StarkNet to support layer-3 app chains, thereby enhancing its scalability and reducing transaction costs. StarkWare also partnered with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/786111">Polygon </a>to develop and implement a new cryptographic proof system called <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/26924">Circle STARKs </a>, aimed at improving the rollup proving process on Ethereum.Funding and financialsStarkWare Industries raised USD 100 million in Series D funding in May 2022, co-led by Greenoaks Capital and Coatue, at a valuation of USD 8 billion. The company aimed to utilize the fresh funds for product and business development, engineering, and to grow its ecosystem.

Cryptocurrencies

Connext is an interoperability protocol that aims to provide a holistic solution for the multi-chain future of Web3. It enables users to transfer capital or calldata across different Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible chains and rollups using its NXTP protocol. NXTP is a trustless, low-cost, and extensible base protocol launched in September 2021 with a vision to become the internet Protocol (IP) of the Ethereum multi-chain ecosystem.Connext's core offering is facilitating fast, fully non-custodial transfers or contract calldata between EVM-compatible chains and rollups. It utilizes a lock/unlock mechanism that makes the transfer of funds secure and ensures that user funds cannot be stolen, even if the transaction validation mechanism fails. This mechanism also enables the transfer of native assets that are fungible on the destination chain.Connext operates a network of liquidity pools on different chains, backed by routers. Users can swap value between these pools, similar to automated market makers like Uniswap. For example, if a user has funds on Arbitrum and wants to use an application on Polygon, they can directly call the contract on Polygon using their funds on Arbitrum, bypassing Arbitrum's waiting period and Ethereum Layer one fees.In June 2023, Connext raised USD 7.5 million in a strategic funding round at a USD 250 million valuation. The funds will be used to establish the Connext Foundation, which will play a critical role in stewarding the protocol's development and fostering ecosystem growth through development grants and community initiatives.Since its formation in 2017, Connext has pioneered critical blockchain infrastructure, including one of the first widely used DAO frameworks, MolochDAO, in 2019. The team's long-term vision is to create an open and accessible future where users can reap the benefits of blockchains without specialized knowledge or exposure to unnecessary risks.

The toolkit to build machine learning applications at scale

Machine Learning Infrastructure

Based in the UK, FLock.io offers an end-to-end AI co-creation stack that utilizes a blend of federated learning and blockchain technologies. This enables AI models to be trained directly on user devices without the need to relocate sensitive data, thus maintaining privacy and reducing the risk of misuse, while it utilizes blockchain technology to facilitate community involvement and data security in AI model training. In addition, the company offers GPTs that are tailored for Web3 knowledge.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsIn&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/36648">November 2024</a>, FLock.io partnered with Animoca Brands to develop specialized AI models using federated learning technology for their internal use. Previously, in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.binance.com/en-AE/square/post/2024-04-17-flock-io-partners-with-depin-network-io-net-for-decentralized-ai-training-6896812463681">April 2024</a>, FLock.io announced a partnership with DePIN network IO.Net to enhance its capabilities with decentralized compute power.

FLock enables decentralised and privacy-preserving machine learning, coordinated by smart contracts We work to make user data collection obsolete, and widespread governance participation guaranteed by code we propose to use distributed ledger technology (DLT) to achieve FLock, a secure and reliable decentralized {F}ederated {L}earning system built on B{lock}chain. Or, in plain words, we build TensorFlow Federated (TFF) for Web 3.0

Shadow operates as a crypto data platform.

Puffer Finance operates a liquid staking platform designed to combat the over-centralization of Bitcoin staking. The company's platform provides a safe, scalable, and performant stake pool that encourages decentralization, allowing liquidity seekers to participate with permissionless node operators while preventing slashable violations.

Veridise is a full-spectrum blockchain security company founded by a team of world-class researchers. They are one of the most experienced auditing firms for Zero-Knowledge Circuits and MetaMask Snaps. The company expertise also covers smart contracts, blockchains and Layer 2s, DeFi protocols, crypto wallets, tokens, NFTs and much more. They have a track record of discovering critical vulnerabilities missed by other auditing firms - Veridise has found 100+ high-severity bugs in the first half of 2023 alone. The Veridise team uses a hybrid method of traditional audits combined with automated Web3 security tools to solve the hardest blockchain security problems and deliver in-depth, actionable audit reports.

Gitcoin is a platform to enable open source developers to monetize their work when it is used. Gitcoin was borne of the community in Boulder, Colorado's thriving tech scene. One of the most amazing things about the Boulder community is the #givefirst mantra. The founding team has built their careers off of advice, mentorship, and relationships in the local tech community. Gitcoin is built upon the Ethereum network, and the solidity smart contract programming language. Ethereum provides opportunities to align incentives across actors in the ecosystem. By programming rights of stakeholders directly into smart contracts, actors are incentivized to provide value, and edge cases are handled _without_ having to involve legacy legal enforcement mechanisms. The founder of Gitcoin, Kevin Owocki, has experience as an organizer of Boulder Startup Week, Ignite Boulder, StartupCTO.io, Boulder Blockchain Meetup, and the open-source projects by trader, adblock-to-bitcoin, YouveGotETH, and ColoradoCoin. The stronger the community is, the more successful open source projects are. The stronger open source projects are, the stronger the community is. Gitcoin is a project that combines the #givefirst mantra of the Boulder community with capitalistic incentives to write great software. By enabling Repo Maintainers, developers, and financiers to find one another, Gitcoin pushes open-source software forward.

From the Internet to the iPhone, technologies are transforming our society and empowering us as speakers, citizens, creators, and consumers. When our freedoms in the networked world come under attack, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the first line of defense. EFF broke new ground when it was founded in 1990—well before the Internet was on most people's radar—and continues to confront cutting-edge issues defending free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights today. From the beginning, EFF has championed the public interest in every critical battle affecting digital rights.  Blending the expertise of lawyers, policy analysts, activists, and technologists, EFF achieves significant victories on behalf of consumers and the general public. EFF fights for freedom primarily in the courts, bringing and defending lawsuits even when that means taking on the US government or large corporations. By mobilizing more than 140,000 concerned citizens through our Action Center, EFF beats back bad legislation. In addition to advising policymakers, EFF educates the press and public.  EFF is a donor-funded nonprofit and depends on your support to continue successfully defending your digital rights. Litigation is particularly expensive; because two-thirds of our budget comes from individual donors, every contribution is critical to helping EFF fight—and win—more cases.

Fight for the Future is a non-profit advocacy group that is dedicated to protecting and expanding the Internet's transformative power in the lives of people by creating civic campaigns that are engaging for millions of people. Its staff consists of technologists, educators, organizers, advocates, and artists.   Fight for the Future believes that outdated and overzealous copyright and patent laws, slow speed and limited access, and tracking and spying as the major threats to freedom of expression online.   Its objective is to build a public movement to ensure that everyone can access the Internet’s many resources affordably, free of interference or censorship, and with full privacy. Fight for the Future also provides its users with online tools that make it easy and compelling to take action and share with friends.   In 2012, hundreds of thousands of websites, including sites like [Google](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/google), [Craigslist](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/craigslist), and [Wikipedia](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/wikipedia), joined the protest which was organized by Fight for the Future to stop SOPA and PIPA.   Fight for the Future was formed in 2011 and is headquartered in Boston, M.A.

Court Innovations develops and implements online negotiation systems for courts and constituents.  The company’s online solutions enable its customers to extend their courts to provide online resolution options for litigants charged with relatively-minor offenses; help litigants with outstanding issues to understand their options and navigate the court online without needing to hire an attorney; and more. Court Innovations is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Nimbus is a research project and a client implementation for Ethereum 2.0 designed to perform well on embedded systems and personal mobile devices, including older smartphones with resource-restricted hardware.

Connext is an interoperability protocol that enables fast, fully-trustless communication between blockchains. It leverages groundbreaking distributed systems technology to to power the creation of an internet of blockchains. The company was founded in 2017 by Arjun Bhuptani, Layne Haber, and Rahul Sethuram.

Parity is an infrastructure and innovation focused company building platforms and applications. Parity's work combines cutting-edge cryptography, cellular system, peer-to-peer technology and decentralised consensus architectures.

Trueblocks is a strong proponent of blockchain technology and strives for increased adoption of cryptocurrencies and services on the blockchain. They provide support for worthwhile projects by making the right connections with potential commercial partners in South Korea. In addition, Trueblocks facilitates community expansion, helps develop exchange relationships, assists in finding the right meetups & events and provides advice on marketing strategies.

StarkWare Industries uses Stark technology to develop a full proof stack in generating and verifying proofs of computational integrity. It was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Netanya, HaMerkaz, Israel.

Ethereum is a platform and a programming language that makes it possible for any developer to build and publish next-generation distributed applications.  Ethereum can be used to codify, decentralize, secure and trade just about anything: voting, domain names, financial exchanges, crowdfunding, company governance, contracts and agreements of most kind, intellectual property, and even smart property thanks to hardware integration.  Ethereum borrows the concept of decentralized consensus that makes bitcoin so resilient, yet makes it trivial to build on its foundation.

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 The Ethereum Foundation is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to supporting the Ethereum blockchain and related services. 
 
 
 The Ethereum blockchain was launched in 2015 and it introduced the ability to create and deploy smart contracts on the chain and create decentralized apps, including those for the DeFi sector. The main Ethereum blockchain uses the proof-of-work consensus mechanism and as of December 2021, was home to more than 300 DeFi projects, accounting for over USD 160 million in total value locked (TVL). At the time, the chain carried out approximately 13 transactions per second.
 
 
 A significant update to Ethereum was set to launch in mid-2022. Dubbed as Ethereum 2.0, the upgrade would see the blockchain move to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, which is significantly faster and can carry out up to 100,000 transactions per second.
 
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Ethereum Foundation to Inject $10M into zkVM Protocols

Organizations and protocols that allow individuals to lend their crypto assets and take out collateralized or uncollateralized loans from to/from these projects

Organizations that allow individuals to invest in tokenized financial and real assets

Organizations that provide fully decentralized insurance products

Organizations that apply NFTs across areas of finance such as documentation and non-fractionalized ownership records for assets

Decentralized exchanges that help connect buyers and sellers of DeFi tokens without the need to rely on an intermediary

Organizations that provide digital wallets for users to take custody of DeFi tokens

Blockchains and related protocols that allow developers to build DeFi apps

Protocols that issue digital currencies that can be used as a medium of exchange and/or a store of value

Companies and protocols that offer digital tokens pegged to the value of a fiat currency (such as USD and EUR) or a commodity (such as gold)

Companies providing infrastructure solutions for central banks to develop and issue their own digital reserve currencies

Companies that offer a marketplace for users to buy, sell, and trade a number of cryptocurrencies and other cryptocurrency-linked financial products

Companies and protocols that offer infrastructure solutions for businesses to accept cryptocurrency payments for goods and services

Developers of video games that use elements of blockchain technology, allowing gamers to earn cryptocurrency by playing games. They can either convert it into real money or purchase in-game assets.

A decentralized alternative to traditional social networks that operate on independently run servers on the blockchain. These are community-owned and reward user participation.

An alternative storage system in which data is encrypted, segmented, and stored on multiple nodes across the blockchain rather than a single server.

Developers of dApps for use in industries such as travel, health, and fitness, which are yet to reach wider adoption.

Providers of wallets that allow users to purchase and store the cryptocurrencies/tokens required to interact with web3 apps, along with app browsers for users to browse and access dApps.

Also known as layer-1 networks, these include developers of the base blockchain network.

Also known as layer-2 solutions, this includes providers of scaling solutions, such as sidechains, state channels, and rollups, which improve the speed and throughput of transactions occurring in layer-1 blockchain networks.

Platforms that provide tools such as SDKs, blockchain node infrastructure, and bridges for developers to create, host, debug, and add extra functionality to dApps on one or many blockchains.

INCUMBENTS_PRESENT

PROMINENT_CATEGORY

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Ethereum has been proposed with a new Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP-7781), aiming to enhance throughput by 50% and reduce block times from 12 to eight seconds. Ben Adams, co-founder of Illyriad Games, introduced this proposal.
The proposal intends to expedite transaction times and evenly allocate bandwidth usage. Additionally, it seeks to increase the capacity of Blobs for layer-2 protocols. These Blobs are dedicated data-storage sections utilized by such protocols for stashing transaction records.

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