Kronos Research

Blockchain.com is a developer of a digital assets platform that offers ways to buy, hold, and use cryptocurrency. It creates a financial system for the internet that empowers anyone in the world to control their money. Over 50+ million customers have signed up to use the Blockchain.com platform. It's a fast and easy way to buy Bitcoin, trade crypto, send, receive, secure, and borrow digital currencies. The Blockchain.com explorer is one of the most trafficked websites in the world to find out what's happening in the crypto markets and the Blockchain.com exchange supports a fast trading experience.

Blockchain.com

Lightspeed Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that engages in consumer, enterprise, technology, and cleantech markets. It focuses on seed, early-stage, later-stage, expansion-stage, start-ups, growth companies, and incubation, and specializes in debt financing for start-ups and growth companies. Lightspeed Venture Partners invests in various sectors that include enterprise, consumer, big data, bitcoin, enterprise technology, cleantech, mobile, internet, financial technology, cloud solutions, e-commerce, storage, media, networking, energy, and software, software-as-a-service, information technology, biotechnology, and social. It mainly invests in countries such as the United States, Europe, Israel, China, and India.

Lightspeed Venture Partners

XBTO is a cryptoﬁnance company that provides institutional-grade liquidity to major trading platforms. It continues to grow and shape the market today through its extensive trading experience and deep technical knowledge of blockchain. The company was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

XBTO Group

Blockchain Founders Fund (BFF) is a Singapore based early-stage Venture Capital Fund which invests in top-tier Blockchain startups globally. Their industry leading go-to-market focused Venture Program aids seasoned and first-time entrepreneurs across key business functions to fast-track growth. BFF has scaled many of the leading Blockchain startups and is always looking to connect with exceptional founders across the industry including Web3, metaverse, gamefi, DeFi, and NFT.

Blockchain Founders Fund

Borderless partners with early-stage founders to accelerate access, bootstrap adoption and create value across the Algorand and EdgeFi ecosystems.

Borderless Capital

One of the pioneering market-makers in digital assets, Caladan has been generating exceptional returns since 2017. Today, we operate thousands of algorithms across 1000+ digital assets and 65+ exchanges, both centralised and decentralised. We see blockchain as the foundational technology of our generation. Just as ship-building innovations in the 1450s launched the Age of Exploration or TCP/IP in the 1970s launched the internet as we know it, blockchain now opens up new worlds of possibility. Much of the infrastructure, applications, and software that we will all take for granted in a few decades are only glimmers in someone’s imagination today. We founded AlphaLab because there is huge potential in building that future. It’s also going to be a lot of fun.

Caladan

Wave Digital Assets is a digital asset management organization that combines venture capital, funds, and wealth management. They also offer early-stage VC investment, asset management, treasury management, and strategic consulting in the crypto and blockchain ecosystems.

Wave Digital Assets

Side Door Ventures is a global venture capital firm investing in audacious founders building the future at the fringe. We’re generalist investors and back teams across software, life sciences, space, frontier tech, blockchain, gaming, and financial services that aim to transform industries and improve lives. The Future Starts at the Fringe.

Side Door Ventures

Since 2018, the Cadenza team has managed investment vehicles with a focus on decentralized technologies.

Cadenza Ventures

Hyperithm is a leading digital asset financial service provider headquartered in Tokyo and Seoul, with strong backing from renowned investors including Coinbase, Samsung, Kakao and Hashed. Our crypto asset management arm specializes in algorithm/HFT-based, market neutral strategies for institutions and HNWIs. Furthermore, we offer a full-suite of crypto prime brokerage services as a fully regulated VASP (Virtual Asset Service Provider). As an evangelist of the Web3 space, we also support rising teams through venture investment. We have been actively investing in L1/L2s, dApps, gaming projects, and asset managers that are contributing to the growth of the Web3 ecosystem. Hyperithm was co-founded by an ex-Morgan Stanley investment banker and a serial entrepreneur listed in Forbes 30 Under 30. We continue to attract top-notch young talent as our development team consists of Presidential Scholars, and International Science Olympiad medalists. Our team consists of seasoned professionals, including ex-investment bankers, world-class engineers, and International Science Olympiad medalists. We specialize in automated trading and risk management, using innovative algorithms built with Rust. By leveraging our expertise and cutting-edge technology, we are building a digital asset gateway for institutions. As an evangelist of the Web3 space, we also support rising teams through venture investment.

Hyperithm

MH Ventures is a founder-focused, early-stage venture fund dedicated to the growth of the Web3 ecosystem.

MH Ventures

XBTO Humla Ventures is a trusted digital asset innovator and investor. XBTO Humla Ventures invest in entrepreneurs with a combination of strong experience, vision and execution.

XBTO Humla Ventures

Wormhole covers a range of use cases to make chains for tokens, NFTs, apps, and other generic messaging applications. They build protocols on wormholes that can use data, assets, and messages from other chains.

Wormhole

Faction is a venture fund focused on early stage blockchain opportunities

Faction

Bankless Ventures is an early-stage Web3 fund empowering pioneers to explore the frontier of Web3.

Bankless Ventures

2Shares is a venture capital firm specializing in investing in seed, start-ups, mid-stage, growth, and late-stage. We focus on sectors such as IT, Blockchain, AI, SaaS, Web3, and cybersecurity.

2Shares

Psalion provides institutional-level investment products to private clients, family offices, and professional investors.

Psalion

Omega

Omega is a Web3 infrastructure supplier that makes it possible for idle bitcoin to be collateralized for DeFi yield production.

Omega offers a blockchain infrastructure platform that enables users to earn yield through their idle Bitcoin holdings. Users will be able to use Bitcoin as collateral for lending and borrowing while earning interest by providing liquidity to asset pools. In February 2024, it announced plans to launch the public beta of its platform within the following two months.

Disrupting the traditional financial system using blockchain

Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

Omega offers a blockchain infrastructure platform that enables users to earn yield through their idle Bitcoin holdings. Users will be able to use Bitcoin as collateral for lending and borrowing while earning interest by providing liquidity to asset pools. In February 2024, it announced plans to launch the public beta of its platform within the following two months.Funding and financialsIn February 2024, Omega <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/26374">raised USD 6 million </a>in new funding from Lightspeed Faction, Borderless Capital's Wormhole Cross-Chain Ecosystem Fund, Bankless Ventures, Wave Digital, and Blockchain.com, among others. The company planned to use the funds to support the launch of its platform.

MakerDAO is a DAO (governed through the MKR token) that manages the Maker Protocol.Developed on the Ethereum blockchain, the Maker Protocol allows users to place their funds (through cryptocurrency) as collateral in exchange for its stablecoin DAI, which is pegged to the USD. DAI can be used like any other cryptocurrency and even as savings since holders of DAI are entitled to a return based on the DAI Savings Rate (DSR). The DSR is determined by members of the DAO using a mix of public and proprietary market data.MakerDAO offers access to investing and borrowing DAI through the Oasis app which was developed by some of the creators of Maker Protocol. In addition, the Maker Protocol is available for developers of DeFi apps who can build apps to facilitate earning, investing, and borrowing DAI. As of May 2024, the Maker Protocol had integrated with over 400 applications ranging from payment systems to gaming platforms. MakerDAO generates revenue through stability fees (akin to interest payment on borrowed DAI) and liquidation fees which is an additional charge that occurs when the value of the submitted collateral falls below a set liquidation amount.In April 2022, MakerDAO announced that it was bridging to StarkNet, a reportedly cheaper and faster zero-knowledge (ZK) overlay chain built by StarkWare. Along with its expansion on Ethereum, the DAO had planned to move toward a multi-chain offering with this rebuild. It planned to roll out this offering in four phases, beginning with a simple bridge between the main blockchain and StarkNet’s Layer 2.In February 2023, the company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16269?industryIds=64">launched a new lending platform</a> named Spark Protocol, to enable users to borrow, lend, and stake DAI, the protocol’s stablecoin. The platform, which is a fork of Aave's version 3 (v3), will be built by Phoenix Labs, a research and development company formed by the DAO. Additionally, the company also announced the deployment of etherDAI, a liquid staking derivative for Ethereum that will be pegged to the value of ETH. Furthermore, in March, MakerDAO went on to<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17322"> approve several new proposals </a>that make changes to both its governance structure and the investment of its treasury. These changes divide the DAO’s current structure into smaller self-governed and self-sustained units named SubDAOs, which will also have their own tokens in the MakerDAO ecosystem. Moreover, the proposal also planned to increase the protocol’s revenues by investing a part of its reserves (worth USD 7 billion) into real-world assets and money-market funds.The platform outlined its plans for a major update (named Endgame) in May 2023. The launch was proposed to take place in five phases and will ultimately lead to the creation of a new blockchain. The road map is as follows: 1) launching new branding and website as well as upgraded versions of Dai and MKR tokens; 2) launching six Maker SubDAOs, specializing in user acquisition, decentralized frontends, and collateral allocation; 3) introducing new AI tools to assist governance, including tools for summarizing, interpreting, and generating governance proposals; 4) enabling rewards for governance participation; and 5) deploying a new blockchain to house backend logic for SubDAO tokenomics and MakerDAO governance security. The first phase of the update is expected to be rolled out in the summer of 2024.In August 2024, the protocol followed through with the first phase of its plans by <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/32993">rebranding itself under the new name "Sky"</a>, and launching new versions of Dai and MKR tokens named the USDS and SKY. Funding and financialsAs of May 2024, MakerDAO had around USD 8.1 billion in total value locked (TVL). The company’s most recent funding round was in April 2020 for an undisclosed sum. Previously, the company had raised USD 27.5 million through the sale of its MKR token to Dragonfly Partners and Paragon to expand its operations to Asia.

MakerDAO

Founded by former executives of Qualcomm, Solana Labs is the developer of the Solana blockchain, which uses the native cryptocurrency SOL. The company enables developers to create decentralized applications in its blockchain and is capable of carrying out 50,000 transactions per second (TPS) with a theoretical upper limit of 710,000 TPS for the architecture. As of May 2024, the blockchain averaged around 2,400 TPS. This is in contrast to Ethereum’s average of between 13 to 15 TPS. In addition to transaction speed, Solana also has other advantages such as lower transaction fees and improved scalability, given its proof-of-stake consensus mechanism and underlying architecture. The mechanism also enables users to stake their SOL and earn yields for validating the network. Solana provides the ability to create specialized tooling and programming functionality to tokens through <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/25910">Token Extensions</a>. This allows developers and businesses to establish rules for tokens, such as dictating their functionality and determining their holders, as well as embed features like whitelisting, automatic transfer fees, and confidentiality provisions for transfers.Solana also provides guides and a content aggregator website for developers to discover tools to create dApps on its blockchain. As of May 2024, more than 440 dApps were created on Solana, ranging across use cases such as DeFi, NFTs, and gaming. It also <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18094">launched a ChatGPT </a>(a chatbot built on OpenAI's GPT model) plugin to allow developers and users to query the blockchain for on-chain data. The plugin works through the ChatGPT interface and allows users to perform various tasks such as checking wallet balances, transferring tokens, and purchasing NFTs.Key customers and partnershipsWeb browser developer Opera partnered with Solana in December 2021 to integrate the blockchain and create a built-in crypto wallet onto the Opera browser to improve accessibility to dApps hosted on the blockchain.As of May 2024, the company served several enterprise clients such as Shopify, Asics, Helio, and Tiplink.Funding and financialsThe total value locked (TVL) in DeFi projects across the Solana blockchain amounted to USD 4 billion as of May 2024. The company raised USD 314 million through an initial coin offering (ICO) of SOL. The ICO was co-led by Polychain Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. The funding was to be used to create a venture investing arm, a trading desk, and support the development of new applications in its blockchain.

Solana

Swiss-based Eidoo is a developer of a wallet that supports cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, along with tokens such as DAI, MKR, AAVE, and UNI, among others. In addition, Eidoo provides a DeFi marketplace that integrates with its wallet, allowing users to trade any tokens that they hold. Eidoo also offers a debit card that allows the conversion of digital assets into fiat currencies, such as the GBP and EURO, and spending or even withdrawing cash from ATMs.Eidoo began with the proprietary token EDO, which it also used to raise USD 27.9 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) in 2017. The token was then upgraded following its merger with blockchain oracle provider Provable Things to establish pNetwork, the infrastructure that facilitates cross-chain interactions between multiple decentralized apps, governed by the token PNT. To obtain an Eidoo debit card, users are required to stake PNT ranging from 20 to 200,000 for various service tiers.Eidoo had several applications such as virtual account numbers to deposit money and obtain a tokenized representation of their deposit as well as features to buy, hold, and trade NFTs in the roadmap as of December 2021.

Eidoo

Synthetix is a DAO (governed by holders of its native token SNX) that offers a platform on which users can trade and vote on the creation of on-chain synthetic assets, which are derivatives based on real-world assets. These synthetic assets enable traders to capture the price movements of assets such as cryptocurrencies, fiat currencies, stocks, and commodities, among others, with zero slippage. The protocol allows users to stake SNX as collateral for the debt pool and earn weekly rewards. As of April 2022, Synthetix had USD 642 million in total value locked (TVL).Additionally, Synthetix also offers the opportunity for developers to build on top of the platform to tap into its liquidity as well as develop decentralized perpetual futures, options markets, deal coordination markets, and more. As of December 2021, the protocol served large DeFi platforms including 1inch, Curve Finance, Yearn Finance, and Paraswap.In February 2023, Synthetix <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16609?industryIds=64">deployed version 3 (v3) of its platform </a>on the Ethereum mainnet. V3 reportedly offers more efficient architecture that enables developers to create products that offer a liquid market for any financial derivative, as well as more complex decentralized applications. Additionally, the solution also offers staking and differentiated debt pools, to enable stakers to earn fees from supplying collateral to specific asset pools. The company went on to deploy its protocol on Base, an Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain developed by Coinbase, in April 2024. Moreover, the company announced plans to launch a new perpetual futures exchange named Infinex in the following months.Funding and financialsIn March 2023, Synthetix <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17267">received an investment of USD 20 million </a>from DWF Labs, a Web3 venture capital company. Synthetix plans to use this investment to drive volume for its protocol across both centralized and decentralized exchanges and invest in product development.

Synthetix

Compound is an open-source lending protocol built on Ethereum that allows developers to build DeFi applications for functions such as deposits and lending. Compound offers adjusted money market interest rates based on asset-specific supply and demand and supports a number of Ethereum-based assets for users to take collateralized loans and lock-up assets without borrowing. Locked assets are automatically liquidated if an independent oracle determines that the price has dropped too low. Additionally, since assets are stored in a shared pool, even users with liquidated collateral can claim tokens if they are able to repay the general pool. Compound also <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13038">offers borrowing services</a> for institutional clients that allow them to borrow USD or USDC at a fixed annual percentage rate of 6% using cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ether as collateral, with a loan-to-value of 90%.As of April 2024, Compound had a total value locked (TVL) of USD 2.3 billion. The protocol is governed by its native-token COMP, which along with a variety of other digital assets that are a part of the Compound ecosystem, are supported by Coinbase Custody, a crypto asset custodian. In August 2022, Compound launched a version of its protocol named “Compound III” which features a single borrowable asset. Users can supply collateral that can never be withdrawn by other users (except during liquidation) and borrow USDC.In May 2022, Compound<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10267"> received a B- credit rating from S&amp;P Global Ratings</a> on its enterprise credit facility which offers 4% annually on deposits of the stablecoin USDC. Notably, Compound claims that this is the first time an "institutional DeFi" product has been scored by a major credit rating agency.Funding and financialsCompound’s last funding round was in November 2019 where it raised USD 25 million in a Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z crypto fund to help the company further decentralize the protocol by enabling crypto exchanges and custodians such as Coinbase to maintain the protocol going forward.

Compound

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

All companies within this industry are either blockchain-based platforms or offer blockchain-centric services

Promotes financial inclusivity, allowing those that won't traditionally have access to credit to raise funds

Companies with the infrastructure segment offer solutions for users to build decentralized applications

Omega

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