Funding Roundup: Binance Labs invests in BIO Protocol

“BIO can be thought of as a Y Combinator for onchain Science,” Binance said in a statement

November 10, 2024 12:00 pm

Grey82/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

This week’s election frenzy dominated headlines, pushing funding news to the sidelines. However, a few notable deals did manage to break through the noise. Here’s what made the cut.

First up, Binance Labs made headlines Friday with its first foray into DeSci (decentralized science), investing in BIO Protocol through its $10 billion venture arm.

“BIO can be thought of as a Y Combinator for onchain Science,” Binance said in a statement.

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The amount invested was not disclosed.

Binance Labs wasn’t the only firm busy making investments; Tether also announced on Friday that its investment division had “financed a physical crude oil transaction between a publicly traded super-major oil company and a top-tier commodity trader,” which was completed back in October.

“…The transaction was to facilitate the loading and transporting of 670,000 barrels of Middle Eastern crude oil, valued at approximately $45 million. This transaction marks Tether Investments’ first crude oil transaction in the region and highlights the company’s expanding role in global commodities trading,” Tether said in a statement.

And finally, the Pharos layer-1 closed an $8 million seed round, with Lightspeed Faction and Hack VC leading the charge.

“The company plans to utilize the funding to accelerate the development of the Pharos protocol and drive the growth of the ecosystem and community,” Pharos said in a statement.

Other investors included MH Ventures, Reforge and Hash Global.

“At Pharos, we are driven by our belief to bridge existing [fintech] services with trustless Web3 innovations to onboard billions of new users and real-world assets into the Web3 ecosystem. This seed round propels us closer to realizing that vision,” Pharos CEO Alex Zhang said.

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Analyst Takes: Post-Election Insights

With the recent election, it’s clear that there will be a meaningful shift in crypto regulations and legislation. Trump is likely as pro-crypto as a president can be. He launched (multiple) of his own NFT collections and is launching an Aave wrapper called World Liberty Fi. He has also spoken out and mentioned that he wants to make the United States "the crypto capital of the planet" and transform it into the "Bitcoin superpower of the world". He proposed creating a strategic national Bitcoin stockpile alongside support from Senator Cynthia Lummis, promising to retain 100% of all Bitcoin held by the U.S. government. More importantly, we’re likely to see deregulation across the board in a lot of industries, with crypto being one of them - as Trump has committed to keeping the crypto market largely unregulated. Crypto, DeFi in particular, has historically been knee-capped by overreaching and hostile governmental agencies and regulation by enforcement, as evidenced by the plethora of Wells notices and lawsuits over the past few years. With Donald Trump winning the presidency, Republicans taking control of the Senate, and being on the verge of securing the House, we think it’s likely that crypto realizes positive regulatory clarity. Below, you can find our analysts’ takes:

by Boccaccio