Funding News: Steve Aoki, Alameda, Amber Group Invest $6M in Private Token Sale, humanDAO Raises $3.7M
As the year draws to a close, capital continues to pour into the crypto space
key takeaways
- Aoki, Alameda and Amber Group led token sale for algorithmic stablecoin Sperax
- Community-owned humanDAO will use part its new funds to buy play-to-earn gaming assets and loan them out to “underserved people around the world”
Crypto-collateralized algorithmic stablecoin Sperax has closed a $6 million private token sale led by DJ Steve Aoki, Alameda Research and Amber Group, the protocol shared on Wednesday.
“Today, decentralized finance is intimidating, but doesn’t have to be,” Alec Shaw, partner at Sperax said in a statement. “With USDs smart contracts managing all of the hard defi stuff behind the scenes, entry level users can capture the yield available in defi,” he said.
Sperax is an open-source development team that focuses on building software on its protocol. With this private sale, the company is valued at $200 million, Frida Cai, a partner of global strategy at Sperax told Blockworks. The capital will be used to build out its smart contract engineering team, she said.
The Sperax USD, USDs, is a US dollar-pegged stablecoin that generates passive income by investing collateral like other stablecoins, but also returns profits to its holders while also maintaining a stable peg algorithmically, it said.
Sperax USD is the first stablecoin on Arbitrum, an Ethereum layer-2, and launched Mainnet beta on Dec. 23. Sperax plans to create a DAO governance and hand over the protocol to Sperax DAO, it said.
Aoki has been heavily invested in crypto, specifically NFTs, this past year and even partnered with comic book creator Todd McFarlane to launch an NFT marketplace, OddKey. In November, Aoki told Blockworks he predicts that “there’s no doubt that we are moving towards a digital economy. We are going from cash to cashless. Less and less people want [the] physical.”
humanDAO raises human capital
The humanDAO has raised $3.7 million through a token generation event on Ethereum and Polygon networks, it shared on Wednesday.
The community-owned decentralized autonomous organization will use part of the funds to buy play-to-earn gaming assets and loan them out to “underserved people around the world,” it said.
The two-month-old DAO has attracted about 20,000 people with the mission of improving the lives of underserved communities through crypto education, funding and opportunities to earn money in the metaverse. In December, it launched its token on Copper, in addition to layer-2 Polygon integration and setting up liquidity pools on Balancer.
“Our mission is purposefully broad, and yet very clear: to improve lives through crypto,” Christopher Chase, a founding member of humanDAO told Blockworks. “Over 2 billion people in underserved communities live on less than $5 a day. humanDAO is creating opportunities in crypto for those underserved communities to earn 10 times that while creating profound, new revenue streams for our community and investors,” he added.
By the first quarter of 2022, humanDAO plans to roll out a staking plan for token holders and liquidity providers, create a meals program and distribute them on a monthly basis, and invest or partner with new play-to-earn games.
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