Sebastian Sinclair

<div id="highlights-block_6296d4c34d5e2" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Binance Labs&#8217; latest fund joins the likes of venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz in pouring dollars into Web3 startups</li>
 <li>Binance said it intends to allocate the $500 million to projects across three stages of a startup&#8217;s lifecycle: incubation, early-stage venture, and late-stage growth</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The venture capital and incubation arm of Binance said Wednesday it has closed a new fund to the tune of $500 million, supported by global institutional investors DST Global Partners and Breyer Capital.



Binance Labs said the fund will invest in projects that can extend the use cases of cryptocurrencies and drive the adoption of Web3 and blockchain technologies.



Several other major private equity funds, family offices and corporations will also support the fund as limited partners, according to a statement on Wednesday.



The crypto industry continues to experience large allocations of capital, and Binance&#8217;s latest fund, while considerable, is not uncommon. Last week, venture capital giant <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/andreessen-horowitz-launches-largest-crypto-fund-ever/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Andreessen Horowitz</a> launched a $4.5 billion fund — the industry&#8217;s largest to date.



That fund, also slated for Web3 startups, places a large bet on the fusion of technologies, including machine learning, artificial intelligence and blockchain, to achieve what some are hoping is the next evolutionary stage of the internet.



&#8220;In a Web3 environment, the connection between values, people, and economies is essential,&#8221; Binance founder Changpeng &#8220;CZ&#8221; Zhao said in a statement. &#8220;If these three elements come together to build an ecosystem, that will accelerate the mass adoption of the blockchain technology and crypto.&#8221;



Like others in the industry, the firm aims to invest the $500 million in startups across three different stages: incubation, early-stage venture and late-stage growth.



<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/?s=binance+labs" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Binance Labs</a> is well versed in the investment arena, having poured money into or supported more than 100 projects across 25 countries since its inception in 2018. Its portfolio includes industry heavy-weight projects including 1inch, Audius, Axie Infinity, Dune Analytics, Elrond, Injective, Polygon, Optimism, The Sandbox and STEPN.



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Binance Launches $500M Fund To Drive Web3 Adoption

Jacquelyn Melinek

<div id="highlights-block_61dd97b079aa2" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The fund is now up 25% from $160 million in November</li>
 <li>“Since we launched in mid-November we have received tons of applications from the community entrepreneurs and founders who want to build projects on the network,” Lu said</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



An extra $40 million was added to the Oasis Ecosystem Fund, just two months after it was launched, to help build decentralized applications for DeFi, NFTs, the metaverse and more on the Oasis network, according to an announcement Tuesday.&nbsp;



The fund is now $200 million, up 25% from <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/oasis-foundation-launches-160m-fund-for-defi-nfts-metaverse-and-more/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$160 million</a> in November, after Binance Labs announced its participation in the fund, Linda Lu, head of ecosystem at Oasis said in an interview with Blockworks. 



The capital will be used to invest in the next wave of applications on the network and support ecosystem growth, Lu said. 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-01-11-oasis-ecosystem-1024x768.png" alt="The Oasis ecosystem" class="wp-image-13775" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-01-11-oasis-ecosystem-1024x768.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-01-11-oasis-ecosystem-1024x768.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-01-11-oasis-ecosystem-1024x768.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-01-11-oasis-ecosystem-1024x768.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-01-11-oasis-ecosystem-1024x768.png?w=343 343w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-01-11-oasis-ecosystem-1024x768.png?w=348 348w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-01-11-oasis-ecosystem-1024x768.png?w=292 292w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-01-11-oasis-ecosystem-1024x768.png?w=80 80w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-01-11-oasis-ecosystem-1024x768.png?w=50 50w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-01-11-oasis-ecosystem-1024x768.png?w=1600 1600w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption>The Oasis Ecosystem Source; Oasis</figcaption></figure>



<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/binance-labs-led-12m-investment-round-for-woo-network/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Binance Labs</a> is the venture capital and innovation incubation subsidiary of cryptocurrency exchange company Binance. It has invested in over <a href="https://labs.binance.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">100 projects</a> across the blockchain ecosystem, according to its website. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignright size-medium"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="300" height="300" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Linda-Lu-300x300.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-13777" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Linda-Lu-300x300.jpeg?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Linda-Lu-300x300.jpeg?w=150 150w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Linda-Lu-300x300.jpeg?w=257 257w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Linda-Lu-300x300.jpeg?w=261 261w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Linda-Lu-300x300.jpeg?w=219 219w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Linda-Lu-300x300.jpeg?w=80 80w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Linda-Lu-300x300.jpeg?w=50 50w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Linda-Lu-300x300.jpeg?w=320 320w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /><figcaption>Linda Lu</figcaption></figure></div>



Oasis Network is a layer-1, proof-of-stake, decentralized network designed to enable data privacy within DeFi, dApps, NFTs, DAOs and other Web3 applications. 



Other participants who previously invested in the fund include AME Cloud Ventures, Dragonfly Capital Partners, Draper Dragon, Electric Capital, FBG, Jump Capital, Hashed, Kenetic Capital, NGC Ventures, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/pantera-capital-ceo-terra-is-one-of-the-most-promising-coins-for-the-coming-year/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Pantera Capital</a> and Oasis Foundation.



“Since we launched in mid-November, we have received tons of applications from the community entrepreneurs and founders who want to build projects on the network,” Lu shared.&nbsp;



In recent weeks, Oasis partially funded YuzuSwap, the first decentralized exchange (DEX) built on its network, she said.&nbsp;



“From our perspective, we want to provide the best infrastructure for dApp developers and allow them to be successful,” Lu said. “We want to grow the ecosystem for the first half of the year and in the second half of [2022], build a community that will attract institutional investors to the DeFi space,” she added.



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Oasis Ecosystem Fund Hits $200M After Binance Labs’ Investment

Sam Reynolds

<div id="highlights-block_614380990c097" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Binance is appearing to come to terms with the fact that it needs to be a regulated entity, and cannot engage indefinite regulatory arbitrage </li>
 <li>First on the agenda is getting a permanent headquarters, which will likely be in Singapore, but Zhao has yet to confirm this </li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The world’s largest digital assets exchange is now officially on the hunt for a permanent home. In an interview with the <a href="https://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/3148809/binance-battles-regulatory-headwinds-worlds-largest">South China Morning Post</a>, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said that while traditional financial institutions are sold on the merits of digital assets as they themselves are regulated entities they can’t be getting involved with organizations that openly flout the world’s regulatory apperatix. So, if Binance wants in on the second part of the digital assets revolution — the merger of traditional institutional capital and crypto — it too will need to play regulatory ball.&nbsp;



“As we run a centralised exchange, we have come to realise that we need to have a centralised entity to work well with regulators. We need to have clear records of stakeholders’ ownership, transparency and risk controls,” Zhao told the SCMP.&nbsp;



Zhao said that when he told regulators that Binance had no permanent headquarters, it was an instant reg flag.&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">&#8220;There are very simple questions regulators usually ask us which our response is kinda funny. The regulators ask us where&#8217;s your headquarters, and our response is, well, we don&#8217;t have headquarters. That doesn&#8217;t go well with regulators. They don&#8217;t know how to work with us. Sometimes they even think we are dodgy obviously,&#8221; he said. “Four years ago we wanted to embrace decentralization but we do run a centralized exchange. We need a shift. We need to enhance. We are making those changes to make it easier for regulators to work with us.”</blockquote>



The question is, where will Binance touch down? <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/binance-continues-to-plant-seeds-for-singapore-move/">All the signs</a> are pointing to the exchange setting up a permanent shop in Singapore. The city-state has digital asset regulation that is considered by experts to be quite friendly, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/hong-kong-and-singapore-take-different-approaches-to-regulating-digital-assets/">much more so than Hong Kong</a>, its perennial rival in the traditional finance world.&nbsp; <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/binance-continues-to-plant-seeds-for-singapore-move/">In August</a>, the exchange announced it had hired former Singapore Exchange executive Richard Teng as CEO of Binance Asia Services Pte, a company it registered in Singapore in 2018.



During the past year, Binance’s seemingly infinite series of local subsidiaries have been targeted by regulators around the world, from the UK to Hong Kong, Thailand and Ontario.



Its exchange token, BNB, took a major plunge in May from around $672 to a low of $261 as regulators began their global crackdown against the exchange. Since then, it has began a recovery and is currently trading at $427.51, according to <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/binance-coin">CoinGecko</a>, up 3% during the last week.  



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Binance CEO Signals Exchange is Looking for Permanent Home

<div id="highlights-block_614360bf86b5c" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Participation in the round includes Sino Global Capital, Defiance, Delphi Digital, Robot Ventures, Spartan, Hypersphere Ventures, Protocol Ventures and Gen Block Capital</li>
 <li>The funds will be used for the further creation of its endpoints across the ecosystem, Bryan Pellegrino, co-founder of LayerZero Labs told Blockworks</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Binance Labs and Multicoin Capital co-led a $6.3 million Series A funding round for LayerZero, a new omnichain interoperability protocol, the company announced Thursday. 



Participation in the round includes Sino Global Capital, Defiance, Delphi Digital, Robot Ventures, Spartan, Hypersphere Ventures, Protocol Ventures and Gen Block Capital. The project has raised $2 million in a seed funding round bringing its total fundraising to $8.3 million to date, LayerZero said. 



The funds will be used for the further creation of its endpoints across the ecosystem, Bryan Pellegrino, co-founder of LayerZero Labs told Blockworks.&nbsp;



LayerZero has not been launched yet because it’s currently under three audits that are expected to be completed at the end of October, but Pellegrino said he expects the network to launch shortly after.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="323" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero-1024x323.jpg" alt="Omnichain diagram" class="wp-image-7992" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero-1024x323.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero-1024x323.jpg?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero-1024x323.jpg?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero-1024x323.jpg?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero-1024x323.jpg?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero-1024x323.jpg?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero-1024x323.jpg?w=80 80w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero-1024x323.jpg?w=1139 1139w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



“For cross-chain bridging and messaging, almost every existing approach falls into one of two broad categories. The first is having a consensus forming middle chain validate and forward messages between chains. The second is running a light node on-chain,” Ryan Zarick, co-founder and CTO of LayerZero Labs <a href="https://medium.com/layerzero-official/layerzero-an-omnichain-interoperability-protocol-b43d2ae975b6" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wrote in a blog post</a>.



The omnichain protocol unites decentralized applications, or dapps, across blockchains. Most people think of cross-chains protocols, which is like having a bridge from Ethereum to Avalanche and while Ethereum has bridges to many other chains (BSC, Polygon, Avalanche, Solana, Fantom, etc.), Avalanche does not connect to those, Pellegrino noted. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignright size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="458" height="189" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-layerzero-logo.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-8003" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-layerzero-logo.jpg?w=458 458w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-layerzero-logo.jpg?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-layerzero-logo.jpg?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-layerzero-logo.jpg?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-layerzero-logo.jpg?w=80 80w" sizes="(max-width: 458px) 100vw, 458px" /></figure></div>



“So we might call Ethereum multi-chain but each of it’s connected chains are still siloed and have limited communication pathways. Omnichain is when all chains are connected to each other chain directly and natively,” Pellegrino said.



Its protocol runs an “Ultra Light Node” that provides the security of a light node with the cost-effectiveness of middle chains, Zarick said.&nbsp;



It connects disparate blockchains by passing messages between chains instead of centralizing security around a single hub, which allows for cheaper transactions but a single point of failure, it said. On-chain light nodes are secure but expensive while middle chains are inexpensive but less secure, Zarick said.&nbsp;



“I think most people can see that the proliferation of chains is not something that is going to stop anytime soon,” Pellegrino said. “We’re never going to have a chain that does it all perfectly, and different use cases have different needs. LayerZero enables dapps to take advantage of the benefit of each chain and utilize the best parts of them,” Pellegrino added.



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