Sebastian Sinclair

<div id="highlights-block_e1f467bc44ad5165c0a3d5ddd6cc5019" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>HBAR said its fund will &#8220;encourage&#8221; luxury brands to engage with Hedera NFTs in both the physical and digital world of fashion</li>
 <li>Customer relationship management platform Sayl has been earmarked as one of the fund&#8217;s first grantees</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The HBAR Foundation said Thursday it has set aside $250 million in a new fund aimed at drawing in both consumer brands and their users to Hedera Hashgraph’s metaverse ecosystem.



HBAR, responsible for the development of Hedera&#8217;s network, said its Metaverse Fund targets both business-to-consumer and business-to-business-to-consumer applications where it expects to integrate users &#8220;at scale&#8221; into Web3 development.



The fund is focused on building out an &#8220;advanced&#8221; digital world as well as furthering an ecosystem of supporting and complementing projects, according to a statement.&nbsp;It is also attempting to support game developers interested in building within the ecosystem and to introduce non-fungible tokens (NFTs) into the developer&#8217;s projects.



Funding will be directed toward four main areas including gaming, sports, fashion and entertainment.



Customer relationship management platform Sayl has been earmarked for an undisclosed sum as one of the fund&#8217;s first grantees. Sayl said it wants to become a &#8220;leading gateway&#8221; to provide Web3 owner capabilities for &#8220;reputable brands.&#8221;



&#8220;We chose to build on Hedera for its carbon negative and enterprise-grade blockchain, tailored for security and regulatory compliance,&#8221; Sayl co-founder Geert Roete said. &#8220;This is exactly what brands and consumers are looking for when they enter this space.&#8221;



Following on the heels of its $155 million <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/hashgraph-gets-155m-fund-to-drive-defi-development/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Crypto Economy Fund</a> last month, HBAR said it hopes its latest fund will attract more users and brands to the network as it eyes off growth in the fast-paced sector.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
&#8220;The metaverse will require robust infrastructure that champions decentralization while remaining intuitive for consumers, brands, and developers,&#8221; the fund&#8217;s director Alex Russman said.
</blockquote>



Hashgraph is one of the few networks in the industry that utilizes a Directed Acyclic Graph structure. Unlike a blockchain, Hashgraph&#8217;s ledger records transactions via vertices stacked atop each other rather than along a data chain.



Due to a lack of block confirmation protocols, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/hashgraph/comments/ptemwg/charles_bad_mouthing_hedera_again_criticizing/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">critics argue</a> the network is susceptible to bad actors seeking to take advantage and influence certain nodes to transmit false data. Others argue the network is too centralized, though Hedera and HBAR dispute this, claiming both the consensus mechanism and its governance model are &#8220;<a href="https://help.hedera.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000665138-Is-the-Hedera-network-decentralized-" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">highly decentralized</a>.&#8221;



The foundation said the design choice increases transactional speed and efficiency as more transactions are added to the network. Hedera processes around 2.6 million transactions per day, with transaction finalization times of roughly 5 seconds.



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Funding

HBAR Launches $250M Metaverse Fund To Onboard Major Brands

<div id="highlights-block_9755e08425ed4ff986a43ed638ce68b8" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The HBAR Foundation said it has launched its fund to drive DeFi innovation on the Hedera Hashgraph network</li>
 <li>Non-custodial liquid staking platform Stader Labs has become one of the first developers to be awarded a grant from the fund</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The HBAR Foundation has launched its $155 million Crypto Economy Fund in an effort to drive DeFi development on the Hedera Hashgraph network.



According to a statement on Tuesday, the fund is focused on increasing accessibility into and within the network while furthering the growth of the HBAR Economy. 



The foundation is responsible for the development of the Hedera ecosystem by providing grants and other resources. Up to $60 million in grants from the fund are expected to go to decentralized exchanges which may be used as liquidity rewards, per the statement.



Non-custodial liquid staking platform Stader Labs has been awarded an undisclosed sum, among other developers. 



Liquid staking enables staked assets to be used as collateral for lending, yield farming and other DeFi (decentralized finance) opportunities while allowing users to continue accruing rewards.



Stader will attempt to create a more &#8220;secure&#8221; decentralized staking infrastructure that &#8220;evolves&#8221; the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, the foundation said.



&#8220;Our goal is to bring the DeFi ecosystem to Hedera so that users can benefit from the scale and low-cost,&#8221; said HBAR Foundation CEO Shayne Higdon. &#8220;This level of cost, performance and scale is critical as more institutions and consumers come to Hedera for issuing tokens, swapping assets, and engaging in the crypto economy.&#8221;



Hashgraph utilizes a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) structure which the foundation said increases transactional speed and efficiency as more transactions are added to the network. Hedera processes around 2.6 million transactions per day, with transaction finalization times of roughly 5 seconds. 



Other protocols using a DAG as their distributed ledger of choice, rather than a blockchain, include IOTA, Nano, and Fantom.



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