Weekly Summary: Crypto Fundraising Opens the Year Positively as 0G Foundation Secures $30M AI Node Sale

In our first edition of 2025, crypto fundraising takes centre stage with 0G Foundation raising $30 million in an AI node sale, while Movement Labs targets a $3 billion valuation in a new funding round

Jan 10, 2025

Happy New Year!🎆

It is a matter of days before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th President of the United States, yet the markets continue to experience significant volatility, with Bitcoin frequently swinging between $93k and $100k since the beginning of the year.

With Trump’s election on November 4th sparking the crypto boom that saw Bitcoin st new all-time highs, many would have expected a better level of optimism ahead of his swearing-in on January 20.

However, looking at other aspects of the market, amid the high expectations of better crypto regulation in the U.S., some stakeholders of the industry remain positive, as demonstrated by VC activity in the early days of the month.

💵Crypto Fundraising Kicks Off 2025

Web3 AI is highly anticipated to be one of the main headlines of 2025, building on the strong foundations established during 2024.

With venture capital firms having shown great interest in investing at the intersection of blockchain technology and artificial intelligence, Web3 AI is already shaping out to be an interesting vertical for investors this year.

That argument was this week supported by 0G (ZeroGravity) Foundation’s $30 million AI node sale, which saw 8,500 operators buy approximately 85,000 nodes.

But 0G’s node sale wasn’t the only Web3 money story to hit the headlines this week. ZKsync rolled out the Ignite Program, with $60 million in rewards for decentralised finance developers, while Movement Labs is reportedly raising $100 million.

0G Foundation Secures $30M Funding Round from AI Node Sale

The node sale follows 0Gs $35 million seed and pre-seed funding round announced in March 2024.
Those who participated in the node sale received NFTs that represent claims on the nodes.
Node operators will receive up to 15% of the 0G token supply over the next three years.

0G said in a statement: “By monitoring AI behaviour and detecting deviations from expected protocols or ethical standards, these nodes can help prevent AI from ‘cheating’ or acting maliciously.”

“They also play a critical role in supporting the overall robustness and censorship resistance of the 0G network by distributing control over AI alignment.”

Movement Labs Targeting $3B Valuation in New $100M Fundraising

The Series B round is reportedly being led by CoinFund with participation from Brevan Howard’s digital asset arm.
The fundraising reportedly values the Web3 company at $3 billion, Reuters reported.
It follows Movement Labs’ $38 million Series A round announced in April 2024.

The company is building an integrated blockchain network capable of handling more than 30,000 transactions per second.

ZKsync Launches Ignite Program with $60M in DeFi Incentives

The program is spread across multiple seasons with the first season receiving an allocation of $20 million and set to run from January 6 to March 31, 2025.
The incentive is part of the company’s strategy of boosting liquidity on its Era Layer 2 network.
The launch saw the Era Layer 2 network’s TVL spike by $85 million over the past 48 hours to $188 million on January 7.

AI-Driven Crypto Research Platform SoSoValue Secures $15M Series A at $200M Valuation

The company plans to use the fresh capital to launch the “Investible Spot Index Protocol SSI.”
Existing investors HSG and SmallSpark led the round with Mirana Ventures and SafePal participating.
The fundraising brings the total raised closer to $20 million following a $4.15 million seed round announced last year.
SoSoValue leverages AI algorithms that analyse data from multiple sources and present it in an “intuitive dashboard.”

Jivvva Kwan, co-founder at SoSoValue said in a statement: “ To further democratize investing, we plan to launch an open-source index creation tool, empowering professional investors to turn their unique market insights into actionable index strategies. This will enable anyone to issue their own indices, embodying SoSoValue’s commitment to information and asset equality.”

The round was backed by Wemix Pte. Ltd., Animoca Ventures, Spartan Group, Perlone Capital, Presto Labs, Flowdesk, Prometheuz, Lecca Ventures, and Efficient Frontier.
The fundraising comes shortly after ZKcandy’s open testnet launch, which “saw more than 2.4 million wallets created in just two weeks.”
The company plans to use the funding to “build the first Telegram-based EVM gaming ecosystem and develop AI agents for gaming.”

Lau Kin Wai, CEO of ZKcandy said in a statement: “Our goal is to make Web3 gaming more open and accessible to everyone. We want to bring in top games and other large IPs and create a space where users can enjoy smooth, secure, and rewarding experiences.”