Weekly Summary: Web3 AI, Solana NFTs and Bitcoin Take Center Stage
In this week’s edition, three blockchain companies look to disrupt the AI industry, a gold miner eyes purchase of $1.7B in Bitcoin and Solana NFTs experience a surge in transaction volume.
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Three Blockchain Companies Propose Merger to Form Decentralised AI Entity Worth $7.5 Billion
Fetch.ai, Ocean Protocol, and SingularityNET announced plans to merge their tokens, forming “the largest open-sourced independent player in AI research and development.”
The three blockchain companies are uniting to create what they call the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance, which will result in the formation of an entity valued at about $7.5 billion based on the combined fully diluted market capitalisation of their tokens on Monday.
The companies submitted the proposal for the merger to their respective governance members on March 27, 2024.
Modular AI Chain 0G Secures $35M to Build Scaling Infrastructure for On-Chain AI Apps
0G, shortform for ZeroGravity will use the funds to accelerate the development of its on-chain scaling infrastructure for AI-powered Web3 applications.
The pre-seed round attracted participation from more than 40 Web3 VCs including Hack VC, Stanford Builders Fund, Alliance, Orange, Symbolic Capital, and Delphi Digital.
Gold Miner Nilam Resources Commits to Buy 24,800 Bitcoins in Major Foray to Crypto
The South American gold mining company entered into a Letter of Intent (LOI) with XyberData Ltd to acquire 100% stock of a special purpose entity MindWave, which is to be established in Mauritius.
The entity will hold 24,800 Bitcoins, which based on the prevailing price of Bitcoin at the time of writing valued the acquisition at $1.7 billion. Nilam said the acquisition represented over $1 billion in digital assets.
Recently Announced
Midas Introduces Real-World Asset Tokenisation Platform with $8.75M Funding from BlockTower, Framework, HV Capital and Others
The fundraising also attracted participation from Coinbase Ventures, GSR, Hack VC, Ledger, FJ Labs, Lattice Capital, and Theia Ventures among others.
The company also announced the launch of the $mTBILL, a stablecoin that will enable users to earn US T-Bills yield on-chain.
Parallel Secures $35M Funding Round for Sci-Fi NFT Card Game
The round was backed by Distributed Global, VanEck, Solana Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, Synergis and Spartan Group, among others.
Parallel’s NFT card game launched on open beta at the end of February. It plans to use the fresh capital to “expand the Parallel universe across new mediums and platforms.”
Dragonfly Leads $11M Pre-Series A Round for Web3 AI Platform MyShell
The round also attracted participation from Delphi Ventures, Bankless Ventures, Maven11 Capital, Nascent, Nomad Capital and OKX Ventures.
MyShell is building a Web3 AI platform where creators can build artificial intelligence agents and bots that can be used by consumers to create different types of content including voice cloning programs and text-to-speech bots.
Peaq Ramps Up the Development of Its DePIN Layer with $15M Pre-Launch Funding
Generative Ventures and Borderless Capital led the round with participation from Spartan Group, Animoca Brands, CMCC Global, HV Capital, NGC Ventures, TRGC, DWF Labs, Agnostic Fund, Crit Ventures, Cogitent Ventures, Moonrock Capital, Fundamental Labs and Altana Wealth, among others.
Peaq plans to use the funds to accelerate the development of its modular DePIN functions and SDK.
Some of the applications already using peaq’s decentralised physical networks (DePINs) include Silencio – a smartphone app that measures noise pollution, ELOOP – a fleet of tokenized car-sharing Teslas, and Wingbits – a community network that tracks flights, with contributors rewarded for their valuable data.
Castle Island Ventures Leads $10M Seed Round for Bitcoin and Ethereum-Powered L2 BOB
The fundraising also attracted participation from Mechanism Ventures, Bankless Ventures, CMS Ventures, UTXO Management, Asymmetric, Antalpha, Web3.com Ventures, BTC Frontier Fund, and Zeeprime, with Dan Held and Domo joining as angel investors.
Build on Bitcoin (BOB) said it will use the funds to support the rollout of the first Bitcoin L2 with EVM compatibility as it looks to accelerate innovation on the network and the Bitcoin dApp ecosystem.
On-Chain NFTs
Solana NFT marketplaces record a 35% increase in transaction volume
During the past 3 weeks, Solana NFT marketplaces, Magic Eden and Tensor, saw over $248M in volume from 1.3M trades, which marks a 35% volume increase, while a 40% decrease in the amount of transactions vs. the previous 3 weeks.
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