News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily News: Vest Labs has announced the completion of a $13 million seed round led by Portal Ventures, with participation from executives of Citadel Securities, BlackRock, and KKR investing in their personal capacities. The company did not disclose its post-funding valuation. Vest Labs primarily provides eligible traders with the ability to trade perpetual contracts around the clock in real markets using the company's capital, with traders allowed to keep up to 80% of profits. The funding will be used to develop a mobile app, expand the current 22-person team, and increase the variety of assets available for round-the-clock trading. As of late September, approximately 26% of the platform's roughly 27,000 traders had received cash payouts, with monthly active traders and trading volume both growing over 300% month-over-month.
Luca Netz posted on X that Abstract is gradually shutting down, and its parent company Igloo Inc. will shift all of its focus to Pudgy Penguins, Pudgy NFTs, and PENGU. Igloo has continued to provide funding support for Abstract over the past 18 months. Over its two years of operation, the project has accumulated losses in the tens of millions of dollars and has still not found product-market fit (PMF).He said that Abstract had previously processed over 300 million onchain transactions, launched Portal and AGW, and attracted multiple global brands to join, but issues such as an insufficient DeFi ecosystem, limited liquidity, low institutional participation, high costs, and declining demand for related products continued to constrain growth. In the end, Igloo Inc. could no longer continue diverting funds from the Pudgy Penguins business to support Abstract, and it did not choose to raise funds through token issuance or an ICO.
Arthur Hayes stated that U.S. policymakers may support the AI industry and government debt financing through money printing, driving cryptocurrency prices higher; if China shifts from limited tightening to large-scale monetary stimulus, it could also boost demand for scarce assets. He is also monitoring financial stress in France, including BNP Paribas-related credit default swaps and French government bond spreads.Catrina Wang, General Partner at Portal Ventures, said that banks and asset management companies have advantages in on-chain financial markets thanks to their existing client relationships. Todd McDonald, co-founder of R3, pointed out that public blockchains can help institutions reach clients beyond their own networks; Justin Kugel, Executive Vice President of Growth at World Liberty Financial, said that user demand for asset management and investment evaluation still leaves room for intermediaries.Chetan Karkhanis, Senior Vice President of Digital Asset Client Relationships at Franklin Templeton, said the company has no intention of issuing its own stablecoin and hopes tokenized money market funds will provide investment returns. Haonan Li, co-founder and CEO of Codex, said that trade routes connecting Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia are driving demand for stablecoin payments; buyers pay eastward for goods, while manufactured products flow westward.Ilya Podoynitsyn, co-founder and CEO of FinHarbor, said that before allocating to crypto assets, companies need to confirm they have long-term idle funds that will not affect daily operations. Michael Camarda, Chief Development Officer of Ethereum treasury company SharpLink, said that both buying back shares and increasing ETH holdings can raise ETH per share; the company has adopted both methods to meet the preferences of institutional and retail investors. (Cointelegraph)
Odaily News: The portal operates through limited-time subscription events, with PancakeSwap providing the event entry point and third-party service providers arranging the underlying tokenized exposure. Eligible users who complete eligibility checks and accept the relevant terms can subscribe through self-custodial wallets, with assets controlled by the users themselves.Each event page will disclose company and token information, subscription assets, offering price, implied valuation, event timing, claim arrangements, and risk disclosures. After the event concludes, participants will enter the claim or refund process according to specific rules.
Odaily News - The Pakistan Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (PVARA) has opened its licensing portal. Enterprises that provided virtual asset services on or before March 5 must apply for a No Objection Certificate (NOC) by September 5, or cease operations; continuing to operate without submitting an application after the deadline will constitute a violation of the law.The new regulations cover exchange, custody, broker-dealer, lending, derivatives, asset management, token issuance, and mining-related services. Service providers may first apply for an NOC, or enter PVARA's regulatory sandbox to test products before applying for a full license.Licensed institutions must segregate client assets from their own assets, and may not lend or stake customer assets without written consent, while also meeting requirements for governance, market conduct, cybersecurity, operational resilience, and anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing measures. PVARA has already issued NOCs to enterprises such as Binance and HTX. (Cointelegraph)