A Look at Hack VC's Crypto Landscape

Beginner4/21/2024, 2:54:56 PM
The article details Hack VC, a venture capital firm focused on the cryptocurrency space founded by Alexander Pack, a former key figure at Bain Capital and Dragonfly Capital. Since its establishment in 2020, Hack VC has actively led investments in multiple crypto projects, such as Babylon, imgnAI, AltLayer, Intia, io.net, Eclipse, Elixir, etc., and rapidly expanded its influence in the crypto market in a short period. Hack VC's investment strategy includes investing in projects in infrastructure, DeFi, games, security, enterprise services and other fields. Its investment portfolio covers different stages from early seed rounds to mature projects. In addition, Hack VC also actively participates in activities such as the Blockchain Developer Conference to promote the development of crypto technology and applications.

Reposted original title: A Look at the Hack VC’s Crypto Landscape - A project that boldly leads with daring bets

Hack VC is increasingly taking a prominent position in the project financing sector. You might wonder, who exactly is behind it? The name of the fund’s founder, Alexander, may not be well-known to most people, but when it comes to the famous Bain Capital and Dragonfly Capital, everyone knows them.

Alexander previously helped launch the crypto investment business at Bain Capital and co-founded Dragonfly Capital with Feng Bo in 2018. Dragonfly was a big winner in the last cycle, making a fortune on public chains and DeFi, and is now one of the largest crypto funds in Asia.

In 2020, shortly after leaving Dragonfly, Alexander founded his fund, Hack VC, which quickly raised a $300 million seed fund, with investors including partners from Sequoia, a16z, Marc Andreessen, and Chris Dixon.

Since December last year, Hack VC has led investments in several projects including Babylon, imgnAI, AltLayer, Intia, io.net, Eclipse, and Elixir, among others, showing a very aggressive approach. Interestingly, Hack VC has not yet ventured into the NFT space.

In February this year, Hack VC completed the fundraising for a new $150 million fund, with managing partner Alex Pack telling Bloomberg that about one-third of the new fund has been deployed. Just over a month later, Hack VC is already raising at least $100 million for another fund, which will focus on seed investments in crypto startups.

On April 9th, after the Web3 Carnival in Hong Kong, the Hack.summit() 2024 blockchain developer conference, hosted by Hack VC, kicked off, attracting many industry elites, tech giants, and well-known project leaders. The theme of the conference is “Building the Future, Co-creating Value,” focusing on the latest applications, industry trends, and future development directions of blockchain technology.

It’s time to take a look at the crypto landscape of this emerging venture capital firm.

Infrastructure

Eclipse

Eclipse is a project that simplifies customizable, modular Rollup building for all users. Unlike other Rollups, which have fixed components such as virtual machines and base layers, you can easily create various forms of Rollups using Eclipse. For example, you could choose Polygon Avail as the consensus layer and data availability layer, while using SVM as the execution layer. Eclipse provides the “Eclipse settlement layer” as the settlement layer (including IBC). Rollup built using Eclipse can seamlessly connect with the Cosmos ecosystem.

In March this year, Eclipse completed US$50 million in financing. Placeholder and Hack VC co-led the investment, with participation from Polychain Capital, Delphi Digital and others.

Initia

Initia wants to create an “Apple ecosystem” in the blockchain field, aiming to eliminate the fragmented experience of multi-chain systems through vertical integration of the technology stack. Initia integrates the underlying Layer1 and Layer2 application chains (officially called “Minitias”) through the Initia Rollup framework, and promotes messaging between Minitiia through IBC. Just like in Apple, while everyone can use various frameworks to build their apps (React Native, Swift, etc.), they each have access to the same native features: ApplePay, FaceID, cross-APP communication. Initia emulates this through the offerings and inherent capabilities of modular networking.

In February this year, Initia completed US$7.5 million in financing, co-led by Delphi Ventures and Hack VC, with participation from Cobie and others. It is worth mentioning that in October 2023, Initia received a Pre-Seed investment from Binance Labs.

SX

SX Network is an independent smart contract blockchain launched using a native prediction market protocol. Designed for blockchain application developers with EVM compatibility, low-cost transactions, and a PoS-based consensus model, it consists of three core interrelated platforms: SX Bet, SX Protocol, SX Blockchain.

Gelato

Gelato Network is a Web3 automation and relay network designed to enable developers to automate the execution of arbitrary smart contracts on all compatible EVM-based blockchains. Gelato enables everyone to harness the power of the bot network to fully automate the movement of their funds between different Ethereum protocols.

Blocknative

Blocknative builds and operates critical infrastructure for monitoring and managing public chain transactions. Blocknative illuminates the “dark forest” and secures transactions.

Syndicate

Syndicate provides APIs and smart contracts to build scalable WEB3 products. It supports L3 launch with near-zero gas fees – unlocking smart gas subsidies, native gas tokens, data oracles, precompilation, and more. It was previously a decentralized investment in DAO and has now been transformed into infrastructure.

Re-staking

AltLayer

AltLayer is currently focusing on Restaked Rollups combined with EigenLayer’s re-staking service. This enables the strengthening of the security, decentralization, and user experience of Rollup public chains through EigenLayer’s Active Verification Service (AVS). Additionally, AltLayer provides temporary execution layer services suitable for specific short-term purposes, such as temporary chains for handling congestion on the Ethereum mainnet during events like Yuga Labs’ Otherdeed for Otherside NFT sale. Furthermore, AltLayer’s platform is designed for a multi-chain and multi-virtual machine world, supporting not only EVM and WASM (used by Cosmos, Polkadot, etc.) but also planning to support Solana VM (Sealevel) and Move VM.

In February this year, AltLayer completed a $14.4 million strategic round of financing, co-led by Polychain Capital and Hack VC, with participation from OKX Ventures, HashKey Capital, IOSG and others. The previous round of financing dates back to July 2022, with Polychain Capital, Jump Crypto and Breyer Capital leading the investment, Polkadot founder Gavin Wood, former Coinbase CTO and former a16z partner Balaji Srinivasan, Circle co-founder Sean Neville also participated, as did Synthetix and Bodhi Ventures co-founders Kain Warwick and Jordan Momtazi.

EigenLayer

EigenLayer allows developers to leverage Ethereum’s existing economic security infrastructure, which includes validator sets and capital. This process simplifies the creation of new networks and services by leveraging Ethereum’s already established security. The core concept is re-staking. By re-staking, EigenLayer makes Ethereum’s staked ETH and validator set available to other services and networks.

EigenLayer received US$100 million in financing from a16z this year and was led by Blockchain Capital last year, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, Hack VC, Electric Capital, IOSG and others.

Rio Network

Rio is a liquidity re-staking network, and its first liquidity re-staking token is reETH. Chorus One, Figment, HashKey Cloud, Kiln and Unit 410 are Rio’s first node operators and will operate ETH validators and maintain AVS.

Cross-chain bridge

Across

Across is a cross-chain bridging protocol that allows users to execute transactions between chains almost instantly. This is achieved through the use of oracles, bonded relays, and single-sided liquidity pools.

Nomad

Unlike validator-based cross-chain bridges, Nomad does not rely on a large number of external parties to verify cross-chain communications. Instead, it utilizes an optimistic mechanism that allows users to send messages and bridge assets securely and ensures that anyone viewing can flag fraud and protect your system.

Raven DAO

Raven DAO provides liquidity across DeFi protocols, blockchains, and centralized exchanges.

Public chain

Berachain

Berachain focuses on DeFi’s EVM compatible L1 and is built on the Cosmos SDK. It adopts the Proof of Liquidity (PoL, Proof of Liquidity) consensus mechanism. Built on Polaris EVM, its underlying operating system for EVM built on top of the Cosmos SDK. Polaris uses messaging to connect EVM and the Cosmos SDK, separating block construction, processing, and storage from execution. Polaris EVM also provides developers with state precompilation and the creation of custom modules, which developers can use to create more efficient and powerful smart contracts.

In April this year, Berachain completed US$42 million in financing. This round of financing was led by Polychain Capital, with participation from OKX Ventures, Hack VC, Dao5, Robot Ventures, Goldentree Asset Management, former partner of Dragonfly Capital and founder of Celestia Mustafa Al-Bassam, Tendermint Co-founder Zaki Manian and 20 other DeFi project founders.

SUI

SUI is an L1 public chain redesigned and built based on first principles, aiming to provide creators and developers with a development platform capable of hosting the next billion users in Web3. Applications on Sui are based on the Move smart contract language and are horizontally scalable, allowing developers to support a wide range of application development quickly and at low cost.

DeSo

DeSo is an open source social media platform public chain.

OG Labs

OG is creating a modular AI public chain designed to alleviate pain points for on-chain AI applications in the Web3 ecosystem, such as speed and cost efficiency. The OG Labs website shows that one of the products it is developing is called “Uni-Chain”, which is a Web3 architecture that seamlessly connects the network into a unified metaverse. Users can access any chain through a single wallet. Users and services conduct transactions.

In March 2024, OG Labs completed a $30 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Hack VC, with participation from Foresight Ventures, Delphi Digital, and OKX Ventures.

Layer2 Protocols

Boba

Boba Network is an Ethereum Layer2 expansion solution using Optimistic Rollup. It was created by the Enya team, a core contributor to the OMG Foundation. In addition to the basic advantages of low gas fees and high throughput brought by the Optimistic Rollup technology itself, Boba Network has also made improvements in the Layer 2 asset exit process. The improvement method is to introduce a “liquidity pool” to support liquidity. The provider adds liquidity of different assets to the chain and assists users in asset exchange across the main network and layer2 network, thus reducing the asset exit cycle of the layer2 network from at least 7 days to “minutes”.

In 2022, Boba completed a $45 million Series A financing, with participation from Crypto.com, Huobi, Hack VC and other institutions.

Fhenix

Fhenix is ​​building the first homomorphic encryption-powered L2. Homomorphic encryption is a more scalable technology for executing arbitrary confidential smart contracts, designed using an Optimistic Rollup approach.

In September 2023, Fhenix completed a US$7 million seed round of financing, led by Sora Ventures, Multicoin Capital and Collider Ventures, with participation from Bankless, HackVC and others.

Department

Tari is a digital asset-centric blockchain protocol built in Rust, privately anonymous, open source, and built as a merge-mined sidechain with Monero.

Bitcoin Ecology

Babylon

By leveraging three aspects of Bitcoin—its timestamp service, block space, and asset value—Babylon is able to deliver the security of Bitcoin to numerous Proof-of-Stake (PoS) chains, creating a more robust, unified ecosystem system. Babylon’s Bitcoin staking protocol adopts a remote staking method and overcomes the lack of smart contracts through cryptography, consensus protocol innovation and optimized use of the Bitcoin scripting language. Babylon’s staking protocol allows Bitcoin holders to credibly stake Bitcoin without the need to bridge to a PoS chain, and provides the chain with complete slashable security guarantees.

In February this year, Babylon Chain received investment from Binance Labs. In December 2023, it completed US$18 million in financing, led by Polychain Capital and Hack VC, with participation from Framework Ventures, Polygon Ventures, OKX Ventures, IOSG, etc.

Mezo

Mezo is a Layer2 Bitcoin network launched by Thesis, an entrepreneurial studio established in 2014. Mezo uses a points program called “HODL Proof” to “put into use” the originally idle Bitcoin assets in the hands of holders. The longer the Bitcoin is stored, the higher the contributor’s “HODL score multiplier.” Mezo aims to deepen the capabilities of Bitcoin’s infrastructure by assisting in enabling cheaper and faster transactions without departing from the network’s foundational principles.

In April this year, Mezo’s developer, Thesis, completed a $21 million Series A round of financing, led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Multicoin, Hack VC, Draper Associates and others.

DeFi

Derivatives

MYX

MYX is a decentralized perpetual exchange that uses the Matching Pool Mechanism (MPM) to achieve zero slippage trading and match long and short positions.

In December 2023, MYX completed a US$5 million seed round of financing, led by HongShan, with participation from Consensys, Hack VC, OKX Ventures, Foresight Ventures, Redpoint China, HashKey Capital, GSR Markets and others.

Perpetual

Perpetual is a decentralized perpetual contract trading protocol. The V3 test version has recently been launched, introducing a smart liquidity framework for on-chain derivatives, which allows users to choose pure on-chain liquidity or a combination of on-chain and off-chain solutions, emphasizing simplifying the user experience and providing flexibility. The new version improves the user experience by introducing a biometrically secure wallet, simplifying the onboarding process and creating a comprehensive platform.

Vertex

Vertex is an exchange for decentralized spot and derivatives trading on Arbitrum, supporting over 30 trading pairs. Previously, the protocol was the Terra chain ecosystem.

Blind

Cega is a derivatives protocol founded by former UBS derivatives trader Arisa Toyosaki. It is currently the first decentralized derivatives protocol for exotic derivatives in the DeFi field. It is a collective name for a series of different complex derivatives. From pricing to hedging methods to liquidity, the combination is like a kaleidoscope. You can think of individual exotic derivatives as structured products. Cega’s first exotic derivative product is a fixed coupon note (FCN), which allows investors to earn more income with a smaller probability of losing principal (and under downside protection).

Kine

Kine is a decentralized derivatives exchange that uses a layer 2 network for on-chain staking while achieving 0 gas fees and long/short transactions.

Variational

Variational is a decentralized, non-custodial bilateral derivatives inquiry platform on Arbitrum.

Liquidity Protocol

Elixir

Elixir is a modular DPoS liquidity network that enables anyone to provide liquidity directly to the order book, bringing liquidity to long-tail crypto assets, and allowing exchanges and protocols to direct liquidity on their books. Currently, the Elixir network has plans to issue the token ELX, but the token economic model has not yet been announced. According to reports, ELX has two main uses. One is for staking nodes and validators to ensure network security, and the other is used as a community governance token.

In March this year, Elixir completed an $8 million Series B round of financing. Mysten Labs and Maelstrom co-led the investment, with participation from Arthur Hayes, Amber Group, GSR and others.

Affine

Affine aims to solve the problem of impairment losses in liquidity provision, and its USD Earn provides automated diversification and yield through liquidity management strategies. In February 2023, Affine completed US$5.1 million in financing, led by Jump Crypto and Hack VC, with participation from Circle Ventures and Coinbase Ventures.

Overnight

Overnight is developing a proprietary, delta-neutral on-chain yield strategy for stablecoins.

Symbiosis Finance

Symbiosis Finance is a decentralized multi-chain liquidity protocol that aggregates liquidity from decentralized exchanges across all EVM and some non-EVM networks. It aims to solve the problem of liquidity dispersion between different chains and poor user experience when using DeFi and Web3 ecosystems.

Ante

Ante is a non-custodial incentivized testing protocol that allows anyone to tokenize their trust in the target protocol.

DEX

GRVT

As a hybrid exchange, Gravity is positioned more towards CEX, but compared to CEX, it has a slightly different core mechanism, that is, self-custody of funds. For Degen, it is easy to use MetaMask or Wallet Connect to trade, similar to dYdX Chain or GMX.

In September 2023, Gravity completed a total of more than US$7 million in financing. Matrix Partners and Delphi Digital jointly led the seed round. Other investors in this round of financing include Susquehanna Investment Group, CMS Holdings, Hack VC, Matter Labs, etc.

CowSwap

CowSwap is a decentralized trading platform built on Cow Protocol, which features MEV (Maximum Extractable Value) protection and low-fee transactions.

RWA

AlloyX

AlloyX’s Vault combines Credix Finance’s overcollateralized tokenized credit (digital tokens backed by real-world assets such as loans or debt instruments) with smart contracts that tokenize U.S. Treasury securities to provide DeFi investors with real-world asset liquidity opportunities. Lenders provide funds in the form of USDC to the vault, which aggregates the assets deposited into the tokens, which are allocated and run according to the vault’s preset parameters. By depositing USDC, users receive vault tokens based on a floating exchange rate and earn earnings. What sets AlloyX apart is its automated allocation across multiple credit protocols, where USDC is deployed according to the vault’s allocation rules.

In June 2023, AlloyX completed a $2 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Hack VC, with participation from Circle Ventures, Digital Currency Group, Strato, DAO5 and others.

Parcl

Parcl is a decentralized real estate investment platform. The platform features a combination of traditional real estate investment and blockchain technology to change users’ traditional investment methods and concepts. Parcl integrates global real estate resource data and selects a large amount of information with investment value to provide users with detailed information and price trends of global real estate. The market prices it provides are relatively real-time and representative to a certain extent. Users can use this information to analyze market dynamics on their own and earn relevant income through traditional financial methods such as buying and short selling. In April this year, the project will airdrop 7%-8% of its tokens to the community.

Its financing dates back to 2022, totalling more than $11 million, with participation from Dragonfly Capital, ParaFi, Coinbase Ventures, Solana Ventures, and Hack VC.

Superstate

Superstate, which focuses on developing regulated, compliant investment vehicles using public blockchains accessible to U.S. investors, is helmed by Compound founder Robert Leshner and has earmarked funds for team expansion to create private equity funds for institutional investors and develop a framework for tokenized public funds.

In November 2023, Superstate received US$14 million in financing, led by CoinFund and Distributed Global, with participation from CMT Digital, Folius Ventures, Galaxy Digital, HackVC and others.

Goldfinch

Goldfinch aims to raise capital for real-world businesses who are able to obtain credit financing using the Goldfinch protocol.

Midas

Midas is an asset tokenization project, and mTBILL, the first product launched by Midas, will track short-term U.S. Treasury bonds, with each mTBILL token representing one share in the BlackRock German Bond ETF.

In March this year, Midas completed a seed round of US$8.75 million, led by BlockTower Capital, Framework Ventures and HV Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Ledger, 6th Man Ventures, GSR, Hack VC, Axelar Network, Peer Capital and FJ Labs.

Lending

Archimedes

Archimedes is a BTC lending protocol that can increase the passive or leveraged income of Bitcoin holders. According to the official website, the protocol currently supports 7 types of asset pools, and the total locked position has exceeded 2.3 million US dollars. In addition, features such as BTC passive income annualized rate and maximum leverage income will be launched soon. A $4.9 million seed round was completed in February 2023, led by Hack VC.

Ajna

Ajna is a non-custodial, permissionless system that requires no oracles or governance, ensuring a high degree of decentralization and autonomy. Ajna allows the creation of markets with specific collateral and loan assets. The platform supports a variety of assets, including fungible and non-fungible tokens.

Wallet and Asset Management

CoinStats

Founded in 2017, CoinStats is a free cryptocurrency portfolio management app and DeFi wallet that supports market data from 300 cryptocurrency exchanges and manages over $500 billion in cryptocurrency. It will complete US$3.2 million in financing in 2022, led by Hack VC.

August(formerly Fractal)

Fractal enables institutions to liquidate, settle and manage collateral for on-chain digital assets, enabling transparent proof of reserves, third-party collateral management and instant on-chain settlement. Clients will be able to monitor their positions in real-time with counterparties to reduce counterparty risks.

In April 2023, August completed a US$6 million seed round of financing, led by Hack VC, with participation from CMT Digital, Blizzard Fund, Circle, The Spartan Group and others.

Demox Labs

Demox Labs provides privacy infrastructure for zero-knowledge blockchains. Demox Labs will support the development of various products for the privacy blockchain Aleo. Demox Labs’ first product is the privacy-protecting wallet Leo Wallet.

Exponential

Exponential is an investment platform that makes it easy to discover, evaluate, and invest in DeFi revenue opportunities, and it is licensed by FinCEN in the United States.

Doormat

DOORMAT is building crypto wallet key management.

Layer2 financial

Layer2 Financial aims to provide customers with compliant payments in multiple currencies, allowing users to only use one API to provide services such as collection, payment, foreign exchange and more.

Nocturne

Nocturne integrates privacy directly into the account layer, functioning similarly to a smart contract wallet and compatible with any DeFi protocol that represents state through output tokens, such as Uniswap exchange tokens, Aave aTokens, and Compound cTokens. In January of this year, Nocturne announced the impending closure of Nocturne v1, shifting its focus towards application development. The official statement indicated that they realized the transition to Layer 2 and AA must precede privacy, as users are primarily concerned about costs and user experience. The timing of privacy protection depends on the practicality of cryptocurrency, and privacy remains secondary before these major obstacles are overcome.

In October 2023, Nocturne Labs completed a $6 million seed round of financing, with Bain Capital Crypto and Polychain Capital leading the investment, and participation from Vitalik Buterin, Hack VC, Robot Ventures, among others.

MobileCoin

MobileCoin is a private payment protocol focused on providing secure and private cryptocurrency wallet services for mobile applications.

VFAT

VFAT is a minimalist mining dashboard and calculator.

Other

M^0

M^ZERO is building the first decentralized currency middleware that allows crypto institutions to mint and issue decentralized and fungible stablecoins backed by U.S. Treasuries. The protocol will go live in the second quarter of 2024, with the expected initial user base including crypto funds and market makers.

Zebec

Zebec enables real-time, frictionless and continuous payment flow. Recently, it has carried out brand upgrades, built the Zebec Network, developed DePIN and other directions.

Gaming

DeGame

DeGame is a Web3 chain game aggregation platform that contains more than 4,000 game projects in total, and cooperates with more than 1,000 blockchain game projects and game tokens, such as STEPN, Thetan Arena, etc.

Pixels

Pixels (Pixel Farm) is a social web3 game built on @Ronin_Network, launching in 2021 and reaching 180,000 DAU in 2023. Pixels recreates the atmosphere of classic 16-bit role-playing adventures, letting players navigate a pixel-art world where they interact with each other, farm land, play mini-games and earn token rewards. It also allows holders of curated NFT Profile Picture (PFP) collectibles to use their own avatars in the game.

In February 2022, Pixels completed a US$2.4 million seed round of financing, led by Animoca Brands and PKO Investments, with participation from OpenSea and others. In February this year, Pixels announced the completion of US$4.8 million in strategic financing, with participation from Framework Ventures, Yield Guild Games, Sky Mavis, Mechanism capital, Fenbushi Capital, etc., and individual investors including Nansen CEO Alex Svanenik.

Matchday

Matchday is creating a game that is simple to pick up and play for fans.

AI

imgnAI

ImgnAI’s main product, Nai, is an artificial intelligence image generation bot that allows Discord and Telegram users to generate artwork with simple text commands.

In January this year, ImgnAI completed a $1.6 million seed round led by Hack VC, with participation from Rana Capital, Selini Capital, West Ham Capital, Motus Capital and dao5.

io.net

io.net aims to provide computing power for machine learning (ML). It leverages over one million GPUs assembled from independent data centers, cryptocurrency miners, and projects like Filecoin or Render to obtain computational capabilities. Its functional product portfolio consists of three main parts: IO Cloud, IO Worker, and IO Explorer. In a recent tweet, IO announced the launch of a rewards program that will run until the end of April. Additionally, IO will introduce its token IO by the end of April.

In March of this year, io.net completed a $30 million Series A financing round, led by Hack VC, with participation from Foresight Ventures, Multicoin Capital, Delphi Digital, Solana Labs, Aptos Labs, OKX Ventures, as well as angel investors such as Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko, Aptos founder Mo Shaikh, and Avery Ching.

Ritual

Ritual aims to blend the best principles and technologies of cryptography and AI to create a system that allows for the open and permissionless creation, distribution, and improvement of AI models. Ritual will bring together a distributed network of computational nodes with model creators, allowing these creators to host their models on the nodes. Subsequently, users will be able to access any model on this network using a universal API, whether it be LLM or classical ML models, with the network possessing additional cryptographic infrastructure to ensure computational integrity and privacy.

Security

Firewall

Firewall is a security company that develops firewall solutions for blockchain networks to prevent smart contract vulnerabilities. In March this year, Firewall completed $3.7 million in pre-seed financing, co-led by North Island Ventures, Breyer Capital and Hack VC.

Veridise

VERIDISE is a blockchain security company that provides auditing and software analysis tools.

DAO

CreatorDAO

CreatorDAO is a DAO organization dedicated to accelerating creators’ careers and granting them shared access to capital, technology, and community. CreatorDAO provides creators with guidance, professional tools needed for brand development, and a community for investing in each other’s success.

In August 2022, CreatorDAO completed a $20 million seed funding round, with a16z crypto and Initialized Capital leading the investment, along with other investors including SV Angel and Hack VC.

Noble

Noble provides software for DAOS to empower organizations.

AladdinDAO

AladdinDAO is a decentralized network that shifts crypto investments from venture capitalists to the wisdom of the crowd through collective value discovery. DeFi experts identify the most promising DeFi projects and enable AladdinDAO community members to enjoy the rewards of its liquidity mining programs.

CEX

AscendtEX

AscendEX is a cryptocurrency trading platform. In May 2021, AscendEX completed a $50 million Series B financing, led by Polychain Capital and Hack VC, with participation from Jump Capital and others.

TerraCEX

TerraCEX is a cryptocurrency trading platform based in South Africa.

Creators and content

Sepana

Sepana expands people’s awareness by making Web3 content easy to discover and access. Sepana supports cross-chain and Web3 for seamless discovery of content, transactions, NFTs, DAOs, and individuals. Currently, Sepana has developed products like Ask Mirror, Lens Search, and Cloutavista, assisting users in conveniently searching for content from protocols like Mirror, Lens Protocol, and Deso.

In November 2022, Sepana completed a $10 million financing round led by Hack VC and Pitango First, with participation from Protocol Labs and Balaji Srinivasan.

Decrypt

Decrypt is an overseas blockchain media platform.

Mirror

Mirror is a decentralized cryptographic publishing platform based on blockchain technology, designed to directly connect creators with readers.

Tool application

EthSigh

EthSigh is a decentralized, versioned, and integrable ubiquitous electronic protocol signing platform.

Lit Protocol

LIT is a key management network for decentralized signing and encryption. Create applications and wallets that use anonymity without single points of failure.

Moonbounce

Moonbounce is a browser extension that provides real-time interaction, integrated rewards, and loyalty program tools for businesses and creators. It is designed to provide users with a social experience while browsing different websites, imitating the experience of real-life social media, allowing users to hang out online with friends.

Corporate services and market making

Guild

Guild provides automated membership management for WEB3 platforms and has currently onboarded hundreds of branded protocols.

Eaglebrook Advisors

Eaglebrook Advisors provides crypto solutions to institutions.

Dexterity Capital

Dexterity is an algorithmic high-frequency trading company focused on digital assets.

Consensys

Consensys is a blockchain technology company that provides Ethereum-based software and solutions to enterprises, developers and individuals. Its founder, Joseph Lubin, is also one of the co-founders of Ethereum. In addition to development and consulting services, its products include wallet MetaMask, development kit Infura, smart contract audit service Diligence, open source blockchain Quorum, etc.

Gravity Markets

Gravity Markets provides tailor-made commission management solutions managed by expert traders in the crypto asset markets to control volatility risk.

Bitwave

Bitwave provides enterprises with solutions for handling digital assets including – Tax Tracking, Automated Mark-to-Market, Crypto AR/AP, Wallets, and DeFi. A total of more than US$20 million in financing was obtained in the two rounds. The first round in 2021 was led by Blockchain Capital, and the second round in 2022 was led by Hack VC and Blockchain Capital.

Nonco

Nonco is a digital asset brokerage firm serving financial institutions and professional investors. It executes various order types, including single assets, baskets, and indices, using advanced platforms and pricing algorithms to ensure efficient execution for asset managers and traders. The company was spun off from OSL Digital Limited, the Americas division of Hong Kong-based digital asset platform OSL (Asia’s premier institutional digital asset brokerage).

In December 2023, Nonco completed a $10 million seed funding round, led by Valor Capital Group and Hack VC, with participation from Morgan Creek Digital and Bullish.

Amber Group

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Hong Kong, Amber Group is a global crypto-financial intelligence service provider with business coverage around the world and branches in Taipei, Seoul, and Vancouver.

Other

Monkey Tilt

In February this year, Monkey Tilt completed US$21 million in financing, with participation from PolyChain Capital, Hack VC, Poker Go, Accomplice, Folius Ventures and others.

Hourglass

Hourglass is a platform that provides time-bound token-related services, including staking and trading time-bound tokens. In May 2023, it completed a US$4.2 million seed round of financing, led by Electric Capital, with participating investors including Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, and Hack VC.

Republic

Republic is a crowdfunding platform founded in 2016 to provide more investment opportunities for startups, real estate, gaming, and cryptocurrencies.

Delv(Former Element)

Delv is building a decentralized protocol to provide infrastructure services for Web3. It was previously branded as the fixed-rate protocol, Element.

Moonclave

Moonclave is primarily an event company that organizes gatherings for Web3 protocol builders and investors.

Agora

Agora will issue a stablecoin called AUSD, backed by cash, US Treasury bonds, and overnight repurchase protocols. The reserve fund of Agora will be managed by ETF issuer VanEck. Agora was co-founded by Nick Van Eck, son of investment management veteran Jan Van Eck, along with cryptocurrency experts Drake Evans and Joe McGrady.

In April of this year, Agora completed a $12 million seed funding round, led by Dragonfly, with participation from General Catalyst, Hack VC, Robot Ventures, Foresight Ventures, Mirana, Mantle, Kraken Ventures, Wintermute, Galaxy, and Consensys.

Statement:

  1. This article originally titled “A Look at the Hack VC’s Crypto Landscape - A project that boldly leads with daring bets” is reproduced from [marsbit]. All copyrights belong to the original author [1912212.eth]. If you have any objection to the reprint, please contact the Gate Learn team, the team will handle it as soon as possible.

  2. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article represent only the author’s personal views and do not constitute any investment advice.

  3. Translations of the article into other languages are done by the Gate Learn team. Unless mentioned, copying, distributing, or plagiarizing the translated articles is prohibited.

A Look at Hack VC's Crypto Landscape

Beginner4/21/2024, 2:54:56 PM
The article details Hack VC, a venture capital firm focused on the cryptocurrency space founded by Alexander Pack, a former key figure at Bain Capital and Dragonfly Capital. Since its establishment in 2020, Hack VC has actively led investments in multiple crypto projects, such as Babylon, imgnAI, AltLayer, Intia, io.net, Eclipse, Elixir, etc., and rapidly expanded its influence in the crypto market in a short period. Hack VC's investment strategy includes investing in projects in infrastructure, DeFi, games, security, enterprise services and other fields. Its investment portfolio covers different stages from early seed rounds to mature projects. In addition, Hack VC also actively participates in activities such as the Blockchain Developer Conference to promote the development of crypto technology and applications.

Reposted original title: A Look at the Hack VC’s Crypto Landscape - A project that boldly leads with daring bets

Hack VC is increasingly taking a prominent position in the project financing sector. You might wonder, who exactly is behind it? The name of the fund’s founder, Alexander, may not be well-known to most people, but when it comes to the famous Bain Capital and Dragonfly Capital, everyone knows them.

Alexander previously helped launch the crypto investment business at Bain Capital and co-founded Dragonfly Capital with Feng Bo in 2018. Dragonfly was a big winner in the last cycle, making a fortune on public chains and DeFi, and is now one of the largest crypto funds in Asia.

In 2020, shortly after leaving Dragonfly, Alexander founded his fund, Hack VC, which quickly raised a $300 million seed fund, with investors including partners from Sequoia, a16z, Marc Andreessen, and Chris Dixon.

Since December last year, Hack VC has led investments in several projects including Babylon, imgnAI, AltLayer, Intia, io.net, Eclipse, and Elixir, among others, showing a very aggressive approach. Interestingly, Hack VC has not yet ventured into the NFT space.

In February this year, Hack VC completed the fundraising for a new $150 million fund, with managing partner Alex Pack telling Bloomberg that about one-third of the new fund has been deployed. Just over a month later, Hack VC is already raising at least $100 million for another fund, which will focus on seed investments in crypto startups.

On April 9th, after the Web3 Carnival in Hong Kong, the Hack.summit() 2024 blockchain developer conference, hosted by Hack VC, kicked off, attracting many industry elites, tech giants, and well-known project leaders. The theme of the conference is “Building the Future, Co-creating Value,” focusing on the latest applications, industry trends, and future development directions of blockchain technology.

It’s time to take a look at the crypto landscape of this emerging venture capital firm.

Infrastructure

Eclipse

Eclipse is a project that simplifies customizable, modular Rollup building for all users. Unlike other Rollups, which have fixed components such as virtual machines and base layers, you can easily create various forms of Rollups using Eclipse. For example, you could choose Polygon Avail as the consensus layer and data availability layer, while using SVM as the execution layer. Eclipse provides the “Eclipse settlement layer” as the settlement layer (including IBC). Rollup built using Eclipse can seamlessly connect with the Cosmos ecosystem.

In March this year, Eclipse completed US$50 million in financing. Placeholder and Hack VC co-led the investment, with participation from Polychain Capital, Delphi Digital and others.

Initia

Initia wants to create an “Apple ecosystem” in the blockchain field, aiming to eliminate the fragmented experience of multi-chain systems through vertical integration of the technology stack. Initia integrates the underlying Layer1 and Layer2 application chains (officially called “Minitias”) through the Initia Rollup framework, and promotes messaging between Minitiia through IBC. Just like in Apple, while everyone can use various frameworks to build their apps (React Native, Swift, etc.), they each have access to the same native features: ApplePay, FaceID, cross-APP communication. Initia emulates this through the offerings and inherent capabilities of modular networking.

In February this year, Initia completed US$7.5 million in financing, co-led by Delphi Ventures and Hack VC, with participation from Cobie and others. It is worth mentioning that in October 2023, Initia received a Pre-Seed investment from Binance Labs.

SX

SX Network is an independent smart contract blockchain launched using a native prediction market protocol. Designed for blockchain application developers with EVM compatibility, low-cost transactions, and a PoS-based consensus model, it consists of three core interrelated platforms: SX Bet, SX Protocol, SX Blockchain.

Gelato

Gelato Network is a Web3 automation and relay network designed to enable developers to automate the execution of arbitrary smart contracts on all compatible EVM-based blockchains. Gelato enables everyone to harness the power of the bot network to fully automate the movement of their funds between different Ethereum protocols.

Blocknative

Blocknative builds and operates critical infrastructure for monitoring and managing public chain transactions. Blocknative illuminates the “dark forest” and secures transactions.

Syndicate

Syndicate provides APIs and smart contracts to build scalable WEB3 products. It supports L3 launch with near-zero gas fees – unlocking smart gas subsidies, native gas tokens, data oracles, precompilation, and more. It was previously a decentralized investment in DAO and has now been transformed into infrastructure.

Re-staking

AltLayer

AltLayer is currently focusing on Restaked Rollups combined with EigenLayer’s re-staking service. This enables the strengthening of the security, decentralization, and user experience of Rollup public chains through EigenLayer’s Active Verification Service (AVS). Additionally, AltLayer provides temporary execution layer services suitable for specific short-term purposes, such as temporary chains for handling congestion on the Ethereum mainnet during events like Yuga Labs’ Otherdeed for Otherside NFT sale. Furthermore, AltLayer’s platform is designed for a multi-chain and multi-virtual machine world, supporting not only EVM and WASM (used by Cosmos, Polkadot, etc.) but also planning to support Solana VM (Sealevel) and Move VM.

In February this year, AltLayer completed a $14.4 million strategic round of financing, co-led by Polychain Capital and Hack VC, with participation from OKX Ventures, HashKey Capital, IOSG and others. The previous round of financing dates back to July 2022, with Polychain Capital, Jump Crypto and Breyer Capital leading the investment, Polkadot founder Gavin Wood, former Coinbase CTO and former a16z partner Balaji Srinivasan, Circle co-founder Sean Neville also participated, as did Synthetix and Bodhi Ventures co-founders Kain Warwick and Jordan Momtazi.

EigenLayer

EigenLayer allows developers to leverage Ethereum’s existing economic security infrastructure, which includes validator sets and capital. This process simplifies the creation of new networks and services by leveraging Ethereum’s already established security. The core concept is re-staking. By re-staking, EigenLayer makes Ethereum’s staked ETH and validator set available to other services and networks.

EigenLayer received US$100 million in financing from a16z this year and was led by Blockchain Capital last year, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, Hack VC, Electric Capital, IOSG and others.

Rio Network

Rio is a liquidity re-staking network, and its first liquidity re-staking token is reETH. Chorus One, Figment, HashKey Cloud, Kiln and Unit 410 are Rio’s first node operators and will operate ETH validators and maintain AVS.

Cross-chain bridge

Across

Across is a cross-chain bridging protocol that allows users to execute transactions between chains almost instantly. This is achieved through the use of oracles, bonded relays, and single-sided liquidity pools.

Nomad

Unlike validator-based cross-chain bridges, Nomad does not rely on a large number of external parties to verify cross-chain communications. Instead, it utilizes an optimistic mechanism that allows users to send messages and bridge assets securely and ensures that anyone viewing can flag fraud and protect your system.

Raven DAO

Raven DAO provides liquidity across DeFi protocols, blockchains, and centralized exchanges.

Public chain

Berachain

Berachain focuses on DeFi’s EVM compatible L1 and is built on the Cosmos SDK. It adopts the Proof of Liquidity (PoL, Proof of Liquidity) consensus mechanism. Built on Polaris EVM, its underlying operating system for EVM built on top of the Cosmos SDK. Polaris uses messaging to connect EVM and the Cosmos SDK, separating block construction, processing, and storage from execution. Polaris EVM also provides developers with state precompilation and the creation of custom modules, which developers can use to create more efficient and powerful smart contracts.

In April this year, Berachain completed US$42 million in financing. This round of financing was led by Polychain Capital, with participation from OKX Ventures, Hack VC, Dao5, Robot Ventures, Goldentree Asset Management, former partner of Dragonfly Capital and founder of Celestia Mustafa Al-Bassam, Tendermint Co-founder Zaki Manian and 20 other DeFi project founders.

SUI

SUI is an L1 public chain redesigned and built based on first principles, aiming to provide creators and developers with a development platform capable of hosting the next billion users in Web3. Applications on Sui are based on the Move smart contract language and are horizontally scalable, allowing developers to support a wide range of application development quickly and at low cost.

DeSo

DeSo is an open source social media platform public chain.

OG Labs

OG is creating a modular AI public chain designed to alleviate pain points for on-chain AI applications in the Web3 ecosystem, such as speed and cost efficiency. The OG Labs website shows that one of the products it is developing is called “Uni-Chain”, which is a Web3 architecture that seamlessly connects the network into a unified metaverse. Users can access any chain through a single wallet. Users and services conduct transactions.

In March 2024, OG Labs completed a $30 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Hack VC, with participation from Foresight Ventures, Delphi Digital, and OKX Ventures.

Layer2 Protocols

Boba

Boba Network is an Ethereum Layer2 expansion solution using Optimistic Rollup. It was created by the Enya team, a core contributor to the OMG Foundation. In addition to the basic advantages of low gas fees and high throughput brought by the Optimistic Rollup technology itself, Boba Network has also made improvements in the Layer 2 asset exit process. The improvement method is to introduce a “liquidity pool” to support liquidity. The provider adds liquidity of different assets to the chain and assists users in asset exchange across the main network and layer2 network, thus reducing the asset exit cycle of the layer2 network from at least 7 days to “minutes”.

In 2022, Boba completed a $45 million Series A financing, with participation from Crypto.com, Huobi, Hack VC and other institutions.

Fhenix

Fhenix is ​​building the first homomorphic encryption-powered L2. Homomorphic encryption is a more scalable technology for executing arbitrary confidential smart contracts, designed using an Optimistic Rollup approach.

In September 2023, Fhenix completed a US$7 million seed round of financing, led by Sora Ventures, Multicoin Capital and Collider Ventures, with participation from Bankless, HackVC and others.

Department

Tari is a digital asset-centric blockchain protocol built in Rust, privately anonymous, open source, and built as a merge-mined sidechain with Monero.

Bitcoin Ecology

Babylon

By leveraging three aspects of Bitcoin—its timestamp service, block space, and asset value—Babylon is able to deliver the security of Bitcoin to numerous Proof-of-Stake (PoS) chains, creating a more robust, unified ecosystem system. Babylon’s Bitcoin staking protocol adopts a remote staking method and overcomes the lack of smart contracts through cryptography, consensus protocol innovation and optimized use of the Bitcoin scripting language. Babylon’s staking protocol allows Bitcoin holders to credibly stake Bitcoin without the need to bridge to a PoS chain, and provides the chain with complete slashable security guarantees.

In February this year, Babylon Chain received investment from Binance Labs. In December 2023, it completed US$18 million in financing, led by Polychain Capital and Hack VC, with participation from Framework Ventures, Polygon Ventures, OKX Ventures, IOSG, etc.

Mezo

Mezo is a Layer2 Bitcoin network launched by Thesis, an entrepreneurial studio established in 2014. Mezo uses a points program called “HODL Proof” to “put into use” the originally idle Bitcoin assets in the hands of holders. The longer the Bitcoin is stored, the higher the contributor’s “HODL score multiplier.” Mezo aims to deepen the capabilities of Bitcoin’s infrastructure by assisting in enabling cheaper and faster transactions without departing from the network’s foundational principles.

In April this year, Mezo’s developer, Thesis, completed a $21 million Series A round of financing, led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Multicoin, Hack VC, Draper Associates and others.

DeFi

Derivatives

MYX

MYX is a decentralized perpetual exchange that uses the Matching Pool Mechanism (MPM) to achieve zero slippage trading and match long and short positions.

In December 2023, MYX completed a US$5 million seed round of financing, led by HongShan, with participation from Consensys, Hack VC, OKX Ventures, Foresight Ventures, Redpoint China, HashKey Capital, GSR Markets and others.

Perpetual

Perpetual is a decentralized perpetual contract trading protocol. The V3 test version has recently been launched, introducing a smart liquidity framework for on-chain derivatives, which allows users to choose pure on-chain liquidity or a combination of on-chain and off-chain solutions, emphasizing simplifying the user experience and providing flexibility. The new version improves the user experience by introducing a biometrically secure wallet, simplifying the onboarding process and creating a comprehensive platform.

Vertex

Vertex is an exchange for decentralized spot and derivatives trading on Arbitrum, supporting over 30 trading pairs. Previously, the protocol was the Terra chain ecosystem.

Blind

Cega is a derivatives protocol founded by former UBS derivatives trader Arisa Toyosaki. It is currently the first decentralized derivatives protocol for exotic derivatives in the DeFi field. It is a collective name for a series of different complex derivatives. From pricing to hedging methods to liquidity, the combination is like a kaleidoscope. You can think of individual exotic derivatives as structured products. Cega’s first exotic derivative product is a fixed coupon note (FCN), which allows investors to earn more income with a smaller probability of losing principal (and under downside protection).

Kine

Kine is a decentralized derivatives exchange that uses a layer 2 network for on-chain staking while achieving 0 gas fees and long/short transactions.

Variational

Variational is a decentralized, non-custodial bilateral derivatives inquiry platform on Arbitrum.

Liquidity Protocol

Elixir

Elixir is a modular DPoS liquidity network that enables anyone to provide liquidity directly to the order book, bringing liquidity to long-tail crypto assets, and allowing exchanges and protocols to direct liquidity on their books. Currently, the Elixir network has plans to issue the token ELX, but the token economic model has not yet been announced. According to reports, ELX has two main uses. One is for staking nodes and validators to ensure network security, and the other is used as a community governance token.

In March this year, Elixir completed an $8 million Series B round of financing. Mysten Labs and Maelstrom co-led the investment, with participation from Arthur Hayes, Amber Group, GSR and others.

Affine

Affine aims to solve the problem of impairment losses in liquidity provision, and its USD Earn provides automated diversification and yield through liquidity management strategies. In February 2023, Affine completed US$5.1 million in financing, led by Jump Crypto and Hack VC, with participation from Circle Ventures and Coinbase Ventures.

Overnight

Overnight is developing a proprietary, delta-neutral on-chain yield strategy for stablecoins.

Symbiosis Finance

Symbiosis Finance is a decentralized multi-chain liquidity protocol that aggregates liquidity from decentralized exchanges across all EVM and some non-EVM networks. It aims to solve the problem of liquidity dispersion between different chains and poor user experience when using DeFi and Web3 ecosystems.

Ante

Ante is a non-custodial incentivized testing protocol that allows anyone to tokenize their trust in the target protocol.

DEX

GRVT

As a hybrid exchange, Gravity is positioned more towards CEX, but compared to CEX, it has a slightly different core mechanism, that is, self-custody of funds. For Degen, it is easy to use MetaMask or Wallet Connect to trade, similar to dYdX Chain or GMX.

In September 2023, Gravity completed a total of more than US$7 million in financing. Matrix Partners and Delphi Digital jointly led the seed round. Other investors in this round of financing include Susquehanna Investment Group, CMS Holdings, Hack VC, Matter Labs, etc.

CowSwap

CowSwap is a decentralized trading platform built on Cow Protocol, which features MEV (Maximum Extractable Value) protection and low-fee transactions.

RWA

AlloyX

AlloyX’s Vault combines Credix Finance’s overcollateralized tokenized credit (digital tokens backed by real-world assets such as loans or debt instruments) with smart contracts that tokenize U.S. Treasury securities to provide DeFi investors with real-world asset liquidity opportunities. Lenders provide funds in the form of USDC to the vault, which aggregates the assets deposited into the tokens, which are allocated and run according to the vault’s preset parameters. By depositing USDC, users receive vault tokens based on a floating exchange rate and earn earnings. What sets AlloyX apart is its automated allocation across multiple credit protocols, where USDC is deployed according to the vault’s allocation rules.

In June 2023, AlloyX completed a $2 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Hack VC, with participation from Circle Ventures, Digital Currency Group, Strato, DAO5 and others.

Parcl

Parcl is a decentralized real estate investment platform. The platform features a combination of traditional real estate investment and blockchain technology to change users’ traditional investment methods and concepts. Parcl integrates global real estate resource data and selects a large amount of information with investment value to provide users with detailed information and price trends of global real estate. The market prices it provides are relatively real-time and representative to a certain extent. Users can use this information to analyze market dynamics on their own and earn relevant income through traditional financial methods such as buying and short selling. In April this year, the project will airdrop 7%-8% of its tokens to the community.

Its financing dates back to 2022, totalling more than $11 million, with participation from Dragonfly Capital, ParaFi, Coinbase Ventures, Solana Ventures, and Hack VC.

Superstate

Superstate, which focuses on developing regulated, compliant investment vehicles using public blockchains accessible to U.S. investors, is helmed by Compound founder Robert Leshner and has earmarked funds for team expansion to create private equity funds for institutional investors and develop a framework for tokenized public funds.

In November 2023, Superstate received US$14 million in financing, led by CoinFund and Distributed Global, with participation from CMT Digital, Folius Ventures, Galaxy Digital, HackVC and others.

Goldfinch

Goldfinch aims to raise capital for real-world businesses who are able to obtain credit financing using the Goldfinch protocol.

Midas

Midas is an asset tokenization project, and mTBILL, the first product launched by Midas, will track short-term U.S. Treasury bonds, with each mTBILL token representing one share in the BlackRock German Bond ETF.

In March this year, Midas completed a seed round of US$8.75 million, led by BlockTower Capital, Framework Ventures and HV Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Ledger, 6th Man Ventures, GSR, Hack VC, Axelar Network, Peer Capital and FJ Labs.

Lending

Archimedes

Archimedes is a BTC lending protocol that can increase the passive or leveraged income of Bitcoin holders. According to the official website, the protocol currently supports 7 types of asset pools, and the total locked position has exceeded 2.3 million US dollars. In addition, features such as BTC passive income annualized rate and maximum leverage income will be launched soon. A $4.9 million seed round was completed in February 2023, led by Hack VC.

Ajna

Ajna is a non-custodial, permissionless system that requires no oracles or governance, ensuring a high degree of decentralization and autonomy. Ajna allows the creation of markets with specific collateral and loan assets. The platform supports a variety of assets, including fungible and non-fungible tokens.

Wallet and Asset Management

CoinStats

Founded in 2017, CoinStats is a free cryptocurrency portfolio management app and DeFi wallet that supports market data from 300 cryptocurrency exchanges and manages over $500 billion in cryptocurrency. It will complete US$3.2 million in financing in 2022, led by Hack VC.

August(formerly Fractal)

Fractal enables institutions to liquidate, settle and manage collateral for on-chain digital assets, enabling transparent proof of reserves, third-party collateral management and instant on-chain settlement. Clients will be able to monitor their positions in real-time with counterparties to reduce counterparty risks.

In April 2023, August completed a US$6 million seed round of financing, led by Hack VC, with participation from CMT Digital, Blizzard Fund, Circle, The Spartan Group and others.

Demox Labs

Demox Labs provides privacy infrastructure for zero-knowledge blockchains. Demox Labs will support the development of various products for the privacy blockchain Aleo. Demox Labs’ first product is the privacy-protecting wallet Leo Wallet.

Exponential

Exponential is an investment platform that makes it easy to discover, evaluate, and invest in DeFi revenue opportunities, and it is licensed by FinCEN in the United States.

Doormat

DOORMAT is building crypto wallet key management.

Layer2 financial

Layer2 Financial aims to provide customers with compliant payments in multiple currencies, allowing users to only use one API to provide services such as collection, payment, foreign exchange and more.

Nocturne

Nocturne integrates privacy directly into the account layer, functioning similarly to a smart contract wallet and compatible with any DeFi protocol that represents state through output tokens, such as Uniswap exchange tokens, Aave aTokens, and Compound cTokens. In January of this year, Nocturne announced the impending closure of Nocturne v1, shifting its focus towards application development. The official statement indicated that they realized the transition to Layer 2 and AA must precede privacy, as users are primarily concerned about costs and user experience. The timing of privacy protection depends on the practicality of cryptocurrency, and privacy remains secondary before these major obstacles are overcome.

In October 2023, Nocturne Labs completed a $6 million seed round of financing, with Bain Capital Crypto and Polychain Capital leading the investment, and participation from Vitalik Buterin, Hack VC, Robot Ventures, among others.

MobileCoin

MobileCoin is a private payment protocol focused on providing secure and private cryptocurrency wallet services for mobile applications.

VFAT

VFAT is a minimalist mining dashboard and calculator.

Other

M^0

M^ZERO is building the first decentralized currency middleware that allows crypto institutions to mint and issue decentralized and fungible stablecoins backed by U.S. Treasuries. The protocol will go live in the second quarter of 2024, with the expected initial user base including crypto funds and market makers.

Zebec

Zebec enables real-time, frictionless and continuous payment flow. Recently, it has carried out brand upgrades, built the Zebec Network, developed DePIN and other directions.

Gaming

DeGame

DeGame is a Web3 chain game aggregation platform that contains more than 4,000 game projects in total, and cooperates with more than 1,000 blockchain game projects and game tokens, such as STEPN, Thetan Arena, etc.

Pixels

Pixels (Pixel Farm) is a social web3 game built on @Ronin_Network, launching in 2021 and reaching 180,000 DAU in 2023. Pixels recreates the atmosphere of classic 16-bit role-playing adventures, letting players navigate a pixel-art world where they interact with each other, farm land, play mini-games and earn token rewards. It also allows holders of curated NFT Profile Picture (PFP) collectibles to use their own avatars in the game.

In February 2022, Pixels completed a US$2.4 million seed round of financing, led by Animoca Brands and PKO Investments, with participation from OpenSea and others. In February this year, Pixels announced the completion of US$4.8 million in strategic financing, with participation from Framework Ventures, Yield Guild Games, Sky Mavis, Mechanism capital, Fenbushi Capital, etc., and individual investors including Nansen CEO Alex Svanenik.

Matchday

Matchday is creating a game that is simple to pick up and play for fans.

AI

imgnAI

ImgnAI’s main product, Nai, is an artificial intelligence image generation bot that allows Discord and Telegram users to generate artwork with simple text commands.

In January this year, ImgnAI completed a $1.6 million seed round led by Hack VC, with participation from Rana Capital, Selini Capital, West Ham Capital, Motus Capital and dao5.

io.net

io.net aims to provide computing power for machine learning (ML). It leverages over one million GPUs assembled from independent data centers, cryptocurrency miners, and projects like Filecoin or Render to obtain computational capabilities. Its functional product portfolio consists of three main parts: IO Cloud, IO Worker, and IO Explorer. In a recent tweet, IO announced the launch of a rewards program that will run until the end of April. Additionally, IO will introduce its token IO by the end of April.

In March of this year, io.net completed a $30 million Series A financing round, led by Hack VC, with participation from Foresight Ventures, Multicoin Capital, Delphi Digital, Solana Labs, Aptos Labs, OKX Ventures, as well as angel investors such as Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko, Aptos founder Mo Shaikh, and Avery Ching.

Ritual

Ritual aims to blend the best principles and technologies of cryptography and AI to create a system that allows for the open and permissionless creation, distribution, and improvement of AI models. Ritual will bring together a distributed network of computational nodes with model creators, allowing these creators to host their models on the nodes. Subsequently, users will be able to access any model on this network using a universal API, whether it be LLM or classical ML models, with the network possessing additional cryptographic infrastructure to ensure computational integrity and privacy.

Security

Firewall

Firewall is a security company that develops firewall solutions for blockchain networks to prevent smart contract vulnerabilities. In March this year, Firewall completed $3.7 million in pre-seed financing, co-led by North Island Ventures, Breyer Capital and Hack VC.

Veridise

VERIDISE is a blockchain security company that provides auditing and software analysis tools.

DAO

CreatorDAO

CreatorDAO is a DAO organization dedicated to accelerating creators’ careers and granting them shared access to capital, technology, and community. CreatorDAO provides creators with guidance, professional tools needed for brand development, and a community for investing in each other’s success.

In August 2022, CreatorDAO completed a $20 million seed funding round, with a16z crypto and Initialized Capital leading the investment, along with other investors including SV Angel and Hack VC.

Noble

Noble provides software for DAOS to empower organizations.

AladdinDAO

AladdinDAO is a decentralized network that shifts crypto investments from venture capitalists to the wisdom of the crowd through collective value discovery. DeFi experts identify the most promising DeFi projects and enable AladdinDAO community members to enjoy the rewards of its liquidity mining programs.

CEX

AscendtEX

AscendEX is a cryptocurrency trading platform. In May 2021, AscendEX completed a $50 million Series B financing, led by Polychain Capital and Hack VC, with participation from Jump Capital and others.

TerraCEX

TerraCEX is a cryptocurrency trading platform based in South Africa.

Creators and content

Sepana

Sepana expands people’s awareness by making Web3 content easy to discover and access. Sepana supports cross-chain and Web3 for seamless discovery of content, transactions, NFTs, DAOs, and individuals. Currently, Sepana has developed products like Ask Mirror, Lens Search, and Cloutavista, assisting users in conveniently searching for content from protocols like Mirror, Lens Protocol, and Deso.

In November 2022, Sepana completed a $10 million financing round led by Hack VC and Pitango First, with participation from Protocol Labs and Balaji Srinivasan.

Decrypt

Decrypt is an overseas blockchain media platform.

Mirror

Mirror is a decentralized cryptographic publishing platform based on blockchain technology, designed to directly connect creators with readers.

Tool application

EthSigh

EthSigh is a decentralized, versioned, and integrable ubiquitous electronic protocol signing platform.

Lit Protocol

LIT is a key management network for decentralized signing and encryption. Create applications and wallets that use anonymity without single points of failure.

Moonbounce

Moonbounce is a browser extension that provides real-time interaction, integrated rewards, and loyalty program tools for businesses and creators. It is designed to provide users with a social experience while browsing different websites, imitating the experience of real-life social media, allowing users to hang out online with friends.

Corporate services and market making

Guild

Guild provides automated membership management for WEB3 platforms and has currently onboarded hundreds of branded protocols.

Eaglebrook Advisors

Eaglebrook Advisors provides crypto solutions to institutions.

Dexterity Capital

Dexterity is an algorithmic high-frequency trading company focused on digital assets.

Consensys

Consensys is a blockchain technology company that provides Ethereum-based software and solutions to enterprises, developers and individuals. Its founder, Joseph Lubin, is also one of the co-founders of Ethereum. In addition to development and consulting services, its products include wallet MetaMask, development kit Infura, smart contract audit service Diligence, open source blockchain Quorum, etc.

Gravity Markets

Gravity Markets provides tailor-made commission management solutions managed by expert traders in the crypto asset markets to control volatility risk.

Bitwave

Bitwave provides enterprises with solutions for handling digital assets including – Tax Tracking, Automated Mark-to-Market, Crypto AR/AP, Wallets, and DeFi. A total of more than US$20 million in financing was obtained in the two rounds. The first round in 2021 was led by Blockchain Capital, and the second round in 2022 was led by Hack VC and Blockchain Capital.

Nonco

Nonco is a digital asset brokerage firm serving financial institutions and professional investors. It executes various order types, including single assets, baskets, and indices, using advanced platforms and pricing algorithms to ensure efficient execution for asset managers and traders. The company was spun off from OSL Digital Limited, the Americas division of Hong Kong-based digital asset platform OSL (Asia’s premier institutional digital asset brokerage).

In December 2023, Nonco completed a $10 million seed funding round, led by Valor Capital Group and Hack VC, with participation from Morgan Creek Digital and Bullish.

Amber Group

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Hong Kong, Amber Group is a global crypto-financial intelligence service provider with business coverage around the world and branches in Taipei, Seoul, and Vancouver.

Other

Monkey Tilt

In February this year, Monkey Tilt completed US$21 million in financing, with participation from PolyChain Capital, Hack VC, Poker Go, Accomplice, Folius Ventures and others.

Hourglass

Hourglass is a platform that provides time-bound token-related services, including staking and trading time-bound tokens. In May 2023, it completed a US$4.2 million seed round of financing, led by Electric Capital, with participating investors including Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, and Hack VC.

Republic

Republic is a crowdfunding platform founded in 2016 to provide more investment opportunities for startups, real estate, gaming, and cryptocurrencies.

Delv(Former Element)

Delv is building a decentralized protocol to provide infrastructure services for Web3. It was previously branded as the fixed-rate protocol, Element.

Moonclave

Moonclave is primarily an event company that organizes gatherings for Web3 protocol builders and investors.

Agora

Agora will issue a stablecoin called AUSD, backed by cash, US Treasury bonds, and overnight repurchase protocols. The reserve fund of Agora will be managed by ETF issuer VanEck. Agora was co-founded by Nick Van Eck, son of investment management veteran Jan Van Eck, along with cryptocurrency experts Drake Evans and Joe McGrady.

In April of this year, Agora completed a $12 million seed funding round, led by Dragonfly, with participation from General Catalyst, Hack VC, Robot Ventures, Foresight Ventures, Mirana, Mantle, Kraken Ventures, Wintermute, Galaxy, and Consensys.

Statement:

  1. This article originally titled “A Look at the Hack VC’s Crypto Landscape - A project that boldly leads with daring bets” is reproduced from [marsbit]. All copyrights belong to the original author [1912212.eth]. If you have any objection to the reprint, please contact the Gate Learn team, the team will handle it as soon as possible.

  2. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article represent only the author’s personal views and do not constitute any investment advice.

  3. Translations of the article into other languages are done by the Gate Learn team. Unless mentioned, copying, distributing, or plagiarizing the translated articles is prohibited.

Start Now
Sign up and get a
$100
Voucher!