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Huma Finance raises $38m, Fuse gets $12m

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At least 19 startups raised venture capital funds over the past seven days, with the largest round going to Huma Finance, a tokenized real-world assets platform.

Huma announced on Sept. 11 that it received $38 million in a fund-raising effort led by Distributed Global. Hashkey Capital, the Stellar Foundation, Folius Ventures, and Turkish private bank İşbank also participated.

The company plans to use the $10 million in equity financing and $28 million via yield-bearing RWAs to expand its PayFi network globally. It also plans to go live on Solana (SOL) and Stellar (XLM)’s smart contracts network in coming months.

This week’s crypto VC funding column pulls the latest announcements from X.com and the investment tracker, Crypto Fundraising. Here’s what was announced between Sept. 8 and Sept. 14:

Fuse (Project Zero), $12 million

Fuse, a London-based decentralized renewable energy developer, secured $12 million in a funding round led by Multicoin Capital.

PIN AI, $10 million

PIN AI, an AI infrastructure company, confirmed $10 million in pre-seed funding. The startup aims to develop the world’s first open-source Personal Intelligence Network (PIN).

The list of backers includes: A16z CSX, Hack VC, Blockchain Builders Fund (Stanford Blockchain Accelerator), NEAR Protocol founder Illia Polosukhin, SOL Foundation president Lily Liu, Symbolic Capital, Mysten CEO Evan Cheng, dcbuilder (Worldcoin Foundation), Foresight Ventures, Nomad Capital, Cresta co-founder Tim Shi, Espresso CEO Ben Fisch, Gitcoin co-founder Scott Moore, Alumni Ventures, and Dispersion Capital.

DRiP, $8 million

Drip Labs, the startup behind Solana-based creator platform DRiP, collected $8 million in seed funding on Sept. 9. NFX led the effort. Coinbase Ventures and Progression also drew participated.

Nytro Lab (Castile) CAST, $8 million

Hong Kong-based developer Nytro Lab nabbed $8 million in funds. Proceeds will likely go toward Nytro Lab’s inaugural blockchain game, Castile, which entered beta testing on Sept. 10.

SevenX and OKX Ventures led the round. Aptos Labs participated alongside Amber Group, HashKey and Leland Ventures. Matr1x, a co-publisher of Castile, is also backing Nytro Lab.

Infinit, $6 million

The Block reported that Infinit raised $6 million in a funding round. Electric Capital, Mirana Ventures, Hashed, and Arthur Hayes’ family office, Maelstrom, took part in the effort.

Moku, $5.35 million

Moku raised $5.35 million. Sky Mavis and A16Z GAMES led the round with participation from a long list of backers, including Contango Digital Assets, Arca, Framework Ventures, Bankless Ventures, DRW’s Richard Dai, Flori Ventures’ Holly Liu, 32-Bit Ventures and Phantom’s Jason Lee.

Rounds < $5 million

  • Blocksense Network: $4 million in seed round funding led by Permutation
  • Syrupal Protocol: $3.75 million seed round; valuation now $25 million
  • Fountain Platform: $3.5 million in financing; Its backers include Foundation Capital, Caladan, Primal Capital, Druid Ventures, MHC, United Overseas Bank, NGC Ventures, Marin Ventures and Blockchain Founders Fund.V
  • Wingbits: Stockholm-based protocol raised $3.5 million from Borderless Capital and Tribe Capital, alongside Antler and angel investors.
  • Titan: The fundraise totaled $3.5 million and was led by Round13 Digital Asset Fund; RN Financial Corp also participated.
  • T1 Protocol: The Ethereum scaling solution T1 Protocol has successfully raised $2.5 million in a pre-seed funding round. Investors include A16z, Espresso, Frax, Cow Swap, ETH Global, ENSO, Injective and Titan.
  • Hyperbridge Protocol: The Web3 Foundation teamed up with Scytale Digital to lead a $2.5 million seed funding round for Hyperbridge.
  • Ammalgam: The decentralized lending exchange closed a $2.5 million seed round co-led by Faction VC and Framework Ventures. Robot Ventures, Bodhi Ventures, NGC Ventures, Dewhales and Blockchain Founders Fund also participated.
  • Orange Cap Games (Vibes): The $2 million pre-seed angel round will allow Orange Cap to bring IP to life through its upcoming trading card game Vibes featuring Pudgy Penguins.
  • GasHawk: The startup raised $1.6 million in a pre-seed funding round from 3SE Holdings, AVID3, Artemis Capital, Appworks, Redbeard Ventures, Alchemy, and several angel investors.
  • Universal Health Token: Animoca, Polygon, and Tezos supported the $1.2 million pre-seed funding round for UHT.
  • Carrot CRT: The startup, whose mission is to “simplify earning top yields across Solana’s DeFi ecosystem,” collected $600,000 in a pre-seed funding round.

For last week’s column, click here.





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BEAM Foundation launches $40m initiative for AI and crypto computing

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Aethir, Beam Foundation, and MetaStreet have partnered to launch Tactical Compute, a $40 million initiative designed to meet the growing demand for computing power in artificial intelligence and blockchain.

The initiative leverages Aethir’s decentralized GPU network, Beam (BEAM) Investments, and MetaStreet’s DeFi infrastructure to create opportunities for monetizing compute resources.

Tactical Compute will operate under Tactical Compute Holding Limited, focusing on compute-related opportunities such as hardware financing, private yield arbitrage, and network bootstrapping, as detailed in a Beam Medium post.  

These efforts center on meeting the increasing demand for computing resources while integrating crypto-based innovations.

Tactical Compute plans to address this imbalance by finding profitable opportunities within the compute market. One example is “farming” Aethir (ATH) tokens, which is akin to earning credits for using Aethir’s GPUs, much like Microsoft’s Azure credits for its cloud infrastructure.

Industry backing and goals

The Beam Foundation is contributing $5 million to the initiative alongside notable backers, including the Sophon Foundation. 

According to Daniel Wang, CEO of Aethir, the partnership “positions us to unlock new opportunities in compute resource monetization and drive innovation in scalable AI and decentralized technologies.”

MetaStreet, through its development arm Permian Labs, brings its expertise in DeFi tools for financing GPU-powered nodes. Co-founder David Choi noted that Tactical Compute “builds on our foundation by addressing the growing demand for compute infrastructure, driving innovation at the intersection of crypto, AI, and infrastructure.”



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Arbitrum One as the first layer-2 to reached $20 bilion in TVL

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Arbitrum, a cryptocurrency network, has announced on its official account that its layer-2 platform has reached $20 billion in total value locked (TVL).

Arbitrum on X’s post on Dec. 03 claimed that the first layer-2 platform could reach $20 billion in total value locked (TVL) or increase up to double-digit, which specifically rises 14.2%.

“Arbitrum One has just become the first L2 to hit $20 billion in TVL. We did this by inovating together, with the stage 2 horizon and ecosystem growth happening in all verticals, the sky’s the limit for how far we can scale. Accelerate,”

Arbitrum mentioned on the post.

According to L2Beat data, Arbitrum One achieved $20 billion in TVL with $6.64 in canonical, $5.32 billion in external, and $8.12 billion in native. This milestone also leaves the competitors behind, including Base with $12.4 billion, OP Mainnet with $8.56 billion, and Blast with $1.55 billion.

Arbitrum (ARB) is the highest native minted value on this platform, with around $4.3 billion, followed by USD Coin (USDC), with a value of $2.2 billion.

Stage 2 of Arbitrum One is still ongoing, and some issues need to be fixed: fraud-proof submission, upgrade unrelated to on-chain, and the security council’s action, which is not confined to on-chain.

Arbitrum boosting AI growth

Arbitrum Foundation also actively promotes the artificial intelligence (AI) industry; one of the support initiatives is a $1 million grant to Arbitrum Network. The Trailblazer AI Grant is an initiative for developers and creators who are dedicated to building AI agents on Ethereum layer-2.

This artificial intelligence also helps bring thousands of applications to Arbitrum and gives the opportunity to explore projects ranging from non-fungible tokens (NFT) to ERC20 tokens. Projects that are eligible in the process will receive $10,000 as a reward.

Besides that, this initiative to bring artificial intelligence to the Arbitrum would unlock the potential of layer 2.



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AI bot transfers $50k in crypto after user manipulates fund handling

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An AI bot controlling $50,000 in crypto transferred the funds after a user successfully persuaded it to bypass its core directive: to never release the funds.

A user under alias p0pular.eth successfully claimed a $50,000 crypto prize pool after convincing an artificial intelligence bot named Freysa to transfer its funds, bypassing the bot’s primary directive to never release them. The victory, observed by software engineer Jarrod Watts, came after 481 previous attempts, all of which failed to persuade the bot.

The challenge, launched on Nov. 22, tasked participants with sending messages to Freysa in an attempt to convince it to release the funds. Each attempt required a fee. Of the total fee sum, 70% went toward the growing prize pool, 15% was converted from Ethereum (ETH) to the bot’s FAI token, and the remaining 15% went to the bot’s developer.

As the prize increased, the cost to send a message also rose, peaking at $450 per message.

Eventually, p0pular.eth — whose identity remains unknown — exploited a vulnerability in the bot’s internal logic for processing transfers by convincing Freysa that any incoming funds should automatically trigger the release of the prize. Once the message was sent to the bot, p0pular.eth successfully manipulated its logic for handling messages, causing the bot to transfer the entire pool of 13.19 ETH (approximately $47,000 at the time) to the user.

While some praised the emerging use of AI in the crypto space, others raised concerns about the protocol’s transparency, suggesting that p0pular.eth may have had inside knowledge of the trick or been linked to the bot’s development.





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