Transak

Galaxy Digital’s report for Q2 says that $3.2 billion in VC investments came into crypto that quarter. This number is growing again after a few down quarters in 2023. And one of the recipients of some of that funding is this project. This project and 2 others on our list today are some of the VC darlings of this market. And like it or not, VC backing means they likely have enough money to keep building through the next bear market to survive. Then they can make it to the bull market that follows in a couple of years.

So it’s always good to see where the “smart money” is investing. Here are 3 projects, the VCs love. And maybe you love them, too. Here are Transak, Monad, and Berachain.

Transak

First up among the projects VCs love and are investing in is Transak. Transak is one of the leading on-ramp and off-ramps to crypto from fiat money. It works in over 160 different countries and counting….

Apps and protocols all over crypto use this integration with Transak to convert fiat into crypto. Its investors are Consensus, Sandeep Nailwal of Polygon, and Animoca Brands, who is THE leader in investment in Web3 games.

We caught up with Transak at Token 2049 and here is some of what they had to tell us about their project and the industry from their POV.

Here is our interview with Harshit Gangwar, head of Marketing and Investor Relations at Transak. See the video below, it answers the questions below.

Q: What is the key barrier to mass adoption?

After his references to the feelings of FOMO people had in the last bull market during DeFi Summer, Harshit talks about how the best use cases for crypto right now are Stablecoins and RWA platforms.

Add Bitcoin as an investment and store of value, and we agree 100% with this.

Q: What are you building?

Here, Harshit mentions it like it’s no big deal, but Transak does the fiat integration on both Metamask and Trust Wallet. Only the 2 biggest wallets in the industry. They are involved in a lot of gaming as well as one of only a couple of on-ramps for ImmutableX.

The expansion plan includes completing licensing to offer services in Australia, Canada, and HK. And that’s after getting licensed in the difficult markets of US, UK, and India.

Q: Favorite Web3 Trend?

Harshit talks here about how we are in the “Stablecoin Era” and how this is a good thing. Emerging markets can save in digital dollars, while there is a stable medium of exchange for RWA or other DeFi investments. And it’s easy to send money as well.

The stablecoin issuers like Paxos, Tether and Circle are coming up with niche use cases for their clientele like Paypal’s $PYUSD. This is a good insight and something we don’t talk about very often.

We will be posting an article in the next day or two with access to the entire interview. Don’t miss what Harshit has to say about some of his favorite newer projects in the industry.

Monad

Monad is a Layer 1 chain that brings parallel execution to the EVM ecosystem for the first time.

Parallel execution means that confirmation of multiple transactions happens at the same time. As you might expect, that means that the scale of the chain far exceeds single execution chains like ETH.

It appears to have everything users want in a chain including

  • EVM compatibility
  • Scale w/over 10k transactions per second
  • Fast 1 second blocks
  • Near instant finality so transactions dont fail or get reversed
  • And low hardware requirements if you want to run your own node. This makes decentralization easier

VCs love investing in chains and protocols that make improvements to EVM. Many VCs see EVM as where Web3 finance will live.

Led by Paradigm, Electric Capital and Coinbase Ventures, Monad just raised $225 million in September.

Surprisingly even for crypto, Monad isn’t even in testnet yet despite raising all this money.  Yet, Monad is already building out an ecosystem with other apps and protocols joining. And people are excited about EVM with scale.

Berachain

And last today we have Berachain. Berachain is an EVM-compatible Layer 1 chain whose big innovation is Proof of Liquidity as a consensus mechanism.

The Berachain team believes that staking to secure the network is a weakness of PoS networks. And they think this because while staked tokens help to secure the network, it’s an inefficient use of capital.

So Berachain separates gas and governance into 2 tokens. Providing liquidity, which most do by using BEX, gives anyone a chance to help secure the network AND earn while doing so. This encourages decentralization. Large validator networks are not necessary to help keep the chain secure.

Berachain successfully raised $100 million to go with the $42 million they raised earlier. Investors include Polychain, Arrington Capital, and a number of the usual suspects involved in one or both fundings. 

This puts Berachain into some rarified air. The number of projects that have raised this much money you can probably count on no more than 2 hands. And you saw Monad was one, too. If they use it wisely, they can really jump ahead of many competing EVM chains.

So do you have a favorite on this list? Which project do you like the most? Do you think the VCs are making smart investment choices with these? Let us know in the comments below.

Disclaimer

The information discussed by Altcoin Buzz is not financial advice. This is for educational, entertainment and informational purposes only. Any information or strategies are thoughts and opinions relevant to accepted levels of risk tolerance of the writer/reviewers, and their risk tolerance may be different from yours.

We are not responsible for any losses that you may incur as a result of any investments directly or indirectly related to the information provided. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are high-risk investments, so please do your due diligence. This article has been sponsored by Transak.

Copyright Altcoin Buzz Pte Ltd.

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