Dear Inside Community, Our most popular event series is coming back on May 24 and 25, and we want you to be there! Meet Our Fund 3 brings together an all-star lineup of venture capitalists ready to pitch you on what they invest in and how they add value for founders. Register here, and check out the speakers we have already announced. There will be plenty more to come in the weeks ahead. It’s going to be our biggest Meet Our Fund yet. —The Inside Team | |  Gia | |
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 Pantera raised $1.3B for Web3-based projects with its new Blockchain Fund. The fresh capital will be used to support Web3 startups, early-stage tokens, and digital tokens that have established liquidity. The firm will continue to raise more funding in 2023. More: - Pantera's business model is to raise money from investors and allocate those funds to startups with a promise to deliver a return on investment in exchange for fees.
- The firm started raising capital with a goal of $600M, but it now has reached $1.3B and is still seeking more investment. Blockchain Fund joins existing funds Bitcoin, Early-Stage Token, and Liquid Token.
- As of now, the firm seeks to invest in Seed or Series A rounds, but it will soon launch a $200M Select Fund that will focus on established companies with revenue.
- Spending in the Web3 and crypto space has increased over the years. Here is a brief list of deals that occurred in the space:
- NEAR Protocol raised $350M;
- Binance US raised $200M;
- Genies raised $150M;
- Kathryn Haun raised $1.5B;
- Andreessen Horowitz raised $2.2B last year;
- Paradigm raised $2.5B;
- FTX raised $2B.
- The list, of course, does not stop here. There are plenty of emerging funds and startups raising capital and expanding their market presence for crypto and Web3-based projects.
Decrypt 
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 Meta plans to take a 47.5% cut on each transaction of digital assets in Horizon Worlds. Creators will eventually be allowed to sell NFTs, but they are not too impressed by the platform fees. More: - The 47.5% cut on every sale includes a "hardware platform fee" of 30% on sales made using the Meta Quest Store.
- Horizon Worlds will also charge a 17.5% fee on every sales transaction.
- The high fees have garnered backlash.
- One user wrote on Twitter: "If Meta wants 47.5% of NFT sales they gotta talk to the IRS because I don't even have that after taxes."
- In response, Vivek Sharma, Meta's VP of Horizon, said: "We think it's a pretty competitive rate in the market. We believe in the other platforms being able to have their share."
- NFT marketplace OpenSea only charges a 2.5% cut, and LooksRare takes 2%.
- Meta's fees for the sale of digital assets also far exceed what Apple charges developers on the App Store.
- Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has previously criticized Apple for charging 30%.
CNBC
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 MoonPay welcomes new investors Justin Bieber, Gwyneth Paltrow, Snoop Dogg, Parish Hilton, Steve Aoki, and Ashton Kutcher. The A-list celebrities are making a collective contribution of $87M to the company, which has 10 million users across 160 countries who can buy crypto with their credit or debit cards. More: - MoonPay is a Miami-based fintech startup that allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies using conventional payment methods like credit cards, bank transfers, or mobile wallets.
- The company also sells its technology to crypto and NFT platforms, such as OpeanSea and Bitcoin.com.
- MoonPay's team said: "The strategic investors represent industries on the cusp of transformation by Web3 technology."
- The new contributions go to a previously announced $555M funding round that was led by Coatue and Tiger Global Management, bringing the company's total valuation to $3.4B.
- The fresh funding will be used for launching new products and market expansion. The company also plans to go public at some point in the future.
Zoom out: - Last week, OpenSea announced that it will start accepting credit card payments using the MoonPay technology.
- This purchasing method applies to NFT sales, including mints and first drops. Users on the platform will still need a wallet such as Metamask to store their NFTs.
CNBC
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 More celebrities are starting to promote NFTs, raising legal questions about whether they should disclose NFT endorsement deals. The best way to approach the legality of NFTs is first to determine if they should be treated as securities in the same way that stocks are regulated. More: - Celebrities cannot legally promote stocks, so does the same rule apply to endorsing digital assets?
- From Madonna and Reese Witherspoon to Paris Hilton and Snoop Dogg, famous names have been involved in the NFT space publicly, either as investors or endorsements.
- A few weeks ago, Madonna announced her purchase of a Bored Ape NFT for $500,000, and many other celebrities are entering this space, which raises legal questions about their involvement.
- Bob Seeman, author of the book "Bitcoin: Unlicensed Gambling," said: "Celebrities and social media influencers have a lot of brand power," and how regulators will treat this is still largely unknown.
- If we are to treat NFTs as securities, then the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules state that it is "unlawful for any person to tout security, like a stock, without disclosing a financial relationship or ownership to the source."
- If NFTs become regulated as stocks, then celebrities that are being compensated would need to disclose their payment in the future.
- As of now, NFTS fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission, a civil regulatory organization that can only issue warnings that relate to NFT transactions.
Bloomberg
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Crypto.com's Cronos announced a partnership with Chainalysis to allow real-time tracking of Cronos and CRC-20 tokens that run on the network. More: - The Cronos network was launched in 2019 and has over 450,000 DeFi and NFT users seeking sufficient compliance tools and reports on suspicious activity.
- Cronos managing director Ken Timsit adds: "Application builders and service providers will have access to the most advanced tools and services. The Chainalysis data platform is one of these essential foundations."
- Cronos launched with a goal to offer greater interoperability between the Cosmos and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) ecosystems.
- The company already has over 200 partnerships since its initial launch in 2021.
- Chainalysis is well known for working with major government agencies and financial institutions in the U.S.
- The company also collaborated with companies like Robinhood and CryptoKitties for compliance tools and tracking.
Coin Telegraph
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 Vigil Griffith, a U.S. cryptocurrency expert and former Ethereum Foundation employee, has been sentenced to more than five years in prison for conspiring to help North Korea evade U.S. sanctions using crypto. More: - Griffith, a 39-year-old crypto expert who has a doctorate from California Institute of Technology, was also fined $100,000 and is facing up to 20 years behind bars with a $1M fine.
- The defendant was denied permission by the U.S. Department of State to travel to North Korea in 2019 to give a presentation at the Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference, but he still decided to go.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams commented that "justice has been served." - Prosecutors say that Griffith understood that his actions could violate U.S. law and that the information that he was offering could be used to evade U.S. sanctions that were imposed on North Korea for the development of nuclear weapons.
- The DOJ said Griffith "jeopardized the national security of the United States" by undermining sanctions.
- The Ethereum Foundation also said that at the time of his arrest, they had not approved his travels to North Korea.
BBC News
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QUICK HITS: - B2B businesses are switching to e-commerce. Now, it's your turn. Learn three persuasive approaches that communicate the value of digital to decision-makers.*
- Forbes entered the virtual space by adding an NFT collection.
- CFDA entered the metaverse with new Web3 and NFT partnerships.
- Blue Chip leads the growth in NFTs by integrating its offering with virtual worlds.
- Among the four new cryptocurrencies listed on Robinhood, some investors are surprised to see Shiba Inu make the list. NOTE: Inside.com's founder and CEO, Jason Calacanis, is an investor in Robinhood.
*This is sponsored content.
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UPCOMING EVENTS - April 13 - Achieve 1M+ Record/Second Kafka Ingest without Sacrificing Query Latency. (Register Here) *
- April 14 - Shopping In The Metaverse (Register Here)
- April 21 - Why a Disaster Recovery Plan is Vital for SMBs (Register Here) *
- April 26 - Need To Know NoCoder - Gautam Nimmagadda (Quixy) (Register Here)
- April 28 - Alternative Investments 2: Crypto Safety Standards (Register Here)
- May 12 - Making Metaverse Dating a Reality (Register Here)
- May 18 - Need To Know NoCoder: Jatin Arora (Utilize) (Register Here)
- May 19 - Understanding Fractionalization (Register Here)
- May 24 - Meet Our Fund 3 (Register Here)
- May 31 - Ethereum Merge with Anthony Donofrio (Ethereum) (Register Here)
- June 01 - Selling Consumer Goods in Web3 (Register Here)
- June 09 - Empowering Content Creators with No Code (Register Here)
* This is a sponsored event.
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 |  | Gia Mattu is based in Calgary, Alberta. She is an entrepreneur with experience in climate technology, drones, AI, machine learning, and blockchain technology. When she's not working, she loves to hike the Canadian Rockies, try new cuisine, and travel. | | | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
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