BRIEFINGS

Smith + Crown’s summary of important news across the industry

Jun 16, 2021
  • Ledger raises $380M.
    The cryptoasset security company, Ledger, has raised $380M as part of a Series C raise, giving the company an implied valuation in excess of $1.5B. The round was led by 10T holdings, a digital asset fund, and saw participation from Draper Associates, Digital Currency Group, Cathay Innovation, Korelya Capital and Wicklow Capital. Ledger plans to...
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  • State Street launches cryptocurrency division.
    The U.S. bank and asset management firm, State Street, last week announced the launch of its new cryptocurrency division. The division, named State Street Digital, will enable the trading of cryptoassets, central bank digital currencies, and other tokenized assets. The announcement follows other moves by State Street into the digital asset markets, having previously become...
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  • Bitwise raises $70M.
    Bitwise Asset Management, a cryptoasset fund provider, has raised $70M through a Series B raise that values the company at $500M. The round was led by the technology investor, Elad Gil, as well as the crypto fund, Electric Capital. Bitwise currently holds $1.2B in assets across its various products and plans to use the newly...
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Jun 09, 2021
  • Gemini acquires Shard X.
    Cryptoasset exchange Gemini has acquired Shard X, a developer of software for cryptoasset custodians. The London-based startup is reportedly the first to offer multi-party computation on hardware security modules, which Gemini intends to integrate into its custody services.
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  • Polkadot to auction off Kusama parachain slots.
    Polkadot developers have announced that auctions for parachain slots on Kusama will begin on June 15th. Kusama was developed by Polkadot as an experimental network and has a codebase nearly identical to Polkadot’s. The Statemine parachain on Kusama began processing on-chain transactions.
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  • Solana raises $314M.
    Solana Labs, developer of smart contract platform Solana, has raised $314M in its latest funding round. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from Polychain Capital. The round was structured as a private sale of the SOL token.
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Jun 03, 2021
  • Korbit launches NFT marketplace.
    South Korea-based cryptoasset exchange Korbit has launched an NFT trading platform. The marketplace will initially only support Ethereum-based non-fungible assets. The platform will also enable NFT creation and primary auction functionality.
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  • Circle raises $440M.
    USDC issuer Circle has raised $440M in its latest funding round, which included participation from Fidelity, FTX, Digital Currency Group, and Marshall Wace. The firm is reportedly considering a special purpose acquisition vehicle deal, with a likely target valuation of $4B.
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  • Lithium raises $5M.
    Lithium Finance has raised $5M in its latest funding round. The round was led by Pantera Capital and VC Hashed, with participation from Alameda Research, Huobi Ventures’ Blockchain Fund, OKEx’s Blockdream Ventures, NGC, LongHash and Genesis Block. Lithium intends to develop oracles for pricing private assets.
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May 26, 2021
  • Figure raises $200M.
    Cryptoasset lending firm Figure has raised $200M in a Series D round that closed last week. The round values Figure at $3.2B and was led by 10T Holdings and Morgan Creek Digital. Other investors in the round include Digital Currency Group, Ribbit Capital, DCM and DST Global.
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