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Nov 19, 2021
Gemini, a cryptocurrency platform, announced today a $400 million growth equity round, its first-ever outside financing, led by Morgan Creek Digital with participation from 10T, ParaFi, Newflow Partners, Marcy Venture Partners, and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, among others. This round values the company at $7.1 billion. Launched in 2015 by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Gemini has grown to become one of the leading crypto platforms in the world. In addition to buying, selling, and storing crypto, Gemini helps investors earn, spend, and learn about crypto, as well as create and collect non-fungible tokens (or NFTs) on Nifty Gateway, a wholly owned NFT platform.
Gemini's security-first, regulated platform has made it the trusted platform for both individuals and institutions. Investors seeking to diversify their portfolios have turned to Gemini as their preferred platform to navigate the frontier of crypto. With this round of financing, Gemini will continue to bring simple, innovative, and secure products to market, and advance its geographic expansion.
"We are leading the first outside investment in Gemini because of our shared conviction in crypto and belief in the company that Cameron and Tyler are building," said Sachin Jaitly, General Partner of Morgan Creek Digital. "Their vision for the role of crypto in redesigning money, the financial system, art, and the Internet, and their track record of incubating and scaling innovative technologies, gives us confidence in Gemini's ability to continue to be an industry leader."
"Gemini is the portal into crypto for new and seasoned investors alike," said Tyler Winklevoss, Co-Founder and CEO of Gemini. "The investors that we have brought on in this round share our ambitious vision for the future."
This raise follows a year of significant growth and product innovation for Gemini. In 2021 Gemini:
Acquired Blockrize to help launch the Gemini Credit Card, which offers real-time crypto rewards and has a waitlist of more than 360,000 people
Acquired ShardX, a developer of secure multi-party computation (MPC) technology, to enhance its crypto listing and custodial services
Launched Gemini Earn that allows users to lend their crypto and earn up to 8.05% APY. To date, Gemini Earn has originated $4 billion in crypto loans.
Supports more than 60 cryptos for trading and custody
Custodies more than $30B in crypto assets
Launched Gemini Fund Solutions to provide fund managers with custody, clearing, and trading support for crypto ETFs, closed-end funds, and other fund vehicles
Launched Cryptopedia, an open access educational resource for all things crypto
Additionally, Gemini continues to be a pioneer on the frontier of nifties with its NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway, which also experienced record growth this year. Since launch, Nifty Gateway has achieved more than $420 million in sales through 375 unique artist collaborations, cementing its position as a standout leader in the NFT digital art and collectibles space.
Gemini also increased its geographic footprint in 2021, entering the UK as one of the few registered crypto asset firms as well as obtaining its EMI license from the Financial Conduct Authority. It also filed its license with the Monetary Authority of Singapore to expand further into the Asia Pacific region. Looking ahead, Gemini will continue to expand into new markets around the world.
"In 2021 we diversified our revenue stream, expanded to new territories, acquired pioneering companies, and invested in industry-redefining innovations through the Gemini Frontier Fund. We also supported Bitcoin core development through the Gemini Opportunity Fund," said Cameron Winklevoss, Co-Founder and President of Gemini. "We are incredibly excited to continue to build on the frontier of crypto and give individuals around the world greater choice, independence, and opportunity through crypto
Blockcast are in Miami all week for Art Bazl and DCENTRAL this week. The city is on fire and possibly one of the greatest places to be in the world during such turbulent times. One of the biggest questions in crypto still centers around which protocol to back for your projects and here at BLOCKCAST we are firmly behind KADENA (KDA) What is Kadena? Kadena is a blockchain which optimizes scalability and features a smart contract language called Pact. Pact is readable by non-developers and automatically detects bugs. What separates Kadena from some of the other mainstream blockchains is that it's addressing some of the issues concerning the industry. Most protocols have now shifted to proof-of-stake, but Kadena, a scalable layer-one blockchain protocol, is still operating on the old PoW model. According to the project, the network is capable of processing up to 480,000 transactions per second thanks to the use of “braided chains.” Why should we take it seriously? Bitcoin is considered the most secure network but it doesn't have smart contracts or high throughput. A smart contract is a self-executing contract with the terms of the agreement between the buyer and seller are being directly written into the lines of code. Now, Ethereum has smart contracts but is not gasless. That means they have a balance and they can send transactions over the network, but they are not controlled by a user, instead they are deployed to the network and run as programmed. Kadena is addressing all of that through its contract language, Pact. Kadena's founders are leaders in the blockchain and cryptocurrency with experience. Stuart Popejoy led JPMorgan's Emerging Blockchain group. Will Martino was the Tech Lead with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Cryptocurrency Steering Committee. Together, they built JPMorgan's first blockchain, now known as the JPM Coin. In 2016, they launched Kadena. The road ahead: KDA recently launched a wrapped version of its token called wKDA, which operates on the Ethereum network and allows it to interact with all Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. Kadena also tweeted in October that it's expanding into the NFT (non-fungible token) market. These two announCements contRibuted to a parabolic rise in (KDA) OF 500% in 3 months. Conclusion and verdict: All things considered taking into consideration timing, technology team and positioning, KDA's market cap of just around $2B seems incredibly under priced when comparing to projects such as ADA. We would expect to see many developers utlilize the project going forward and this is why KDA remains our most exciting pick for the next 5 years.
ARK chief executive Cathie Wood is firmly on the side of the debate that believes the current surge in inflation will likely be short-lived. In a series of Twitter exchanges on Tuesday with the likes of Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk, she explained the deflationary forces that will help quell the pickup in price pressures, including the role of technology. Supply-chain bottlenecks at ports, warehouses and rail depots around the world that built up during the worst of the Covid-19 lockdowns, along with shortages of labor and raw material prices have sent the cost of consumer and producer goods and services to multi-year highs. Central bankers face a delicate balancing act of curbing excessive price increases without dampening economic growth, which in many cases, is still below pre-pandemic levels. On Monday, Wood took to Twitter to detail three deflationary forces that will "overcome the supply chain-induced inflation," responding to Jack Dorsey less than 72 hours after he sounded an alarm on rising prices. Tesla chief executive Musk weighed in. "I don't know about long-term, but short-term we are seeing strong inflationary pressure," he tweeted in reply to part of Wood's thread. "Inflation has flared in response to COVID-related supply chain bottlenecks and oil supply constraints but, IMHO (in my humble opinion), the powerful and converging deflationary forces associated with AI, energy storage (EVs!), robotics, genomic sequencing, and blockchain technology will bend the curve," Wood said in response to Musk. "If they expect lower prices, most consumers/businesses will defer purchases, exacerbating a decline in the velocity of money. Despite the burst in cyclical inflation during the last year, velocity is hovering at low levels. If ARKInvest is correct, the next leg will be down," she continued. She pointed to the decline in velocity - the rate at which money turns over per year - and how that will also help offset inflation. "I am struck by the behavior of millennials who, at the margin, are sacrificing short term consumption to pay down student loans or invest in crypto and other assets. Bank loan growth also is tepid which would not be the case if velocity were increasing," she said. Sources: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/cathie-wood-inflation-debate-elon-musk-jack-dorsey-crypto-deflation-2021-10
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