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Flashbots Wants To Raise $50 Million, But Investors Must Pitch

Flashbots is seeking to raise $50 million with a $1 billion pre-money valuation, according to The Block, citing sources aware of the deal.

Pitch To Flashbots For A Chance to Invest

As they look to crowdfund, it has been revealed that Flashbots is doing a “reverse pitching” where interested investors have to pitch, not the other way around. In this arrangement, investors confident of Flashbots’ prospects must explain, in detail, why they should have a slot in this investment round.

Eventually, the goal is to raise between $30 million and $50 million in “equity investment,” pushing the firm’s valuation to unicorn status. Flashbot plans to split this investment round into two.

Although Paradigm didn’t respond publicly to the publication’s request for comment or comment on the inquiry, details reveal that the crypto fund was among the first to show interest. They participated in Flashbots’ seed sale in 2020. However, Flashbots didn’t indicate the amount raised in the seed sale. 

Flashbots is a research and development organization claiming to negate the effects of maximum extraction value (MEV) in account-based blockchains like Ethereum and the BNB Smart Chain (BSC).

Ethereum Price Chart

Specifically, Flashbots focuses on Ethereum, where the costs of MEV can be high considering the high on-chain activity and the impact of gas fees, which is also relatively high versus other more scalable networks, including BSC. Their involvement, Flashbots’s documents explain, avoids the “existential risks MEV could cause to state-rich blockchains like Ethereum.”

Tackling MEV

MEV in blockchains is the maximum value that can be extracted from block production after validators, tasked with confirming transactions and securing the network, include or even re-order transactions in a block.

Unlike Bitcoin, where transaction order is given, in Ethereum and similar networks, ordering is haphazard. It means profit-seeking validators can prioritize transactions tagged with higher fees.

This explains why whenever the MEV in a block is higher than the network block reward, a validator can decide to re-order transactions in a block, creating vectors for possible centralization and exploitation.

Related Reading: ViaBTC Capital | Reasons Behind Solana’s Frequent Downtime: Design Flaws in the Gas Economy

Flashbots curbs this problem using MEV Boost. It is software allowing builders to auction blocks to validators, averting MEV centralization. Each party earns a fee for their contribution.

Flashbots’s recent open source tool, Single Unifying Auctions for Value Expression (SUAVE), further decentralizes and avails, to everyone, including competitors, the MEV Boost.

The reason for open-sourcing SUAVE is novel and meant to help the entire ecosystem grow stronger by proper decentralization.

In Devcon Bogota, Philip Daian of Flashbots said:

“So, we’re going to use MEV as this decentralized engine in the long term to make sure the users get the best execution on their trades in a way that will make TradFi look embarrassing very shortly.”

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Cryptocurrency Wallet Phantom Marks $1.2 Billion Valuation Amid Recent Funding Round

Investments in cryptocurrency are incomplete without a crypto wallet to store your assets. A good crypto wallet will house your coins and provide adequate security that will be pretty difficult for external invasion. The wallet could be either online or offline storage.

Due to its relevance, several crypto exchanges offer their customers their online crypto wallet services. This means that if you intend to use such wallets, you won’t have to move your tokens from the exchange platform.

Additionally, some crypto networks now have wallets that customers could use, of which Phantom wallet from the Solana network is one of them.

With the increasing activities and growth of DeFi operations on Solana, there is a need for the network’s wallet. Moreover, it forms an excellent synchronization to the meteoric rise of the blockchain as Solana now has more than $15 billion in assets under its control.

Related Reading | Bitcoin Sees Poor Demand As Investors Try to Defend $37K, Is BTC In Trouble?

This will help customers to interact with the DeFi ecosystem through its numerous provisions fully. In addition, Phantom creates a unique integration of Solana’s nascent DEXs, liquidity pools, and even lending protocol.

The recent funding round of Phantom raised the market cap of the wallet to $1.2 billion. This new height of Phantom came with the addition of $109 million from the recently concluded Series B funding round.

Paradigm, a crypto venture capital firm, led the financing round to its enormous success. The power of Phantom’s height has changed the wallet’s status to a crypto unicorn company.

Cryptocurrency Wallet Phantom Plans To Launch IOS Application

On Monday, Phantom released an official blog post outlining how the generated funds will be utilized to improve the wallet’s technical capacity.

The deployment will enhance multiple blockchain security, boost customers’ experience, and assist users in uncovering decentralized applications. Also, it will help in the wallet team’s expansion with more growth in its customer base.

Besides Paradigm as the pioneer of the funding round, the top investors contributed to its success. Variant, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Jump Capital, and Solana Ventures.

Furthermore, there will be a launch of the iOS mobile app of the Phantom wallet. According to Phantom’s announcement last November, the launching of a mobile application will facilitate the rapid growth of the Solana network.

Cryptocurrency market to recover above $2 trillion | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap on TradingView.com

Users will get the proper support to seamlessly execute their transactions at any location. They could send, receive, and store tokens and NFTs. Also, they could join in the staking of SOL coins.

Additionally, Phantom bears the plan of launching its Android wallet within the year. It mentioned that this latter move would boost its mission of empowering its customer base. Also, it will offer unique opportunities for innovating on security and safety.

Related Reading | TA: Bitcoin Topside Bias Vulnerable If It Continues To Struggle Below $38K

Presently, Phantom has more than 2 million active users daily. It has over 12.4 million staked SOL tokens worth $10.4 billion. Its swapped tokens are about $1.37 billion and have executed 55.2 million DeFi, NFT and app transactions.

Featured image from Computer World, chart from TradingView.com