Here are some latest developments in the crypto world over the past few days.
Videogames company Mythical Games raised $37 million in a Series C1 fundraising event for setting up a new marketplace and pursuing additional income-generating projects. With the help of this funding, Mythical Games will get a unicorn status given to a $1 billion company.
Mythical Games expects to raise an additional $20 million to $30 million when the funding round completes. The transaction is expected to close in the coming months.
Mythical co-founder and CEO John Linden said: “Our focus is optimising our business to get to profitability by year's end, and the funds will primarily be used to achieve that.”
Investors like Andreessen Horowitz, WestCap, Gaingels, Signum Growth, ARK Invest, Animoca Brands, MoonPay, and Proof VC, participated in the round led by Scytale Digital.
The videogames publisher has been conducting presales of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) since February in preparation for the upcoming release of its new game, Nitro National World Tour. This money will also be used to create an in-game marketplace for its second game, NFL Rivals, which just crossed the one million download mark.
BlackRock Expects Spot Bitcoin ETF Approval
An analyst believes BlackRock has an even chance of getting greenlight for its Bitcoin ETF, arguing that Grayscale looks more likely to win its case against the SEC. According to Eric Balchunas, a senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, investment management company BlackRock has a 50 per cent possibility of getting approval for its Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF).
Balchunas’ prediction follows one from Elliott Stein, a senior litigation analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, who estimates that Grayscale's chance of succeeding in its legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is 70 per cent.
He said SEC might view BlackRock's ETF registration favourably as a chance to “save face” by authorising an ETF from a “trusted adult TradFi” firm instead of Grayscale.
The two sides have exchanged legal files back and forth since Grayscale appealed the SEC’s decision to deny its application in June 2022, and on March 7, three judges of the US federal appellate court heard their oral testimony.
Over $204M Lost In Q2 DeFi Hacks And Scams
According to a study released by Web3 portfolio app De.Fi on June 27, hacks and frauds involving decentralised finance (DeFi) cost over $204 million in the second quarter of 2023.
During the quarter, almost $208.5 million was initially lost, but $4.5 million was recovered thanks to legal actions, agreements with hackers, and other recovery strategies.
The research, dubbed “Q2 De.Fi Rekt Report”, was based in part on information from De.Fi's “Rekt Database.” The study claims that there were 117 occurrences of DeFi hacking in Q2 compared to only 17 in the corresponding quarter of 2022, an increase of “almost 7 times” year over year. In the first half of 2023, losses amounted to more than $665 million.
In the second quarter, the top five targets for hacks were Atomic Wallet, Fintoch, MEV-Boost, Bitrue, and GDAC. $35 million, or roughly 17 per cent of the total money lost, were from the June 3 Atomic Wallet exploit. Users of Fintoch allegedly lost $30.6 million due to its “rug pull”, and $26.1 million was lost as a result of the MEV-Boost attack. Together, these three attacks caused more than 45 per cent of all losses for the second quarter.