a16zportfolio

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DStarter's key features you have to known?

📍Incubation

DStarter connects startups in incubation with the most suitable investors for fundraising. DStarter supports with:

Tokenomics

Go To Market strategies

Legal Support

📍DAO Fundraising

DStarter’s fundraising protocol, termed IMO-DAO, enables startups to raise funds through a pool as they keep on achieving their pre-defined milestones. The whole process is governed by our DAO. Instead of allocating the full amount fundraised at once, they will vote to release the funds required to reach the next milestone.

📍Multi-chain DStarter has support for Ethereum and top EVM-compatible chains and has plans to support Aptos and Near.

Read more: here

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DStarter - IMO Web 3.0 Funding Platform For Investors & Startups

DStarter is a DAO-governed, smart-contracts escrowed fundraising platform for Web3 VCs & startups based on milestone-completion (Initial Milestone Offering for startups & VCs). In simpler words, DStarter is platform where startups can submit their "Buidls", and if approved, they can create a pool to host "Initial Milestone Offering".

The term, IMO is coined from the fundraising concept existing in our platform, that enables startups to raise funds through a pool in proportion wise as they keep on achieving their pre-defined milestones that were deployed on blockchain. The whole process of IMO (Initial Milestone Offering) is governed by our native ImoDAO. In IMO, instead of allocating the funds completely at once, this model allows the investors to vote and release the funds at different timeline required to achieve the next milestone. These milestones are measurable goals pre-decided and deployed on blockchain.

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Blockchain And DeFI: A Game-changer In Asset Management

The outstandings of blockchain and DeFi in asset management

Transparency, trustworthiness, and composability are three important characteristics that DeFi empowers asset management with.

Transparency

In the world of traditional finance, transparency is a myth. Currently, extended settlement times of up to 2 to 3 days, combined with general quarterly reporting, leave little room for transparency. Because of these considerations, asset managers are required to report public displays of their assets on a monthly or quarterly basis. As a result, if you invest in a particular asset, you may not be certain of its current status.

Decentralized asset management provides comprehensive visibility at the block level for asset or token holdings. It also provides you with detailed information about the asset’s performance and the asset manager.

Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness is the next critical aspect of decentralized asset management operation. Users will be able to connect their wallets and interact with asset management options thanks to the development of DeFi on Ethereum. Remarkably, there is no requirement to provide any KYC information or to know the details of the managers.

Composability

Traditional financial frameworks require asset managers and advisers to collaborate on the development of a portfolio that includes growth, liquidity, income, and hedging. Thereby, the asset manager may charge a higher fee, raising the overall cost of asset management. How does asset management in DeFi address this issue?

One typical example that can demonstrate the aspect of composability is Zapper.fi, a DeFi dashboard, functioning as an “all-in-one” platform for DeFi users. It pioneered the ability to bring multiple positions, yield and risk management, and exposure layering into a single transaction. It also provides an evaluation of the risk profile, followed by recommendations for the best fit. Similarly, RAY (Robo-Advisor for Yield) provides a novel approach to asset management. It allows the movement of assets across lending protocols, resulting in higher returns on low-risk lending investments.

Bottom Line

The advancement of decentralized finance asset management suggests the addition of new functionalities. For example, complex financial engineering combined with access to traditional asset classes via synthetic assets could increase the value of asset management with DeFi.

Currently, the focus of DeFi asset management initiatives is on introducing stability while addressing obvious risks. With DeFi billed as a game changer for traditional finance, it makes sense to learn more about it. Begin delving deeper into the world of DeFi to fully understand its significance in the world of asset management.

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DStarter is Participating in Dorahacks’ Dora Grant Dao Hackathon

About Dora Grant DAO

The grantees will be given valuable opportunities to obtain funding to develop their projects (BUIDLs) further and meet the milestones that they have set for themselves. Meanwhile, they will have access to the Dora community and related resources that will aid the teams in their future development. The community vote will begin from November 5th until November 13th of 2022.

What is DoraHacks?

DoraHacks is an organisation that calls people to change and engages people in the global digital world and is one of the most active Web3 developer communities in the world. DoraHacks provides tools on Web3 to help developers around the world organise fundraising for their startups. The platform provides privacy voting, hackathons, bounty programmes, quadratic funding, and other community governance and funding toolkits. Dora infrastructures are also used by more than 40 significant Web3 ecosystems to support their open-source communities.

Since the beginning of 2021 until now, more than 1,000 projects in the DoraHacks community have received more than 12 million USD in funding and contributions from supporters around the world.

The cooperation of Dorahacks and Binance Labs:

Binance Labs provides grants, funds, and backing resources to support many early-stage Web3 startups, they together do Joint R&D on innovative decentralized governance technologies and DAO infrastructure.

Strategic Partnership between BNB Chain and DoraHacks is between BNB Chain Grants, Hackathons and Dora DAO infrastructure integration.

Currently, more than 20 mainstream Web3 ecosystems — including BNBChain, Polygon, Filecoin, Solana, and more — use Dora’s infrastructure for quadratic governance of their developer communities. DoraHacks has around 100,000 monthly active users from 152 countries around the world.

What is DStarter?

DStarter is a decentralised investment asset management platform that aims to provide the finest experiences for entrepreneurs looking to raise funds and investors looking to approach lucrative ideas in a fair and open conversation setting for a win-win outcome.

With DStarter, investors’ funds and project tokens are held in escrow in a smart contract and released in the proportion determined at the end of each milestone. As part of Imo DAO, VCs/Investors have the right to vote, but voting rights for each pool are limited to the pool’s investing members. This fundraising model for Web3 Startups and VCs is known as an Initial Milestone Offering.

Check out our buidl on Dorahacks, to show support give us a follow: https://dorahacks.io/buidl/3671 Check out our MVP: https://dstarter.io/

Docs: https://docs.dstarter.io/

Follow us on our socials for updates

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dstarterio

Discord: https://discord.gg/kZupCF7txm

Website: https://www.dstarter.io/

Telegram Channel: https://t.me/dstarter

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dstarter/

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Top 5 Benefits of Decentralized Fundraising Platforms

Accessibility

These platforms are easily accessible, and they not only provide public access to companies seeking funding, but also assist them in finding quick solutions to their needs.

Not only in terms of providing public access to companies seeking to raise capital, but also in terms of providing quick access to companies seeking to raise capital. Everything is still contingent on whether the business plan is viable.

2. Transparency

Transparency is another reason why decentralized platforms are ideal for crowdfunding. This is the most important benefit of decentralized crowdfunding. Because no intermediaries are involved, there is a clear money trail to follow.

One tDAO, also a decentralized autonomous organization, is to make the participants in any investment and the process of asset management equitable, and making decisions about asset allocation and the process of storage and distribution of funds transparent and governed by a decentralized community.

3. Money management

These crowdfunding platforms frequently rely on smart contract technology to ensure that the funds raised are used to further the company’s development. It also prevents financial waste.

4. Cost-effectiveness

Another advantage to consider is the cost-effectiveness of decentralized crowdfunding. As previously stated in this post, these platforms lack an intermediary. This means that businesses are not required to pay the additional fees. They also don’t have to spend any extra money on money management. Because startups frequently require every penny they can scrape together, fee efficiency is critical.

5. Availability

Last but not least, global availability and accessibility enable users or businesses to run campaigns and raise funds from their peers all over the world.

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How To Manage Well The Asset In Cryptocurrency World

How is asset management in the traditional market different from that in crypto?

The manipulation of cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency exchanges makes it difficult to evaluate uptake. As a result, it is not as easy to measure a crypto asset as you may expect. No investment is without risk, although it seems simpler to evaluate value with more conventional investment vehicles like stocks. Traditional investments tend to be safer, better regulated, and generally much less risky for novice investors.

Furthermore, by assisting users in consolidating their varied holdings while also offering better portfolio management tools, crypto asset management systems are streamlining the process by replacing the need to manage numerous accounts and wallets from various exchanges while juggling traditional assets.

When it comes to the traditional assets (e.g. equities, property, gold), they’re here for the long run in most cases and are a much more stable way to expand your portfolio. Although Crypto can grow in leaps and bounds, seemingly overnight almost, it can also fall just as fast. Thus asset management in those 2 markets are kind of complicated.

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How Did 3AC’s Collapse Affect Projects In The Crypto Industry?

Lessons learned

3AC’s demise occurred within a month of the LUNA disaster and coincided with the Celsius scandal. This has led the regulator to step in to introduce regulations to protect the interests of investors, forcing cryptocurrency platforms to be responsible for compensating investors when something goes wrong.

The lesson learned is that even the “biggest players in the market” with billions of dollars in market capitalization like LUNA, Celsius and 3AC can collapse at any time. On the other hand, the heads of the organization can also make the wrong decisions, which lead to the failure of the project and cost the users. Therefore, VCs should pay attention to their asset management as well as risk management. Also they need to prepare a backup fund to insure the worst case scenario.

Regarding individual investors, hopefully, after this crisis, they will require funds similar to 3AC to be transparent in their use of capital: which products and projects the fund invests in, and which funds use investors’ money. When dealing with a volatile market such as the cryptocurrency market, risk management, prudent planning, and wariness cannot be overemphasized. They help both small and large investors make smarter decisions instead of going off based on conviction and confidence in a project.

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Tendency: “Sink-or-swim” strategy is becoming prevalent for investors to apply with cryptocurrency startups.

Many unprofitable crypto companies were kept going in recent years by easy money. Investors now appear more ready to let these firms fail as the market has become much quieter as a result of the collapse of cryptocurrencies.

For example, the crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc., which went public last year, attracted Greylock as an early investor. Coinbase announced a $429.7 million first-quarter deficit in May. In addition, Greylock is a current investor in Web3 and blockchain firms.

Early-stage investors in venture capital frequently support a startup’s subsequent fundraising initiatives to support ongoing growth and boost the value of their equity shares.

So now is the time to see whether cryptocurrency investors actually believe in it — who is a true believer in the concept against what I would term the tourist?

Should investors start selling their investments, some later-stage crypto funds are keeping a lookout for discounted shares in struggling crypto company assets. This can involve secondary sales of potential shares or virtual currency that cryptocurrency firms offer to investors in exchange for quick cash and presumably to take advantage of investor-favorable valuations in the current environment.

The headline does not invest in cryptocurrency firms as part of its primary early-stage venture and venture growth funds. According to some investors, occasional bailouts are the price of conducting business in a market that is fundamentally risky. However, venture capitalists have stepped in to support cryptocurrency firms that lost millions to hackers.

To prepare themselves for increased risk, investors are demanding more accommodating terms on transactions to fund cryptocurrency startups. These can take the form of side letters with additional investor protections and rights, like co-sale rights, which allow holders of minority holdings to sell their investments if a majority shareholder decides to leave the firm.

Many well-known investors are circling for potential Series A investments in the next weeks, “likely to take advantage of investor-favorable prices in the current environment”.

Since it’s been a rough year for crypto investors. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana recently dropped four, six, and seven percent respectively. Further, Bitcoin has lost around 60% of its total value since the start of 2022, dropping below $19,000.

Consequently, there are some keys taken away from the article such as inflation is one of several factors in which investors apply the “sink-or-swim strategy” since it influences the future of the crypto markets; however, it is not the only one.

Furthermore, there are indications that the volatility of the crypto market may be slowing down based on trading ranges that are becoming more constrained and prior trade volumes. The market is currently at a low point, but at least there is data that suggests current prices may have been its floor. Despite recent losses experienced by the market, there are solid grounds for optimism regarding the future of several coins. Future interest in cryptocurrencies is projected to rise as recent setbacks in other market segments erode the public’s confidence in fiat money.

For now, its volatility still poses some risks for investors, but increased adoption might go some way towards stabilizing it towards the investors’ assets.

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Why are Venture Capitalists vigorously pouring Money into Web3?

Extraordinary results

When compared to Web2 investments, the token economies that support many web3 projects can produce disproportionate returns. This is especially true in the current environment of sharply rising inflation, rising interest rates, decreasing startup valuations, and volatile markets. Although there have been some ups and downs in the cryptocurrency industry in 2022, its entire market cap increased by nearly 200 percent in 2021, with Bitcoin and Ethereum recovering roughly 60 and 400 percent, respectively. Other cryptocurrencies also saw tremendous gains, such as Avalanche, which increased by over 3,300%, and Solana, which increased by roughly 11,000%.

DeFi (decentralized finance), which is more industry-specific, had a market cap of just $2 billion in 2020 and launched with a market cap of $160 billion in 2022, an 80-fold increase in just two years. The ambitious forecast of many eminent investors and organizations is that DeFi, which presently accounts for a negligible portion of the S&P500 traditional finance sector, might be worth 100 times more in only five years.

The NFT industry had the same kind of dramatic expansion, growing by 21,000% from 2020 to 2021 to reach a $40 billion market! For good reason, the NFT market has virtually reached parity with the conventional art market. Early investors in particular ventures, such CryptoPunks or Bored Ape Yacht Club, would have reaped a stunning 100x return in less than a year.

As we’ve seen, there are many opportunities to invest in potential unicorns at their early stages, returning 100x and covering the myriad of failures. This special time in Web3 represents an opportunity reminiscent of the early days of the internet boom, which gave birth to many of today’s most notable VCs.

Liquidity

Startup investments made using traditional stock are illiquid. In order to cash out themselves, investors will often have to wait for a liquidation event like an IPO or acquisition. Of course, there is a secondary market for private shares, and private investor buyouts have existed for a while. However, because of how difficult this procedure is, it is not seen as a liquid investment.

On the other hand, the majority of Web3 projects in the early stages produce tokens that may be traded at any time on exchanges. Assuming there is no lock-up period, investors frequently have the chance to receive the rewards sooner if the investment grows 100X in a short period of time.

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DStarter Funding Protocol Disclosure

1. Current Funding Protocol issue

In a traditional investment, the investor typically invests the entire fund at the beginning. Due to a lack of information or unpublicized results in the early stages, investors barely monitor and oversee initiatives. As a result, the investor typically notices a problem when it is too late and the risk is obvious. When reminded to start, these problems unintentionally cause “Cram” thinking.

At respectively, Startups waste money on unneeded expenses as a result of early rounds that were overfunded, and huge investments expose investors to more risk if something goes wrong. Furthermore, many startup owners lose motivation as a result of overfunded early rounds because they may continue seeking money while their company is still in the pre-revenue stage, rather than concentrating on turning a profit.

2. DStarter’ s solutions

DStarter has the optimal solutions to address the issue through two standout features in comparison to other platforms.

In order to decrease risk, DStarter first divides funds into milestones, which are referred to as tranches on this platform. This is done because the milestone will only be paid out when the majority of individuals agree, reducing risk.

Second, voting before a significant milestone. Disbursement is initially carried out, and depending on the KPI or operational condition, the VC can either approve the fund disbursement or cancel the investment if there is a problem. A refund vote is created 3 days after the payout vote’s due date, at which point VC can get the remaining money from the later milestone.

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5 most active venture capital firms in crypto space

As the number of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and blockchain-based startups increased dramatically in 2017, it is only natural that a number of investors have entered the industry. Many new players are looking for the next unicorn in the space, ranging from hedge funds to venture capital firms.

Up to now, what are the VCs firms that are the most productive in the crypto fundraising industry?

a16z — Andreessen Horowitz

Andreessen Horowitz, a.k.a a16z, is one of the earliest crypto venture capitals that made it through the winters and often led massive crypto investment deals.

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a US-based venture capital founded in 2009 by two co-founders, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who took the fund after their name. In the early days, a16z determinedly invested in early-stage startups with bold technology ideas.

Apart from investing in crypto in the last few years, a16z’s investments include gaming, social media, education, IT, etc. In August 2021, a16z was reported to manage $18.8B in assets (not just crypto assets).

Andreessen Horowitz has made 1,290 investments and led 553 of them. Their most recent investment was on Oct 4, 2022, when Eclypsium raised $25M.

Animoca Brands

Animoca Brands is an investment fund specializing in NFT, Gaming, Metaverse. The firm’s head office is in Hong Kong, but it still has many subsidiaries and offices in other countries such as the United States, Finland, Korea, Canada, Argentina, Germany, Australia,… In addition to investing, Animoca Brands also has its own projects, one of which is The Sandbox, the “well-known” in the Metaverse trend.

Although born around 2014, Animoca Brands was only known at the peak of the pandemic, causing the world economy to collapse. In addition, the subsequent Metaverse trend also helped spread the VC’s name, because it had invested in the right trending projects.

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Must know: Challenges projects and startups are facing

The journey of project growth is a complex and swerving route full of surprises inside and out. While we do not use the word ‘impossible’ at DStarter, there are many challenges that we have faced in the past and that we continue to give onto on a daily basis. Amongst those challenges, most of them are quite common! As a result, this article addresses three of the most challenges that new businesses have and offers solutions.

Limited capital and inappropriate allocation

The startups usually have more limited capital since the average time it takes founders to raise initial funding is between six and twelve months, but they need to invest significant money in many processes. This can put a strain on the startup’s finances and can ultimately lead to financial difficulties.

Working capital is a challenging issue that many firms must deal with; research found that 82 percent of them restrict growth owing to a lack of liquid money. According to CB Insights research, 29% of businesses wouldn’t be in financial trouble if financing were allocated effectively. But somehow there is a reality that there are many projects lacking capital of not having appropriate allocation which leads to the overfunded. Due to overfunded early rounds, startups are wasting money on unnecessary stuff, while on the other hand, large investments are exposing investors to increased risk if something goes south.

Although there are various ways to overcome these challenges, such as asking for a venture capitalist or angel funding, money management still presents a substantial challenge for many businesses. It is imperative that businesses thoroughly consider their alternatives in light of this.

Time management

Managing time effectively is crucial when launching a start-up. Since new businesses are occupied with many problems, it can be easy to get distracted and focus on the wrong areas, especially in the tech field. It is easy to see that even though most projects have a roadmap when it comes to raising funds, most of them come up short of the objectives.

Planning is vital as it will keep projects on track and focused on your goals. The projects can easily end up working in your business rather than on business, but there are not many projects complying with the time management plan which leads to various serious problems. It definitely makes miscommunication between investors and the team by ensuring progress stays on the same track as well as can not clarify to investors the steps that were taken during the project’s execution. Thus disadvantages are many and solutions must be raised to adapt to those emergencies.

Lack of expertise and experience

Many projects are lacking the expertise as CB Insights has shown that there are 9.0 million JavaScript developers and 30 million software developers. In contrast, there were just over 200,000 blockchain developers as of late 2020.

In addition to hiring from such a narrow skill pool, emerging businesses must compete with Fortune 500 enterprises that are all looking for blockchain positions, like IBM, Ernst & Young, and Oracle. Thus, the expertise is difficult to hire.

Consequently, it leads to the fact that projects frequently lack blockchain-specific expertise preventing them from knowing what to look for from investors or how to accurately operate their prospects of success. Then most of the startups are fresher and non-experienced in this field might lead to failure and shut down the project.

The closing thoughts

Therefore, without mentorship, a project will never acquire useful and accurate real-world experience.

Consequently, the projects/startups must research for a better solution and DStarter would be ready to help with all the value we offer. At DStarter, we help to build the connection between Startups and investors to ensure both sides have a “win-win” situation throughout an effective investment environment and minimize risks for VCs/Investors.

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Coinbase nhận được sự chấp thuận với những quy tắc tiền điện tử mới ở Singapore

Singapore là một thị trường đặc biệt quan trọng đối với sàn giao dịch Coinbase, công ty này đang khẩn trương làm việc với các nhóm công nghiệp địa phương để cải thiện các quy định hiện hành.

Chi nhánh tại Singapore của sàn giao dịch tiền điện tử Hoa Kỳ Coinbase đã nhận được sự chấp thuận về những quy tắc trong cung cấp dịch vụ tiền điện tử tại Singapore từ ngân hàng trung ương của đất nước này - Cơ quan tiền tệ Singapore (MAS).

Trả lời phỏng vấn của Cointelegraph, Hassan Ahmed - Giám đốc điều hành tại Singapore và Giám đốc khu vực Đông Nam Á của Coinbase cho biết:

"Singapore là một thị trường thể chế quan trọng đối với sàn giao dịch ở châu Á bởi các doanh nghiệp ở đây liên tục thể hiện sự quan tâm và ủng hộ đối với tiền điện tử."

Ahmed khẳng định:

"Đất nước này cũng đóng vai trò là trung tâm công nghệ Châu Á - Thái Bình Dương của Coinbase với đội ngũ kỹ sư tại chỗ chịu trách nhiệm về các nỗ lực mở rộng quốc tế."

Coinbase trước đó đã cung cấp các dịch vụ bao gồm nền tảng tổ chức theo sự miễn trừ của MAS. Tuy nhiên, Ahmed cho biết Coinbase đang nỗ lực thực hiện kế hoạch mở rộng khả năng fiat đồng thời với sự chấp thuận mới, họ sẽ sớm cung cấp dịch vụ Token thanh toán kỹ thuật số.

Sàn giao dịch này gần đây hết sức khẩn trương làm việc với một số cộng đồng Web3 địa phương như Hiệp hội các doanh nghiệp tiền điện tử và các công ty khởi nghiệp Singapore (ACCESS) hay Hiệp hội Fintech Singapore (SFA),

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What is Initial Milestone Offering (IMO)?

IMO Definition

IMO is an innovation in fundraising models. Unlike other previous mechanisms of raising funds, IMO operates in a way in which the fund is allocated by milestones. 

IMO is abbreviation of Initial Milestone Offering and this financing strategy allows startups to raise money through a pool proportionately as they continue to reach their pre-defined milestones. Specifically,  in order to ensure that the project can proceed in a timely way and is not overfunded, IMO will disburse the funds to it in accordance with each planned milestone.

History of Fundraising 

Fundraising Models In Crypto Industry 

Fundraising is generally defined as the process of soliciting financial support and is an important way for most nonprofits to generate revenue to support their mission. Fundraising entails far more than simply asking for money. It also includes strategies for charitable organizations to develop relationships, secure foundation support, and attract new investors.

Fundraising has never been easy for companies, especially the ones in crypto space. However, in the world of cryptocurrency and the digital era, various types of initial offerings could be worth your time and money.

 Initial Coin Offering (ICO)

An initial coin offering (ICO) is the cryptocurrency industry’s equivalent of an initial public offering (IPO). A company seeking to raise money to create a new coin, app, or service can launch an ICO as a way to raise funds.

Interested investors can buy into an initial coin offering to receive a new cryptocurrency token issued by the company. This token may have some utility related to the product or service that the company is offering or represent a stake in the company or project.

Initial Coin Offerings are one of the most tempting investment options for those hoping to profit from the ever-evolving world of cryptocurrency. However, the lack of regulation has allowed ICO investors to become targets of sneaky schemes.

You should understand ICOs and the risks that come with speculative investments before buying this type of crypto asset.

Some risks of ICOs include:

Many ICOs are startup concepts that have no businesses or operations behind them.

If the offering is not subject to securities regulations, there are no disclosure requirements and that can complicate your ability to evaluate the offering.

It may be difficult or impossible to get a full picture of the purposes of the ICO before you invest.

The value of coins and tokens in the ICO can be speculative. The value can go up and down drastically, and the purpose of the coin may never happen.

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