02/05/2022 Coinbase NFT Partner 0x Labs Raises $70 Million From Greylock Partners, Jump Crypto, and Jared Leto

0x co-founders Will Warren and Amir Bandeali0x co-founders Will Warren and Amir Bandeali

0x co-founders Will Warren and Amir Bandeali

0x

San Francisco-based decentralized exchange infrastructure provider 0x Labs has closed a $70 million Series B financing round led by Greylock Partners at an undisclosed valuation. Revealed exclusively toForbes, the round also included investors such as Pantera, Jump Capital, OpenSea, and Jared Leto. Previously, 0x raised $24 million in a ZRX token sale in 2017 and $15 million in a Series A equity round, led by Pantera Capital.

America’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, which last week launched its own NFT marketplace powered by 0x’s technology, also participated in the raise.

Earlier this year, 0x Labs rolled out a set of NFT swap features, which enable users to exchange digital collectibles across multiple blockchains such as Ethereum, Polygon, Fantom, Avalanche, Optimism, BNB Chain, and Celo. The teamclaimstheir offering is roughly 50% cheaper than trading on leading NFT marketplaces like OpenSea and LooksRare.

Following Coinbase’s announcement, the native token of 0x protocol, ZRX, rallied by over 50% to $1.10, its highest level since December. Its market capitalization rose by $300 million to top $930 million as well. The cryptocurrency has since retraced most of the gains but is still up by more than 20% over the past month.

ZRX surged on the Coinbase NFT newsZRX surged on the Coinbase NFT news

ZRX surged on the Coinbase NFT news

TradingView

Beyond the newly-found publicity, the San Francisco-based startup is best known for the creation of the 0x protocol, which enables the peer-to-peer exchange of assets across the blockchains mentioned above. With crypto advocates increasingly focusing on a multi-chain future where assets will reside in and transfer between a wide array of blockchains with differing features, these protocols offer critical linkages between the networks.

These numbers are relatively small compared to the largest decentralized exchanges, for instance last month industry-leader Uniswap handled almost $50 billion in transactions. By comparison, 0x handles an average of $1.5 billion in transactions on a weekly basis. It has been dropping this year, but that is in line with a broader industry trend of falling volume across all platforms.

Trading volume on 0x has been dropping of lateTrading volume on 0x has been dropping of late

Trading volume on 0x has been dropping of late

0x Tracker

It has also built liquidity aggregator 0x The firm also operates decentralized exchange aggregator Matcha, the second-largest in the industry, which seeks to optimize trades by selecting the best price offerings from a range of multiple cryptocurrency exchanges. According to data fromThe Block,Matcha handled $2.13 billion of a total $11.19 billion in DEX aggregator trading, only behind industry-leader 1inch.

Matcha is the second-largest DEX aggregatorMatcha is the second-largest DEX aggregator

Matcha is the second-largest DEX aggregator

The Block

The funding will be used to continue building this product in addition to supporting Coinbase’s NFT ambitions.

“We're planning to use this funding to continue the growth of 0x Labs, expanding our [62-member] team and doubling down on the current products and services that we're offering,” Will Warren, cofounder and co-CEO of 0x Labs,toldForbes.

The company also plans to continue integrating new chains such as Solana and expand its newly introduced support for NFT swaps––something the investors are particularly “bullish on”, according to Sarah Guo, general partner at Greylock, which led the fundraise.

Arts

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninabambysheva/2022/04/26/coinbase-nft-partner-0x-labs-raises-70-million-from-greylock-partners-jump-crypto-and-jared-leto/?sh=54f30af7258f

Interesting NFTs
Tametomo and the inhabitants of Onoshima Island
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) Tametomo and the inhabitants of Onoshima Island 1811 - Japan
WHITE#Cottoncandy
Good morning! I'm WHITE#Cottoncandy. In high school, I was voted school jock. When I'm not sleeping in fresh laundry, I'm playing chess! Can't wait to eat hamburgers with you!
No Future #9/15
None
Portrait of the Artist in Digital Decay
Self Portrait taken in the East Village, January 2019. Stereoscopic Effect created with Facebook 3D photo, "painted" with neural imaging, then digitally pixelsorted. Single Edition Hi Res GIF Token by Sarah Zucker.
Who Is The Creator 2
The idea for this piece was borne out of a tweet of mine that caused a bit of a stir. I’d posted a link to a blog article I’d written a number of months previous titled ‘Who is the Creator’ discussing various types of creative collaborations and why I hire people to work on my animations. It generated a lot of debate around creation and attribution with the community split on whether it’s right or wrong for an artist to hire other professionals to help them realize their art projects. I decided to push the boundaries even further and see how the cryptoart community responded. What if I quite literally had nothing to do with the physical or digital elements of the work other than coming up with the concept and coordinating it? I decided there was one artist in the space who could add huge value to this idea on levels that none other could and so I gathered my courage and contacted the great JosĂ© Delbo to ask him if he’d be interested in a very unique collaboration. I explained to him that to make this piece ‘work’ he couldn't have any say in what I produced and moreover, he wouldn’t even be allowed to see the animation until it was dropped on MakersPlace. To my surprise, Mr Delbo agreed to my proposal. The animation tells the story of the creative process, which includes my roles as writer, director, and producer working with a team and making edits and changes ‘in real time’. The dialogue between myself and my ‘hired guns’ plays out in front of the viewer. The music written for the piece adds to the nostalgia of the comic book superhero theme but other elements such as the snapping and kicking of the pencil and the signing of my signature at the bottom incorporates further layers and challenges the viewer to ask important questions, such as, is the ‘Art’ the final animation (the creation) or is the ‘Art’ the concept/credit for the creation itself?