Kashyap Mehta

Here’s another fantastic project built with Smart Layer, Farcaster Flow https://lnkd.in/g59-ZFwe #Web3 #SmartLayer #Blockchain

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I’m excited to announce Noble’s $15 million Series A funding round led by Paradigm and including Polychain, Foresight, Wintermute and numerous angel investors. We have the best Web3 investors backing our vision.   For the past two years, we’ve been deep in the stablecoin trenches building Noble and servicing a growing ecosystem of asset issuers, appchain developers and end users who rely on Noble for reliable stablecoin liquidity. What started as an idea to improve stablecoin UX for asset issuers grappling with the complexity of a multichain environment is now a solution that connects over 50 applications with a 1-click UX workflow for stablecoins under the hood. We now have: + $450M+ of stablecoins & RWAs from Circle, Ondo, Hashnote & Monerium  + $5B+ in volume in just over 1 year of Noble’s existence.  Noble’s new chapter will be marked by a bold product vision with stablecoins at the helm – this funding round accelerates our capacity to deliver the best possible infrastructure to proliferate stablecoin and RWA liquidity. Check out exclusive coverage from Fortune Magazine:

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Pretty excited about this one - a team with a remarkable track record across top DeFi protocols, propelled by a clear & effective go to market strategy. The result? Over $300 million in TVL and $2 billion in trading volume within just a few short months. ___________________________ As Blast was gearing up for its launch, the market was flooded with over a dozen different spot and perpetual DEXes seeking funding. At the time, Blast had already achieved over $2 billion in TVL and we anticipated they would launch various mainnet incentives to maintain liquidity within the protocol. Our aim was to identify the team most capable of capturing the majority of mindshare and swap volume from the $2 billion+ of captive liquidity in the ~3 months leading up to the Blast token generation event (TGE). Consequently, we engaged in several discussions and reviewed numerous pitches to better understand how the DEX competition might unfold. We were particularly impressed by the Thruster team and their strategy to attract early attention and liquidity through focused partnerships and integrations. ___________________________ At Futureproof, we invest our own capital, which can sometimes be seen as a limitation in the venture capital space. We do not write overly large checks and cannot invest in all the deals that come our way. However, this constraint sharpens our investment focus. Ultimately, it leads us to invest in those we believe are best positioned to dominate their respective niches, rather than just securing a competitive position. High conviction, high hit rate... betting on the fastest horse. Thruster is exactly that - winning, growing and showing zero signs of slowing down. We can't wait to support them as they staff up and double down on their winning formula to integrate Thruster products and liquidity into other top protocols across DeFi, NFTFi and beyond.

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I think there could be a next step in liquidity pool mechanics, something I'm dubbing "Agentic Liquidity Pools" (I'm sure someone's already thought of it). Imagine LPs that don't need human oversight but instead are created with baked in, preset instructions to maintain a tokens health and liquidity. Exisiting versions of AMMs + LBPs are still too "manual". Founders and Market Makers still need to intervene during periods of high volatility. But by creating "ALPs", we could start to see: - Better price stability 📈 - Better price discovery 📈 - More efficient pools resulting in cheaper fees 💲 - Less reliance on project teams to manage treasury 💻 - Less reliance on forcing community to keep liquidity locked in pools 👨‍🚀 And who knows - AI Agents might begin transacting for people onchain in future using something like an ALP. I wrote about it in detail over on the Tokenise blog. Check it out and let me know what you think https://lnkd.in/grre_rbe

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NFTs are a very disruptive technology, they are generally misunderstood because of the speculative hype created 2-3 years back. NFTs can help digitize ownership and add transparency to royalties. Here is an excellent article from a16z crypto to dive into royalties. #web3 #nft #blockchain #disruptivetechnologies #innovation https://lnkd.in/ezeQrDi7

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BitGo 🤝 LayerZero Labs WBTC is one of the longest living, most utilized assets in DeFi with a $9B+ market cap. Thanks to BitGo, the industry has had a trusted and secure way to put their Bitcoin assets to work in the Ethereum ecosystem for many years. Now, via our strategic partnership, the asset is truly omnichain, powered by the LayerZero OFT Standard. Listen in to how it all works and why it matters below. Bryan Pellegrino Mike Belshe

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https://lnkd.in/ecHYheFb 🤯 Mind blown! Gemini's deep dive into CoCarting.com is impressive! 🛒🤝 I recently had a fascinating conversation with Gemini, the AI model, and was amazed by its in-depth understanding of CoCarting. Not only did Gemini grasp the basic concept of CoCarting – a platform designed to simplify group shopping online – but it also highlighted the many benefits it offers. Streamlined Collaboration: CoCarting brings everyone together in one virtual cart, making it easy to add, discuss, and decide on items as a team. Informed Decisions: With features like comments and voting, CoCarting enables group members to share their opinions and preferences, leading to more informed purchase decisions. Hassle-Free Checkout: Once the group is happy with their choices, CoCarting simplifies the checkout process, splitting the bill among participants and ensuring everyone gets their share. Fewer Returns: By involving the whole group in the decision-making process, CoCarting reduces the chances of someone ending up with an item they don't actually want. Gemini even suggested some awesome use cases for CoCarting, like planning group trips, organizing back-to-school shopping, or creating gift registries. Overall, I'm thoroughly impressed with Gemini's knowledge of CoCarting. It's a testament to the power of AI to understand and explain complex concepts in a clear and concise manner. If you're looking for a way to make group shopping easier and more fun, I highly recommend giving CoCarting a try! #CoCarting #GroupShopping #Collaboration #AI #Gemini #startup #investor #femalefounder 😁

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Is this tech company and transformer technology a potential Nvidia disruptor? I need to dive deeper into the matter. This is an interesting piece of info.

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Machine Learning on its own is impressive, but the new age of dynamic AI platforms and applications is offering developers a ton of benefits and opportunities. Join me and YK Sugi along with Danny Thompson, Rob Ocel, and Adam Rackis for this episode of Modern Web. Link in the comments!

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Fundraising Series Part 2: Until...November 13th. Bitcoin crashed by 30% and our previous $80M valuation was no more. Now some VCs were asking for a $20M valuation. We were screwed! We ended up taking term sheets for $60M, then $40M, and we got stuck unable to close our round when we were previously even turning away investors! We ended up closing $3.5M instead of $10M at around a $40-50M valuation so I think I did a pretty good job all considering. Here are the numbers. Around 95% of the funding came from in-person meetings at conferences. There was a rare exception where I got a term sheet from a VC I never met. 😲 The lowest amount we got from a VC was $100K and the highest amount was around $300K. We didn't have any angel investors commit but I later found out there was a secret angel that put in $1M+ before I joined with the previous understanding that my wife and I had already joined the team which wasn't true. Even though I wasn't the CEO, I had single-handedly raised 50%+ of the round myself.

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If you’re a founder building at the intersection of Games & AI, or just interested in what’s happening at the bleeding edge of the future in Silicon Valley, the new episode of /all chat is worth a listen.👇 Link in comments below. Hot takes from Patron portfolio founders Rick Ling of Rascal Games and Nico Christie of Altera with my partners Brian Cho and Jason Yeh! #games #ai #founders #seedfunding #startups

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Vishal Sachdev highlights the strategic integration of open source and proprietary tech in architecting tech stacks, developer ecosystems and resulting business models. The world class companies effectively balance value commoditization in open source and value capture in proprietary tech. This is the strategic challenge for companies operating in #blockchain and #AI. I believe those who operate at the intersection of blockchain *and* AI stand to win this strategic battle...

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Few AR apps will achieve product market fit in the next year and one reason is incorrect first principles regarding space. One memory that stands out to me is an AR gaming product panel at Meta Connect last year. There were a couple product leads and executives talking about making indoor AR experiences. The AR leaders talked about challenges associated with AR experience for their multi story and multi bedroom homes. The problem for consumer AR isn't designing around stairs in-doors. The problem is that many AR early adopters don't have that kind of open space in their homes. VR intrinsically requires less space. I think this is one fundamental reason why consumer VR apps are doing a lot better than AR apps on HMDs (Quest 3, AVP). Consumer AR requires more space. It requires hardware to be made for the outdoors. As long as it is indoors - it will be limited to enterprise use cases only. When you consider the space constraints of a lot of AR enthusisasts - you have to consider word of mouth and content sharing. People with limited space are going to be more self conscious about sharing footage of their homes. The way to eliminate this problem is to have hardware that is outdoor AR friendly. Otherwise the vast majority of people interested in consumer AR will never actually share content (and companies will never have viral distribution through content sharing). If you are an investor or publisher interested in XR - happy to catch up in-person if you are in LA this week for AWE and exchange ideas. If you are interested in strategy and emerging technology - subscribe to my Games of Strategy newsletter. You can participate in polls like the one I'm sharing here and interact with other emerging technology enthusiasts! #augmentedreality #AR #VR #spatialcomputing #games #videogames #AWE

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VERY excited to share Liquifi's 3-part guide: "How to Launch a Token" 🙌 We've helped dozens of projects get to (and through) this milestone, and now we're breaking down the launch process in this 3-part guide: 1️⃣ Pre Token Launch 2️⃣ Preparing for Token Launch (the lead-up to TGE, token generation event) 3️⃣ Post Launch No matter what you're building—or where you are in the process—there's something in this series for everyone. Here's more on what each section contains...links to each full-length post in the comments 👇 1️⃣ Pre Token Launch > How to choose the right counsel (and a non-exhaustive list of potential partners) > How to approach fundraising as a crypto company *with a token* > Important tax considerations to consider > How to pick the right jurisdiction and legal entity > Creating a compliance plan for securities > Hiring the right tax firm > How to structure token grants > How to manage token tax obligations & timing > Planning for token grant allocation > Approach to entity governance 2️⃣ Preparing for Token Launch > Compliance considerations + nuances > How to navigate token tax planning > Strategies for hiring both domestically and internationally > How to find the right custody partner > Preparing for token liquidity > Preparing for token distributions > Choosing the right payroll/EOR/PEO provider > Planning for governance, choosing between voting mechanisms 3️⃣ Post Launch > Tax Planning for Employees > How to approach compliance/process around off-ramping tokens > Preparing for your first cliff / unlock event > Staking and other utility functions > Ongoing employee RTU programs > Hiring domestically and internationally Our goal with this content series: TGE is often the most critical event in a project’s life, and we want to help founders (and their teams) deeply understand the nuances of this process. Understanding what success looks at each stage is one of the best ways to stack the odds of success in your favor—particularly in regards to regulatory and legal compliance. In the coming days + weeks, I'll break down each piece in detail, diving deeper into some of the most important sections. One final note: we're *actively* sourcing feedback on this guide! If there's a section that raises further questions, or that you'd like us to expand on, please drop a comment on this post 🙏 Or, as always, my DMs are open!

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Understanding AppLovin In the latest episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I present a long-form analysis of AppLovin's business and its significant recent growth. But understanding AppLovin the company is fundamentally predicated on understanding the market in which it operates, mobile games advertising, and the direct response digital advertising landscape more broadly. And so the podcast is structured in three parts: - Understanding direct response advertising - Understanding mobile gaming advertising - Understanding AppLovin’s growth Link below.

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