Under the wave of Web3, technology giants are also involved.
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Author | Li Yangxia
Blockchain startup ConsenSys raised $450 million in a new round of funding, which ConsenSys said Tuesday was led by ParaFi Capital, with Microsoft, Japan's SoftBank and Singapore's Temasek joining the company's new investors.
Headquartered in New York, ConsenSys was founded in 2014 by Ethereum co-founder Joseph Rubin. Ethereum is the digital token of the Ethereum blockchain and is the second largest cryptocurrency in the world by market capitalization.
Bitcoin is primarily used for transactions, while Ethereum can be used to create decentralized applications or dapps — like Facebook or TikTok — but on the blockchain, it's a shared system of record for crypto transactions. ConsenSys, on the other hand, develops software that runs on the Ethereum network.
ConsenSys is seen by investors as one of the companies that will power Web3. It has benefited from significant investment in emerging crypto trends such as decentralized finance (DeFi) and irreplaceable tokens (nft).
Web3 has attracted a lot of investment and eyeballs, and Microsoft is no exception. This marks a rare bet by Microsoft in crypto-related fields. The company led an early-stage investment in startup Palm NFT Studio, which is also a co-founder of Lubin.
Microsoft's involvement highlights the growing interest in Web3 from the world's largest tech companies.
According to CB Insights, blockchain startups raised a record $25 billion in venture capital worldwide last year. Other tech giants exploring Web3 include Facebook's parent company Meta and Twitter.
But while Web3 has hyped up, it has also drawn some criticism, including from billionaire Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey.
Dorsey sees Web3 as a technology controlled by venture capitalists rather than the crypto community, while Musk sees it as more of a "buzzword" than a reality.
On the regulatory front, U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order requiring the government to make a coordinated response to industry regulation. The crypto world has also been closely monitoring regulatory developments in the United States.
Lubin said the U.S. government "is facing major policy decisions," adding that ConsenSys is "ready and eager to assist policymakers as much as we can."
He added: "At the end of the day, permissionless blockchain networks are global and they will continue to evolve and change our daily lives."
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