Alliance DAO’s Latest Cohort Reflects Shifting Crypto Landscape
Renewed Enthusiasm Amidst Regulatory Challenges
The crypto space is abuzz with excitement as the market recovers, and venture investors are pouring money into web3 startups. According to Crunchbase data, total fundraising in the sector reached approximately $1.9 billion in Q1, a remarkable 58% increase from the previous quarter. However, regulatory efforts to control the industry persist, with notable figures like Binance’s founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao facing potential imprisonment and decentralized exchange Uniswap receiving an enforcement notice from the SEC.
Shifting Geographic Composition
The ongoing crackdowns in the U.S. have significantly impacted the geographic composition of Alliance DAO’s applicants. North America’s share of applicants dropped from 45% in H2 2021 to just 26% in H1 2024. Conversely, Asia’s representation steadily increased, accounting for 24% of all applications in H1 2024, up from 14% in H2 2021.
Image Credits: Alliance DAO
Qiao Wang, a founding partner of Alliance DAO, attributes this shift to regulations and crypto finding product-market fit in emerging markets. As a result, some founders are establishing physical bases in regions with more favorable crypto environments, such as Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore.
Introducing the Latest Cohort
Alliance DAO’s 12th cohort received 1,503 applications, a significant increase from the previous batch’s 1,083 applications. With an acceptance rate of just 1.4%, 21 teams were selected, and 12 of them are presenting at today’s demo day. Projects building on Ethereum remain the focus, although other ecosystems like Solana and Bitcoin are making a comeback. Popular verticals include decentralized AI, crypto infrastructure, DeFi, and crypto-based payment solutions.
Featured Projects
Villcaso: Permissionless U.S. real estate investing platform that offers fractional ownership to a global audience through a fully legal permissionless token.
GoBankless: A cross-border payment solution for Africa that utilizes stablecoins to provide instant settlements without banking intermediaries, currently serving 50 small businesses across Mozambique and South Africa, settling $7 million in payments every month.
As the crypto landscape continues to evolve, Alliance DAO’s latest cohort reflects the industry’s resilience and adaptability in the face of regulatory challenges and shifting market dynamics.
Innovative Crypto Startups Disrupting Traditional Finance
Wasabi Protocol: Enhancing Crypto Trading Liquidity
Wasabi Protocol, a leverage trading protocol founded by Eren Derman and Kemal Hasan Atay, tackles the liquidity challenges faced by platforms like Aevo and Hyperliquid in the booming crypto trading market. By backing user positions with underlying assets, Wasabi ensures sufficient liquidity for longtail trading of new assets such as memecoins and NFTs. Since its launch a few months ago, Wasabi’s total value locked (TVL) has reached $60 million, with over $200 million in trading volume.
Lulubit: Simplifying Crypto Access in Central America
Lulubit, founded by Ianir Sonis, Diego Hernan Cabrera, and Alan Futerman, aims to become the Coinbase of Central America. Despite the region’s rapid crypto adoption, buying and selling cryptocurrencies remains challenging due to unreliable P2P networks and high fees on established exchanges. Lulubit enables retail users to buy and sell crypto from their local banks and spend through its crypto debit card. The platform also facilitates on-chain remittances at lower rates than traditional methods. In less than a year, Lulubit has attracted over 18,000 users and processed more than $1.3 million in volume in April 2023 alone, showcasing an impressive 36% month-over-month growth.
ZwapX: Revolutionizing the Luxury Watch Market with Tokenization
ZwapX, founded by Yohan Chiovetta, Noah Chiovetta, and Rocco Di Capua, is transforming the billion-dollar luxury watch market by offering a marketplace for tokenized watches. By representing physical watches as tokens, ZwapX provides certificates of ownership and authenticity, addressing the challenges of scams in peer-to-peer marketplaces and online authentication issues in B2C platforms. To date, ZwapX has tokenized 44 watches, achieving a $1.4 million TVL and a volume of $240,000.
Fractal Payments: Streamlining Cross-Border Payments with Stablecoins
Founded by Pavel Skalin, Fractal Payments aims to disrupt the traditional SWIFT system by leveraging stablecoins for cross-border payments. Fully licensed in the European Union, Fractal Payments claims to offer transactions that are three times cheaper and six times faster than legacy banking rails. The startup has already facilitated more than $5 million in payments volume and collaborates with a network of partners supporting payments in over 60 countries.
Código: Empowering AI Training with Crypto Data
Código, founded by Jean-Philippe Emelie Marcos, Diego Besprosvan, and Jaziel Guerrero, focuses on providing highly curated datasets for training specialized AI models in high-stake crypto applications. By automatically collecting data through crowdsourcing and subjecting it to a decentralized review and augmentation process, Código has generated 4,000 dApps and four million lines of code within six months, tapping into the billion-dollar market opportunity of AI training data.
Accrue: Enabling Instant and Affordable Transactions in Africa
Accrue, founded by Clinton Mbah and Adesuwa Omoruyi, is building a stablecoin-powered payment network to address the costly and slow bank transfers in Africa. By leveraging the continent’s existing network of mobile tellers, Accrue enables instant and affordable transactions. With 10% of these mobile tellers being stablecoin-savvy, Accrue offers them increased profit share and an upcoming token. The startup is already cash-flow positive and has processed $5 million in payments.
Fig Investments: Bridging Traditional Finance and DeFi
Founded by banking veterans Guanzhi Ma and Tony Qian, Fig Investments offers an automated trading desk that tokenizes hedge fund strategies, catering to the growing interest in decentralized finance (DeFi) services from traditional finance (TradFi) players. By matching TradFi interest in crypto with on-chain LP interest for returns, Fig claims to achieve a 10x scale compared to its competitors. Since its launch four months ago, Fig’s TVL has grown significantly, demonstrating the potential for bridging the gap between TradFi and DeFi.
0G: Revolutionizing Modular Blockchain Technology
Introducing 0G: The Cutting-Edge Modular AI Chain
In the fiercely competitive world of modular blockchain, 0G is making waves with its innovative data availability layer. Founded by Michael Heinrich and Ming Wu, 0G is on a mission to revolutionize Ethereum transaction scaling.
Outperforming the Competition
0G’s unique technology boasts performance that is a staggering 50,000 times faster than industry leader Celestia while being 100 times more cost-effective than its rival. This groundbreaking solution positions 0G as a formidable contender against well-funded projects such as a16z-backed EigenLayer, Celestia, and Polygon’s Avail.
Stage: Recently closed a 20x oversubscribed pre-seed round; raising seed
Proto: Crowdsourcing Accurate Navigation for Developing Countries
Introducing Proto: The On-Chain Google Maps Alternative
Founded by Akshay Yeleswarapu, Proto aims to tackle the inaccuracies of Google Maps in developing countries, where dense cities and rapid urban development pose unique challenges.
Incentivizing Crowdsourced Mapping Data
Proto’s innovative approach involves crowdsourcing mapping data, allowing users to easily contribute images using their mobile phones. Contributors are rewarded with tokens, creating an incentive for accurate and up-to-date information. Since its launch in late January, Proto has already achieved an impressive 75% of Google Maps’ coverage of Bangalore through a network of 400 users.
Stage: Raising seed
Dinari: Unlocking Global Access to U.S. Securities
Introducing Dinari: The Global Tokenized Stock Exchange
Founded by Gabriel Otte, Chas Rampenthal, and Jake Timothy, Dinari is revolutionizing access to U.S. securities for non-U.S. investors. Registered with the SEC, Dinari enables users to purchase stocks using stablecoins, overcoming the high barriers of entry associated with traditional brokerages.
Tokens Backed by Real-World Stocks
Dinari’s unique advantage lies in its tokens being backed by real-world stocks, setting it apart from early attempts at tokenizing securities that restrict certain features. The platform’s total value locked (TVL) has already grown to an impressive $500,000.
Stage: Closed a $10 million seed round; raising Series A
Alliance DAO: Connecting Crypto Experts with Cohorts
Alliance DAO is bringing together a diverse range of crypto experts to share their domain knowledge with cohorts. Among the guest mentors are:
- Jacquelyn Melinek, founder of Token Relations and former crypto reporter at The Zero Byte
- Jason Yanowitz, founder of Blockworks
- Ming Ng, founder of Jupiter
- Greg DiPrisco, founder of Ajna and M^0 Labs
- Seung Yoon “SY” Lee, founder of Story Protocol
- David Vorick, founder of Sia and Glow
- Ilja Moisejevs & Richard Wu, founders of Tensor
3 Comments
So, the mighty US crackdown is scaring away crypto pioneers from Alliance DAO, huh? Figures.
Guess the US isn’t the blockchain promised land anymore, huh, Aria?
And suddenly, the land of the free doesn’t seem so welcoming to crypto innovators, does it?