Proximity Labs, a research and development firm, announced the creation of a $350 million grants vehicle to help build decentralized-finance applications on the NEAR blockchain, where it is focusing its efforts.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-21/a16z-backed-blockchain-gets-350-million-grants-vehicle-for-defi

FTX has listed ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO).

https://twitter.com/FTX_Official/status/1451544758657060877?s=20
https://ftx.com/trade/BITO/USD

Timeswap, a fully decentralized AMM based money market protocol, has published the article about its new project and it has also announced its seed round led by Multicoin Capital with participation from Mechanism Capital and Defiance Capital.

https://medium.com/@TimeswapProtocol/introducing-timeswap-fully-decentralized-amm-based-money-market-protocol-e95910739c8e

Genopets, an NFT game powered by Solana, has raised $8.3m in seed funding round to bridge the physical and digital world.

This round of seed funding was co-led by Konvoy Ventures and Pantera Capital, with participation from Old Fashion Research, Alameda Research, Solana Capital, Xoogler Ventures, Mechanism Capital, Collab+Currency, Spartan Group, Animoca Brands, OliveX, Hyper, CMT Digital, DeFi Alliance, Eniac Ventures, CMS Holdings, GBV Capital, Yield Guild Games, Merit Circle, Bitscale Capital, Infinity Ventures Crypto, Evernew Capital, Fundamental Labs, Valhalla Capital, Cinchblock, Raptor Capital, and Magnus Capital.

https://medium.com/@genopets/genopets-raises-8-3m-in-seed-round-funding-to-bridge-the-physical-and-digital-world-d884adc2cc97

Decentralized exchange (DEX) ZkLink has closed a $8.5 million funding round led by Republic Crypto to help ramp up for its market launch later this year.

Other participants in the funding round included Arrington Capital, DeFi Alliance, Huobi Ventures, Ascensive Assets, Morningstar Ventures, GSR and Marshland Capital.

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2021/10/22/decentralized-exchange-zklink-raises-85m-ahead-of-market-launch/

XanPool, a Hong Kong-based payments infrastructure firm that provides crypto on and off-ramp services, has raised $27 million in a Series A funding round.

Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures led the round.

CMT Digital and Taavet Hinrikus, founder and chairman of Wise (formerly Transferwise), also participated in the round, among other investors.

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/121730/peter-thiel-valar-ventures-xanpool-crypto-funding

3.1 million email addresses with accounts on the cryptocurrency market capitalisation website CoinMarketCap were reportedly discovered being traded on hacking forums.

Whilst the email addresses were found to correlate with CoinMarketCap accounts, it's unclear precisely how they were obtained.

https://haveibeenpwned.com/PwnedWebsites#CoinMarketCap

Worldcoin, the startup from the former president of Y Combinator and CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman, has raised $25 million at a $1 billion valuation.

Institutional investors include Andreesen Horowitz (Series A Lead), 1confirmation, Blockchange, Coinbase Ventures, CoinFund, Day One Ventures, Digital Currency Group, Fifty Years, Hypersphere, HASHED, Kenetic Capital, Multicoin, Three Arrows Capital, and more.

Angel investors include Reid Hoffman (Co-Founder of LinkedIn), Sam Bankman-Fried (Founder of FTX), Denis Nazarov (formerly a16z, founder of Mirror.xyz), Jesse Walden (formerly a16z, Founder of Variant Fund), and the founders and early team members from Solana, multiple Ethereum projects, Polkadot and Web3 Foundation, and more.

Worldcoin built a new device called the Orb. The Orb captures an image of a person’s eyes, which is converted into a short numeric code. After that, people receive their free share of Worldcoin.

https://worldcoin.org/
https://venturebeat.com/2021/10/21/worldcoin-launches-a-global-cryp

Binance Futures will launch USDT-margined CTSI perpetual contracts with up to 25x leverage at 2021-10-26 03:30 UTC.

https://www.binance.com/en/support/announcement/aa4a4f5e4f1344ae921ad13c90d7a21f

FTX has listed Aurory.
AURY is now trading around the IDO price.

https://twitter.com/FTX_Official/status/1452304354715869192?s=20
https://ftx.com/trade/AURY/USD

eNaira, the Bitt-developed central bank digital currency (CBDC), has officially rolled out in Nigeria.

Citizens and residents of Nigeria are now the first on the continent of Africa to use a legal tender digital currency for their daily financial transactions.

https://blog.bitt.com/bitt-develops-africas-first-cbdc/

Elrond Network has started a collaboration with Bloktopia, the VR metaverse that aims to become the edutainment hub for all levels of crypto experience.

https://elrond.com/blog/elrond-vr-metaverse-bloktopia/

Mastercard says any bank or merchant on its vast network can soon offer crypto services.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/25/mastercard-says-any-bank-or-merchant-on-its-vast-network-can-soon-offer-crypto-services.html

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Binance Marketplace Public Beta Test is now open to company developers.

Binance Marketplace offers powerful features that bring your business right to the Binance app, reach millions of users worldwide, and gain exposure to the most passionate crypto community in the world.

https://www.binance.com/en/support/announcement/b2dc6c3d7e794bc89dffa7dbd5f7603e

Crypto VC firm Sino Global Capital launches $200 million fund with backing from FTX.

The fund will invest across crypto projects, including DeFi and NFT infrastructure.

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/121875/crypto-vc-firm-sino-global-capital-200-million-fund-ftx

Solana has reached a new ATH, approaching $219.

It seems that Reddit is going to launch an NFT Platform.

Reddit is looking for a Senior Backend Engineer, NFT Platform.

https://boards.greenhouse.io/reddit/jobs/3454478

NEAR Protocol is launching an $800 million ecosystem grants program.

After the news, the NEAR price increased by 32% and reached a new ATH.

https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/10/25/near-protocol-offers-800m-in-grants-in-bid-for-defi-mindshare/

The NFT toy firm OnChain Studios has raised $7.5 million in a seed funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) to develop Cryptoys: a new non-fungible token (NFT) platform that combines digital toys and gaming.

Investors: Dapper Labs, Draper & Associates, CoinFund, Sound Ventures, Collab + Currency and WndrCo.

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2021/10/25/a16z-leads-75m-funding-round-in-nft-toy-firm-onchain-studios/

Tesla may soon resume support for crypto payments.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/telsa-hints-it-may-soon-resume-support-for-crypto-payments