Web3 Startup Mysten Labs Seeks $200m in Series B Financing, Closing Valuation at $2B

Mysten Labs, a crypto startup founded by former Meta executives, is closing a Series B round that could value the company at $2 billion

The financing process is still in intense discussions, and Mysten Labs is actively seeking at least $200 million in Series B financing led by FTX Ventures. Investors led by FTX Ventures have committed at least $140 million in the round, The Information reported.

After this financing, the company could be valued at $2 billion. But the winner depends largely on whether stock investors get additional warrants that give them the right to buy tokens used with their blockchain, and the strike price for exercising those options.

Mysten Labs is built to accelerate the adoption of web3. Mysten Labs was founded in September 2021 by four former senior engineers in Facebook’s (now Meta) encryption division. The founders include Evan Cheng, who also worked at Apple for 10 years and is currently the CEO of Mysten.

The other three core members are Sam Blackshear, Adeniyi Abiodun and George Danezis who worked together at Novi Research (Meta’s advanced cryptographic R&D team).

Mysten Labs completed a $36 million financing round led by a16z in December last year.

It plans to launch a “next-generation NFT platform for the Metaverse” in 2022, making it easier for users to move assets between different virtual environments without sacrificing functionality.

Mysten Labs of Sui Blockchain Hacked on Discord

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Sui blockchain designers Mysten Labs is the latest blockchain firm to face a crypto hack. The firm has announced that its Discord server has been hacked.

The blockchain company has warned people not to click any links posted on the server in the eight hours prior to its Twitter announcement and said that the team is working to fix the mess.

An unverified screenshot shared on Twitter stated that hackers had put a link of a rumoured crypto airdrop on the announcement channel in the server. Mysten Labs made such an announcement on Saturday, and so far, no other further updates have been published.

Sui blockchain, a permissionless proof-stake blockchain, is the first product offered by Mysten Labs, launched in March this year. 

Mysten Labs, a web3 infrastructure firm, was established by Evan Cheng, Sam Blackshear, Adeniyi Abiodun, and George Danezis, four former developers from Meta’s once-ambitious cryptocurrency project Novi. In the past, the four specialists were involved in the development of the Diem blockchain and its Move programming language.

Last December, Mysten Labs raised a $36 million funding round participated by high-profile investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and Coinbase Ventures. Last month, Mysten Labs announced that it was targeting a $2 billion valuation.

 $1.4 Billion Stolen This Year Through Breaches

This year, hacks and scams have hit crypto investors hard. Cybercriminals have so far found a particularly useful avenue – blockchain bridges – to siphon customers’ funds.

Blockchain bridges, which normally connect networks to enable the fast swaps of tokens, are getting increasing popularity as a way for crypto users to do transactions. Thanks to blockchain bridge technology, crypto users are bypassing centralized exchanges.

However, since the beginning of this year, a total of about $1.4 billion has been lost through breaches on such cross-chain bridges. According to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, the bridge exploits are happening at a striking rate as they are a new phenomenon.

In February, Wormhole, one of the most popular bridges linking the Ethereum and Solana blockchains, was hit by a hack that stole around $320 million.

In June, hackers stole $100 million in cryptocurrency from Horizon, a so-called blockchain bridge developed by crypto start-up Harmony.

Early this month, hackers stole almost $200 million from Nomad, a bridge protocol for transferring crypto tokens across different blockchains.

FTX Ventures Leads $300m Series B Funding for Mysten Labs

Mysten Labs, the startup behind the highly hyped Sui blockchain protocol, has raised $300 million from top investors in the Web3.0 ecosystem. 

The Mysten Labs Series B was led by FTX Ventures and enjoined participation from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as well as Jump Crypto, Apollo, Binance Labs, Franklin Templeton, Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sino Global, Dentsu Ventures, Greenoaks Capital, and O’Leary Ventures amongst others. 

Mysten Lab’s mainstream innovation, the Sui blockchain, is yet to be launched. Drawing on the experiences of the 5 Co-Founders with Meta Platforms’ defunct payment blockchain, Diem and Novi Wallet, the protocol was created as a payment protocol that can serve as the gateway for the following billion users to wade into the world of blockchain.

The Mysten team hopes to use the acquired funds to accelerate the launch of the Sui blockchain protocol and invest in the Sui ecosystem while also expanding its footprint into the Asian market.  

The Facebook veterans pride themselves in building a multifaceted protocol that offers enhanced user and developer experience. As announced, the protocol will solve the challenges of low scalability and high fees, poor onboarding experiences, and limited use cases. 

While taking similarities to the Diem protocol, which was later sold to Silvergate Bank, the Sui blockchain protocol was created through the in-house developed programming language, Move. The Move language was developed by Mysten Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer Sam Blackshear. The Move language was used to create Diem as well as the upcoming blockchain protocol, Aptos.

This Mysten’s latest funding round was first hinted at by The Information, who said back in July that the firm was on track to pull $200 million from investors to top a $2 billion valuation. The report has proven to be accurate as the latest round hit the projected valuation.

Oracle Red Bull Racing Teams Up with Mysten Labs for Blockchain Engagement via Sui Platform

Sui has been selected to serve as the official blockchain partner for Oracle Red Bull Racing.

Oracle Red Bull Racing Validator will be available on Sui thanks to the collaboration between the team and Mysten Labs.

Mysten Labs, which was the project’s first contributor, will be in charge of managing and operating the validator.

In order to enhance the Sui protocol, the Oracle Red Bull Racing Validator will take part in the process of reaching a consensus throughout the network. This will assist to guarantee that the blockchain is populated with only genuine data.

Oracle Red Bull Racing Team Principal and Chief Executive Officer Christian Horner remarked that the team was an early user of blockchain technology in Formula One. He noted that the company saw the technology’s potential to link fans all over the globe with the team in a manner that was both innovative and forward-thinking.

This experience will be improved because to the cooperation with Sui, which will make accessing it simpler, more secure, and more interesting.

They are pleased to provide their support to Oracle Red Bull Racing at this exciting time as the team investigates novel approaches to building connections with fans.

The Oracle Red Bull Racing Validator was released after the team decided in June 2023 to make Sui its Official Blockchain Partner as part of a multi-year agreement with Mysten Labs to build on Sui. 

Sui is a first-of-its-kind Layer 1 blockchain and smart contract platform. Its purpose is to enable the ownership of digital assets quick, private, and safe while also making them available to everybody. Parallel execution, sub-second finality, and rich on-chain assets are all made possible as a result of its object-centric approach, which is based on the Move programming language.

Since the beginning of the FIA Formula One World Championship, Oracle Red Bull Racing has consistently shown to be one of the most formidable teams in the competition.

The team has become one of the most successful teams in Formula One as a result of their enthusiasm, playfulness, ambition, and extraordinary successes. They are recognized as one of the most successful teams in the sport.

Mysten Labs Announces Bullshark Quest 2 with 5M SUI Reward Pool

Mysten Labs has officially announced the commencement of Bullshark Quest 2, starting on July 28, 2023, at 12:01 a.m. PDT. The new quest comes on the heels of the successful completion of the first Bullshark Quest, which saw significant participation from the community and brought substantial attention to the Sui ecosystem.

Bullshark Quest 2 offers a substantial reward pool of 5 million SUI, courtesy of a partnership between Mysten Labs and the Sui Foundation. The rewards, divided into two pools of 2.5 million SUI each, will be distributed after the quest concludes on August 28, 2023, at 11:59 p.m. PDT.

Sui, an innovative decentralized Layer 1 blockchain developed by MystenLabs, aims to redefine asset ownership by leveraging the Move programming language in its next-generation smart contract platform. SUI is the native token of Sui platform.

The quest is open to holders of either a SuiFrens Bullshark or Capy collectible. To maintain eligibility, participants must continue to own one or more Bullsharks or Capys throughout the quest period. Participants can join the quest at any time during the period, although early participation is encouraged.

Participants can start earning points by engaging with the following decentralized applications (dApps): NAVI, a native one-stop liquidity protocol; Turbos, a hyper-efficient decentralized crypto marketplace; Scallop, a next-generation Money Market; and Typus Finance, a real yield infrastructure. Further applications may be added after the quest begins.

Points can be earned by interacting on-chain with the aforementioned dApps at or after the quest’s start time. The exact points schema and leaderboard for Quest 2 will be made available in the following week. However, participants need not worry about their points not being viewable until then, as every relevant Quest transaction on Sui is being tracked.

The Bullshark Quests portal will display a live leaderboard of all active participants for Quest 2. As a SuiFrens Bullshark or Capy holder, participants can connect their wallets on the Quests portal to see their current score and ranking on the leaderboard. The portal and leaderboard will go live next week and will update every ten minutes.

The reward pool of 5M SUI provided by the Sui Foundation will be divided into two parts. The first pool will be shared by the top 10,000 eligible players, while the second pool will be divided equally among all other eligible players.

Mysten Labs reserves the right to change the scoring methodology at any time for any reason, including to combat any behavior deemed to be cheating. The points and reward structure are currently being refined, and details on how to redeem earned points from Quest 2 for SUI rewards will be shared next week.

Bullshark Quest 2 officially begins on July 28, 2023, at 12:01 a.m. PDT. Participants can join the quest later by adding a SuiFren to their wallet. However, if a participant’s wallet no longer contains a SuiFren, they will lose any accrued points. For further information, participants can check out the FAQ on the Bullshark Quests Portal or visit the Mysten Apps Discord server.

Mysten Labs Partners with Alibaba Cloud to Bolster Sui Blockchain Ecosystem

Mysten Labs, a key developer behind the Sui blockchain, has announced an expanded partnership with Alibaba Cloud. This collaboration aims to bolster the Sui blockchain ecosystem through a series of innovative services, notably leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

Key aspects of this partnership include the development of an AI-enabled environment tailored for Sui’s Move language developers. Mysten Labs and ChainIDE are jointly creating an AI-assisted tool that simplifies Move code development. This tool, powered by natural language processing, will enable developers to generate Move code from simple prompts. Leveraging Alibaba Cloud’s infrastructure and technical support, this initiative promises to accelerate the pace for seasoned developers and offer a supportive environment for newcomers to the blockchain development space.

Additionally, the partnership extends to educational and community-focused endeavors. There are plans to roll out educational programs across universities, emphasizing blockchain and AI technology. Community events are also on the agenda, aiming to foster a more robust and engaged developer network around the Sui blockchain.

In a move to make Sui’s resources more accessible globally, Mysten Labs and Alibaba Cloud will translate Move documentation into Mandarin Chinese and Korean, thereby broadening the reach of the Sui ecosystem in key Asian markets. This initiative reflects a strategic approach to cultivate a diverse and global community of developers.

The collaboration also includes infrastructural support for the Sui blockchain. Alibaba Cloud will provide full node services on Sui, contributing to the network’s scalability and reliability. Furthermore, in partnership with Mysten Labs’ strategic partner ShinamiCorp, Alibaba Cloud will offer Gas Station benefits to Sui builders, which simplifies sponsoring user transactions on the blockchain.

A key component of this partnership is the support for project incubators. Mysten Labs and Alibaba Cloud will provide cloud infrastructure and organize demo day events in strategic locations like Hong Kong, Singapore, and Dubai. This initiative aims to nurture promising projects that contribute to the growth of the Sui network ecosystem.

This collaboration between Mysten Labs and Alibaba Cloud represents a significant step forward in the blockchain space. It combines the technical prowess and innovative approach of Mysten Labs with the cloud and AI capabilities of Alibaba Cloud. The focus on AI-assisted development tools, educational outreach, and infrastructural support is poised to drive significant advancements in the Sui blockchain ecosystem, making it more accessible, robust, and innovative.

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