1kx

According to the analysis by the crypto venture capital firm 1kx (@1kxnetwork), on-chain fees in the second quarter of this year decreased by 33% year-on-year, with DEX fees dropping by $625 million (-57%), mainly dragged down by Meteora, Raydium, and PancakeSwap, which together generated $1.5 billion in fees in the first half of last year; blockchain and MEV fees decreased by $362 million (-40%); launch platform fees fell by 57%, with Pump.fun contributing nearly half of the decline.Some sectors achieved counter-cyclical growth: perpetual contract and prediction market fees increased by 22% year-on-year, led by edgeX and Hyperliquid, with Polymarket contributing nearly $100 million in a single quarter; the lending and asset management sectors continued to grow, with Morpho, USDai, and Maple Finance each increasing by $9 million to $19 million; Canton Network added $179 million in L1 fees, but most of this was driven by incentives. Despite the overall decline in industry fees, token holder distribution returns remained stable, with Binance burn still accounting for a significant share, and protocols like Hyperliquid have incorporated buybacks and burns into their regular policies.

According to The Block, the entertainment sector on-chain clearinghouse KOR Protocol announced the completion of a $7.5 million Series A financing round, with a valuation of $100 million. Investors include 1kx, Blockchain Capital, as well as previous investors Republic Crypto, Sfermion, Alumni Ventures, and SevenX.KOR Protocol is building an on-chain creative asset clearing platform for the registration, verification, and settlement of creative works such as music and film, and will provide programmable revenue sharing to creators and rights holders through stablecoins like USDC.KOR stated that this round of funding will be used for platform development, ecosystem growth, and partner integration, and plans to launch a token.

According to TechCrunch, the short video + meme trading platform Giggles completed a $1.2 million Pre-Seed funding round in 2025, with investors including 1kx Capital, Virtuals Protocol, Social Graph Ventures, Noar Ventures, Night Capital, and angel investors from organizations such as OpenAI and Bain Capital.Reportedly, Giggles was created by 19-year-old Canadian founder Justin Jin and is a TikTok-style short video social application, with the core mechanism being "all content is tradable." Users can discover prices and trade trending videos and memes. The project combines social video browsing with prediction markets, allowing users to profit if early investments in content go viral. It is currently in an invitation-only testing phase and has attracted a large waiting list of users, reflecting the integration of content economy and crypto trends.

According to The Block, stablecoin payment card infrastructure service provider Kulipa announced the completion of a $6.2 million seed round financing, led by Flourish Ventures and 1kx, with participation from White Star Capital and Fabric Ventures. The company helps fintech companies issue white-label stablecoin payment cards without having to manage card operations themselves.According to Kulipa founder and CEO Axel Cateland, this round of financing was actually completed last December, using a Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE) financing model, but he declined to disclose details such as when the financing process began, the structure of the financing tranches, the company's valuation, and the allocation of board seats.

According to Chainwire, the new generation entertainment platform BLUFF has completed a $21 million financing round, led by the blockchain technology fund 1kx, with participation from investors such as Makers Fund, Maximum Frequency Ventures, and Delphi Ventures Founders.The BLUFF team will use the funds to advance the development of its innovative prediction platform and scale its promotion.

ChainCatcher news, venture capital firm 1kx has released the "Onchain Revenue Report H1 2025," summarizing on-chain verification data from over 1,200 protocols, showing that the crypto industry's "on-chain economy" has formed an ecosystem worth $20 billion and is growing rapidly.The report points out that on-chain fees have become the most direct indicator of real market demand. DeFi protocols still account for 63% of total on-chain fees, but emerging sectors are growing rapidly: wallet revenue has increased by 260% year-on-year, consumer applications have grown by 200%, and DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) has surged by 400%. Meanwhile, Ethereum's share of the overall market has declined; despite its transaction fees dropping by 86% since 2021, the number of ecosystem protocols has expanded eightfold.1kx notes that a dislocation between market capitalization and actual revenue is becoming apparent: the top 20 protocols account for 70% of on-chain fees, but DeFi projects have a market cap only 17 times their revenue, while public chains have an average valuation as high as 3,900 times, indicating a premium investors place on "nation-state-like" narrative assets.Looking ahead, 1kx expects the total on-chain economic fees to reach $32 billion by 2026, a year-on-year increase of 63%, driven mainly by RWA (Real World Asset Tokenization), DePIN networks, wallet monetization, and consumer-grade crypto applications. The report believes that as regulatory clarity improves and infrastructure expands, the on-chain economy is entering a "mature phase"—a new cycle driven by usage, revenue, and value distribution.

ChainCatcher news, according to Onchain Lens monitoring, 1kx co-founder Christopher Heymann (@HeyoChristopher) associated wallet deposited 2 million USDC into Hyperliquid and reopened ENA long positions with 10x leverage. Previously, this address had deposited 4.22 million dollars into Hyperliquid but was liquidated during the recent market downturn.

ChainCatcher news, the on-chain music platform Coop Records has announced the completion of two rounds of financing, with a total amount of 4.5 million USD. This round of financing was led by 1kx and Nascent, with participation from institutions such as 1confirmation and CB Ventures through the Base ecosystem fund. The funds will be used to advance the development of the Coop Records music startup platform.

ChainCatcher news, according to Decrypt, Stackup, a Web3 open-source tool founded by former SpaceX mission manager John Rising, has completed a $4.2 million seed round financing, led by 1kx, with participation from Y Combinator and Digital Currency Group.The platform provides enterprises with a "centralized control over decentralized assets" solution through account abstraction technology, supporting features such as spending limits and batch transaction reviews.Rising emphasizes the importance of system security design based on his aerospace engineering experience, pointing out that the current crypto field overly focuses on security protection while neglecting operational safety. The Stackup team currently consists of 4 members, and their technology has previously been applied in the wallet development of Coinbase and Trust Wallet.

ChainCatcher news, the blockchain game development studio Orange Cap Games announced today the successful completion of a $3.5 million seed round financing.This round of financing was co-led by crypto investment firms 1kx and Yuga Labs, with participation from venture capital firms such as Bing Ventures and Infinity Ventures Crypto, as well as support from several angel investors.Orange Cap Games stated that the new funds will focus on the development of its two core products: the collectible card game Vibes TCG and the ecosystem development of the NFT project Moonbirds.

ChainCatcher news, according to Venturebeat, Web3 game developer Voya Games has completed a $5 million funding round, led by 1kx and Makers Fund, with participation from RockawayX. Angel investors include Sky Mavis co-founder Jeff 'Jihoz' Zirlin and The Sandbox COO Sébastien Borget.The funds from this financing will be used to support the development of the casual Web3 game Craft World. Craft World is a casual resource management game where players collaborate with friendly dinosaurs to rebuild civilization after a meteorite destroys humanity. The game is currently in the testnet phase.

ChainCatcher news, the Kaia Foundation announced on X that it has received investment from top crypto venture capital firms, led by Blockchain Capital and 1kx, with participation from Galaxy, The Spartan Group, IDG Capital, Mirana Ventures, SNZ Holding, Comma3 Ventures, Caladan, Lingfeng Capital, Waterdrip Capital, and MEXC Ventures. The specific investment amounts have not been disclosed.Kaia is formed by the merger of Klaytn and Finschia blockchains, originally developed by Kakao and LINE respectively. It features the lowest transaction latency in EVM L1, with a block time of 1 second and instant finality, enabling a smooth user experience and opening up possibilities for use cases that require near real-time responses.

ChainCatcher news, according to official sources, the decentralized, performance-enhanced memory layer Optimum, suitable for any blockchain, has completed a $11 million seed round financing, led by 1kx, with participation from Robot Ventures, Finality Capital, Spartan, CMT Digital, SNZ, Triton Capital, Big Brain, CMS, Longhash, NGC, Animoca, GSR, Caladan, Reforge, and others.At the core of Optimum's innovation is a decentralized coding method for distributed systems, known as Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC), developed by MIT professor Muriel Médard.According to the Web3 asset data platform RootData, the full-chain expansion solution Optimum is a decentralized high-performance memory infrastructure for blockchain. Based on Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) technology, Optimum offers two core products: the high-performance node communication layer OptimumP2P and the decentralized memory layer DeRAM, aimed at providing efficient data transmission, storage, and access solutions for any blockchain network.

ChainCatcher news, according to official sources, crypto venture capital firm 1kx has announced a strategic investment in the blockchain game developer Gunzilla Games for the dystopian cyberpunk shooter game "Off The Grid," with the specific amount not disclosed.It is reported that 1kx had previously been skeptical about deploying cryptocurrency strategies in AAA games due to early product execution risks, and this investment seems to indicate a shift in their previous investment strategy.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, ZKP technology startup Ligero has completed a $4 million seed round financing. This round was co-led by Galaxy Ventures and 1kx, with participation from Franklin Templeton, Nascent, Anagram, Robot Ventures, Digital Currency Group, and ZKV.The company began this round of financing in March 2024 and concluded it in July 2024. The structure of the seed round financing is a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE), accompanied by token warrants, with a valuation cap of $20 million. There are currently no plans to launch a token.According to the Web3 asset data platform RootData, Ligero is a lightweight and scalable protocol for secure multi-party computation (MPC) and zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP).

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the autonomous AI agent platform in the crypto space, Olas, has completed a $13.8 million funding round to support the launch of an "agent app store" called Pearl. This round was led by 1kx, with participation from Tioga Capital, Sigil Fund, Zee Prime Capital, Borderless, Keyrock, and others. The Olas team (also known as Autonolas) stated that the funds will be used to support its agent app store, aiming to democratize access to user-owned AI agents.Along with the funding announcement, Olas also launched the Olas Accelerator program, which provides $1 million in grants and OLAS token rewards for developers building agents on the platform. Olas's tech stack includes Olas Stack and Olas Protocol, which incentivize the creation and co-ownership of AI agents. The team stated that it has facilitated over 3.5 million transactions from agents across nine blockchains.

ChainCatcher news, Layer 1 network developer Pod announced the completion of a $10 million seed round financing, led by a16z CSX and 1kx, with participation from Flashbots, Blockchain Builders Fund, and Protagonist, as well as several angel investors from Celestia, Babylon, and Axelar.It is reported that Pod plans to build a "consensus-less" Layer 1 network, with transaction speeds comparable to the response time of Google searches. Pod expects to launch a developer network in the coming weeks, with a testnet scheduled for release in the third quarter of 2025 and a mainnet planned for the first quarter of 2026.

ChainCatcher news, the on-chain user experience platform and WalletConnect network builder Reown announced the completion of a $13 million Series B financing, led by Union Square Ventures (USV) and 1kx, with participation from Global Digital Asset Holdings (a joint venture investment company established by SC Ventures and SBI Holdings), Shopify Ventures, Kraken Ventures, Crypto.com Capital, Figment, Kiln, Everstake, BitGo Ventures, and Fenbushi.As of now, the company's total financing amount has reached $38 million. The new funds will be used to build its SDK—Reown AppKit and Reown WalletKit—to further develop the on-chain user experience platform, addressing issues such as enabling crypto subscription payments without the need for custodial accounts. Its crypto solution clients include financial infrastructure platform Stripe and gift card giant Raise.