Ex-Binance Execs Open $100 Million Fund for Metaverse, Crypto Adoption

Former-Binance executives have put together a funding of $100 million (roughly Rs. 776 crore), in order to further the sectors of cryptocurrencies and the metaverse. The name of this venture fund is ‘Old Fashion Research (OFR)’, created by Ling Zhang and Wayne Fu. During their stint at the crypto exchange, Zhang and Fu served as the former vice president of mergers and accusations as well as the head of corporate development respectively, at Binance.

Focussed on ways to aggregate the adoption of metaverse and crypto, the fund is backed by venture capital firms and angel investors, a CoinDesk report said.

As per the website of OFR, it has already invested in over 50 projects working around blockchain technology. Some names listed on the website are Nansen, Woo, Nestcoin, Dtravel, and Dropp among others.

“We invest in promising companies, teams, and ideas that have the power to move the crypto ecosystem forward in a positive and meaningful way,” the website notes.

This fund pool initiated by Zhang and Fu is among several other similar investments that the crypto industry has roped in recently, despite struggling with a downtime.

Earlier this week, venture capital giant, Andreessen Horowitz aka a16z, launched a new mega crypto fund worth $4.5 billion (roughly Rs. 34,912 crore). This marked the firm’s fourth such fund, concentrated on digital assets, with over $7.6 billion (roughly Rs. 58,964 crore) raised in total.

In May, Dapper Labs unveiled a $725 million (roughly Rs. 5,600 crore) ecosystem fund to invest in applications and growth for its layer-1 blockchain ecosystem named Flow. The Web3 player powers NBA Top Shot, the popular blockchain-based trading card platform.

Launching its biggest such fund yet, crypto venture capitalist Dragonfly Capital pledged $650 million (roughly Rs. 4,975 crore) in funding, betting on the crypto industry.

Industry experts have often said that institutional investments in the Web3 sector tend to keep the trust of investors intact in the industry, especially during rough days.

In 2021 alone, crypto-related firms collectively raised more than $30 billion (roughly Rs. 2,27,617 crore) from venture capital firms, making it the highest collection so far. In 2018, the same number was $8 billion (roughly Rs. 60,704 crore).