US employment data for February The much anticipated Nonfarm Payroll (“NFP”) data was released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday. Per Reuters, “Nonfarm payrolls increased by 275,000 jobs last month [in February 2024], the labor Department said on Friday.” However, both January 2024 and December 2023 numbers were revised down substantially, 167,000 lower …

Ruceto Market Recap: Week Ending 3/08/24 – US Employment Showing Mixed Signals Read More »

Bitcoin is up huge Bitcoin ended the week at over $62k, with a market cap above $1.2 trillion. The asset experienced one of its biggest months ever, rising around 45% in February. While the Bitcoin ETFs initially seemed like a “buy the rumor, sell the news” event, net inflows to the ETFs were larger than …

Ruceto Market Recap: Week Ending 3/01/24 – The Nikkei is Partying Like it’s 1989 Read More »

On Tuesday (2/13) the Dow suffered its worst decline since March 2023 after hotter than expected US inflation numbers spooked the market into believing that the Fed may not cut rates as quickly as expected. However, US equities recovered most of their losses later in the week. Per JPM, “The CPI for All Urban Consumers …

Ruceto Market Recap: Week Ending 2/16/24 – Inflation Comes in Hot Read More »

Ruceto is launching a new newsletter that covers developments in both traditional finance and crypto markets. This is meant to provide value to all investors (retail & institutional and crypto and non-crypto investors alike). We look forward to delivering our latest insights and hearing your feedback! The S&P 500 reached a fresh all time high …

Ruceto Market Recap: Week Ending 2/9/24 – S&P Crosses 5,000 Read More »

A project that is backed by a16z, Balaji Srinivasan, Samsung Next, and Paris Hilton’s 11:11 Media has the ambitious goal of becoming the native IP infrastructure of the internet. Story Protocol raised $54M in a funding round from several large name investors. The platform, built on blockchain, will serve as an open repository for many …

Venture Trotter Weekly Review: An on-chain repository for IP Read More »

A “universal exchange” and derivatives protocol brings tokenized real-world assets (RWA) on-chain. ProsperEx raised an undisclosed amount in a strategic round from EMURGO Ventures, the venture capital offshoot of Cardano’s developer. The on-chain derivative protocol supports perpetual contracts, options, spot trading, DeFi mining, staking, and more. Regarding tradeable assets, the protocol supports both cryptocurrencies as …

Venture Trotter Weekly Review: A universal exchange is bringing real-world-assets on-chain Read More »

A new Web3 social media platform is enabling users to buy and trade shares (known in app as “Keys”) in each other. Friend.tech raised an undisclosed amount in a seed round that was led by Paradigm. The platform began inviting influencers with large Twitter followings in order to hit the ground running during its launch …

Venture Trotter Weekly Review: A Web3 social media platform let’s you trade tokenized shares of profiles Read More »

A company is building an EVM-compatible L1 with built-in connectivity to all blockchains, even non-smart contract chains like Bitcoin and Dogecoin. ZetaChain raised $27 million in a round that included Blockchain.com, Jane Street Capital, VistaLabs, and more. With ZetaChain, users can access all of their assets and data from one wallet on a single platform …

Venture Trotter Weekly Review: The EVM-compatible L1 omnichain that connects everything, even Bitcoin and Dogecoin Read More »

A Web3 company has the ambitious goal of bridging liquidity across DeFi, CeFi, and TradFi on a trustless fund infrastructure based on the ERC-3525. Solv, developer of a protocol that enables fundraising from on-chain financial instruments, raised $6M from investors including Nomura. Per the company website, they helped raise $158M for fund products, have TVL …

Venture Trotter Weekly Review: Nomura-Backed Company Seeks to Bridge DeFi, CeFi, and TradFi Read More »

A Web3 financial super app is competing directly with banks with the goal of mass adoption for crypto. Animoca Brands, developer and publisher of a broad portfolio of NFTs and blockchain games, announced that it will invest $30 million as part of a memorandum of understanding for a strategic partnership with hi. hi’s financial platform …

Venture Trotter Weekly Review: The financial super app that aims to bring 1 billion new users to Web3 Read More »

Equity raises that value Web3 companies at $500 million are uncommon right now, especially if they aren’t direct AI plays. However, one such raise occurred last week, and it was from a project that aims to be the primary ecosystem for ZK apps. p0x labs, the developer of Manta Network (multi-modular ecosystem for ZK apps), …

Venture Trotter Weekly Review: A Big Bet on ZK Adoption is Valued at $500 Million Read More »