eCommerce Startup Ticket Monster (TMON) Raises $32 Million to Create Crypto Stablecoin

South Korean eCommerce Startup Raises $32 Million to Create Crypto Stablecoin

South Korea ecommerce marketplace Ticket Monster (TMON) revealed it had closed a $32 million funding round for its new stablecoin.

TMON, which boasts a considerable $4 billion in total sales, is seeking to create an in-house cryptocurrency to compliment its existing token, Luna, which acts as collateral on its blockchain platform.

Contributing to the round are some of the cryptocurrency industry’s best-known names, including Binance Labs, OKEx and Huobi Capital, as well as funds including Polychain Capital.

“From experience, I know that faster, more secure transactions...


Binance Backs TMON Unicorn Founder's $32 Million Crypto Stablecoin Financing

Yet another stablecoin is attracting big investors.

Announced Tuesday, the founder behind a $1.4 billion startup unicorn called TMON is revealing he has raised a $32 million seed round to build a stablecoin called Terra. But while a number of startups have deployed stablecoins – cryptocurrencies engineered to track the price of another asset, usually fiat currency – Terra comes with a notable addition: an existing user base.

Created by Korean entrepreneurs Danial Shin, who founded and chairs TMON, one of the top e-commerce websites in South Korea, the Terra project is launching with a significant number of partners that already reach 40 million customers. Those partners, who will together form the Terra Alliance, a group of e-commerce sites that are interested in incorporating the stablecoin into their business, include Woowa Brothers, Qoo10, Carousell, Pomelo and TIKI.

According to a spokesperson for the project, those companies, combined, take in $25 billion in sales.

"We've banded together all the e-commerce platforms in Asia that are not called Alibaba or Amazon to push Terra into the hands of many many people," Shin told CoinDesk.

It's no wonder that the round includes quite a few notable crypto investors, including Polychain Capital, FBG Capital, Hashed, 1kx, Kenetic Capital, Arrington XRP, Binance and others who were not disclosed.

"We are pleased to support Terra, which sets itself apart from most other blockchain projects with its established and immediate go-to-market strategy," said Polychain's Karthik Raju in a statement.

Echoing that, Ella Zhang, head of Binance Labs, said in a statement:

"While we see many stablecoins coming out, Terra's journey is especially meaningful as they are designing one of the few price-stable protocols with existing, working and strong go-to-market strategy and usage."

That use, according to Shin, is in acting as an economical digital payment system, compared to credit cards.

He told CoinDesk, that a significant portion of TMON's annual losses take the form of credit card fees. And he's sure other retailers experience the same.

That...


Startup @Dfinity Raises $102 Million to Build ‘Internet Computer’

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Cryptocurrency startup Dfinity has raised another $102 million to fund the development of its “world computer,” bringing its total capital intake to nearly $200 million.

Announced on Wednesday, the funding round was led by a16z crypto, Andreessen Horowitz’s dedicated cryptocurrency fund, and crypto hedge fund Polychain Capital. The two firms were also joint leaders in Dfinity’s most recent funding round, which raised $61 million and was announced in February. Altogether, the startup has raised approximately $195 million.

Speaking on the announcement, Dominic Williams, founder and chief scientist of Dfinity, said:

“The Internet Computer is a public infrastructure that aims to host the world’s next generation of software and services. The platform provides a novel means to develop and host new software systems where R&D costs can be 90% lower, yet hosted systems are far more secure since the Internet Computer is unhackable, and are always available, highly interoperable and better able to preserve the privacy of confidential data.”

While individual stakes in the present round were not disclosed, Andreessen Horowitz reportedly...