Here’s the crypto news you missed at Disrupt 2023

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This week I’ve been in San Francisco for TechCrunch Disrupt 2023. It’s been a three-day journey jam-packed with panels, cubicles and conversations round tech, AI, house, safety and, after all, crypto. You possibly can take a look at all of the information protection here.

Throughout the occasion, 20 startups pitched their firms dwell as a part of TechCrunch Startup Battlefield at Disrupt 2023. These firms have been chosen as the perfect of the Startup Battlefield 200 and competed for an opportunity to take house the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000. Here are the six finalists.

As for me, I moderated 4 onstage panels, together with two separate hearth chats with main VC gamers like a16z’s Arianna Simpson and Haun Ventures’ Chris Lehane. (Particulars on that under.)

And don’t fear, we’ll be rolling out extra crypto protection from the convention — together with a narrative on the blockchain-focused panel I moderated with Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder and CEO of Solana Labs; Grace Torrellas, VP of product and product lead at Polygon zkEVM; and Mo Shaikh, co-founder and CEO of Aptos Labs.

In any case, let’s get into it.

Crypto at Disrupt 2023

1. After cutting ties with Binance, Checkout.com says crypto companies are about 4% of its total processing volume
2. a16z’s Arianna Simpson believes crypto will be just fine, thank you for asking
3. Libra’s co-creator had geopolitical motivations to build the digital currency (TC+)
4. Alpha3D wants to accelerate digital asset and AI-powered generation through cheaper, hyperscaling technology

This week in web3

1. PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin is now available on Venmo
2. Aptos Labs adds Coinbase Pay to its Petra crypto wallet
3. 8 web3 gaming experts discuss hurdles and opportunities in the road to wider adoption (TC+)
4. Blockchain Capital launches two new funds for a total of $580M
5. Web3 adoption could come via the enterprise, but the real boom will be through startups (TC+)

The most recent pod

For this week’s episode, Jacquelyn did a dwell interview with Chris Lehane, chief technique officer at Haun Ventures, at TechCrunch’s Disrupt 2023 in San Francisco.

Previous to becoming a member of the agency, Chris was an government at Airbnb. He additionally co-founded a strategic consultancy agency, Fabiani & Lehane, that suggested political, company, expertise, leisure {and professional} sports activities shoppers. Within the Nineteen Nineties, Chris held numerous authorities roles like press secretary to Vice President Al Gore and was particular assistant counsel to President Invoice Clinton.

After plenty of many years working throughout totally different industries, Chris landed on this planet of crypto at Haun Ventures, a web3-focused enterprise capital agency that has two funding autos: a $500 million early-stage fund and a $1 billion acceleration fund. Other than Haun, he’s additionally a member of Coinbase’s World Advisory Council.

We mentioned Haun’s funding technique amid U.S. and international regulatory challenges, how the agency advises portfolio firms to navigate the ever-changing surroundings and whether or not Chris discover’s the U.S. Securities and Change Fee’s regulation ways productive, amongst different issues.

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Observe the cash

1. Mesh, which helps folks handle their digital belongings, raised $22 million
2. Former Farmville co-creator raised $33 million for its blockchain gaming startup Proof of Play
3. Lens Protocol-based app Orb raised $2.3 million to develop web3 social
4. Crypto analytics platform CoinScan emerges from stealth with $6.3 million increase
5. Decentralized market protocol Freatic raises $3.6 million in spherical led by a16z

This checklist was compiled with info from Messari in addition to TechCrunch’s personal reporting.

What else we’re writing

Need to department out from the world of web3? Listed below are some articles on TechCrunch that caught our consideration this week.

1. Cisco to acquire Splunk in $28B mega deal
2. As Robinhood eyes global expansion, CEO says: ‘We’ve made a lot of progress’
3. How Reed Jobs’ venture firm tackles cancer
4. Shaquille O’Neal talks investing in edtech and startups that are going to ‘change people’s lives’
5. Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

Observe me on Twitter @Jacqmelinek for breaking crypto information, memes and extra.