This article comes fromThis article comes from, Original Author: Vicky Ge Huang

Odaily Translator | Nian Yin Si Tang

Odaily Translator | Nian Yin Si Tang

Mysten Labs, a start-up founded by former Meta platform Inc. executives in the cryptocurrency division, announced the completion of $300 million in funding, valuing the company at more than $2 billion.

Mysten Labs CEO Evan Cheng said the new funding will help the company build out its Sui blockchain, hire more employees, and expand into the Asia-Pacific region.

This round of financing was led by FTX Ventures, and other investors included a16z Crypto, Jump Crypto, Apollo, Binance Labs, Franklin Templeton, Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners, A&T Capital, etc.In July, sources familiar with the matter revealed that, Mysten Labs is seeking to raise at least $200 million in Series B financing at a valuation of $2 billion. This round of financing will be led by FTX Ventures, and investors have committed to provide at least $140 million in funding. It is reported that,Mysten Labs completed a US$36 million Series A financing in December 2021

, led by a16z, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, NFX, Slow Ventures, Scribble Ventures, Samsung NEXT, and Lux ​​Capital.

Venture capital investment has been strong this year despite the meltdown in the cryptocurrency market. Venture capital investors poured $33.8 billion into crypto and blockchain-related startups as of the end of August, according to data from crypto research firm Messari. This part of the year's spending already exceeds the $31.6 billion that crypto companies will raise in all of 2021.Venture funds focused on the crypto sector are sitting on the piles of cash they raised ahead of the market downturn. Earlier this year, Andreessen Horowitz's a16z Crypto raised $4.5 billion for its fourth cryptocurrency fund,。

Crypto exchange FTX also launches $2 billion venture capital arm

A broader market decline and the collapse of several once-hot crypto firms may have contributed to the late-summer slowdown in investment. According to Messari, in July and August, venture capital investment was down more than 30% from a year earlier.

"Investors have become a lot more cautious about investing in this space, and the slowdown in growth is very obvious," said Robert Le, a cryptocurrency analyst at PitchBook.

In May, as the collapse of TerraUSD and its sister token, Luna, wiped $40 billion off the crypto market cap and caused cryptocurrency prices to plummet, Mysten executives began talking to investors about raising capital. The collapse of several cryptocurrency lenders and hedge fund Three Arrows Capital Ltd. triggered a credit crunch that further exacerbated the market rout.

As a result, the funding process has become slower and more challenging, Cheng said. "Some investors who had shown interest in the past, or expressed confidence in the company, ultimately failed to participate in this round," he added.

Mysten was founded by former executives from Novi Research, Meta's blockchain and crypto research arm. Cheng previously served as R&D director at Novi, where he helped develop the Diem blockchain and the Move programming language.It is understood that in May of this year,。

Mysten Labs announced the token economics of its Layer1 public chain project Sui and related content of SUI incentive mechanism

Mysten Labs said that the token of the public chain project Sui is SUI, with a total supply of 10 billion pieces, part of which will be circulated when the main network is launched, and the remaining SUI will be unlocked or distributed in incentive activities in the next few years. The four uses of SUI include participating in PoS pledges, paying Gas fees, supporting the Sui economic system, and participating in on-chain voting.Sui has announced the opening of the incentive testnet registration in early August, validators, developers, and Sui enthusiasts can apply to participate. Thereafter on August 25,Sui releases full node and verification node selection announcement

, saying that it has received 28,000 verification node applications from more than 80 countries, so it has decided to accept 500 full node operators.