Binance Labs and CoinFund have recently co-led a $10 million funding round for Neutron, a cross-chain smart contract platform focusing on interchain security within the Cosmos ecosystem. With Binance Labs being the investment arm of leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance, their involvement, alongside other participants like Delphi Ventures, LongHash, and Nomad, is set to fuel Neutron’s growth significantly.
The funding aims to promote the development of Neutron’s blockchain software, ultimately providing a wider community of developers with a platform to create innovative, secure, and user-friendly decentralized applications (DApps). Binance Chief Business Officer Yibo Ling believes that Neutron’s engineering capabilities and tech stack provide “an innovative solution for essential infrastructure” within the Cosmos Hub – a notable endorsement.
Neutron, which launched in May 2021, utilizes the Cosmos ecosystem’s interchain security feature, Replicated Security (RS). This allows consumer chains to tap into the validators of the Cosmos Hub, the central and oldest chain in the Cosmos ecosystem, to run secure applications cost-effectively. Importantly, Neutron is interoperable across the 51 blockchains within the Cosmos network, making it easier for developers to create and link DApps across different chains.
Founding contributor of Neutron, Avril Dutheil, highlighted that Neutron sought to address the three main challenges faced by smart-contract developers in Cosmos: lack of security, lack of credible neutrality, and lack of access to cross-chain infrastructure. Neutron’s cross-chain infrastructure, combined with the RS, effectively does so by allowing smart-contracts to easily realize cross-chain functions over IBC.
However, not all blockchain-based projects are enjoying the same level of funding in the current market climate. In recent years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a popular buzzword, particularly following the successful launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. As a result, many investors are directing their capital towards AI startups, potentially at the expense of crypto-based projects.
In the first quarter of this year, the AI industry raised approximately $18 billion in funding. Evan Cheng, founder of Mysten Labs, noted that AI startups are now receiving a significant proportion of venture capital money originally allocated to crypto projects. According to Cheng, early-stage crypto companies can still secure funds, but late-stage funding is becoming increasingly scarce. He added, “It has to be an exceptional startup to get funded, unless you’re in the bubble of the excitement around generative AI right now.”
With this in mind, it’s clear that although some crypto-based projects are experiencing resounding success, the industry as a whole faces the challenge of navigating an increasingly competitive space dominated by AI-focused endeavors.
Source: Cryptonews
