• Balthazar DAO raises a total of US$5.6 million (AU$8.5 million) to date
• Bolster team to accelerate development of its SDK including noncustodial wallet
• PwC report shows 2022 crypto fundraising set to outperform 2021
Balthazar has now raised a total of US$5.6 million (AU$8.5 million) in the past year, following pre-seed and seed round Token Sales.
Included in the Private Round Token Sale were world-leading private equity investment institution IDG Capital, Tezos Foundation, Kucoin Labs, Hive Empire Capital (led by Finder’s Fred Schebesta), Digital Asset Capital Management (DACM), Gandel Invest, Fantom Foundation, Yolo Investments, Red Building Capital, Vendetta, Pluto Digital and several others.
It follows Balthazar’s successful pre-seed US$600,000 (AU$906,000) token sale and US$3 million (AU$4.5 million) Seed Round Token Sale earlier this year, which was led by Animoca Brands and included other token purchasers such as DACM, Hive Empire Capital, Zip co-founder Larry Diamond, Darling Ventures, ZED Run, Side Door Ventures, Algorand, Rising Capital, Pluto Digital, Saltwater Ventures, Fantom Foundation, eFrontier, TPS Capital, and more.
John Stefanidis, CEO and Co-Founder of Balthazar said digital ownership and its application through Web3 gaming is the future evolution of the video game industry, which is expected to reach US$294 billion by 2024.
“We’re building technology that's applicable to not only the gaming space, but the entire crypto industry. We’re starting with gaming, to solve the problems of easy onboarding, opening accounts, in-game marketplace, peer-to-peer transactions, Web3 inventory management systems and on-chain in-game transactions in real time. We will expand into solving problems around password and credential recovery, which will unlock categories such as DeFi, and other products that are really good but hard to access for Web2 users. And products that still require decentralization.
“We’re very clear in our mission to allow people to own their assets. That's the underlying value that we're adding.”
According to the PwC H1 2022 Global Cryptocurrency Mergers and Acquisitions Fundraising Report (October 2022), crypto fundraising in 2022 looks set to outperform the 2021 total of US$36.6 billion (AU$54.9 billion). The total funds raised in the crypto market was US$24.2 billion (AU$36.3 billion) in H1 2022 according to the report, 20 percent more than H1 2021 (US$10.3 billion (AU$15.4 billion)) with an expected continued growth for metaverse and NFT M&A and fundraising activity in 2022.
Interestingly, NFT and metaverse projects received one-third of all deals in H1 2022 (34%), compared with 4% in H1 2021.
“NFT gaming is growing quickly in terms of the number of games that are entering the space and the number of gaming funds and funds being raised. Even in this market,” said Mr Stefanidis. “That’s why Balthazar is such a solid player in this space.”
Balthazar is focusing on its infrastructure platform, pioneering a noncustodial credential recovery system that will allow people to hold their own assets but removes the risk of losing passwords.
“Babylon is a suite of infrastructure that game developers need to create Web3 games. We're building a noncustodial wallet system with built-in credential recovery. No one has solved credential recovery yet. It's a core focus and we believe we’re on the right track.
“With a noncustodial system, you’re responsible for your own assets, meaning if a centralized exchange gets hacked you won’t be exposed. But the problem is, if you lose your private key or your recovery phrase, you can never recover that wallet. That’s why it's important to have a system that allows you to recover that wallet or that account, without anyone else actually owning it. This is one of the key features we’re working on building into Babylon.”
Mr Stefanidis said Balthazar is building a node system that can be used on any chain.
“With an initial focus on EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatible chains including Fantom, we’re also working closely with the Tezos ecosystem team, to support projects by providing our infrastructure. We’re also in talks with over 200 games regarding using Babylon SDK. The cross-chain functionality means that any developer building on any chain can use our SDK.
“The biggest issues in the NFT gaming industry are access to customers and building on the blockchain. We are solving both of these issues by creating a great user experience for games to easily onboard gamers, and a safe and secure way for gamers to play-and-earn with a self-custody system.”
Here is a video demo of the Babylon SDK, which shows how games can plug in Balthazar’s non-custodial in-game wallet solution.
From some of Balthazar’s backers
Jeremy Foo, Global Head of Gaming at Tezos Ecosystem: "We believe Balthazar's vision and product offering will help level-up the Web3 games category by actively contributing to the development of gaming related infrastructure (for example, Babylon SDK and NFT lending mechanisms), marketing/funding (the Balthazar Launchpad), and education (research reports) that will further enable great games built on Tezos to be enjoyed by millions of players.”
Lou Yu, Head of KuCoin Labs: “Balthazar adopts a novel business model leveraging its strong research capacity to bring disruptions to the existing Web3 gaming industry. We are delighted to be Balthazar's backer as well as advisor to witness positive changes made in Web3 gaming and to see more synergies created between Balthazar and our gaming portfolios.”
Michael Kong, CEO of Fantom Foundation: "We are pleased to be part of Balthazar's Private Round Token Sale. The Balthazar team are well known to Fantom and have been fantastic to work with. We believe products such as their unique gaming SDK will add significant value to the community’s gaming efforts.”
Richard Galvin, Co-Founder and CEO of DACM: “For Web3 gaming to hit the growth rates we expect, UX improvement is critical. What Balthazar is building with their Babylon SDK should be a big leap forward. DACM sees a clear use case for crypto-enabled gaming and is again excited to be a part of Balthazar's latest token sale to help support the team tackle this problem.”
Tim Heath, General Partner at Yolo Investments: “Balthazar’s vision and product offering is proving to be of great value for the gaming industry and we’re excited to be part of the Web3 gaming revolution. NFT gaming niche will ripple through the video game industry at large and the future may belong to NFT gaming entirely. Yolo Investments is pleased to be part of Balthazar’s Private Round Token Sale.”
Fedor Muegge, Partner at 369 Capital: “We are pleased to participate as a token holder in the Balthazar Private Round. The vision of the project has convinced us from the beginning. The team's ambition and zeal is exemplary. Every market needs independent reviewers, Web3 gaming has Balthazar!”
Fred Schebesta, Founder of Hive Empire Capital: "Balthazar's vision is set to revolutionize not only the gaming industry but also other industries with its innovative Babylon SDK technology. Its infrastructure is setting a new benchmark for Web3 and I'm excited to help Balthazar become the leading NFT gaming platform in the world.”
V, Co-Founder of Vendetta Capital: "We are super excited to be part of Balthazar project. There is so much place to grow in blockchain gaming industry and Balthazar has a vision and potential to help gaming industry to grow and reach its true potential."
And from our Seed Round Token Sale and Advisor, Yat Siu, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Animoca Brands: “The global video gaming industry has already taken the first steps in transitioning from centralized, publisher-owned walled gardens to decentralized, more equitable systems that truly enable digital ownership for all users. This is the promise of Web3 gaming, but to see it through we must ensure that games have a familiar and optimized user experience as well as quality and features that match and exceed traditional gaming. Balthazar is helping to make this possible by developing the Babylon SDK and we are thrilled to support this exciting project."
About Balthazar
Balthazar is an NFT (non-fungible token) gaming platform for the metaverse. Balthazar is about building an innovative ecosystem to make NFTs, cryptocurrency, and gaming more accessible for more people. For more information, please visit
https://bltzr.gg/
• Bolster team to accelerate development of its SDK including noncustodial wallet
• PwC report shows 2022 crypto fundraising set to outperform 2021
Balthazar has now raised a total of US$5.6 million (AU$8.5 million) in the past year, following pre-seed and seed round Token Sales.
Included in the Private Round Token Sale were world-leading private equity investment institution IDG Capital, Tezos Foundation, Kucoin Labs, Hive Empire Capital (led by Finder’s Fred Schebesta), Digital Asset Capital Management (DACM), Gandel Invest, Fantom Foundation, Yolo Investments, Red Building Capital, Vendetta, Pluto Digital and several others.
It follows Balthazar’s successful pre-seed US$600,000 (AU$906,000) token sale and US$3 million (AU$4.5 million) Seed Round Token Sale earlier this year, which was led by Animoca Brands and included other token purchasers such as DACM, Hive Empire Capital, Zip co-founder Larry Diamond, Darling Ventures, ZED Run, Side Door Ventures, Algorand, Rising Capital, Pluto Digital, Saltwater Ventures, Fantom Foundation, eFrontier, TPS Capital, and more.
John Stefanidis, CEO and Co-Founder of Balthazar said digital ownership and its application through Web3 gaming is the future evolution of the video game industry, which is expected to reach US$294 billion by 2024.
“We’re building technology that's applicable to not only the gaming space, but the entire crypto industry. We’re starting with gaming, to solve the problems of easy onboarding, opening accounts, in-game marketplace, peer-to-peer transactions, Web3 inventory management systems and on-chain in-game transactions in real time. We will expand into solving problems around password and credential recovery, which will unlock categories such as DeFi, and other products that are really good but hard to access for Web2 users. And products that still require decentralization.
“We’re very clear in our mission to allow people to own their assets. That's the underlying value that we're adding.”
According to the PwC H1 2022 Global Cryptocurrency Mergers and Acquisitions Fundraising Report (October 2022), crypto fundraising in 2022 looks set to outperform the 2021 total of US$36.6 billion (AU$54.9 billion). The total funds raised in the crypto market was US$24.2 billion (AU$36.3 billion) in H1 2022 according to the report, 20 percent more than H1 2021 (US$10.3 billion (AU$15.4 billion)) with an expected continued growth for metaverse and NFT M&A and fundraising activity in 2022.
Interestingly, NFT and metaverse projects received one-third of all deals in H1 2022 (34%), compared with 4% in H1 2021.
“NFT gaming is growing quickly in terms of the number of games that are entering the space and the number of gaming funds and funds being raised. Even in this market,” said Mr Stefanidis. “That’s why Balthazar is such a solid player in this space.”
Balthazar is focusing on its infrastructure platform, pioneering a noncustodial credential recovery system that will allow people to hold their own assets but removes the risk of losing passwords.
“Babylon is a suite of infrastructure that game developers need to create Web3 games. We're building a noncustodial wallet system with built-in credential recovery. No one has solved credential recovery yet. It's a core focus and we believe we’re on the right track.
“With a noncustodial system, you’re responsible for your own assets, meaning if a centralized exchange gets hacked you won’t be exposed. But the problem is, if you lose your private key or your recovery phrase, you can never recover that wallet. That’s why it's important to have a system that allows you to recover that wallet or that account, without anyone else actually owning it. This is one of the key features we’re working on building into Babylon.”
Mr Stefanidis said Balthazar is building a node system that can be used on any chain.
“With an initial focus on EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatible chains including Fantom, we’re also working closely with the Tezos ecosystem team, to support projects by providing our infrastructure. We’re also in talks with over 200 games regarding using Babylon SDK. The cross-chain functionality means that any developer building on any chain can use our SDK.
“The biggest issues in the NFT gaming industry are access to customers and building on the blockchain. We are solving both of these issues by creating a great user experience for games to easily onboard gamers, and a safe and secure way for gamers to play-and-earn with a self-custody system.”
Here is a video demo of the Babylon SDK, which shows how games can plug in Balthazar’s non-custodial in-game wallet solution.
From some of Balthazar’s backers
Jeremy Foo, Global Head of Gaming at Tezos Ecosystem: "We believe Balthazar's vision and product offering will help level-up the Web3 games category by actively contributing to the development of gaming related infrastructure (for example, Babylon SDK and NFT lending mechanisms), marketing/funding (the Balthazar Launchpad), and education (research reports) that will further enable great games built on Tezos to be enjoyed by millions of players.”
Lou Yu, Head of KuCoin Labs: “Balthazar adopts a novel business model leveraging its strong research capacity to bring disruptions to the existing Web3 gaming industry. We are delighted to be Balthazar's backer as well as advisor to witness positive changes made in Web3 gaming and to see more synergies created between Balthazar and our gaming portfolios.”
Michael Kong, CEO of Fantom Foundation: "We are pleased to be part of Balthazar's Private Round Token Sale. The Balthazar team are well known to Fantom and have been fantastic to work with. We believe products such as their unique gaming SDK will add significant value to the community’s gaming efforts.”
Richard Galvin, Co-Founder and CEO of DACM: “For Web3 gaming to hit the growth rates we expect, UX improvement is critical. What Balthazar is building with their Babylon SDK should be a big leap forward. DACM sees a clear use case for crypto-enabled gaming and is again excited to be a part of Balthazar's latest token sale to help support the team tackle this problem.”
Tim Heath, General Partner at Yolo Investments: “Balthazar’s vision and product offering is proving to be of great value for the gaming industry and we’re excited to be part of the Web3 gaming revolution. NFT gaming niche will ripple through the video game industry at large and the future may belong to NFT gaming entirely. Yolo Investments is pleased to be part of Balthazar’s Private Round Token Sale.”
Fedor Muegge, Partner at 369 Capital: “We are pleased to participate as a token holder in the Balthazar Private Round. The vision of the project has convinced us from the beginning. The team's ambition and zeal is exemplary. Every market needs independent reviewers, Web3 gaming has Balthazar!”
Fred Schebesta, Founder of Hive Empire Capital: "Balthazar's vision is set to revolutionize not only the gaming industry but also other industries with its innovative Babylon SDK technology. Its infrastructure is setting a new benchmark for Web3 and I'm excited to help Balthazar become the leading NFT gaming platform in the world.”
V, Co-Founder of Vendetta Capital: "We are super excited to be part of Balthazar project. There is so much place to grow in blockchain gaming industry and Balthazar has a vision and potential to help gaming industry to grow and reach its true potential."
And from our Seed Round Token Sale and Advisor, Yat Siu, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Animoca Brands: “The global video gaming industry has already taken the first steps in transitioning from centralized, publisher-owned walled gardens to decentralized, more equitable systems that truly enable digital ownership for all users. This is the promise of Web3 gaming, but to see it through we must ensure that games have a familiar and optimized user experience as well as quality and features that match and exceed traditional gaming. Balthazar is helping to make this possible by developing the Babylon SDK and we are thrilled to support this exciting project."
About Balthazar
Balthazar is an NFT (non-fungible token) gaming platform for the metaverse. Balthazar is about building an innovative ecosystem to make NFTs, cryptocurrency, and gaming more accessible for more people. For more information, please visit
https://bltzr.gg/
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The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
Avertissement : Le texte ci-dessus est un communiqué de presse qui n'a pas été rédigé par Finyear.com.
L'émetteur est seul responsable du contenu de cette annonce.
Disclaimer: The text above is a press release that was not written by Finyear.com.
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
Avertissement : Le texte ci-dessus est un communiqué de presse qui n'a pas été rédigé par Finyear.com.
L'émetteur est seul responsable du contenu de cette annonce.