The venture capital heavyweight has a history of backing LayerZero, with initial funding provided in March 2022 and follow-up investment during LayerZero’s Series B funding round in April 2023. However, the companies have kept the valuation of the funding round under wraps.

LayerZero, a Canadian firm, was valued at a whopping $3 billion during its Series B round, which attracted 33 investors. Among the participants were notable names such as Circle Ventures, OKX Ventures, OpenSea Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and, of course, a16z.

In January 2025, LayerZero settled a long-standing disagreement with the FTX Estate, which had accused the former of exploiting the exchange’s liquidity crisis to negotiate a “fire-sale transaction.” In June 2024, LayerZero introduced its own token, known as LayerZero (ZRO).

Crosschain messaging protocols, which allow for information exchange across ecosystems, have been gaining traction, especially among decentralized applications (DApps) and traders seeking seamless cross-blockchain swaps. LayerZero faces competition from other protocols such as Wormhole, Stargate, Superbridge, Connext, and more.

Wormhole, one of LayerZero’s biggest competitors, secured $225 million in funding at a $2.5 billion valuation in November 2023. Like LayerZero, Wormhole also held an airdrop for its token, Wormhole (W), which unfortunately attracted fraudulent activities and fake tokens. Chainlink is another player in the space, offering a crosschain interoperability protocol for messaging between blockchains.

Increasingly, companies are recognizing the benefits of being omnichain or at least chain-agnostic. Phantom, initially a Solana-centric wallet, now extends its support to six major blockchains, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. Likewise, Magic Eden, an NFT-infrastructure company that started on Solana, now hosts marketplaces on multiple blockchains.

The post A16z Bolsters Investment in LayerZero with an Additional $55M Funding appeared first on Crypto Market Insights: Dive In with CryptoUpdate.io.

In today’s digest, U.S. Bitcoin ETFs marked their biggest daily net inflows in six weeks, Solana pulled a contentious ad in the wake of community outrage, Cronos is prepared to reissue 70 billion previously burned CRO tokens, and more. Furthermore, the GLIF protocol unveiled its governance token by distributing 94 million GLF in an airdrop, aiming to extend beyond Filecoin.

U.S. Bitcoin ETFs reported net inflows of $274.6 million on Monday, marking the highest daily figure in six weeks. This followed five successive weeks of net outflows, which stripped over $5 billion from Bitcoin ETFs, reducing their cumulative all-time net inflows to $35.9 billion.

Rachael Lucas, a crypto analyst at BTC Markets, linked this shift to increased confidence resulting from Bitcoin’s price stability and renewed institutional interest. She also pointed out that quarter-end institutional portfolio rebalancing and rising demand for lower-fee ETFs played a part in the positive flows.

Solana has withdrawn a promotional video for its forthcoming Accelerate conference following a backlash from the crypto community. The video, which is still being circulated, was criticized for appearing to make light of gender issues and was seen by some as anti-queer.

A governance proposal by Cronos, a Layer 1 blockchain from crypto exchange Crypto.com, to reissue 70 billion previously burned CRO tokens was approved, returning the total supply to its original cap of 100 billion. However, several large Crypto.com-affiliated validators appeared to have tipped the vote in favor of approval, leading to accusations of centralization and manipulation.

Web3 workflow protocol developer Halliday has secured $20 million in a Series A round led by a16z crypto. With the new funding, Halliday plans to grow its team and continue developing its workflow protocol and Halliday Payments application.

Analysts at Bernstein contend that the current crypto market cycle is still in its early stages and has further to go, given a more crypto-friendly U.S. regulatory environment. They predict Bitcoin to reach a cycle peak of $200,000 by the end of 2025.

The post Bitcoin ETFs See Record Inflows in Over a Month, Solana Pulls Ad Following Backlash, and More Crypto Updates appeared first on Crypto Market Insights: Dive In with CryptoUpdate.io.