The NFT sector continued to expand, while Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the broader cryptocurrency market maintained a range-bound trajectory as a result of the financial markets’ conflict-induced predicament.
Immutable, an Australian NFT startup, announced Monday that it had secured $200 million in a Series C funding round headed by Singapore’s state-owned investment firm Temasek.
The venture capital firm joins an ever-growing roster of cryptocurrency “unicorns,” or startups with a valuation of at least $1 billion.
Developing Solutions For NFT & Gaming
Immutable wants to use the funds to further develop its Immutable X Layer-2 scaling solution for nonfungible tokens on the Ethereum network, as well as to scale its Immutable Gaming Studio, which includes the video games Guild of Guardians and Gods Unchained.
Tencent, the Chinese gaming powerhouse, and Animoca Brands, a renowned metaverse investment group, participated in the funding round.
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Arrington Capital, Liberty Global, and Mirae Asset are among the new investors, while Alameda Research and Possible Ventures raised their overall stake.
Immutable announced a deal with GameStop in February to launch its NFT marketplace. Immutable and GameStop have established a $100 million fund to encourage developers of NFT content in game studios, metaverse gaming, and on the Web3.
Cheaper & Faster
The company raised $410 million in its latest investment round in September of last year. Immutable’s value has nearly doubled in the last month as a result of the recent increase in valuation.
Immutable X transactions are substantially cheaper and faster than those on Ethereum’s own mainnet, and consume significantly less energy compared to Ethereum’s own energy-intensive proof-of-work (POW) network.
Immutable co-founder and president Robbie Ferguson stated on Twitter that the future of gaming is based on nonfungible token economics and that Immutable wishes to be a “forerunner’ in NFT adoption.
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‘NFTs Are Eating The World’
Talking about its aggressive foray into NFTs and the Metaverse, Ferguson said on Twitter:
“NFTs are eating the world. Gaming will serve as the Trojan Horse, allowing your family to trade and hold digital property without them even knowing.”
In the face of competition from other Ethereum scaling solutions such as Arbitrum, Polygon, and Optimism, Immutable X has attempted to build out a place for itself as a platform for video games.
GameStop’s marketplace, which is scheduled to start later this year, will focus on user-ownable NFT products such as characters, weaponry, and outfits created specifically for Ethereum-powered video games.
Featured image from ONE37pm, chart from TradingView.com