Highlights of this issue

incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 18 blockchain investment and financing events around the world last week (12.16-12.22), with a total funding of over 160 million US dollars, which was a significant decrease compared to the previous week. The overview is as follows:

**Highlights of this issue**

According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 18 blockchain investment and financing events around the world last week (12.16-12.22), with a total funding of over 160 million US dollars, which was a significant decrease compared to the previous week. The overview is as follows:

**DeFi**

* Stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK completes $50 million Series B financing, led by Haun Ventures

* British stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK has successfully raised $50 million in an all-equity Series B round of financing, led by cryptocurrency-focused giant fund Haun Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures and existing investor Tiger Global. According to people familiar with the matter, BVNK is valued at approximately $750 million after this round of financing. A BVNK spokesperson declined to comment on the valuation.

* According to reports, although BVNK is opening offices in San Francisco and New York and plans to launch services in the United States in January, it has been focusing on the European and Asian markets. An important part of BVNK's value proposition lies in its licenses and relationships with financial institutions, which helps to enable the flow of funds between different fiat currencies. BVNK has a virtual asset service provider license in Spain, which enables BVNK to establish partnerships with several major European banks including Barclays, BBVA, Deutsche Bank and Santander.

* DeFi application layer Rujira announces that it has completed US$7 million in financing

* DeFi application layer Rujira said in an official blog: "Rujira has successfully raised $7 million from a group of investors who intervened early after the merger announcement. With these funds, we have the ability to execute our plans without the need for additional funds at present. In the future, if necessary, we will be able to obtain additional funds through over-the-counter transactions to further support the development of Rujira. The completion of this round of financing also cleared a key obstacle for RUJI TGE, which is currently expected to be held in February next year. As always, this schedule is for reference only and may change. "It is reported that Rujira is the DeFi application layer on THORChain, created by the Rujira Alliance between Kujira, Levana and THORChain. It combines Kujira's DeFi tools with THORChain's liquidity and cross-chain functions to achieve seamless, bridge-free access to blockchain networks.

* UTXO Stack Completes New Round of Financing, Valuation Reaches $50 Million

* UTXO Stack announced the completion of a new round of financing led by UTXO Management, PAKA Fund and CMS Holdings, with a valuation of US$50 million. The financing will be used to accelerate the development of lightning network liquidity, introduce stablecoins into the Bitcoin ecosystem, and plan to launch airdrop incentives for Bitcoin liquidity providers in early January 2024, while conducting the first token generation event (TGE) on the lightning network.

**AI**

* Crypto and AI company Fraction AI completes $6 million Pre-Seed financing, led by Spartan Group and Symbolic Capital

* Fraction AI, a crypto and artificial intelligence startup focused on decentralized data annotation, has completed a $6 million Pre-Seed financing round led by Spartan Group and Symbolic Capital, with other investors including Borderless Capital, Anagram, Foresight Ventures and Karatage. In addition, angel investors such as Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal and NEAR Protocol co-founder Illia Polosukhin also participated and served as advisors.

* Founded in February 2024, Fraction AI is committed to reshaping the data annotation process in a decentralized manner, using a hybrid approach that combines human insights with AI agents. Its platform mainly includes three types of participants: stakers who receive rewards by staking ETH or liquid staking tokens (such as stETH), developers who create AI agents and participate in challenges, and reviewers who participate in evaluations through the native token FRAC (LLM based on specific standard evaluation results). Fraction AI plans to launch the mainnet and native token FRAC at the end of the first quarter or the beginning of the second quarter of 2025, and has completed closed beta testing. It is expected to launch public beta testing next month, and there are more than 60,000 test users at this stage. The company is currently developing based on Ethereum, and plans to expand to NEAR and multiple Ethereum Layer 2 networks.

* Decentralized AI training platform FLock completes $3 million strategic round of financing, led by DCG

* The decentralized AI training platform FLock announced the completion of a strategic round of financing of US$3 million, with a total financing of US$11 million. This round of financing was led by Grayscale's parent company Digital Currency Group DCG, followed by Lightspeed Faction, and participated by strategic partners such as