What is "ParagonsDAO," which Paradigm has invested in again, securing $25 million in financing?

Author: Azuma

On December 6, the blockchain gaming community ParagonsDAO announced the completion of a $25 million financing round, with participation from Paradigm, Framework Ventures, Folius Ventures, Mume Ventures, Yunt Capital, HoneyDAO, County Capital, PebbleDAO, Nima Capital, Shima Group, Perceptive Capital, Coins Group, AGE Crypto, Fourth Revolution Capital, D64 Ventures, CMS Holdings, DCV Capital, Defi Dad, Santiago R Santos, Ben Lakoff, Jordan Momtazi, HedgedHog, Eden Au, Shual, Kain Warwick, DeFi God, and Redphone Crypto.

Unlike other blockchain gaming communities that revolve around multiple popular games, ParagonsDAO's activities will focus solely on Parallel (Note: this is not the same project as the Polkadot ecosystem's DeFi parachain Parallel Finance).

Parallel is a sci-fi themed trading card game (TCG), one of its founding members being YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley. Although the game has not yet launched, Parallel has already become one of the most anticipated blockchain games on the market. On the historical total trading volume leaderboard of Opensea, the earliest released card series "Parallel Alpha" currently ranks 15th, with a total trading volume exceeding 50,000 ETH.

It is worth mentioning that in October of this year, Parallel received a $50 million investment from Paradigm at a valuation of $500 million, making this the second investment by this top venture capital firm into the Parallel game ecosystem, including this investment in ParagonsDAO.

Returning to ParagonsDAO, it is a community composed of investors, players, collectors, and other roles, linked together by the token PDT. ParagonsDAO aims to enhance the ecological value of Parallel through various initiatives such as hosting events, sponsoring players, creating content, and facilitating collaborations. At the same time, ParagonsDAO will actively participate in the governance decisions of Parallel itself, providing strategies for the game's development.

For ordinary players, ParagonsDAO offers an opportunity to "dance with whales." Due to the high popularity of Parallel, some rare cards in the game have become quite expensive, making it difficult for ordinary players to enter. However, if players hold PDT, they will have the chance to co-control some ultra-rare cards owned by ParagonsDAO, such as the Masterpieces cards that participate in NFT trading dividends and the Prime Keys cards that are involved in game governance.

Blockchain gaming is undoubtedly the hottest track in the current crypto world, and Parallel is one of the most market-attended blockchain game projects. Paradigm, which has captured several super projects like Uniswap, MakerDAO, Compound, and dYdX, is also one of the top venture capital firms in the crypto world. With these "top" elements combined, ParagonsDAO may unleash tremendous potential in the future.