A review of 19 Israeli concept coins worth paying attention to, with infrastructure and DeFi as the main forces

Author: Nancy, PANews

After the outbreak of large-scale conflicts between Israel and Palestine, many Web3 projects headquartered in Israel have attracted industry attention, and related concept tokens have also seen significant increases. As a globally recognized technological powerhouse, Israel, though a small territory, has developed a formidable presence in cryptographic technology. This article from PANews will review Israeli Web3 projects that have issued tokens, covering various fields including Layer2, DeFi, Layer1, NFTs, and gaming, among which StarkWare is valued at as much as $8 billion.

Infrastructure

Layer2 Developer StarkWare (STARK, Not Launched)

StarkWare, an Ethereum Layer2 developer based in Netanya, Israel, was co-founded in 2018 by Professor Eli Ben-Sasson from the Israel Institute of Technology. It provides STARK-based zero-knowledge proof technology to enhance blockchain scalability, security, and privacy. StarkWare has developed two STARK-based Ethereum scaling solutions: StarkEx and StarkNet.

In September of this year, StarkWare announced the tokenomics model for StarkNet, with a maximum supply of 10 billion STRK tokens, 7% allocated to investors, 32.9% to core contributors, and 50.1% donated by StarkWare to the foundation. Among these, 8.1% of the tokens have yet to be assigned a purpose, which will be determined by the community. According to recent news, STRK may see its first unlock on November 29. After a new round of large-scale conflicts broke out between Palestine and Israel, some community members inquired about the project's safety and the possibility of a token airdrop.

So far, StarkWare has raised a total of $273 million in seven funding rounds, with a valuation of $8 billion. In January 2018, StarkWare completed a $6 million seed round, with investments from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, Pantera Capital, Paradigm, and Naval Ravikant; in July of the same year, StarkWare received a $12 million grant from the Ethereum Foundation; in October, StarkWare completed a $3 million Series A round with participation from Intel Capital and Sequoia Capital; in March 2021, StarkWare completed a $75 million Series B round led by Paradigm, and in November of the same year, it completed a $50 million Series C round led by Sequoia Capital, with other investors including Paradigm, Alameda Research, and Three Arrows Capital; in May 2022, StarkWare completed a $100 million Series D round, led by Greenoaks Capital and Coatue, with participation from Tiger Global.

Ethereum Staking Infrastructure SSV Network (SSV)

Current Circulating Market Cap: $100 million

SSV Network is a staking infrastructure using DVT (Distributed Validator Technology), officially launched on September 17, 2021, co-developed by the Ethereum secret-sharing validator network Obol and the non-custodial Ethereum 2.0 staking protocol Blox. SSV Network is launching its mainnet in four phases: pre-launch, limited launch, launch, and permissionless launch, with the permissionless launch prepared for the fourth quarter of this year.

The main team members of SSV.Network are from the original BloxStaking team, most of whom are Israelis. On October 11, Israeli founder Alon Muroch posted on X (formerly Twitter) that he had been conscripted into the Israeli army, but the team continues to operate normally.

In February 2022, ssv.network announced the completion of a $10 million funding round, with investors including Coinbase, Lukka, OKX, and Digital Currency Group (DCG).

Blockchain IaaS Platform Orbs (ORBS)

Current Circulating Market Cap: $81.946 million

Orbs is an Israeli blockchain IaaS platform that provides infrastructure for large applications, positioning its product as an "independent execution layer between Layer1/Layer2 solutions and the application layer," dedicated to building a decentralized public platform to help the software application industry achieve blockchain technology transformation.

Daniel Peled, the president of Orbs, is a co-founder and CEO of the Israeli fintech startup PayKey, and he is also a senior member of the Israeli Bitcoin community. Partner Uriel Peled is a former team leader at Israeli high-tech company Mellanox, and his VR startup Visualead was acquired by Alibaba. In May 2018, Orbs announced it had raised $118 million with participation from 21M Capital, Kakao Ventures, Nexus One, and others. This March, Orbs announced plans to raise $10 million from venture capital firm DWF Labs.

Crypto Payment Infrastructure Fuse (FUSE)

Current Circulating Market Cap: $9.192 million

Fuse is a low-cost, fast, and powerful plug-and-play mobile-centric crypto payment infrastructure based on Ethereum, which also provides a platform for stablecoin issuance and management. To address scalability issues of public chains, Fuse Network launched the Flutter Layer 2 Payments (FL2P) scaling solution, which is also an SDK that supports developers in integrating ZK rollups directly into mobile crypto wallet software. As of October 10, Fuse's official website shows it has completed over 128 million transactions, with over 100 ecosystem partners. Additionally, Fuse CEO Mark Smargon previously founded Israel's first Bitcoin exchange.

In May 2022, Fuse completed a $5 million funding round, with investors including Aleph, Black Edge Capital, Blockchain Founders Fund, Collider Ventures, and Tectona Digital Assets.

DApp Application Platform ChromaWay (CHR)

Current Circulating Market Cap: $51.842 million

Chromia is an innovative cross-functional platform based on blockchain created by Swedish company Chromaway, providing developers with an easy-to-use scenario for scalable decentralized applications (dApps), with teams distributed across Israel, Sweden, and Ukraine. In January 2022, ChromaWay announced it had raised $10 million with participation from CSP DAO, GEM Capital, Insignius Capital, and MiH Ventures.

Crypto Payment System COTI (COTI)

Current Circulating Market Cap: $48.408 million

COTI is a payment infrastructure based on DAG technology, which includes currency, wallets, debit cards, and exchanges. The founding team of COTI is from Israel, with CEO Shahaf Bar-Geffen previously a co-founder and CEO of multinational digital marketing company WEB3, CTO Nir Haloani holding a PhD in mathematics from a top Israeli research institute, and COO David Assaraf having previously served as the chief internal auditor at HSBC Israel and as an examiner in the credit risk department of the Bank of Israel.

In March 2020, COTI completed a $3.5 million strategic investment financing; in April 2021, COTI received $5 million from the Cardano venture fund cFund, marking the fund's first investment.

Layer1

Privacy Public Chain Secret Network (SCRT)

Current Circulating Market Cap: $53.751 million

Secret Network is a privacy-preserving smart contract public chain built on the Cosmos technology architecture and is the first blockchain to feature privacy-preserving smart contracts, originating from a project called Enigma at MIT.

In 2017, Secret Network raised $45 million through an ICO; in 2021, Secret Network completed a $11.5 million seed round led by Arrington Capital and Blocktower Capital; in early 2022, Secret Network announced it had secured $400 million in ecosystem funding, with investors including DeFiance Capital, Alameda Research, CoinFund, and HashKey.

Layer1 Project Kaspa (KAS)

Current Circulating Market Cap: $880 million

Kaspa is a POW public chain built on the GHOSTDAG protocol, aimed at solving the blockchain trilemma. Kaspa is primarily led by a development team from Israel, with founder Yonatan Sompolinsky being a postdoctoral researcher in computer science at Harvard University. Yonatan, along with his mentor Professor Zohar, conceived the GHOST protocol, which was referenced in the Ethereum white paper.

Spacemesh (SMH, Not Launched) - Time-Space Consensus Protocol Public Chain

Based in Israel, Spacemesh is a fair and distributed Blockmesh operating system supported by a unique time-space consensus protocol, aiming to achieve a highly decentralized, high-throughput, and secure blockchain network. In July 2023, Spacemesh announced that its mainnet is online and operational, allowing any user with a standard consumer-grade PC to mine and earn Smesh coins. It is important to note that Spacemesh has not yet launched on mainstream exchanges.

In May 2018, Spacemesh announced it had raised $3 million in seed funding with participation from Iangels, Sinopac Bancorp, and BRM Capital; in September of the same year, Spacemesh completed a $15 million Series A round led by Polychain, with participation from MetaStable, Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, Bain Capital, and 1kx; in December 2021, Spacemesh secured another $4 million in new funding, with investors including Leland Ventures.

Privacy Project Beam (BEAM)

Current Circulating Market Cap: $3.723 million

Beam is a privacy coin project developed based on the MimbleWimble protocol. Unlike Monero and Zcash, MimbleWimble coins enforce privacy at the protocol level rather than adding layers on top of the original blockchain to achieve privacy.

In February 2019, Beam completed a $5 million funding round with investment from Recruit Strategic Partners; in May 2021, Beam raised $2 million with participation from Collider Ventures, Altonomy, LionsChain, and Alternity Capital.

DeFi

DEX Bancor (BNT)

Current Circulating Market Cap: $76.267 million

Bancor was launched in 2017 by the Bprotocol Foundation, which was established by a group of Israelis with Silicon Valley startup backgrounds, headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, and operating a research and development center in Tel Aviv, Israel. In June 2017, Bancor raised $153 million worth of ETH through an ICO.

Bancor is a DEX based on Ethereum that allows the creation of liquidity pools for trading assets, aiming to execute algorithmic token trading and smart contracts for on-chain liquidity pooling. Bancor was also the first project to adopt AMM, but due to centralization and security issues, it has been surpassed in development by later projects like Uniswap. According to DefiLlama data, as of October 10, Bancor's total value locked (TVL) is approximately $68.6 million, down about 97.2% from its peak of $2.4 billion.

On-Chain Service Tool Dot Finance (PINK, Not Launched)

Dot Finance was originally a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol based on BSC, which announced its migration to the Polkadot parachain Moonbeam in January 2022, providing users with access tools for a wide range of smart contract services built on the fast, secure, and resilient Polkadot platform, including various on-chain services. PINK has not yet launched on mainstream exchanges.

Liquidity Protocol B.Protocol (BPRO)

Current Circulating Market Cap: $3.027 million

B.Protocol is a liquidity support protocol designed to better handle liquidations on DeFi lending platforms, allowing the DeFi ecosystem to scale safely and stably to CeFi levels. Its creator Yaron Velner was previously the CTO of Kyber Network and a co-designer of the WBTC protocol.

In December 2021, B.Protocol announced the completion of a $2.2 million seed round led by 1kx, with follow-on investments from Robot Ventures, Spartan Group, Primitive Ventures, and Angel DAO.

DeFi Platform Voltage Finance (VOLT)

Current Circulating Market Cap: $307,000

Voltage Finance is a decentralized finance platform based on the Fuse network, established in 2019, which launched the Voltage DAO and Volt (VOLT) governance token. In February 2022, Voltage Finance completed a $3.4 million funding round, with investors including Spark Capital, TRGC, Collider Ventures, GBV Capital, and Tectona. A month later, Voltage Finance suffered a hacker attack resulting in approximately $4 million stolen.

Others

Web3 Education Platform Open Campus (EDU)

Current Circulating Market Cap: $77.142 million

Open Campus is the Web3 chain version of the education platform TinyTap, which is a user-generated content (UGC) tech startup headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, acquired by venture capital firm Animoca Brands in June 2022.

Open Campus is a Web3 education protocol platform that combines blockchain technology, aiming to create a fairer and more inclusive ecosystem for learners, educators, content creators, etc., providing them with more resource access pathways, new compensation opportunities, and true ownership of educational content, shaping a new educational paradigm defined by the community. Open Campus is the 31st Launchpad project of Binance and raised $6 million in a round of private token sales in 2022.

Crypto Exchange INX Limited (INX)

Current Circulating Market Cap: $62.2 million

INX Limited is a private company registered in Gibraltar, established in 2017. In 2019, INX Limited planned to raise $129.5 million through an IPO, marking the first registered security token offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

P2E Game Kryptomon (KMON)

Current Circulating Market Cap: $5.402 million

Kryptomon is a P2E game that combines NFTs, inspired by classic games like Pokemon and Tamagotchi, allowing players to search for and mint NFTs on the blockchain through a "full moon treasure hunt game" in the real world. Kryptomon has set sales records for NFT blind boxes on the Binance platform twice and achieved $13 million in on-chain NFT trading volume within five months.

In August 2021, Kryptomon raised approximately $1.2 million through an ICO; in May 2022, Kryptomon announced it had completed a $10 million funding round led by NFX, with other investors including PLAYSTUDIOS, Griffin Gaming Partners, Tal Ventures, and former Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit.

NFT Platform NFTrade (NFTD)

Current Circulating Market Cap: $582,000

Founded in 2021, NFTrade is a decentralized cross-chain NFT platform headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, allowing anyone to easily and seamlessly create, buy, sell, trade, and earn NFTs, creating a one-stop shop for all NFT-based operations.

In September 2021, NFTrade completed a $3.7 million seed round with participation from SparkPoint, Magnus Capital, AU21 Capital, and Autonomy Capital; in March 2022, the BNB Chain fund announced a strategic acquisition of NFTrade's utility and governance token NFTD.

Crypto App Store Magic Square (SQR, Not Launched)

Magic Square is a multi-chain, community-driven crypto app store that combines the functionality of Web2 app stores with the DAO mechanism of Web3, helping users more easily access quality crypto products through community review mechanisms, including various applications, CeFi and DeFi, NFTs, games, and other services.

In February 2021, Magic Square completed $1 million in Pre-Seed funding; in July 2022, Magic Square completed a $3 million seed round co-led by Binance Labs and Republic, with participation from KuCoin Labs, GSR, IQ Protocol, Gravity Ventures, and Alpha Grep, and in September of the same year, it completed $1 million in funding at a valuation of $74 million.