NEW YORK, Oct. 27, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fun, a blockchain software development company building applications that leverage dynamic and decentralized wallet (dWallet) technology, today announced it raised $3.9M in a pre-seed funding round led by JAM Fund, and joined by SOMA Capital, NOMO Ventures, and Great Oaks Venture Capital, as well as prominent early-stage technology investor Cory Levy.
Led by 23-year-old CEO and serial builder Alex Fine, and Mario Baxter — CTO and former machine learning engineer at Meta — Fun’s driven team of software engineers and technologists will use the funds raised to build a suite of products and applications on top of Odsy Network, a secure and programmable decentralized access control layer to all of Web3. In this sense, Fun aims to serve as a ConsenSys-like product studio that leverages the dWallet primitive, powered by the Odsy Network, to develop more dynamic, secure, and expressive wallets and access control applications.
Fun is the second VC-backed company dedicated to building applications on the Odsy Network, alongside dWallet Labs, a cybersecurity and blockchain company that recently raised $5M in a pre-seed funding round led by Digital Currency Group and Node Capital.
Access Control and Custody Issues in Web3
Crypto wallets today are static in nature, as users are restricted to a binary decision with regard to custody and access control. You can either take full custody of your private keys and digital assets, or relinquish this control to centralized providers. Though centralized custodial services can offer superior flexibility and convenience, a service providers’ negligence or insolvency can result in a complete loss of user funds — like the $4.7B in customer deposits lost in the wake of Celsius’s collapse.
“The current generation of wallets are inflexible, static, and can't comprehensively service users' wants and needs. We believe the next 100x in crypto is not going to come from new users, but instead from existing users and developers who will finally have a more usable, dynamic, and secure alternative to Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) and centralized custodians,” says Alex Fine, Co-Founder and CEO of Fun. Fine continued, “It's become increasingly clear that Odsy Network offers the most compelling infrastructure upon which to solve the wallet usability problem. We’re excited to leverage Odsy Network's new dWallet primitive to build game-changing wallet and access control solutions.”
What Is The Solution? Introducing dWallets
To address the current limitations in Web3 custody and access control, the Odsy Network team developed a new primitive for dynamic and transferrable wallets called dWallets, which allow users to set granular access control policies and interact with dApps across most major blockchain ecosystems in full-featured ways that were previously impossible. Projects can build on and use dWallets to provide programmable access for any other blockchain, and offer users the flexibility of centralized solutions without sacrificing on security or decentralization. This opens the door to new possibilities including granular access sharing, wallet transferability, multi-chain DAOs, and interoperable infrastructure for DeFi applications.
“Fun will enable decentralized wallets to offer the degree of security and usability that today is only available through centralized solutions. For crypto and decentralized technologies to garner mass adoption, solutions like those Fun are building must exist. I backed Alex and Mario because they have the technical skills to create compelling solutions, and the drive to turn these solutions into a generational business,” said Justin Mateen, Co-Founder of Tinder and Founder of JAM Fund, who led the round.
Mario Baxter, CTO of Fun, added, "The marriage of MPC and distributed ledger technology will create a paradigm shift in the blockchain space, enabling decentralized versions of products and services which today are only possible by appealing to centralization, from account recovery to asset bridges.”
Strong Ties With The Odsy Ecosystem
"When I met Alex and Mario it was clear to me that they are superb entrepreneurs that also share our vision of dWallets and the future of decentralized access control in crypto" says Omer Sadika, CEO and Co-Founder of dWallet Labs and a Co-Founder of the Odsy Network. "It is very exciting to have such strong teams joining us on our journey at such an early stage, and it speaks volumes to the vast opportunity and promise that dWallets and the Odsy Network hold for the future of Web3,” added Sadika.
Alex, Mario, and the rest of the Fun team are committed to building a suite of products and applications using the dWallet primitive, including product infrastructure that will help builders on top of the Odsy Network to utilize the exciting new possibilities that dWallets and decentralized access control will introduce to Web3.
“The Odsy Foundation is committed to supporting a vibrant Odsy ecosystem with builders and strategic partners, and we're thrilled to welcome Fun as an early and important ecosystem partner,” says Sean Lee, previously CEO of the Algorand Foundation, who serves as the Odsy Foundation’s Executive Director.
To learn more about Fun, visit https://www.fun.xyz, and follow @Fun on Twitter for exciting updates.
ABOUT FUN
Fun is a blockchain software development company building cross-chain wallet infrastructure, working in partnership with the Odsy Network, to empower developers with the foundational components for new wallet APIs and protocols to provide seamless and whimsical experiences for their customers. Fun's infrastructure helps to eliminate the risks associated with centralized custodians when accessing cross-chain assets and core Web 2.0 functions in Web3. Through this novel infrastructure, wallet providers can deliver secure and user-friendly products, in the shared pursuit of furthering economic freedom.
Learn more about Fun: Website | Twitter
ABOUT ODSY NETWORK & DWALLETS
The Odsy Network provides a secure, programmable, decentralized access layer to all of Web3 through dynamic, decentralized wallets (dWallets). A dWallet is a dynamic access control solution that can sign transactions on any blockchain network that leverages the universally adopted signing algorithms (e.g. ECDSA, EdDSA etc.).
The Odsy Network is a security-first blockchain that allows for multi-chain interoperability with programmable and transferable wallets. Learn more about Odsy and dWallets at www.odsy.xyz
Media Contact
David Goosenberg; david.goosenberg@serotonin.co
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