Wholesome Crypto: $MIRA Raises 8-Figs For Research

Yu Hu of Kaito | Bitget Token Merger

Marco Manoppo & Karon Pangestu
December 27, 2024

📢 Sponsor | 💡 Telegram | 📰 Past Editions

Good Morning.

The market has been relatively staying the same with certain names performing better than others, unsurprising given the slower holiday season. There is a cautious optimism in the timeline that 2025 will continue to be a year of trenches and AI opportunities, further supported by US crypto renaissance.

In Today's Email:

What Matters: Memecoin $MIRA Story 😃
Founders Highlight: Yu Hu of Kaito 🤖
Deal Flow: Bitget Token Merge 🤝

You read and share. We listen and improve. Send us feedback at marco@launchy.app.

Narratives: New breed of AI agents are forming.

For daily market updates and airdrop alphas, check out our telegram!

TOGETHER WITH

Superseed

Superseed is reimagining Layer 2 technology by embedding a CDP platform directly into the protocol, enabling self-repaying loans and introducing innovative DeFi primitives:

Proof-of-Repayment: Rewards for paying down debt.
Supercollateral: Maximizing value for participants.

Superseed’s next-gen Layer 2 ensures all protocol revenue flows back to users, automatically paying off their debt and creating a more sustainable DeFi ecosystem.

The Supersale is Live:

No VC Allocations
20% of the total supply available
Fully unlocked tokens at launch

With $3.7M raised in just 10 days, early participants can still earn up to 5% in bonus tokens.

Join the Supersale now and experience the future of Layer 2 and DeFi.

WHAT MATTERS

$MIRA Coin Raises Millions for Research

Siqi’s Wallet

State of play: Siqi Chen (@blader), whose daughter was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor in September, initially launched a GoFundMe to support Dr. Todd Hankinson's lab at the University of Colorado, the only lab focused on this condition.

While the GoFundMe raised over $200,000, the crypto community took things further. A memecoin named $MIRA was created, with 50% of its supply gifted to Siqi, currently valued at $18M.

Siqi pledged that 100% of the proceeds would fund Hankinson Lab's research, aiming to advance treatments for rare diseases.
Siqi has been transparent, slowly adding liquidity to stabilize the market and adopting a plan to liquidate $1,000 of $MIRA every 10 minutes to ensure predictability.
This initiative has already guaranteed over $1M in donations, far surpassing the family's initial goal.

Why it Matters: This story highlights crypto's ability to mobilize communities and achieve real-world social good, transforming what began as a grassroots effort into a multimillion-dollar milestone for rare disease research.

What’s next: The success of $MIRA is likely to inspire similar projects, showcasing crypto's potential to address social and medical challenges. This could lead to partnerships with other researchers, labs, and organizations seeking funding.

For builders and investors: Crypto can be wholesome :)

BUILDER-INVESTOR HIGHLIGHT

Yu Hu of Kaito

Yu Hu

Intro: Yu Hu is the founder and CEO of Kaito, an AI-powered search and recommendation engine for digital assets, backed by Dragonfly, Sequoia, and Jane Street.

Previous background: Before founding Kaito, Yu Hu built a strong foundation in finance and entrepreneurship. He managed a $500M long/short equity portfolio at Citadel, focusing on European and US markets,

He spent almost 3 years at Deutsche Bank, where he worked on M&A deals, IPOs, and debt financings.
As the co-founder of Babel Education, Yu facilitated over 1,000 international youth exchanges, promoting global opportunities for teenagers.
He holds a First Class Honours degree in Economics from the University of Cambridge, where he graduated in the top 10 of his class.

The big idea: Kaito AI is launching an initiative called “Yap” to reward its community through its Yap Points. This aligns with Kaito's mission to lead the "InfoFi" movement, similar to Arkham.

Participants earn Yaps, which are points for quality crypto-related posts, engagement with "smart" accounts, and providing relevant, insightful, and original content.

Take a peek at our referral reward at the bottom of this issue. Share this newsletter and receive our list of 500 crypto VC individuals 👇

INSIGHTS

Berachain Prepares for Boyco Program

69 hours of Beramas.
One chain with a bear on it.
Two incentivized pre-deposit Vaults for Boyco markets by @ConcreteXYZ, @Lombard_Finance, and @Stake_Stone, now live.
The Early Bera Gets the Honey.
— Berachain 🐻⛓ (@berachain)
1:03 PM • Dec 25, 2024

State of play: Berachain, in collaboration with Concrete and Stakestone, launched pre-mainnet vaults to streamline liquidity and prepare for the Boyco program.

These vaults channel funds into Bera-native protocols like KodiakFi and Dolomite, offering early rewards such as Concrete Bags with automated liquidity management.

The Boyco program democratizes liquidity incentives by making rewards proportional to deposits, ensuring fairness for both retail users and whales.
Boyco’s incentives are separate from testnet allocations, and mainnet is expected sooner than rumored.
Berachain’s transparent approach reveals token allocations, eligible protocols, and lock-up terms, and ties deposits to future Bera-native token issuers.
Aligning its success with its app layer, Berachain aims to drive ecosystem growth during and beyond its launch.
With $70M in early deposits, Berachain is building momentum for Boyco’s rollout, setting the stage for a transformative Q5.

DEAL FLOWS

Bitget Set to Merge Its Wallet Token

Deal flows soared this week - we saw $810M+ in deals 💼

Bitget announced the merger of its Bitget Wallet Token (BWB) into Bitget Token (BGB). The new BGB will support features like Fair Launchpool, multi-chain gas payments, on-chain trading, and staking in major decentralized finance protocols.

With a combined user base exceeding 100M, Bitget also plans to expand BGB into offline PayFi applications for activities like dining and travel.
The merger won’t affect BGB’s total supply, but BWB services will be discontinued tomorrow, Dec. 27, at an exchange rate of 11.68 BWB to 1 BGB.
Amid market-wide declines, BGB is the only large-cap cryptocurrency posting substantial gains, up nearly 25% in 24 hours and over 50% in the past week.

Deal flows in the past week:

ChainOpera AI, $3.5M Seed Round
Usual, $10M Series A Round
Avalon Labs, $10M Series A Round
Trrue, $10M Private Round
RuneMine, $2M Unknown Round
Swan Chain, $2M Unknown Round
DuckChain, $5M Unknown Round
Rumble, $775M Unknown Round

QUICK BITES

Jupiter plans to distribute 700M tokens in January airdrop.
Bitget announces a token merger and BGB price increases.
Crypto OTC desks say trading volumes are soaring right now.
Bitwise files for ETFs investing in companies with BTC treasuries.
South Korea imposes sanctions on North Korean crypto hackers.
Vitalik adopts Moo Deng with a $293,000 donation to the Thai zoo.
Montenegro dismisses Terra co-founder Do Kwon’s extradition appeal.

NOTEWORTHY READS

Decentralised’s read on year in review - 2024.
VNekriach’s read on DAOs on Base in 10 minutes.
Kairos Research’s read on TipRouter: Jito’s 2025 growth engine.

Supreme leader’s face when I tell him I’m working on exploiting Hyperliquid vs Supreme leader’s face when I tell him I had to test my strategy by 20x longing ETH
— Gwart (@GwartyGwart)
12:49 PM • Dec 23, 2024

If you enjoy reading this issue, please consider subscribing. It takes 1 minute of your time but it would mean the world to us 🙇

Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.