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Fintech, DeFi, GameFi, and more: Web3 startups kick off Cointelegraph Accelerator second cohort

Sixteen startups selected from over 1000 applications will present their projects to a global audience.
Cointelegraph Accelerator,…

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Sixteen startups selected from over 1000 applications will present their projects to a global audience.

Cointelegraph Accelerator, a startup booster that leverages Cointelegraph’s capabilities as a media and strategic partner, announced its second cohort launching in October 2023 for up-and-coming Web3 startups.

Selected from over 1000 startup applications, the 16 participants of the second cohort of the Cointelegraph Accelerator program represent a wide array of Web3 verticals, including decentralized finance (DeFi), fintech, wallets, entertainment, social, and GameFi.

By joining Cointelegraph’s accelerator program, Web3 startups will get marketing strategy expertise, access to Cointelegraph media products, and mentorship programs with industry experts on key start-up development topics, including token design, fundraising, legal frameworks, liquidity management, security, etc. The participants will also benefit from access to Cointelegraph’s broad network of investors, foundations, infrastructure partners, and other industry leaders.

The current cohort of the Cointelegraph Accelerator program consists of 16 Web3 startups focused on bringing innovation to the biggest sectors in the blockchain space. Find out more about them below:

DeFi and trading

In a world where traditional and decentralized finance coexist, bridging the gap between them is crucial. The latest Cointelegraph Accelerator participants focused on DeFi services are pioneering solutions to enhance accessibility, transparency, and efficiency, thus redefining trading and personal finance management for mainstream users.

Changex is a personal finance mobile app that aims to bring traditional finance users to Web3 by combining centralized and decentralized finance on a single screen. As an all-in-one self-custody wallet solution, Changex offers crypto swapping, buying, selling, and staking. The platform has 2,500 monthly active users (MAU) with over $3 million in staked assets.

CryptoRobotics is a crypto trading platform with advanced tools aimed at bringing the crypto community together. Users can utilize the signals and trading strategies coming directly from professional traders and analysts, who, in return, can earn investor rebates for providing their strategies. The platform leverages trading robots powered by smart algorithms with risk management systems to enable automated trading. The team reached over $1 billion in trading volume in 2022 with over 50,000 registered users.

Clip Finance is a DeFi protocol that aggregates and benefits from the investment strategies available to the mainstream audience and other protocols. Users can deposit their stablecoins with a single click and get yield from a pool of various DeFi protocols, including Aave, Thena, Stargate, and Biswap. The platform aims to simplify the creation of risk-analyzed yield portfolios and is currently preparing for the main launch based on feedback from the private beta phase.

Renegade is bridging the gap between traditional banking and cryptocurrencies. The user-friendly platform offers both a full IBAN account and a Visa card, allowing users to pay in top cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH effortlessly. A central product element is the noncustodial wallet, ensuring users maintain full control over their crypto assets. After a promising beta test with 2,500 users, the company is gearing up for an open market launch in Q4 2023.

MC² Finance is a noncustodial, cross-chain token strategy platform. It aims to democratize access to on-chain crypto wealth management through easy-to-use tools and access to aggregated crypto portfolio strategies with a user-friendly UI. The European-based MC² Finance team aims to launch its mainnet after hosting over a thousand users during the platform’s testnet.

Nolus is a semi-permissioned, blockchain-powered platform that bridges lenders and borrowers in a DeFi money market. With its DeFi Lease, borrowers can secure 3x leveraged yield-generating capital. Inspired by traditional leasing, where one pays a fraction upfront and gains ownership after repayment, Nolus' approach cuts down the DeFi sector's high overcollateralization standards, which boosts capital efficiency and offers borrowers better loan terms.

Velvet Capital is a DeFi platform on the BNB Chain that helps create and manage on-chain funds and structured products. Asset managers can create portfolios of digital assets and mint synthetic tokens representing them. Users can invest in tokenized portfolios and earn yield from lending, staking, capital gains, or providing liquidity. The company offers a Web3 app for regular users and “DeFi-as-a-Service” (with SDK and APIs) for institutional clients. The platform has a live MVP with over 550 active investors.

WhiteList Zone is a marketplace where crypto investors and enthusiasts can buy “front-row seats” for upcoming Web3 projects. Its mission is to democratize the market of early Web3 investments in the most efficient and accessible way. Users can buy and trade whitelists, which grant exclusive rights to participate in launch events such as initial DEX offerings (IDOs). The platform hosts over 50 projects and over 7,000 whitelist submissions, attracting nearly 4,000 users.

Data storage and digital assets

Data sovereignty and security are paramount in the digital age. By offering decentralized data storage and robust digital asset management solutions, these projects ensure a seamless transition toward digital ownership and secure data management.

GhostDrive is a Web3 native data storage platform and user application on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and Filecoin, a decentralized alternative to Google Drive where users can store, share, and access data. Users can join by logging in with MetaMask or the traditional email and password combination and start storing data in a decentralized cloud securely.

NGRAVE is the first complete solution for full control of digital assets, focusing on self-custody, maximum security, and ease of use. The hardware wallet, Ngrave Zero, is the world’s only financial product featuring a secure OS with the highest security certification: EAL7, developed with world-renowned cryptography and security experts. The company also offers its users a stainless steel encrypted backup for their keys and a mobile app to track their digital assets.

SocialFi and Marketing tech

The conventional social media landscape often overlooks fair revenue distribution and user control. However, innovative platforms are being developed to merge social interactions with financial incentives, creating a more equitable social media ecosystem for both content creators and consumers.

Pop Social is an AI-powered social gateway to Web3. The platform explores a new approach to social media where users create and share their content, interact with each other, and get rewards with native Pop Tokens for active engagement with the app. AI algorithms are used in the content creation features and in the process of generating individual post feeds. Pop Social has already reached over 250,000 downloads on the App Store and Google Play Store and has over 40,000 daily active users.

ReadON is a social app with a Web3 sharing economy where content is owned by creators, and part of the ad revenue is distributed back to them. Creators earn tokens for sharing, users earn tokens for reading, and advertisers buy and burn tokens to place ads and access users' interests targeting data. The app has reached over 510,000 user registrations and app downloads, 45,000 daily active users, and over 563,000 content pieces.

GAMI is a Web3-focused venture builder that hosts a variety of products tailored to the blockchain industry. Gami’s flagship product is Midle, an all-in-one marketing platform that helps optimize user acquisition and community engagement, working with 100+ partners from the Web3 space. Midle has already reached over 22,000 unique users who have completed over 400,000 quests.

EdTech and HRTech

Exclusivity and a lack of verified talent pools hinder the growth of the Web3 domain. Some projects, however, are working on democratizing access to Web3 solutions and education, bridging the gap between academic institutions and the blockchain industry, and facilitating continuous innovation.

Talentre is a Web3 talent platform where users have access to blockchain education courses, events, certifications, and a traceable tokenized achievement system. At the same time, Web3 companies and projects get access to a verified talent pool. More than 50 universities have already partnered with Talentre, and the platform has reached over 170,000 registered wallets and over 50 business clients, including Circle, BNB Chain, Solana, and many others.

Entertainment

Monetization and user engagement are pressing challenges in the entertainment sector. By embedding blockchain technology in streaming and gaming platforms, these innovative projects are crafting a rewarding and engaging entertainment ecosystem for modern audiences.

Replay has developed a blockchain-powered streaming service called RewardedTV that empowers viewers and creators to take control of their video streaming experience. RewardedTV uses blockchain tech to reward viewers with digital tokens and collectibles to drive engagement. The platform has over 100,000 registered users, and more than 4,000 videos-on-demand (VOD) live TV channel options, with more partnered streaming apps on the way.

Fanton is a Web3 fantasy football game playable on Telegram and integrated with The Open Network (TON) blockchain. Similar to traditional fantasy sports games, which comprise a $25 billion market, the game allows players to create their dream team with NFT cards of soccer superstars and earn points based on the players’ real-life performances. The product has had a successful launch reaching more than 11,000 registered users to date.

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February Employment Situation

By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000…

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13 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert

The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000 average over the previous 12 months. The payroll data for January and December were revised down by a total of 167,000. The private sector added 223,000 new jobs, the largest gain since May of last year.

Temporary help services employment continues a steep decline after a sharp post-pandemic rise.

Average hours of work increased from 34.2 to 34.3. The increase, along with the 223,000 private employment increase led to a hefty increase in total hours of 5.6% at an annualized rate, also the largest increase since May of last year.

The establishment report, once again, beat “expectations;” the WSJ survey of economists was 198,000. Other than the downward revisions, mentioned above, another bit of negative news was a smallish increase in wage growth, from $34.52 to $34.57.

The household survey shows that the labor force increased 150,000, a drop in employment of 184,000 and an increase in the number of unemployed persons of 334,000. The labor force participation rate held steady at 62.5, the employment to population ratio decreased from 60.2 to 60.1 and the unemployment rate increased from 3.66 to 3.86. Remember that the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed relative to the labor force (the number employed plus the number unemployed). Consequently, the unemployment rate can go up if the number of unemployed rises holding fixed the labor force, or if the labor force shrinks holding the number unemployed unchanged. An increase in the unemployment rate is not necessarily a bad thing: it may reflect a strong labor market drawing “marginally attached” individuals from outside the labor force. Indeed, there was a 96,000 decline in those workers.

Earlier in the week, the BLS announced JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data for January. There isn’t much to report here as the job openings changed little at 8.9 million, the number of hires and total separations were little changed at 5.7 million and 5.3 million, respectively.

As has been the case for the last couple of years, the number of job openings remains higher than the number of unemployed persons.

Also earlier in the week the BLS announced that productivity increased 3.2% in the 4th quarter with output rising 3.5% and hours of work rising 0.3%.

The bottom line is that the labor market continues its surprisingly (to some) strong performance, once again proving stronger than many had expected. This strength makes it difficult to justify any interest rate cuts soon, particularly given the recent inflation spike.

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Mortgage rates fall as labor market normalizes

Jobless claims show an expanding economy. We will only be in a recession once jobless claims exceed 323,000 on a four-week moving average.

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1 day ago

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March 8, 2024

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Everyone was waiting to see if this week’s jobs report would send mortgage rates higher, which is what happened last month. Instead, the 10-year yield had a muted response after the headline number beat estimates, but we have negative job revisions from previous months. The Federal Reserve’s fear of wage growth spiraling out of control hasn’t materialized for over two years now and the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9%. For now, we can say the labor market isn’t tight anymore, but it’s also not breaking.

The key labor data line in this expansion is the weekly jobless claims report. Jobless claims show an expanding economy that has not lost jobs yet. We will only be in a recession once jobless claims exceed 323,000 on a four-week moving average.

From the Fed: In the week ended March 2, initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits were flat, at 217,000. The four-week moving average declined slightly by 750, to 212,250


Below is an explanation of how we got here with the labor market, which all started during COVID-19.

1. I wrote the COVID-19 recovery model on April 7, 2020, and retired it on Dec. 9, 2020. By that time, the upfront recovery phase was done, and I needed to model out when we would get the jobs lost back.

2. Early in the labor market recovery, when we saw weaker job reports, I doubled and tripled down on my assertion that job openings would get to 10 million in this recovery. Job openings rose as high as to 12 million and are currently over 9 million. Even with the massive miss on a job report in May 2021, I didn’t waver.

Currently, the jobs openings, quit percentage and hires data are below pre-COVID-19 levels, which means the labor market isn’t as tight as it once was, and this is why the employment cost index has been slowing data to move along the quits percentage.  

2-US_Job_Quits_Rate-1-2

3. I wrote that we should get back all the jobs lost to COVID-19 by September of 2022. At the time this would be a speedy labor market recovery, and it happened on schedule, too

Total employment data

4. This is the key one for right now: If COVID-19 hadn’t happened, we would have between 157 million and 159 million jobs today, which would have been in line with the job growth rate in February 2020. Today, we are at 157,808,000. This is important because job growth should be cooling down now. We are more in line with where the labor market should be when averaging 140K-165K monthly. So for now, the fact that we aren’t trending between 140K-165K means we still have a bit more recovery kick left before we get down to those levels. 




From BLS: Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 275,000 in February, and the unemployment rate increased to 3.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, in government, in food services and drinking places, in social assistance, and in transportation and warehousing.

Here are the jobs that were created and lost in the previous month:

IMG_5092

In this jobs report, the unemployment rate for education levels looks like this:

  • Less than a high school diploma: 6.1%
  • High school graduate and no college: 4.2%
  • Some college or associate degree: 3.1%
  • Bachelor’s degree or higher: 2.2%
IMG_5093_320f22

Today’s report has continued the trend of the labor data beating my expectations, only because I am looking for the jobs data to slow down to a level of 140K-165K, which hasn’t happened yet. I wouldn’t categorize the labor market as being tight anymore because of the quits ratio and the hires data in the job openings report. This also shows itself in the employment cost index as well. These are key data lines for the Fed and the reason we are going to see three rate cuts this year.

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Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In History: Record 1.2 Million Immigrant Jobs Added In One Month

Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In History: Record 1.2 Million Immigrant Jobs Added In One Month

Last month we though that the January…

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March 8, 2024

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Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In History: Record 1.2 Million Immigrant Jobs Added In One Month

Last month we though that the January jobs report was the "most ridiculous in recent history" but, boy, were we wrong because this morning the Biden department of goalseeked propaganda (aka BLS) published the February jobs report, and holy crap was that something else. Even Goebbels would blush. 

What happened? Let's take a closer look.

On the surface, it was (almost) another blockbuster jobs report, certainly one which nobody expected, or rather just one bank out of 76 expected. Starting at the top, the BLS reported that in February the US unexpectedly added 275K jobs, with just one research analyst (from Dai-Ichi Research) expecting a higher number.

Some context: after last month's record 4-sigma beat, today's print was "only" 3 sigma higher than estimates. Needless to say, two multiple sigma beats in a row used to only happen in the USSR... and now in the US, apparently.

Before we go any further, a quick note on what last month we said was "the most ridiculous jobs report in recent history": it appears the BLS read our comments and decided to stop beclowing itself. It did that by slashing last month's ridiculous print by over a third, and revising what was originally reported as a massive 353K beat to just 229K,  a 124K revision, which was the biggest one-month negative revision in two years!

Of course, that does not mean that this month's jobs print won't be revised lower: it will be, and not just that month but every other month until the November election because that's the only tool left in the Biden admin's box: pretend the economic and jobs are strong, then revise them sharply lower the next month, something we pointed out first last summer and which has not failed to disappoint once.

To be fair, not every aspect of the jobs report was stellar (after all, the BLS had to give it some vague credibility). Take the unemployment rate, after flatlining between 3.4% and 3.8% for two years - and thus denying expectations from Sahm's Rule that a recession may have already started - in February the unemployment rate unexpectedly jumped to 3.9%, the highest since February 2022 (with Black unemployment spiking by 0.3% to 5.6%, an indicator which the Biden admin will quickly slam as widespread economic racism or something).

And then there were average hourly earnings, which after surging 0.6% MoM in January (since revised to 0.5%) and spooking markets that wage growth is so hot, the Fed will have no choice but to delay cuts, in February the number tumbled to just 0.1%, the lowest in two years...

... for one simple reason: last month's average wage surge had nothing to do with actual wages, and everything to do with the BLS estimate of hours worked (which is the denominator in the average wage calculation) which last month tumbled to just 34.1 (we were led to believe) the lowest since the covid pandemic...

... but has since been revised higher while the February print rose even more, to 34.3, hence why the latest average wage data was once again a product not of wages going up, but of how long Americans worked in any weekly period, in this case higher from 34.1 to 34.3, an increase which has a major impact on the average calculation.

While the above data points were examples of some latent weakness in the latest report, perhaps meant to give it a sheen of veracity, it was everything else in the report that was a problem starting with the BLS's latest choice of seasonal adjustments (after last month's wholesale revision), which have gone from merely laughable to full clownshow, as the following comparison between the monthly change in BLS and ADP payrolls shows. The trend is clear: the Biden admin numbers are now clearly rising even as the impartial ADP (which directly logs employment numbers at the company level and is far more accurate), shows an accelerating slowdown.

But it's more than just the Biden admin hanging its "success" on seasonal adjustments: when one digs deeper inside the jobs report, all sorts of ugly things emerge... such as the growing unprecedented divergence between the Establishment (payrolls) survey and much more accurate Household (actual employment) survey. To wit, while in January the BLS claims 275K payrolls were added, the Household survey found that the number of actually employed workers dropped for the third straight month (and 4 in the past 5), this time by 184K (from 161.152K to 160.968K).

This means that while the Payrolls series hits new all time highs every month since December 2020 (when according to the BLS the US had its last month of payrolls losses), the level of Employment has not budged in the past year. Worse, as shown in the chart below, such a gaping divergence has opened between the two series in the past 4 years, that the number of Employed workers would need to soar by 9 million (!) to catch up to what Payrolls claims is the employment situation.

There's more: shifting from a quantitative to a qualitative assessment, reveals just how ugly the composition of "new jobs" has been. Consider this: the BLS reports that in February 2024, the US had 132.9 million full-time jobs and 27.9 million part-time jobs. Well, that's great... until you look back one year and find that in February 2023 the US had 133.2 million full-time jobs, or more than it does one year later! And yes, all the job growth since then has been in part-time jobs, which have increased by 921K since February 2023 (from 27.020 million to 27.941 million).

Here is a summary of the labor composition in the past year: all the new jobs have been part-time jobs!

But wait there's even more, because now that the primary season is over and we enter the heart of election season and political talking points will be thrown around left and right, especially in the context of the immigration crisis created intentionally by the Biden administration which is hoping to import millions of new Democratic voters (maybe the US can hold the presidential election in Honduras or Guatemala, after all it is their citizens that will be illegally casting the key votes in November), what we find is that in February, the number of native-born workers tumbled again, sliding by a massive 560K to just 129.807 million. Add to this the December data, and we get a near-record 2.4 million plunge in native-born workers in just the past 3 months (only the covid crash was worse)!

The offset? A record 1.2 million foreign-born (read immigrants, both legal and illegal but mostly illegal) workers added in February!

Said otherwise, not only has all job creation in the past 6 years has been exclusively for foreign-born workers...

Source: St Louis Fed FRED Native Born and Foreign Born

... but there has been zero job-creation for native born workers since June 2018!

This is a huge issue - especially at a time of an illegal alien flood at the southwest border...

... and is about to become a huge political scandal, because once the inevitable recession finally hits, there will be millions of furious unemployed Americans demanding a more accurate explanation for what happened - i.e., the illegal immigration floodgates that were opened by the Biden admin.

Which is also why Biden's handlers will do everything in their power to insure there is no official recession before November... and why after the election is over, all economic hell will finally break loose. Until then, however, expect the jobs numbers to get even more ridiculous.

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/08/2024 - 13:30

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