Crypto venture capital firm Pantera is raising money for a new fund to invest specifically in The Open Network's Toncoin , doubling down on its prior bet on the token.
Interested parties have been requested to indicate their interest in the opportunity through a form by June 21 to secure an allocation in the fund. The form notes that the minimum investment per backer is $250,000.Pantera's new TON fund comes shortly after the firm made its largest-ever investment in TON since its founding in 2003.
The TON blockchain, formerly known as the Telegram Open Network, was initially launched by Telegram. However, the company withdrew from the project after the United States Securities and Exchange Commission claimed in 2019 that Telegram's sale of tokens called "Grams" violated federal securities laws. In 2020, Telegram and its subsidiary TON Issuer Inc. agreed to return over $1.2 billion to investors and pay an $18.5 million civil penalty.
Telegram gaming mini-apps have also experienced remarkable growth, outpacing all previous crypto games, Pantera said in the email. The firm compared Notcoin and Hamster Kombat with Axie Infinity and said that Notcoin reached 35 million players and around 10 million daily active users within five months of its launch, while Hamster Kombat has reached 100 million players and between 40 and 45 million daily active users. However, those numbers could include bots.