Taiko, a layer-2 scalability solution for the Ethereum blockchain, has just closed a $15 million Series A funding round led by Lightspeed Faction, Wintermute Ventures, GSR, and other Venture Capital firms.
The money will be used to develop the emerging network, which will go live on mainnet in the coming months. Additionally, part of the funds raised could be dedicated to an incentive program through an airdrop, distributing the new native crypto of Taiko to all the first users of the chain.
All the details below.
Taiko: Ethereum’s layer 2 announces $15 million Series A funding round
Taiko is a layer-2 cryptographic network, designed to improve the scalability of the Ethereum blockchain.
This is a ZKEVM rollup that uses zero-knowledge computational proofs to batch transactions off-chain and later send the compressed data to Ethereum.
The project features a “based contestable rollup” architecture in which there are mechanisms for contesting operations.
While Taiko developers continue their work from 2022, the network is currently in testnet, to be precise within the sixth testing phase called Katia.
With the launch of the mainnet scheduled in the coming months, this type of layer-2 has already recorded excellent numbers with 1.1 million addresses created and 13 million transactions executed
Now Taiko can rely on new resources ready to be invested in the development of the chain, after a Series A funding round of 15 million dollars has been closed.
Investors such as Lightspeed Faction, Hashed, Generative Ventures, and Token Bay Capital have invested in the secondary network of Ethereum, leading the round, along with other Venture Capital firms like Wintermute Ventures, Flow Traders, Amber Group, OKX Ventures, and GSR.
9 months ago Taiko had revealed two more funding rounds, totaling 22 million dollars, which have been used in recent months to continue the development of the new network.
We’re excited to announce that Taiko Labs, the core development team behind the Taiko protocol, has raised $37M in total capital across three rounds!
1/ pic.twitter.com/1F6gD6l3Bh
— Taiko 🥁 (@taikoxyz) March 2, 2024
It is currently unclear whether the latest Series A funding announcement was concluded through an equity, token, or mixed structure for investors. What we do know is that in the future, with the same investors who are “betting” on Taiko’s growth, an investment fund in the crypto sector will be created.
In honor of the excellent result achieved, Terence Lam, the co-founder of the project, stated in his own words while layer 2 eagerly awaits to make its entrance into mainnet:
“We definitely need to update our Katla testnet to enable support for EIP-4844 and perform an additional round of stress testing and security audit for the mainnet. The current outlook for completing all of this is before the end of the second quarter.”
The Taiko team is composed of 40 people working on different tasks, with one front dedicated to engineering and the other on community growth and support of the cryptographic ecosystem.
Taiko could launch a token through an airdrop after entering the mainnet
While Ethereum Taiko’s layer 2 completes the final network adjustments before entering mainnet, airdrop hunters are getting ready to seize another earning opportunity.
The need to launch a native token within its own ecosystem suggests that Taiko will take the opportunity to attract network traffic and new capital through an incentive system, riding the trend of airdrops on second-tier chains.
With Starknet officially launching its STRK resource just two weeks ago and distributing the token to its community, and with other major players on the horizon like ZkSync, Scroll, and Linea ready to follow the same path, market attention is becoming increasingly focused in this context.
The airdrop itself does not represent exclusively a way to decentralize one’s cryptocurrency to a layer-2, but rather is seen as a marketing tool capable of attracting data and capital flows.
Furthermore, this process allows to reward the same VCs who have financed the project (and who allow a token launch with attached liquidity) by offering their token as an exit, which is still subject to a vesting period to prevent it from being dumped on the market at listing.
Currently, to participate in the airdrop of this Ethereum scaling solution, you can only move in testnet, carrying out social campaigns on Galxe, becoming active members on Discord and offering support on Github commits.
Taiko just announced their $15M funding round.
💰Total raise till now: $37M
According to their latest announcement, six testnets were conducted involving 1.1M unique wallets.
As of now the 6th testnet “Katla” is live.
🧧 You can try out their Galxe campaign if you want to… pic.twitter.com/ASFr5zeu1G
— Airdrop Official 🦇🔊 (@its_airdrop) March 2, 2024
However, the most important phase to farm the Taiko airdrop is yet to come: the launch of the mainnet in this sense represents a more concrete opportunity to qualify for the coin distribution.
Many of these layer-2 solutions that aim to launch a token with this kind of initiative, in fact, try to stimulate as much network traffic as possible on the main network, where the project collects fees.
So, as in the cases of similar projects, even for Taiko the eligibility for the airdrop will likely be guaranteed by actions such as bridging funds on the chain, executing transactions over different months, interacting with a wide range of protocols, and generating a good volume of exchanges.
