Barcelona-based startup GFAL has secured $3.2 million in seed funding from investors including Supercell Ltd and Mitch Lasky. The company plans to use the funds to expand its team and accelerate its game production plans, which leverage AI and Web3 technology for immersive gameplay. GFAL's Elemental Raiders mobile game soft-launched in March 2023, with plans to build on this for a 2024 launch. CEO Manel Sort expressed gratitude for the investment and excitement to work with former colleagues from Digital Chocolate.

According to official sources, Animoca Brands has announced a strategic partnership with Saakuru Labs, the developer of the consumer-centric L2 Saakuru protocol that offers zero transaction fees. The partnership aims to promote the adoption and integration of Saakuru Labs' blockchain technology, accelerate the development of Web3 games, and plan to integrate Animoca Brands' ecosystem games into the Saakuru protocol, leveraging Saakuru Labs' gasless technology.

Wu Jiezhuang, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, wrote an article in the Hong Kong Wen Wei Po titled "Leading the Digital Economy by Adapting to the Web3 Trend". The article pointed out that developing Web3+ has both advantages and new challenges. The Hong Kong government has taken an important step in the direction of developing Web3 and the digital economy by formulating a short- to medium-term strategic development blueprint, ensuring that policies and resources are in place, and promoting the construction of Web3+ application scenarios. Focusing on Web3, establishing an international innovation financing platform can not only help Hong Kong leverage its traditional financial advantages, but also help it become a global digital technology center. It is suggested to refer to the mature mode of existing enterprises' IPOs in Hong Kong, provide an innovative financing model for Web3, and create a market trend and service competitive advantage to promote the development of the industry and attract upstream and downstream of the industry chain at home and abroad to gather in Hong Kong.

Mythical Games is moving from Ethereum to Polkadot to launch its new web3 gaming ecosystem, called 'Mythos'. On Mythos, gaming partners can create their own chains and build a connected gaming ecosystem in Web3. Despite their success on Ethereum, Mythical is switching to Polkadot due to its superior speed and scalability capabilities. The move is accompanied by Polkadot's upcoming "2.0" upgrade and the debut of NFL Rivals, the first blockchain game licensed by the NFL and co-created by Mythical. The partnership with Polkadot streamlines custom chain creation for gaming partners and supports compatibility with established web2 gaming norms.

XVC Tech, a venture capital firm founded by the team behind XDC Network, has announced a strategic investment in TradeTogether, a leading Web3 wealth management company based in Singapore.It is reported that Ritesh Kakkad, co-founder of XVC Tech, stated that TradeTogether's high regard for compliance will attract more institutions to adopt it, and enhance XDC Network's applications in private credit, trade finance and other fields. The Bitcoin Advantage Fund launched by TradeTogether can provide investors with a better bitcoin investment experience than traditional ETFs, while also offering transparent tokenized bond and Web3 accounts receivable financing solutions for high net worth individuals and financial institutions.

Data disclosed by Mystiko.Network on the X platform shows that its V1 mainnet has seen a significant increase in multiple indicators since April 1. From April 1-18, the total ZK transactions reached about 354,000, an increase of 79%; the transaction volume reached 152 million US dollars, an increase of 25%; and the number of independent wallets reached 69,000, an increase of 41%.

Web3 funding experienced a slight increase in Q1 2024 compared to Q4 2023, which is the first rise since Q4 2021. However, venture dollars are still down year-over-year and far from the highs seen in 2021-22. Startups in the crypto and blockchain sectors raised almost $1.9 billion in Q1, a 58% increase from Q4 2023, but a 17% decrease from the same quarter in 2023. Despite the challenges faced by Web3, such as a pullback in venture funding and cryptocurrency difficulties, there is potential for growth with the rise in crypto prices and the approval of Bitcoin ETFs. Monad Labs, a layer-1 blockchain compatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine, recently secured a $225 million funding round led by Paradigm, marking the biggest Web3 funding round of the year so far. This could be a sign of more large-scale funding to come, as investor interest in cryptocurrency and blockchain startups remains strong, according to first quarter data analyzed by Crunchbase. The support of Fidelity and the upcoming Bitcoin halving event may also contribute to further growth and attract new venture investments in the crypto industry.

It was announced that Web3 social simulation game Today has completed a $5 million seed round of financing, with Sfermion and Big Brain Holdings leading the investment. GSR, Collab+Currency, Lingfeng Innovation Fund, Compute Ventures, Builder Capital, Tommy Tran, Metavest Capital, 32 Bit Ventures, Dingaling, Grail, and Spirit DAO also participated in the investment. It is reported that this round of financing will be used to further develop its intelligent NPC and no-code creator tools based on generative AI.

On April 6th, OKX President Hong was invited to attend the main forum of "2024 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival" and delivered a keynote speech on the theme of "Responsible Innovation". Hong stated that as a centralized platform, we will continue to adopt advanced technology to ensure transparency with users, partners, regulatory agencies, and major stakeholders, and to make it our important responsibility. One of our key global strategies is to ensure that we are transparent, responsible, and provide relevant permissions to our customers and stakeholders, in order to better serve and build in the local area. Hong Kong is a location of strategic importance to us, and we are honored to be a part of the Hong Kong Web3 ecosystem. We are also honored to work with many partners, stakeholders, and legislators to build the Hong Kong Web3 ecosystem. We will adhere to localization to integrate into the Hong Kong Web3 ecosystem and make contributions, so that we can make long-term investments and maintain compliance.

Steve Yun, Chairman of the TON Foundation, and John Hyman, Chief Investment Officer of Telegram APP, delivered a keynote speech on "Cryptographic Transformation within the Telegram Ecosystem". Steve Yun stated that Web3 faces challenges such as complex user experience, lack of simple onboarding methods, no viral marketing, and no distribution channels in large-scale adoption. TON has partially addressed these issues by integrating wallets, MiniApps, easy onboarding mechanisms, and Telegram ads within Telegram.