Tezos to Launch $50 Million Venture Fund to Boost Blockchain Growth

The Tezos Foundation, the non-profit that oversees the development of the governance-boosting blockchain protocol, tezos, has announced the launch of a $50 million venture fund.

Eager to foster its own blockchain ecosystem, money from the fund will be given to startups and developers building on the tezos platform, with capital being drawn from its record-setting $232 million initial coin offering (ICO) earlier this year, as well as undisclosed venture partners and its own holdings.

Designed to enable protocol changes through sophisticated voting, tezos touts governance as core to its offering. Upon its launch, the blockchain is promising to support smart contracts, and use a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm through which users would mine new blocks based on how many coins they hold.

Also addressed in the statements was the recent bitcoin hard fork.

Tezos said while it is currently holding additional Bitcoin Cash tokens, created from the bitcoin it raised in the sale, it plans to gradually sell these assets.

As reported previously, the project netted 65,627 BTC and 361,122 ETH by the time its ICO completed on July 13. Tezos is now the second-highest earning ICO, following a more than $250 million fundraise by the blockchain project filecoin yesterday.

With the update, the project is also proving its continuing communication to users, as it disclosed on July 18 its strategy to diversify its financial portfolio, and its plan to convert its crypto assets to some traditional tools such as cash, bond, stock and precious metal.

The first conversion was completed on July 17, when the non-profit turned 1,587 ETH into 250,000 Swiss francs ($260,000). According to the latest update, Tezos has been keeping such trading "at a pace of roughly CHF 500,000 per day."

As such, the statements shed light on the evolving complexities with ICO funding, given the many different assets involved.

Coin jar image via Shutterstock