According to Cointelegraph: Blockchain-based social media platform, Farcaster, successfully raised $150 million in a Series A funding round, led by venture firm Paradigm. This news spurred the community-created token Degen (DEGEN) to jump 17%. Andreessen Horowitz, Haun, USV, Variant, and Standard Crypto also participated in the funding.
In a May 21 X post, Farcaster founder Dan Romero stated the new funding would "support our work on Farcaster for many years." Romero previously held an executive position at Coinbase.
Bloomberg reported in March that the funding round could raise the valuation of Merkle Manufactory, the company behind Farcaster, to $1 billion. Since October, Farcaster has reportedly seen significant growth, with "350,000 paid sign-ups and a 50x increase in network activity."
With funds from this round, Farcaster plans to attract more users and add "developer primitives" to the protocol, such as channels and direct messaging.
DEGEN, an unofficial token created by Farcaster's community, has seen a 17% surge following the funding announcement, trading at $0.023 as per CoinMarketCap. It was initially launched as a community memecoin and has since evolved with its own layer-3 blockchain on Base, known as DEGEN chain.