Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator: 2022 Kickoff Week and Ecosystem Updates

A view of the San Francisco Bay, with UC Berkeley’s Campanile Belltower in the foreground

The Xcelerator began its 2022 programming with a week of ‘kickoff’ activities- team representatives from all over the world gathered in the Bay Area to connect in person and hear from industry experts, Berkeley faculty and BBX alumni.

2022 Kickoff Week in SF and Berkeley

Rich Lyons, Chief Innovation and Entrepreneurship Officer and former Dean of the Haas School of Business, welcomes the new cohort at UC Berkeley’s Faculty Club

The week began at UC Berkeley, with a welcoming message from Berkeley CIEO Rich Lyons and a presentation from Maria Shen of Electric Capital.The following day saw the cohort take a tour of the university’s campus and facilities, followed by speakers and Q&A sessions from successful past Xcelerator participants- Acala (Sp. ‘20), Eluv.io (Fall ’19) and AnChain.AI (Sp. ‘19).

Serban Simu (President & Founder) and Michelle Munson (CEO & Founder) of Eluv.io speak to the cohort at UC Berkeley’s Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology

Programming then moved from Berkeley into San Francisco for the final two days of activities. Our cohort met at Ripple’s headquarters for a presentation and networking session with Monica Long- followed by a panel discussion on regulation in the Blockchain space with partners at Perkins Coie. Our day wrapped with with a visit to the SF Mint, to participate in the immersive Verse NFT experience- complete with an exhibit from our very own Avatree!

Lowell Ness, Sarah Shtylman, and Joseph P. Cutler take questions from the cohort at Perkins Coie HQ

Our week wrapped up with a productive evening of networking, hosted by our supporters at Republic Crypto!

Ecosystem Updates

Avatree drops NFTs, features at Verse Gallery

Avatree has released their “Genesis Sapling” NFTs! Each one is $50, there are 500 in the collection, and will grant the owner a free Avatree NFT when their platform launches in a few months. The team has also one of the most popular exhibits at the Verse Augmented Reality Gallery. They have locations in SF and Denver and are expanding to 15 locations around the world in 2022. Avatree has also signed on Phil Taylor as an advisor- a climate scientist, entrepreneur, and founder of Mad Agriculture.

Oak Network launches Turing Network, partners with Web3Go

The OAK Network Team has had a busy April. Even with the Berkeley Xcelerator Kickoff, there are multiple key accomplishments to highlight:

• Launched the Turing Network, a Kusama parachain, with TGE and block production. (Post)
• Partnered with with Web3Go, an open data analytics platform. (Post)
• Collaborate with Darwinia to establish secure and effective bridging-solutions which will be critical in developing true interoperability for the ecosystem. (Post)
• Last but not least — OAK is gearing up to make waves at Consensus 2022 in Austin, TX from June 9–12th! Be sure to stop by their booth and say hi to the team if you’re also attending, or email growth@oak.tech to inquire about partnership meeting opportunities.

ViteX launches VIVA token

VIVA token has now been listed on ViteX. This is a token for the first staking protocol on the Vite network- reaching $1.6M TVL in just a few weeks! Earlier in April, ViteX completed a hackathon on Gitcoin and received 26 entries, from which we were able to identify multiple promising projects such as a multi-sig mechanism, a sunk-cost game, and a token auction platform. These will provide the tools for growing the ecosystem, which means more trading activities on Vite. Also of note:

• A Vuilder created the first version of a web extension wallet, providing an alternative login option for the ViteX web app.
• A Vuilder created ViteBridge explorer, a tool to help see cross-chain transactions. This will be useful for cross-chain trading on ViteX!

Bitgreen goes to amsterDOT

Cohort member Bitgreen presented at the 2022 amsterDOT conference- CEO Adam Carver delivered remarks on the future of Polkadot and sustainability. Watch his presentation in full here!

Moon launches Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay support

Moon has launched Apple and Google Pay support at The Bitcoin Conference 2022- becoming the most private way to tap to pay! Founder & CEO Ken Kruger spoke as part of a panel at the conference- take a listen to a few of his live comments here. For more details on adding Moon cards to each of these payment platforms, check out this introduction!

Overnight kicks off weekly Stablecoin analysis series

Overnight has begun a weekly series of strategies analysis posts, geared towards the profitability of Stablecoin/Defi markets on Fantom and Polygon blockchains. Read the first post here, and stay tuned for more content! You can join the community discussion at their Discord or Telegram.