As the crypto space continues to grow and blockchain technology becomes more popular, we've started to see a shift towards a new, democratized internet known as Web3.
Web3 is a movement which aims to overhaul the internet through decentralization and blockchain technology.
As part of this push for a Web3, Iconium, a leading crypto investment fund has placed its sights of supporting innovative blockchains projects
These projects involve industries including the Metaverse, NFT's, decentralized exchanges (DEX's), stable coins and data privacy.
In this post we’ll be looking at how Iconium is facilitating the growth and development of Web3 by working with these blockchain-based projects.
What Is Iconium?
Iconium is a crypto investment fund that specialises in digital assets and projects that promote decentralization.
The investment firm is currently leading the efforts to support the infrastructure behind Web3.
If you’re wondering what “Web3” is, it is basically the next generation of the internet.
Unlike the current Web2 internet, where major platforms are controlled by centralized entities, such as large corporations, Web3 platforms will be developed, maintained and owned by users.
Iconium plans to help usher in this new Web3 era by using their large network of industry experts to support innovative blockchain projects.
Support will also come in the form of investment capital, strategic development and advisory from industry leaders.
Before we look at how they plan to usher in Web3, let’s look at why it is important to have a decentralized internet.
Why Web3 is Important
Blockchain technology has sparked a new age of decentralization and democratic ownership of the platforms, mediums and currencies we all use.
It all started with Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer digital currency that can’t be controlled by one entity.
This led to the birth of many new cryptocurrencies, with each one innovating on the last:
For example, Ethereum brought us blockchain development, native crypto tokens (i.e ERC-20 tokens), Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT’s) and decentralised finance (DeFi).
People can now send, receive, spend, trade, store and invest their money without the need for a bank or any other large financial institution.
However we’ve only just scratched the surface of what blockchain technology can do.
A decentralized internet, powered by the blockchain can lead us to a truly free online experience.
Instead of a corporation deciding what you information you have access to, the community will decide instead.
We’ll no longer be at the mercy of corporate search algorithms (which can be biased, gamed and manipulated), shadow bans, censorship and “poofing”.
If you don’t know what poofing is, it's basically a corporation erasing you from the internet, deleting all of your social profiles and accounts that are linked to platforms they control.
Sounds scary doesn’t it? That’s only one of the reasons why we need Web3.
How Iconium is Leading the Way Towards Web3
Since Iconium is an all-encompassing investment fund, they support all kinds of decentralized projects at every growth stage to maximise growth and adoption.
Iconium focuses on blockchain-based projects that have high disruptive potential.
In addition to providing investment capital, Iconium grants projects in their portfolio access to its networks and connections.
The investment firm has backed more than 80 projects since 2018.
They’ve also invested over $80 million across different blockchain industries including DeFi, Web3, Layer 1 and Layer 2 scalability solutions, and Metaverse projects.
Iconium plans to invest another $60 million into blockchain projects over the next two years.
Iconium has been instrumental in the growth and success of the following projects:
- Terra: a blockchain fintech startup that launched its price-stable algorithmic stablecoin, bringing easy payment solutions to crypto and fiat holders.
- Secret: a data-privacy platform for web3 and part of the Secret Ecosystem Fund, providing early-stage capital for decentralized apps (dApps), which has raised a total commitment of $225 million from 25 organizations.
- ThorChain: an independent cross-chain autonomous decentralized exchange platform built on Cosmos.
- Efinity: a cross-chain NFT blockchain built on Polkadot, designed by Enjin to enable ecosystem interoperability and incentives for engaging with NFTs.
- Algorand: a layer-1 blockchain delivering decentralization, scalability, and security through its first-of-a-kind purely proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.
Iconium is a crucial part of the Terra Ecosystem Fund, supported by Luna.
They’re also part of the Secret Ecosystem Fund, providing early seed stage funding and support to the fund launched by Secret Network.
The Terra Ecosystem Fund enables some of the industry’s top investors to apply their vision to applications, protocols, and tools on Terra’s network.
The Secret Ecosystem Fund supports and accelerates the growth of application on the Secret Network by providing capital to early-stage decentralized apps (dApps).
Fabio Pezzotti, Iconium’s Founder and CEO shared his thoughts on Web3:
“The future of the internet will be decentralized and will run through the blockchain,”
The founder also went on to say:
“At Iconium, we pick out the most innovative and exciting projects that progress our mission of decentralization.
We work closely with our partners from the start, providing expert advisers to maximize each project’s potential.”
Final Thoughts
Transitioning over to Web3 will bring about much needs democratization, ownership and freedom.
However it won’t be a cheap endeavour, we’ll need a network of decentralized applications, DAO’s and platforms to serve as the backbone of this new evolution of the internet.
Iconium has positioned themselves at the forefront of this charge to bring about the Web3 evolution.
By providing advisory and funding to blockchain based applications, organizations and protocols, they’ll help these projects to build out the infrastructure needed for Web3.
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