Ornella Hernandez

<div id="highlights-block_62b1f774382ae" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Launch partners include Fox, Creative Artists Agency and Universal Pictures</li>
 <li>The platform intends to lower barriers to entry into Web3 for developers</li>
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Crypto payment services provider MoonPay announced the launch of a new self-service platform called HyperMint that enables large companies and brands to create, manage and mint utility NFTs at scale. MoonPay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright debuted the new product in a keynote address at Radio City Music Hall during the NFT.NYC conference Tuesday.



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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Today, our CEO <a href="https://twitter.com/isotowright?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@isotowright</a> demonstrated our new minting-as-a-service tool to the public for the first time ever. <a href="https://t.co/8A3hKVqRqZ">pic.twitter.com/8A3hKVqRqZ</a>&mdash; MoonPay @ NFT.NYC (@moonpay) <a href="https://twitter.com/moonpay/status/1539267659438731265?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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The following partner brands will leverage HyperMint’s advisory services and distribution capabilities: Fox Corporation, Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Universal Pictures, music producer Timbaland’s Beatclub, and lifestyle and gaming platform FaZe Clan.&nbsp;



British luxury department store Selfridges, in collaboration with fashion house Paco Rabanne, has also used HyperMint to create NFTs (non-fungible tokens) tied to physical merchandise and access to in-person events.&nbsp;



Creators, brands and enterprises often struggle with “project-killing complexity, untrusted systems and partners, and prohibitive costs,” MoonPay said in a statement.



Other challenges include strategy development, scaling, and the deployment and sale of utility NFTs worldwide.&nbsp;



HyperMint is designed to help users avoid those obstacles, the company said. It allows NFT creators to quickly take their ideas to market, eliminating reliance on third-party developers. The company stated that HyperMint can mint hundreds of millions of utility NFTs in a day. 



Moonpay wants to be known not just as a payment infrastructure company but as a Web3 infrastructure company, Soto-Wright said on stage.



HyperMint should play the same role for Web3 that Amazon’s cloud computing service Amazon Web Service (AWS) did for Web2, MoonPay said, to help companies rethink their industries and underpin the future of Web3.



The Web3 space has “a long way to go to elevate the content of NFTs around real-world utility and functionality,” Soto-Wright said.



MoonPay’s other products include NFT Checkout — which lets users buy NFTs with credit and debit cards — and MoonPay Concierge, a referral-based service for high net worth individuals that purchases crypto and blue-chip NFTs on their clients’ behalf for a fee.



In April, the company revealed that $87 million of the <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/moonpay-marshals-555m-in-series-a-funding-round/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$555 million they raised in a Series A</a> round came collectively from more than 60 public figures and celebrities, artists and athletes.



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MoonPay Primes NFT Minting Service HyperMint

Morgan Chittum

<div id="highlights-block_619bd8a66a9be" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>This is the largest Series A funding round for any crypto company, MoonPay said in a blogpost on Monday</li>
 <li>Other participants in the financing round include Paradigm, Blossom Capital, Thrive Capital and NEA</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



MoonPay, a cryptocurrency payment services provider, raised a whopping $555 million in Series A funding, the company announced on Monday. This brings the Miami-based startup to a post-money valuation of $3.4 billion, according to a press release. 



The fresh capital will go towards expanding staff, scaling up MoonPay’s crypto payment solutions and its efforts to drive mainstream adoption of the digital asset class at-large, according to co-founder and CEO Ivan Soto-Wright. 



&#8220;The raise will provide the funds to continue with our aggressive growth ambitions in markets around the world to support our core goal of giving the next one billion people access to cryptocurrency by 2030,&#8221; Soto-Wright told Blockworks. &#8220;With this fundraise, we will also grow our world-class team and support an expanding number of innovations in the crypto economy for our partners, creators and users.&#8221;



Led by Tiger Global Management and Coatue, other participants in the financing round include Paradigm, Blossom Capital, Thrive Capital and NEA. This is the largest Series A funding round for any crypto company globally, MoonPay said in a <a href="https://www.moonpay.com/blog/funding-round" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">blogpost</a>.



&#8220;Crypto is growing rapidly, but bringing aboard the next billion people requires services that make it even easier to access,” Matt Huang, co-founder of Paradigm, said in a statement. “MoonPay has built a simple and secure way for people globally to participate in this new economy.&#8221;



MoonPay allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies using bank cards and mobile wallets. The company made <a href="https://www.moonpay.com/blog/post-malone" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">headlines</a> earlier this month for its feature on artists Post Malone and The Weeknd’s music video. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc0tLGWIqxA" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“One Right Now”</a> has racked up over 12 million views and features Malone buying a non-fungible token (NFT) via MoonPay’s platform. (Malone owns two Bored Apes, which he purchased for a combined $734,401 or 160 ether.)&nbsp;



Founded in 2019, the company has onboarded a slew of other celebrities into the crypto world, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K20WJixuLV0" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jimmy Fallon</a>. Fallon announced that he used the startup’s services to buy his first NFT, describing “MoonPay [as] PayPal, but for crypto.” 



“This historic financing round is a vote of confidence for what we’re doing and where we’re headed next. It’s proof that people believe in our ability to bring the next billion people to crypto, a way station to our final destination: the moon,”<a href="https://www.moonpay.com/blog/funding-round" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> Soto-Wright</a> said.



MoonPay has processed more than $2 billion in transactions and accumulated over 7 million users.



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