• Projects will receive between $50,000 and $250,000 from the $250 million Toncoin Fund.
• The program will offer partnership and mentorship support, with multiple leading firms available to projects.
• TON Accelerator Program will draw funding from the $250 million ecosystem fund dubbed TONcoin Fund.

In crypto news today, The TON Foundation, the organisation behind the The Open Network (TON) blockchain, has announced a new $25 million accelerator program for emerging projects. 

The program, called the TON Accelerator Program, will provide funding, mentorship, and other resources to help projects build in the TON ecosystem.

TON is a community created blockchain network that uses the technology designed by Telegram and has the native cryptocurrency Toncoin (TON).

TON to offer upto $250k to each project

The TON Accelerator Program, which is open to various types of projects, will see select teams receive between $50,000 and $250,000 in funding. TON looks to have particular focus on projects in the DeFi space, according to details shared on Monday.

The program’s funding will come from the TONcoin Fund, a $250 million ecosystem fund launched to support developers and founders looking to build on TON.

#TONcoinFund‘s $250M commitment will boost key projects, focusing on #DeFi.

Offering $50-250k per project plus mentorship via partners like #Gotbit, #Web3Port, #Tonstarter, #TEB, #CypherCapital. Excited to expand with more partners, drive #Web3 innovation, and attract global… pic.twitter.com/QHYvKHtT9S

— TON (@ton_blockchain) May 22, 2023

Projects will also benefit from mentorship provided by some of the top partners and investors within the TON community. These will include hedge fund and AI-powered market maker GotBit Markets; Web3-focused innovation platform Web3Port; and Tonstarter, the leading fundraising platform on TON.

Also key to the program will be South Korea based Web3 incubator Boom Labs and UAE-based multi-strategy #crypto investment firm Cypher Capital Group.

Justin Hyun, Head of Incubation and Growth at TON Foundation expressed delight at the launch of the accelerator program, noting in a statement that the funding is part of a crucial strategy of ensuring growth.

“This is the beginning of many different incubators which will be supported in the future. Funding forms part of our local hubs rollout strategy and our ecosystem will work to attract new developers as well as successful repeat founders, based across a variety of key global locations,” Hyun added.

Projects set to be included in the initial selection will be those that participated in the Hack-a-TONx DoraHacks hackathon. The virtual hackathon ran for two months and involved DoraHacks, a leading hacker organisation.

According to the TON Foundation, application for funding is open to all MVP-ready projects. Those projects with a proof-of-concept or prototype and are seeking initial technical support are encouraged to apply for early-stage grants.

• The Hashgraph Association and Orange have partnered to promote digital assets and blockchain adoption in Morocco.
• Hashgraph will put 100 million euros into the project to support startups and entrepreneurs.
• Other than funding, the partnership will promote education and innovation in emerging technologies in Morocco and across the region.

The Hashgraph Association, the non-profit organisation helping to develop and promote the adoption of the Hedera blockchain platform, and global telecommunications provider Orange, have teamed up to launch a new accelerator program in Morocco.

The collaboration seeks to provide education and funding opportunities to young entrepreneurs, startups, government projects, enterprises and universities, the two firms said in a press release shared with CoinJournal.

Hedera is a proof of stake network with the native token HBAR. One can buy HBAR on most major crypto exchanges.

The Hashgraph Association allocates €100 million to accelerator

Orange recently launched its startup accelerator Orange Fab in the country, and this partnership will build on that. Specifically, The Hashgraph Association brings its AGV High-Speed Accelerator to the Kingdom, with the goal of helping with the adoption of digital assets and decentralised finance (DeFi).

Commenting on the partnership, Kamal Youssefi, President of the Board of The Hashgraph Association, pointed out that invention often thrives where there’s education and collaboration. The partnership with Orange is therefore set to bring the benefits of distributed ledger technology to the community.

Towards this end, The Hashgraph Association has allocated €100 million ($106 million) to promote fintech and blockchain projects.

Members of the accelerator program will also access development and managerial support, with a global exchange program in place to spur further collaboration between innovators and businesses.

• Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal has helped launch a Web3-specific accelerator run by top Web3 veterans.
• Beacon Accelerator started in October with a cohort of 15 companies and 30 founders
• The inaugural cohort will last 12 weeks and see founder pitch their projects more than 300 leading Web3 investors in January 2023.

Sandeep Nailwal, the co-founder of blockchain network Polygon and Web3-focused investment firm Symbolic Capital, has launched another founder-led project aimed at advancing the growth of the Web3 ecosystem.

The new project Beacon Accelerator launched today, 20 December 2022 under the leadership of some of the most prominent figures in the crypto and Web3 space. It’s a Web3-specific program by founders for founders, Nailwal said in a press release shared with CoinJournal.

As such, Beacon’s founders are from various sectors key to Web3 development, including experts across legal, fundraising, security, and operations.

Core contributors who’ll run the project alongside Nailwal include former DCG chief security Uri Stay, former Sequoia Capital VP Prateek Sharma, and Symbolic Capital co-founder Kenzi Wang. Among topics this team of ‘Core Contributors’ will focus on as they offer mentorship and advice to Beacon’s founders include GameFi, DeFi, metaverse, and consumer apps.

An inaugural cohort of 15 companies and 30 founders

Beacon’s inaugural cohort comprises 15 companies and over 30 founders and started in October. The twelve-week program offers access to topnotch mentors and builders in Web3, remotely available from 12 cities in nine countries.

Mentors for the first cohort will include ecosystem founders, investors, and operators, with such names as Magic Eden co-founder and CEO Jack Lu, Origin Protocol founder Matt Liu and Coinfund partner Evan Fang.

As noted in today’s press release, the inaugural program ends this January and will see projects pitch to a gathering of over 300 leading Web3 investors during a Demo Day to be live streamed across the world.

Nailwal on founding Web3 projects 

Commenting on the launch of the accelerator program and its place in Web3 development, Nailwal said that founding a Web3 project is markedly different from Web2 startups. Founders cannot follow the same playbook applicable in Web2 and that Beacon will help projects navigate the ecosystem.

“Our ultimate goal is to build the greatest network of web3 founders in the world,” Nailwal said, adding that his experience after going through the Binance Labs accelerator had taught him something.

“I found that the greatest resource in any accelerator is the other founders going through the program alongside you. We think that as our alumni network grows, the overall quality of projects being built in web3 will increase as founders help each other find success,” he explained.

CRO price moved sideways on Thursday after the developers announced the first cohort of its accelerator program. Cronos is trading at $0.1317, which is about 14% above the lowest level this month. 

Cronos accelerator program 

Cronos is a leading smart contract platform that was unveiled in 2021 by Crypto.com. It is an EVM-compatible platform that has superior speeds, lower transaction costs, and strong compatibility with other chains. Cronos is built on top of Cosmos SDK. 

In just a few months, Cronos has grown its ecosystem rapidly. It now has over 300 projects in all industries like gaming, non-fungible tokens (NFT), and decentralised finance (DeFi). According to DeFi Llama, apps in its ecosystem like MM Finance, VVS Finance, Tectonic, and Ferro have a combined total value locked (TVL) of over $1 billion.

In a statement on Thursday, Cronos unveiled the first cohort of developers who will receive funding as part of its $100 million accelerator program. These developers are spread across all industries like Web3 Gaming, Social Fi, and DeFi among others. Some of those developers are Eyeball Pool, The New Resistance, Wild Forest, and Bubble Maps.

Bubble Maps is a platform that provides auditing and analytics visualization tool for tokens and NFTs. Meshlink, on the other hand, is an all-in-one smart-contract management and transaction analytics platform for Web 3 teams. Glass Finance is a DeFi protocol that offers a Discretised-Liquidity-AMM model to improve efficiency. In a statement, Ken Timsit, Managing Director of Cronos Chain said:

“Cronos is dedicated to supporting a vibrant and growing ecosystem of dApps and users of DeFi, GameFi, SocialFi, and infrastructure analytics. Ultimately, this first cohort of the Cronos Accelerator Programme established a precedent for our program to champion projects that have the potential to lead the way in engaging and onboarding the next generation of Web3 users.”

More smart contract platforms have launched accelerator products worth billions of dollars. For example, Avalanche has two programs known as Rush and Multiververse that are providing over $600 million to developers. Just this week, Kadena Eco announced its inaugural list of its grants recipients.

CRO price prediction

The four-hour chart shows that CRO price rose slightly after the Federal Reserve decision. This performance was in line with that of other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Solana. It has crossed the 25-day and 50-day moving averages. The two have even made a bullish crossover pattern. 

Cronos has formed an ascending channel shown in blue. It also moved slightly above the important resistance at $0.1285, which was the chin of the double-top pattern. Therefore, the coin will likely continue rising as buyers target the key resistance at $0.15.