AI-Focused Blockchain CryptoGPT Raises $10M Funding at $250M Valuation

Zero-knowledge (ZK) layer 2 blockchain CryptoGPT has cashed in on the recent surge in interest around artificial intelligence (AI) to raise $10 million in funding.

The Series A round, which was led by market maker DWF Labs – which has emerged as one of the most active investors during the crypto bear market – gave the AI-focused blockchain a $250 million valuation, according to a statement.

Read more: Market Maker DWF Labs Emerges as Top Crypto Investor

CryptoGPT recently rolled out Web3-focused AI assistant "Alex" and is developing its ZK rollup layer 2 blockchain and a data-to-AI engine, which collects, encrypts and transfers data for commercial applications.

"Instead of applying ZK technology to payments, CryptoGPT integrates it for private data transfers," CryptoGPT said in the statement on Monday. The proceeds of the new funding will be used to grow its developer team globally and build on its regional presence in the Asian markets, said Dejan Erja, co-founder and chief technology officer of the AI-focused blockchain.

CryptoGPT's broad aim is to allow users to earn money by monetizing their data across fitness, dating, gaming and education. It also plans to roll out non-fungible tokens (NFT) that store the owner's activity data.

There has been a boom in interest around AI-focused cryptocurrencies since the start of the year, thanks to the mainstream success of chatbot ChatGPT. However, there is some skepticism around the longer-term viability of such tokens, with views that the healthy gains enjoyed by them in recent months are little more than a short-term price pump by opportunistic traders on the back of the hype.

CryptoGPT's native token GPT, issued in early March this year, has a market cap of just over $12 million at the time of writing, according to data by CoinMarketCap. Some of the other AI-focused crypto larger market-cap peers include Fetch.ai's FET and SingularityNET's AGIX, according to CoinGecko data.

Read more: The Next ChatGPT Won’t Be in Web3 Unless Some Things Change