In an age of widespread wallet tracking and whale alerts, it’s impossible to hide onchain. So when a wallet associated with DWF Labs received almost $12M in Fetch.ai’s native FET token on September 3, it was always bound to attract attention. So what’s the deal with the sizable tranche of FET and what exactly are DWF planning to do with it?
A Whole Lotta AI Tokens
$12M is a veritable fortune in any liquid token, but it’s not just the value of the transaction that captured the cryptosphere’s attention: it was also the project it’s affiliated with and the industry it operates in – AI. FET has a market cap of close to $3B, and now DWF Labs is in receipt of 10 million of them.
As soon as the transfer was made, onchain alert services such as Lookonchain were quick to draw attention to the transaction, which originated from the Fetch.ai Foundation. Fetch is one of the leading AI-focused blockchain projects, having been leveraging web3 to support artificial intelligence use cases long before AI became trendy. It’s the real deal, rather than a latecomer trying to catch the vapors.
Fetch is currently focused on creating an open marketplace for AI agents; autonomous bots that can draw data from multiple on- and off-chain sources and use this information to trigger smart contracts. There’s currently something of an arms race – or rather agents race – underway to create thousands of these autonomous bots to power everything from perps markets to RWAs.
But where does DWF Labs come into the equation?
Market Making and Reputation Building
DWF Labs is a blockchain VC and accelerator with many strings to its bow. It funds web3 startups, sponsors hackathons, supplies market-making for crypto projects post-TGE, and provides OTC and high volume trading services. It has its finger in many pies, in other words, and it’s not just highly active: it’s highly ambitious.
With a portfolio of more than 700 companies, DWF Labs proudly claims to have supported more than 20% of the top 100 crypto projects by market cap. It’s a feat that makes it unrivaled among blockchain venture funds and attests to its team’s work ethic and diligence. Their strategy isn’t based on pray and spray either: not only do they meticulously scrutinize every project they consider investing in, but they often follow up with value-add services such as introductions to its partner network and market making.
As for where Fetch.ai comes into play, DWF Labs is a major investor. Last year, Fetch closed a $40M round in which DWF Labs predictably led. Which explains the receipt of $12M in $FET tokens this week, sent directly to one of DWF Labs’ known wallets. The question, for $FET holders and the crypto curious, is what DWF Labs intends to do with them next.
Investing Over a Long Time Horizon
This much can be stated with certainty: DWF Labs isn’t about to market sell millions of dollars of $FET. Not only would that be a bad move reputationally, but it doesn’t align with DWF’s business model. In the past, less scrupulous VCs have caught flak for engaging in predatory behavior, scooping up heavily discounted tokens in return for writing pre-seed checks, only to dump them on retail as soon as the token lists. DWF Labs doesn’t play that way.
While all VCs need an exit strategy, DWF Labs has been shrewd in growing its venture capital division in tandem with that of its market making and OTC desk. As a result, it’s able to generate revenue in a number of ways without directly selling tokens. In return for providing liquidity on decentralized exchanges and AMMs, it can earn a portion of all trading fees while helping its portfolio projects into the bargain. It’s also active onchain, participating in DeFi activities to earn yield on its assets.
It may be a cliche, but money makes money. And through perseverance and a knack for identifying early alpha and emerging metas, DWF Labs finds itself in the enviable position of having significant assets under management. $12M of $FET might turn the heads of onchain sleuths, but for DWF Labs, it’s just a regular transaction and an asset they appear in no hurry to offload.
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