Grape Network Raises $1.8M After Crashing Solana

Full article by Danny Nelson found here.

Key Points:

• Grape Network has raised $1.2 million from venture capital firms in a fundraising round led by Multicoin Capital on Thursday.

• This funding round comes after last week’s $600,000 $GRAPE public sale that had so much traffic that it caused the host blockchain Solana to malfunction and go offline for over 20 hours.

• Grape Network founder Dean Pappas stated that “we didn’t break it out of intention, but we were a part of the reason it got broken".”

• The startup builds tools to help NFT holders prove their legitimacy since May. Top Solana projects such as the Degen Ape Academy and Saber use Grape, furthering the startup’s legitimacy and use.

• The fact that a niche project such as Grape could “break” a major blockchain with a self claim of the highest transaction capacity of any major chain has raised serious questions regarding Solana’s infrastructure and capabilities.

• While Solana project leads plan to issue a full report detailing what actually happened, early statements point to the $GRAPE IDO (initial DEX offering) as the likely culprit.

• Pappas states that the $1.8 million total funding will be used for team expansion and hiring network engineers. One of Grape’s planned capabilities is to connect crypto community member’s NFTs with internet messaging hubs such as Discord.