February was a reminder that crypto markets move in cycles of sentiment and structure. After a constructive start to the year, volatility returned as leverage reset and capital rotated across risk assets. ETF flows continued to influence price discovery, institutional participation deepened, and regulatory clarity in key jurisdictions added incremental confidence to the long term outlook.
Yet beneath the short-term price movements, the more durable story continues to unfold. Infrastructure is maturing. AI and crypto integrations are accelerating. Real-world asset tokenization is moving from experimentation to meaningful deployment. Capital is becoming more deliberate, and founders are increasingly focused on product market fit rather than narrative momentum.
This phase feels less speculative and more structural. Global liquidity conditions are shaping risk appetite, but institutional allocators are engaging through regulated vehicles, and enterprise adoption is quietly expanding.
For us at MH Ventures, February reinforced a consistent belief. Durable value is built during periods of recalibration. The companies featured in this issue reflect that discipline, executing with focus, expanding utility, and compounding long-term advantage while markets find their footing.
As always, Proof of Portco provides a transparent view into that progress.
Avalon is building the game gamers have been asking for.
Creating no longer requires deep technical skill. With Avalon, anyone can generate an immersive world straight from their imagination by describing it in natural language to an AI model. And the best part: for the first time in player-created games, the worlds are persistent. Create once, play forever.
The “metaverse” hype cycle kicked off in 2021, but it didn’t land. Most worlds were empty skyboxes, and the experiences couldn’t compete with the games people already loved. Avalon fixes that by unlocking real digital creation for everyone.
CEO and co-founder Sean Pennick calls Avalon the graduation game for Roblox players that also layers in Unreal Engine-level cinematic immersion for that Ready Player One feel. Players can craft high-fidelity games, monetize them, and share persistent realms with real-time combat, quests, and economies.
Avalon was co-founded by the creator of legendary EverQuest (OG of online gaming) , raised $23M for development, and has now opened a closed beta via Discord.
Watch the trailer on X and join the Avalon Discord to start playing now:
Crypto is drowning in artificial yields and meme coins that crash. Meanwhile, traditional finance traps its best assets behind massive entry barriers.
Pharos is a high-speed Layer 1 blockchain built by former Ant Group security leaders to destroy this gap. They are building a standard called RealFi, which tokenizes real-world assets so that normal users can access sustainable, premium yields paid in stablecoins rather than fake reward tokens.
The infrastructure is built for global institutions, handling 30,000 transactions per second with sub-second finality (aka it is fast and can compete with Visa). But great tech doesn't win alone. To cut through the noise of Web3, Pharos launched a $10 million ecosystem fund to bootstrap growth. Instead of just writing checks, they actively help founders with team formation, legal compliance, and marketing to build Pharos into the new leading L1.
The demand is clear. Pharos ran two testnets, processing 4.3 billion transactions from 209 million unique wallets. Backed by an engaged community of 1 million members, they are about to launch their mainnet. Pharos isn't just shipping another blockchain, they are creating a borderless financial city where institutional-grade assets are finally open to everyone.
The DealFlow Podcast has entered into a media syndication agreement with BSCNews, one of the most respected and widely followed blockchain media outlets. With a global audience of over 1.3 million followers on X and tens of millions of monthly impressions, BSCNews stands at the top of Web3 journalism.
This partnership with BSCN will expand DealFlow Podcast’s distribution across their editorial ecosystem, reaching crypto-curious retail audiences, blockchain communities, builders, and investors, with the hope of bringing more insight, access, and visibility to the people innovating within Web3.
Collaboration Announcement: BSCN x @DealflowPodcast
Keira sat down with Azeem, co-founder of Miden, to record an episode of the DealFlow Podcast, during which they talked about the importance of a privacy-first blockchain. Below is a short Q&A snippet from that conversation.
Who are you, and what’s the story behind your project?
I’ve spent the last 12 years in crypto across almost every angle you can think of, including founder, investor, grant allocator, and advisor. I helped design blockchain tools for public good with UNICEF, distributed millions in grants at Gitcoin, and wrote regularly for outlets like Forbes and CoinDesk to push the industry beyond hype toward real impact.
Miden is the culmination of that journey. We’re building a next-generation blockchain that actually works for humans, and maybe even better for AI agents. A zero-knowledge, client-side execution network designed from the ground up to be private, scalable, and compliant enough for real institutional and global use, not just speculative games.
What problem in crypto frustrates you the most, and how are you fixing it?
The thing that frustrates me most is that crypto has drifted from “bank the unbanked” to “help already‑banked people become bankless.” The people who actually need better financial rails are still mostly watching from the sidelines.
On top of that, we pretend we care about institutions and real-world adoption while asking banks, asset managers, and governments to transact on ledgers that function like live blockchain explorers for every move they make. No serious institution is going to run a size on a chain where every trade is fully transparent, permanently.
Miden fixes this by moving execution to the edge: users and institutions run computations locally, keep sensitive data on their own devices, and only send zero‑knowledge proofs to the network. That gives you privacy, compliance, and scalability in a single stack, without forcing a trade-off between them.
If I only hold BTC or ETH, why should I even care about what you’re building?
If you only hold BTC or ETH, what you’re really betting on is that onchain finance becomes a core part of the global economy. For that to happen, we need infrastructure that serious institutions are actually willing to use at scale.
Miden is about building that missing layer. A network where you can have public and private transactions in the same system, with proofs instead of raw data hitting the chain. If we’re successful, that brings more real-world assets, more liquidity, and more durable demand into the broader ecosystem, which ultimately benefits the assets you already hold.
What makes your approach different from all the noise in crypto right now?
Most of crypto is either chasing the next speculative meta or re‑skinning the same rollup architecture with different buzzwords. Very few teams are rethinking how blockchains compute from first principles.
Miden is a ZK‑native, edge‑first blockchain. Instead of making every node on the network re‑run your transaction, Miden lets your own device run it, then generate a small cryptographic proof (using STARKs) that says “this was done correctly” and sends only that proof to the chain.
Because the heavy work happens on the user’s device and only proofs hit the network, you can build much more demanding, privacy‑preserving applications, like private DAOs, serious treasuries, AI agents whose actions are verifiable, and rich onchain games... that don’t really fit on today’s “everyone re‑executes everything” chains.
DealFlow Podcast dives into the stories behind the builders shaping the future of Web3. Each episode uncovers how founders are turning bold ideas into real products and culture-defining tech. No hype, no jargon, just raw insights from the people building tomorrow’s technology.
"Stop buying beer and go buy Bitcoin instead." - Alan Orwick, Co-founder of Quai Network.
More Episodes here:
Stop building for humans. Start building for AI Agents.
This is the GIANT crypto experiment.
Gunzilla Games: Fortnite is DEAD... Watch out for this game!
Follow on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/6RKf6kRL2q0XEgQeYp9r0d?si=1d28a7c1056a4ceb
Subscribe on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@DealFlowPodcast
MH Ventures is an early-stage venture firm investing in frontier Web3 technologies, digital assets, and the builders shaping the decentralized economy. Through Fund I, we’ve partnered with founders redefining infrastructure, DeFi, and digital coordination. As we prepare to launch Fund II, our focus remains the same, back conviction, utility, and long-term value creation.
For partnership or investor inquiries, contact invest@mhventures.io.
February was a reminder that crypto markets move in cycles of sentiment and structure. After a constructive start to the year, volatility returned as leverage reset and capital rotated across risk assets. ETF flows continued to influence price discovery, institutional participation deepened, and regulatory clarity in key jurisdictions added incremental confidence to the long term outlook.
Yet beneath the short-term price movements, the more durable story continues to unfold. Infrastructure is maturing. AI and crypto integrations are accelerating. Real-world asset tokenization is moving from experimentation to meaningful deployment. Capital is becoming more deliberate, and founders are increasingly focused on product market fit rather than narrative momentum.
This phase feels less speculative and more structural. Global liquidity conditions are shaping risk appetite, but institutional allocators are engaging through regulated vehicles, and enterprise adoption is quietly expanding.
For us at MH Ventures, February reinforced a consistent belief. Durable value is built during periods of recalibration. The companies featured in this issue reflect that discipline, executing with focus, expanding utility, and compounding long-term advantage while markets find their footing.
As always, Proof of Portco provides a transparent view into that progress.
Avalon is building the game gamers have been asking for.
Creating no longer requires deep technical skill. With Avalon, anyone can generate an immersive world straight from their imagination by describing it in natural language to an AI model. And the best part: for the first time in player-created games, the worlds are persistent. Create once, play forever.
The “metaverse” hype cycle kicked off in 2021, but it didn’t land. Most worlds were empty skyboxes, and the experiences couldn’t compete with the games people already loved. Avalon fixes that by unlocking real digital creation for everyone.
CEO and co-founder Sean Pennick calls Avalon the graduation game for Roblox players that also layers in Unreal Engine-level cinematic immersion for that Ready Player One feel. Players can craft high-fidelity games, monetize them, and share persistent realms with real-time combat, quests, and economies.
Avalon was co-founded by the creator of legendary EverQuest (OG of online gaming) , raised $23M for development, and has now opened a closed beta via Discord.
Watch the trailer on X and join the Avalon Discord to start playing now:
Crypto is drowning in artificial yields and meme coins that crash. Meanwhile, traditional finance traps its best assets behind massive entry barriers.
Pharos is a high-speed Layer 1 blockchain built by former Ant Group security leaders to destroy this gap. They are building a standard called RealFi, which tokenizes real-world assets so that normal users can access sustainable, premium yields paid in stablecoins rather than fake reward tokens.
The infrastructure is built for global institutions, handling 30,000 transactions per second with sub-second finality (aka it is fast and can compete with Visa). But great tech doesn't win alone. To cut through the noise of Web3, Pharos launched a $10 million ecosystem fund to bootstrap growth. Instead of just writing checks, they actively help founders with team formation, legal compliance, and marketing to build Pharos into the new leading L1.
The demand is clear. Pharos ran two testnets, processing 4.3 billion transactions from 209 million unique wallets. Backed by an engaged community of 1 million members, they are about to launch their mainnet. Pharos isn't just shipping another blockchain, they are creating a borderless financial city where institutional-grade assets are finally open to everyone.
The DealFlow Podcast has entered into a media syndication agreement with BSCNews, one of the most respected and widely followed blockchain media outlets. With a global audience of over 1.3 million followers on X and tens of millions of monthly impressions, BSCNews stands at the top of Web3 journalism.
This partnership with BSCN will expand DealFlow Podcast’s distribution across their editorial ecosystem, reaching crypto-curious retail audiences, blockchain communities, builders, and investors, with the hope of bringing more insight, access, and visibility to the people innovating within Web3.
Collaboration Announcement: BSCN x @DealflowPodcast
Keira sat down with Azeem, co-founder of Miden, to record an episode of the DealFlow Podcast, during which they talked about the importance of a privacy-first blockchain. Below is a short Q&A snippet from that conversation.
Who are you, and what’s the story behind your project?
I’ve spent the last 12 years in crypto across almost every angle you can think of, including founder, investor, grant allocator, and advisor. I helped design blockchain tools for public good with UNICEF, distributed millions in grants at Gitcoin, and wrote regularly for outlets like Forbes and CoinDesk to push the industry beyond hype toward real impact.
Miden is the culmination of that journey. We’re building a next-generation blockchain that actually works for humans, and maybe even better for AI agents. A zero-knowledge, client-side execution network designed from the ground up to be private, scalable, and compliant enough for real institutional and global use, not just speculative games.
What problem in crypto frustrates you the most, and how are you fixing it?
The thing that frustrates me most is that crypto has drifted from “bank the unbanked” to “help already‑banked people become bankless.” The people who actually need better financial rails are still mostly watching from the sidelines.
On top of that, we pretend we care about institutions and real-world adoption while asking banks, asset managers, and governments to transact on ledgers that function like live blockchain explorers for every move they make. No serious institution is going to run a size on a chain where every trade is fully transparent, permanently.
Miden fixes this by moving execution to the edge: users and institutions run computations locally, keep sensitive data on their own devices, and only send zero‑knowledge proofs to the network. That gives you privacy, compliance, and scalability in a single stack, without forcing a trade-off between them.
If I only hold BTC or ETH, why should I even care about what you’re building?
If you only hold BTC or ETH, what you’re really betting on is that onchain finance becomes a core part of the global economy. For that to happen, we need infrastructure that serious institutions are actually willing to use at scale.
Miden is about building that missing layer. A network where you can have public and private transactions in the same system, with proofs instead of raw data hitting the chain. If we’re successful, that brings more real-world assets, more liquidity, and more durable demand into the broader ecosystem, which ultimately benefits the assets you already hold.
What makes your approach different from all the noise in crypto right now?
Most of crypto is either chasing the next speculative meta or re‑skinning the same rollup architecture with different buzzwords. Very few teams are rethinking how blockchains compute from first principles.
Miden is a ZK‑native, edge‑first blockchain. Instead of making every node on the network re‑run your transaction, Miden lets your own device run it, then generate a small cryptographic proof (using STARKs) that says “this was done correctly” and sends only that proof to the chain.
Because the heavy work happens on the user’s device and only proofs hit the network, you can build much more demanding, privacy‑preserving applications, like private DAOs, serious treasuries, AI agents whose actions are verifiable, and rich onchain games... that don’t really fit on today’s “everyone re‑executes everything” chains.
DealFlow Podcast dives into the stories behind the builders shaping the future of Web3. Each episode uncovers how founders are turning bold ideas into real products and culture-defining tech. No hype, no jargon, just raw insights from the people building tomorrow’s technology.
"Stop buying beer and go buy Bitcoin instead." - Alan Orwick, Co-founder of Quai Network.
More Episodes here:
Stop building for humans. Start building for AI Agents.
This is the GIANT crypto experiment.
Gunzilla Games: Fortnite is DEAD... Watch out for this game!
Follow on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/6RKf6kRL2q0XEgQeYp9r0d?si=1d28a7c1056a4ceb
Subscribe on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@DealFlowPodcast
MH Ventures is an early-stage venture firm investing in frontier Web3 technologies, digital assets, and the builders shaping the decentralized economy. Through Fund I, we’ve partnered with founders redefining infrastructure, DeFi, and digital coordination. As we prepare to launch Fund II, our focus remains the same, back conviction, utility, and long-term value creation.
For partnership or investor inquiries, contact invest@mhventures.io.
And culturally, we’re not optimizing for the next airdrop farm. We’re building infrastructure that can sit under banks, governments, and serious builders for a decade-plus, with privacy and compliance baked in from day one rather than bolted on as an afterthought.
What’s next… what should I be watching for in the next 6 months?
Testnet is now live
Our next testnet will showcase edge execution with client‑side proofs and hybrid public/private flows, so people can feel the model as a real product, not just a whitepaper.
Real builders and institutions
We’re onboarding teams building private DeFi, treasuries, and payments, and exploring pilots with banks and fintechs in regions where financial inclusion is not a meme but a necessity.
Mainnet runway
We’re lining up funding, partners, and compliance so that a Q2 mainnet launch comes with real usage and institutional pathways, not just another ticker event
And culturally, we’re not optimizing for the next airdrop farm. We’re building infrastructure that can sit under banks, governments, and serious builders for a decade-plus, with privacy and compliance baked in from day one rather than bolted on as an afterthought.
What’s next… what should I be watching for in the next 6 months?
Testnet is now live
Our next testnet will showcase edge execution with client‑side proofs and hybrid public/private flows, so people can feel the model as a real product, not just a whitepaper.
Real builders and institutions
We’re onboarding teams building private DeFi, treasuries, and payments, and exploring pilots with banks and fintechs in regions where financial inclusion is not a meme but a necessity.
Mainnet runway
We’re lining up funding, partners, and compliance so that a Q2 mainnet launch comes with real usage and institutional pathways, not just another ticker event
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Keira Nesdale
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