T-Rex Raises $17 Million to Revolutionize Online Content Publishing

T-Rex, a new blockchain designed for entertainment, content, and cultural virality, has successfully raised $17 million in funding. This investment is aimed at revolutionizing online content publishing by rewarding consumers for their everyday interactions on popular social platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter). The blockchain is set to launch in Summer 2025 and will introduce a built-in distribution engine that seamlessly rewards users for activities they already enjoy online.

The funding round was supported by strategic investors including Portal Ventures, North Island Ventures, Framework Ventures, Arbitrum Gaming Ventures, ArkStream Capital, Mindfulness Capital, Hypersphere, SNZ, and Arche Fund. T-Rex is developed by EVG, a prominent product builder and publisher known for driving mass adoption in the region. The blockchain addresses critical challenges in the blockchain space, such as the "ghost town" and "mercenary users" issues, by leveraging Arbitrum’s Layer-2 scaling solution. This provides ultra-fast, secure, and low-cost transactions essential for consumer-scale adoption.

Dan Peng, Partner at Arbitrum Gaming Ventures, highlighted the strategic importance of T-Rex in expanding Web3 beyond decentralized finance (DeFi). He noted that EVG’s strong regional influence and deep understanding of the Southeast Asian market, projected to reach significant growth by 2028, provide a strategic gateway for scaling their footprint in this high-growth region. The combination of Arbitrum’s robust scaling capabilities and EVG’s extensive ecosystem expertise positions T-Rex to penetrate the entertainment industry and broader consumer market.

T-Rex’s core innovation is its Proof-of-Engagement (PoE) mechanism, which automatically rewards users on apps they already use daily through a privacy-preserving browser extension. This turns everyday online actions like watching videos, liking posts, and sharing memes into tangible, valuable digital ownership and offline perks. The blockchain stays invisible to users, allowing them to effortlessly turn their online fun into meaningful rewards. The vision is to transform attention into equity, community into power, and participation into currency.

At launch, users will simply install T-Rex’s browser extension and continue browsing popular social media platforms. Every interaction is quietly and securely recorded via advanced zero-knowledge tech (zkTLS) and seamlessly turned into rewards, with no wallet or tech jargon required. Creators and projects benefit from instant audience discovery and viral distribution, while end users earn rewards effortlessly, redeemable both digitally and offline, such as cash back at favorite restaurants or exclusive local deals.

Evan Fisher, Founder and General Partner of Portal Ventures, praised T-Rex for building a protocol that seamlessly onboards social media users and allows them to monetize their data through network rewards. Travis Scher, Managing Partner and Co-founder of North Island Ventures, noted that T-Rex prioritizes culture and abstracts complexity, offering a path to broad adoption in the Web3 space.

The $8 million Incubation Fund, backed by EVG with support from Arbitrum Gaming Ventures, will accelerate ecosystem growth. This fund offers comprehensive developer support beyond capital, including engineering resources, media partnerships, community activations, premium events, Key Opinion Leader (KOL) networks, and strategic Intellectual Property (IP) applications. Joyce Yim, Co-founder of T-Rex, emphasized that developers gain immediate user traffic, creators grow loyal audiences effortlessly, and users become stakeholders in the success of viral content.

Set to launch in Summer 2025, T-Rex’s distribution layer and browser extension will create the railroads linking popular online consumer applications such as gaming, music, interactive media, and Web3. From creators rewarding top users with digital assets to new projects gaining instant discovery, to active users earning a stake, T-Rex’s ecosystem is designed for intuitive use, cultural resonance, and economic empowerment at scale.