Billionaire Xavier Niel, the owner of internet provider Illiard, has said he is investing in Tezos’s hard fork ‘Dune.’ He is one of the many prominent French investors who are eyeing the new cryptocurrency.

Tezos is set to undergo a hard fork, and some high-profile investors are already getting ready to throw their support behind it. ‘Dune’ is set to be created in September, but, unlike other hard forks, it’s already well into a period of managed gestation. That’s why it has brought the attention of so many interested parties.

Dune Will Fight Against Ethereum

Dune is marketing itself as a competitor to Ethereum and is under development by French start-up Origin Labs. Starchain Capital, an investment firm responsible for having their hand in many crypto-companies including Coinbase, Augur, MakerDAO, and Kaiko, is one of the biggest supporters.

However, Starchain is not the only company bringing in serious funds to the Dune project. The French magazine Capital is reporting that the cryptocurrency boasts a shocking number of established investors with strong ties to the tech industry in France.

Supporters include the likes of:

Marc Simoncini , the creator of massive French dating app Meetic.

, the creator of massive French dating app Meetic. Jean David Blanc , founder of the French cinema database AlloCiné and TV startup Molotov.

, founder of the French cinema database AlloCiné and TV startup Molotov. Alexis Bonillo , co-founder of real-time location sharing app Znely.

, co-founder of real-time location sharing app Znely. Xavier Niel, the young billionaire businessman who owns a majority stake in mobile operator Illiad under the Free brand (France’s second-largest ISP).

This strong line of commercial investors is difficult to ignore, and it’s even rarer to find a hard fork with this much support before its launch.

Improving Upon Its Predecessor

With such a line-up of investors, Dune may pose a direct threat to its original chain, Tezos. Shaun Belcher, executive director of Tezos Commons, notes that the Tezos team has some 50-60 developers working on improving its protocol. Yet, the Dune team claims that Tezos actually has three times less than this. Comparatively, Dune boasts 11 developers right from the beginning through Origin Labs.

Dune certainly checks all of the right boxes to usurp Tezos’s own success, at least in France. If successful, it would be unprecedented in the history of hard forks. We can expect more details as we get closer to the actual date of the split.

Do you believe Dune is a direct competitor to Tezos? Let us know your thoughts in the comments down below.

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