Deribit is a leading crypto futures and options trading platform based in Panama City, Panama. Deribit’s state of the art system architecture ensures the fastest performance in the market, making it the first choice for algorithmic and HF traders. Deribit was the first to launch European style cash-settled options on BTC and ETH, and have pioneered functionalities like multi-instrument block trade, market maker protection, and portfolio margin for crypto derivatives. Furthermore, Deribit remains the market leader in crypto options and continues to set the standard for the rest of the industry.

Deribit

QCP Capital is a crypto-asset trading firm that manages the proprietary investment and trading strategies with a focus on quantitative methods, arbitrage, and derivatives. In addition, QCP runs a large over-the-counter trading desk and provides crypto-trading services such as risk management solutions and market-making operations. QCP has a strategic focus on Southeast Asia but also operates in the UK, Japan, and Australia. QCP Capital was founded in 2017 and is based in Singapore.

QCP Capital

Three Arrows Capital is a hedge fund manager that provides risk-adjusted returns. The firm was established in 2012 by Su Zhu and Kyle Davies and is headquartered in Singapore, Central Region, Singapore.

Three Arrows Capital

Jump Crypto is building a cryptocurrency infrastructure to help the blockchain and all things Web3 grow. It was founded in 2015 and is based in Chicago, Illinois.

Jump Crypto

GoldenTree is an employee-owned, global asset management firm that specializes in opportunities across the credit universe in sectors such as high yield bonds, leveraged loans, private credit, distressed debt, structured products, emerging markets, private equity and credit-themed equities. GoldenTree was founded in 2000 and is one of the largest independent asset managers focused on credit. GoldenTree manages over $48 billion for institutional investors including leading public and corporate pensions, endowments, foundations, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds. GoldenTree is headquartered in New York and has offices in West Palm Beach, FL, Charlotte, NC, London, Dublin, Sidney, Singapore, Tokyo, and Dubai.

GoldenTree Asset Management

Raptor Group Holdings is an alternative investment firm that provides investment management and advisory services. Raptor Group sources and invest in companies across various stages and asset classes, ranging from early-stage venture to both private and public equity. Raptor focuses on various industries including, but not limited to Sports, Consumer, Technology, Media, Entertainment, and Financial Services.  It was founded in 2009 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

Raptor Group

Tribe Capital is a top-quartile venture capital firm focused on capturing a perpetual edge in venture and crypto using data science. The team is made up of investors, engineers and scientists who use artificial intelligence (“AI”) and data science to model venture-backed private companies. Beyond investment capital, Tribe deploys these AI tools to separate signal from noise, helping our companies understand their businesses better.  Our data-informed strategy includes an underwriting infrastructure and a quantitative analysis tool called the “Magic 8-ball.” We leverage these tools to provide deep insight on factors driving growth and how to accelerate sustainable growth, honed through years of developing similar products at major tech and finance players like Lyft, Yahoo, Facebook, and Bridgewater Associates.   Our team uses these tools to measure quantitative product-market fit, so we can more effectively assess and accelerate what Tribe refers to as “N-of-1” companies - companies with the potential to be 10-100x growth opportunities, while minimizing loss ratio by a large degree.  Tribe Capital has $1.6 billion in assets under management and has made notable investments in Apollo.io, Carta, Docker, Kraken, Instabase, Relativity Space, and Shiprocket.

Tribe Capital

Borderless partners with early-stage founders to accelerate access, bootstrap adoption and create value across the Algorand and EdgeFi ecosystems.

Borderless Capital

Crypto.com Capital is a venture arm of Crypto.com focused on investing in crypto startups at Seed and Series A stages. It is dedicated to accelerating the growth of promising startups with $200 million earmarked for investment and gives founders building in the crypto industry two things: a reputable lead investor for their Seed or Series A rounds and priority of launch on the growing retail crypto platform with over 10 million users. Crypto.com Capital leads seed rounds with cheque sizes between $100k and $3m and Series A rounds from $3m to $10m and seeking long-term partnerships with entrepreneurs in every sector of the cryptocurrency industry. Crypto.com Capital is led by Bobby Bao, co-founder of Crypto.com.

Crypto.com Capital

DeFi Capital is a Decentralized Finance investment fund.

DeFi Capital

Mirana

a technology venture capital firm supporting the next generation of founders advancing the development of web3

Artichoke Capital

Wintermute Ventures is the investment arm of Wintermute, a global algorithmic trading firm, liquidity provider, and leading OTC desk in digital assets.  Drawing from Wintermute's expertise in pioneering DeFi trading and powering liquidity across the entire ecosystem, Wintermute Ventures is uniquely positioned to back early-stage Web3 projects with hands-on support. Focused on long-term growth, the company takes a flexible approach, investing from early ideation to later-stage expansion. Committed to developing strategic relationships and driving positive outcomes, Wintermute Ventures prioritizes decentralized ownership, ensuring its investments align with the company’s broader vision of a decentralized future. Since 2020, it has invested in over 100 projects.

Wintermute Ventures

The emergence of bitcoin and subsequent blockchain technologies has generated a new digital asset class in which scarcity is based on mathematical properties. Through cryptographic verification and game-theoretic equilibrium, blockchain-based digital assets can be created, issued, and transmitted using the software. Polychain Capital is committed to exceptional returns for investors through actively managed portfolios of these blockchain assets.

Polychain

HyperChain Capital is a digital asset management company that focuses on Blockchain-based projects and decentralized protocols. Blockchain assets or digital assets are one of the main pillars of the new economy, emerging as a new digital asset class where people get rewards at the protocol level. If TCP/IP or HTTP protocols were tokenized as digital assets in their early development, it would have unleashed billions of dollars in value for their users and investors. HyperChain's philosophy is to do good, as an early participant and consultant to Blockchain protocol projects and organizations that support innovative technologies. We value our partners and work hard every day to make sure that every team working with us succeeds and does good.

Hyperchain Capital

Magnus Capital is a crypto investment firm.

Magnus Capital

RW3 Ventures is an early-stage venture firm focused on investments in the infrastructure, protocols, and applications that are propelling growth in blockchain technologies, decentralized finance, and long-term web 3 development.

RW3 Ventures

Thetanuts Finance

Thetanuts Finance's DeFi structured products and its customizable vaults are the future of generating yield. The platform is designed to provide treasury management for DAOs, as well as help retail traders earn yield on their tokens. Thetanuts' vaults simplify the process of options trading, making previously complex instruments easy for any investor to access, empowering users to monetize volatility in a risk-adjusted manner.

<div>Thetanuts Finance offers a yield aggregation platform that enables users to earn returns by leveraging liquidity pools as well as long and short options strategies. The platform packages these strategies into structured products in the form of decentralized vaults where users can deposit their crypto funds. Thetanuts also plans to launch a buy-side altcoin options market powered by these decentralized options vaults.&nbsp;</div>

Disrupting the traditional financial system using blockchain

Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

Unlocking Yield: Thetanuts Finance v3 Sources of Yield | by Shillcoin | May, 2024

<div>
 
 Thetanuts Finance offers a yield aggregation platform that enables users to earn returns by leveraging liquidity pools as well as long and short options strategies. The platform packages these strategies into structured products in the form of decentralized vaults where users can deposit their crypto funds. Thetanuts also plans to launch a buy-side altcoin options market powered by these decentralized options vaults.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 
 
 In April 2023, Thetanuts Finance 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18352">
 raised USD 17 million
 </a>
 in funding led by Polychain Capital, Hyperchain Capital, and Magnus Capital. The company earmarked the funding to support new partnerships with layer 1 and layer 2 networks, liquidity providers, blockchain foundations, market makers, and exchanges.
 
 
 
</div>

MakerDAO is a DAO (governed through the MKR token) that manages the Sky protocol (formerly known as Maker).&nbsp;Developed on the Ethereum blockchain, the protocol allows users to place their funds (through cryptocurrency) as collateral in exchange for its stablecoin DAI, which is pegged to the USD. DAI can be used like any other cryptocurrency and even as savings since holders of DAI are entitled to a return based on the DAI Savings Rate (DSR). The DSR is determined by members of the DAO using a mix of public and proprietary market data.Sky offers access to investing and borrowing DAI through the Oasis app which was developed by some of the creators of protocol. In addition, the protocol is available for developers of DeFi apps who can build apps to facilitate earning, investing, and borrowing DAI. As of May 2024, Sky had integrated with over 400 applications ranging from payment systems to gaming platforms. It generates revenue through stability fees (akin to interest payment on borrowed DAI) and liquidation fees which is an additional charge that occurs when the value of the submitted collateral falls below a set liquidation amount.&nbsp;In April 2022, the protocol announced that it was bridging to StarkNet, a reportedly cheaper and faster zero-knowledge (ZK) overlay chain built by StarkWare. Along with its expansion on Ethereum, the DAO had planned to move toward a multi-chain offering with this rebuild. It planned to roll out this offering in four phases, beginning with a simple bridge between the main blockchain and StarkNet’s Layer 2.&nbsp;In February 2023, the company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16269?industryIds=64">launched a new lending platform</a> named Spark Protocol, to enable users to borrow, lend, and stake DAI, the protocol’s stablecoin. The platform, which is a fork of Aave's version 3 (v3), will be built by Phoenix Labs, a research and development company formed by the DAO. Additionally, the company also announced the deployment of etherDAI, a liquid staking derivative for Ethereum that will be pegged to the value of ETH. Furthermore, in March, the protocol went on to<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17322"> approve several new proposals </a>that make changes to both its governance structure and the investment of its treasury. These changes divide the DAO’s current structure into smaller self-governed and self-sustained units named SubDAOs, which will also have their own tokens in the MakerDAO ecosystem. Moreover, the proposal also planned to increase the protocol’s revenues by investing a part of its reserves (worth USD 7 billion) into real-world assets and money-market funds.&nbsp;The platform outlined its plans for a major update (named Endgame) in May 2023. The launch was proposed to take place in five phases and will ultimately lead to the creation of a new blockchain. The road map is as follows: 1) launching new branding and website as well as upgraded versions of Dai and MKR tokens; 2) launching six Maker SubDAOs, specializing in user acquisition, decentralized frontends, and collateral allocation; 3) introducing new AI tools to assist governance, including tools for summarizing, interpreting, and generating governance proposals; 4) enabling rewards for governance participation; and 5) deploying a new blockchain to house backend logic for SubDAO tokenomics and governance security. The first phase of the update is expected to be rolled out in the summer of 2024.&nbsp;In August 2024, the protocol followed through with the first phase of its plans by <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/32993">rebranding itself under the new name "Sky"</a>, and launching new versions of DAI and MKR tokens named the USDS and SKY.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsIn September 2024, Sky<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/33252"> partnered with Aave Labs</a>, to launch the “Sky Aave Force” initiative. The initiative featured key proposals such as integrating the newly launched USDS and sUSDS stablecoins on Aave’s V3 protocol, introducing an incentive program for sUSDS suppliers and deploying a direct deposit module for USDS into the Aave Lido Market. Additionally, the partnership will enable the companies to distribute SPK tokens, the native token of Sky’s lending protocol Spark, to create a market for sUSDS on Aave. Collectively, these initiatives enable users to earn yields on their sUSDS deposits from the revenues generated by Sky’s protocol and mint USDS directly on Aave without meeting the usual collateral requirements.

MakerDAO

Founded by former executives of Qualcomm, Solana Labs is the developer of the Solana blockchain, which uses the native cryptocurrency SOL. The company enables developers to create decentralized applications in its blockchain and is capable of carrying out 50,000 transactions per second (TPS) with a theoretical upper limit of 710,000 TPS for the architecture. As of May 2024, the blockchain averaged around 2,400 TPS. This is in contrast to Ethereum’s average of between 13 to 15 TPS. In addition to transaction speed, Solana also has other advantages such as lower transaction fees and improved scalability, given its proof-of-stake consensus mechanism and underlying architecture. The mechanism also enables users to stake their SOL and earn yields for validating the network. Solana provides the ability to create specialized tooling and programming functionality to tokens through <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/25910">Token Extensions</a>. This allows developers and businesses to establish rules for tokens, such as dictating their functionality and determining their holders, as well as embed features like whitelisting, automatic transfer fees, and confidentiality provisions for transfers.Solana also provides guides and a content aggregator website for developers to discover tools to create dApps on its blockchain. As of May 2024, more than 440 dApps were created on Solana, ranging across use cases such as DeFi, NFTs, and gaming. It also <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18094">launched a ChatGPT </a>(a chatbot built on OpenAI's GPT model) plugin to allow developers and users to query the blockchain for on-chain data. The plugin works through the ChatGPT interface and allows users to perform various tasks such as checking wallet balances, transferring tokens, and purchasing NFTs.Key customers and partnershipsWeb browser developer Opera partnered with Solana in December 2021 to integrate the blockchain and create a built-in crypto wallet onto the Opera browser to improve accessibility to dApps hosted on the blockchain.As of May 2024, the company served several enterprise clients such as Shopify, Asics, Helio, and Tiplink.Funding and financialsThe total value locked (TVL) in DeFi projects across the Solana blockchain amounted to USD 4 billion as of May 2024. The company raised USD 314 million through an initial coin offering (ICO) of SOL. The ICO was co-led by Polychain Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. The funding was to be used to create a venture investing arm, a trading desk, and support the development of new applications in its blockchain.

Solana

Swiss-based Eidoo is a developer of a wallet that supports cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, along with tokens such as DAI, MKR, AAVE, and UNI, among others. In addition, Eidoo provides a DeFi marketplace that integrates with its wallet, allowing users to trade any tokens that they hold. Eidoo also offers a debit card that allows the conversion of digital assets into fiat currencies, such as the GBP and EURO, and spending or even withdrawing cash from ATMs.Eidoo began with the proprietary token EDO, which it also used to raise USD 27.9 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) in 2017. The token was then upgraded following its merger with blockchain oracle provider Provable Things to establish pNetwork, the infrastructure that facilitates cross-chain interactions between multiple decentralized apps, governed by the token PNT. To obtain an Eidoo debit card, users are required to stake PNT ranging from 20 to 200,000 for various service tiers.Eidoo had several applications such as virtual account numbers to deposit money and obtain a tokenized representation of their deposit as well as features to buy, hold, and trade NFTs in the roadmap as of December 2021.

Eidoo

Synthetix is a DAO (governed by holders of its native token SNX) that offers a platform on which users can trade and vote on the creation of on-chain synthetic assets, which are derivatives based on real-world assets. These synthetic assets enable traders to capture the price movements of assets such as cryptocurrencies, fiat currencies, stocks, and commodities, among others, with zero slippage. The protocol allows users to stake SNX as collateral for the debt pool and earn weekly rewards. As of April 2022, Synthetix had USD 642 million in total value locked (TVL).Additionally, Synthetix also offers the opportunity for developers to build on top of the platform to tap into its liquidity as well as develop decentralized perpetual futures, options markets, deal coordination markets, and more. As of December 2021, the protocol served large DeFi platforms including 1inch, Curve Finance, Yearn Finance, and Paraswap.In February 2023, Synthetix <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16609?industryIds=64">deployed version 3 (v3) of its platform </a>on the Ethereum mainnet. V3 reportedly offers more efficient architecture that enables developers to create products that offer a liquid market for any financial derivative, as well as more complex decentralized applications. Additionally, the solution also offers staking and differentiated debt pools, to enable stakers to earn fees from supplying collateral to specific asset pools. The company went on to deploy its protocol on Base, an Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain developed by Coinbase, in April 2024. Moreover, the company announced plans to launch a new perpetual futures exchange named Infinex in the following months.Funding and financialsIn March 2023, Synthetix <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17267">received an investment of USD 20 million </a>from DWF Labs, a Web3 venture capital company. Synthetix plans to use this investment to drive volume for its protocol across both centralized and decentralized exchanges and invest in product development.

Synthetix

Compound is an open-source lending protocol built on Ethereum that allows developers to build DeFi applications for functions such as deposits and lending. Compound offers adjusted money market interest rates based on asset-specific supply and demand and supports a number of Ethereum-based assets for users to take collateralized loans and lock-up assets without borrowing. Locked assets are automatically liquidated if an independent oracle determines that the price has dropped too low. Additionally, since assets are stored in a shared pool, even users with liquidated collateral can claim tokens if they are able to repay the general pool. Compound also <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13038">offers borrowing services</a> for institutional clients that allow them to borrow USD or USDC at a fixed annual percentage rate of 6% using cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ether as collateral, with a loan-to-value of 90%.As of April 2024, Compound had a total value locked (TVL) of USD 2.3 billion. The protocol is governed by its native-token COMP, which along with a variety of other digital assets that are a part of the Compound ecosystem, are supported by Coinbase Custody, a crypto asset custodian. In August 2022, Compound launched a version of its protocol named “Compound III” which features a single borrowable asset. Users can supply collateral that can never be withdrawn by other users (except during liquidation) and borrow USDC.In May 2022, Compound<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10267"> received a B- credit rating from S&amp;P Global Ratings</a> on its enterprise credit facility which offers 4% annually on deposits of the stablecoin USDC. Notably, Compound claims that this is the first time an "institutional DeFi" product has been scored by a major credit rating agency.Funding and financialsCompound’s last funding round was in November 2019 where it raised USD 25 million in a Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z crypto fund to help the company further decentralize the protocol by enabling crypto exchanges and custodians such as Coinbase to maintain the protocol going forward.

Compound

Organizations and protocols that allow individuals to lend their crypto assets and take out collateralized or uncollateralized loans from to/from these projects

Organizations that allow individuals to invest in tokenized financial and real assets

Organizations that provide fully decentralized insurance products

Organizations that apply NFTs across areas of finance such as documentation and non-fractionalized ownership records for assets

Decentralized exchanges that help connect buyers and sellers of DeFi tokens without the need to rely on an intermediary

Organizations that provide digital wallets for users to take custody of DeFi tokens

Blockchains and related protocols that allow developers to build DeFi apps

All companies within this industry are either blockchain-based platforms or offer blockchain-centric services

Promotes financial inclusivity, allowing those that won't traditionally have access to credit to raise funds

Companies with the infrastructure segment offer solutions for users to build decentralized applications

Thetanuts Finance

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