Portal, a decentralized exchange and wallet services provider, has raised USD 34 million in seed funding led by Coinbase Ventures, with participation from OKX Ventures, Gate.io, and Arrington Capital, among several others.

The company plans to use the funds to support the development of its two main products, the Portal DEX and the Portal Wallet. The company plans to add an AI-powered, co-pilot investment application to provide users with financial intelligence, investment strategies, and an API integration tool for building cross-chain swap functionality into existing wallets. Portal also announced that it would be entering several strategic partnerships with “major Bitcoin projects.”

Portal offers a decentralized exchange (DEX) platform that enables peer-to-peer swapping of cryptocurrencies across a range of blockchains. Built on the Bitcoin blockchain, the platform also offers a non-custodial wallet tool that integrates with the DEX. Users can receive, store, and send cryptocurrencies across a number of blockchains, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, via automated market-making smart contracts. 

A nalyst QuickTake: This news adds to a growing trend of Bitcoin layer-2 projects exploring the use of smart contracts to expand the functionality of Bitcoin. The space has also seen a recent interest from investors over the last few months, with startups such as Bitfinity , a Bitcoin layer-2 network, raising USD 7 million earlier this month, and Babylon , a Bitcoin staking protocol, raising USD 18 million in December. Portal aims to differentiate itself by providing users access to decentralized exchange services via layer-2 infrastructure on the Bitcoin blockchain. Notably, these developments also coincide with the approval of a number of spot Bitcoin ETFs earlier this month .