This Week in DeFi – February 18

To the DeFi group,

This week, Citadel Island Ventures introduced a $250 million Web3 funding fund and the additon of Ria Bhutoria as basic associate on the agency. The brand new fund will give attention to blockchain-based monetary companies, financial networks, and web infrastructure which are anticipated to be main Web3 themes in years to come back.

Congrats to @nic__carter & @MattWalshInBos of Citadel Island Ventures for elevating their Fund III.
They have been early traders in @ZenLedgerIO and have been completely incredible to work with.
The are making nice investments and constructing a powerhouse.https://t.co/tmBBHTbB9Q

— Pat Larsen (@PatrickLarsen) February 16, 2022

Curve Finance enlarges its attain once more by launching on Moonbeam, the EVM appropriate Polkadot chain. Curve is among the first cross-chain DeFi protocols to come back to Moonbeam, and will present a strong basis for like-asset swaps on the community.

1/ @CurveFinance, the most well-liked trade liquidity pool on Ethereum + LARGEST DeFi protocol by TVL, has arrived on Moonbeam!

Not solely does this allow customers to trade steady cash, it opens up liquidity between any like-value belongings.🔄

Strive it out 👇https://t.co/GAqUvabKy4

— Moonbeam Community (@MoonbeamNetwork) February 14, 2022

NEAR-based multiproduct DeFi platform Ref Finance introduced a strategic increase of $4.8 million to proceed increasing their developer crew and constructing out DeFi within the NEAR ecosystem. Ref at present affords AMM and stableswap platforms, with plans for added AMM enhancements and a lend and borrow protocol in a while.

🎉 Huge information for the collective: We raised $4.8M💪

All within the identify of #DeFihttps://t.co/W5O7guy9EU 1/

— Ref Finance (Calling for Degens) (@finance_ref) February 17, 2022

And Gnosis decentralized governance voted to spin out SafeDAO and launch the SAFE token through airdrop to customers and distributions to core contributors, group treasuries, and the SAFE Basis. Gnosis Secure incorporates greater than $100 billion in funds throughout varied Web3 tasks, making the product a important piece of public infrastructure that may now be managed by the SAFE holder group.

Tokens will likely be distributed pretty amongst core contributors, ecosystem individuals, customers, the Secure Basis, and group treasuries. pic.twitter.com/Bbhnrl433R

— Gnosis Secure (@gnosisSafe) February 9, 2022

Greater than $100 billion held by varied DeFi and Web3 tasks is a exceptional sum. What’s extra, that complete represents solely that really raised and held by Ethereum-based tasks as ‘dry powder’, indicating an enormous quantity of runway for the DeFi house that has traditionally run extraordinarily lean – groups facilitating lots of of billions in annual quantity usually consist of some dozen or much less builders, promoters, and coordinators. 

That complete additionally doesn’t embrace the billions put aside simply within the final yr by enterprise capital corporations of all varieties, from crypto-native to these simply getting began investing in Web3. Funding within the house has skyrocketed over the previous 4 years, with 2022 shaping as much as be one other notch greater as cash continues to pour in.

VC funding in cryptocurrency and blockchain firms:

2021:   $30 billion
2020: $6.5 billion
2019:  $3.9 billion
2018:     $8 billion
2017:  $1.9 billion
2016:  $1.1 billion
2015:  $1.1 billion
2014: $900 million
2013: $300 million
2012: $100 million

supply: Pitchbook

— Jon Erlichman (@JonErlichman) January 20, 2022

The blockchain business has at all times had its detractors, however the boosters, at the very least as measured by pores and skin within the recreation, have apparently by no means been extra assured that crypto infrastructure and merchandise will likely be an integral a part of on a regular basis life within the not-too-distant future. It may really feel like a gradual course of, however in the event you’ve made it this far, what’s just a few extra years? Carry on trucking!

Due to our associate:

Complete Worth Locked: $87.35B (down -14.78% since final week)

DeFi Market Cap: $110.24B (down -0.32%)

DEX Weekly Quantity: $16.07B (down -4.12%)

DAI Provide: 9.78B (down -0.21%)

Complete DeFi Customers: 4,395,350 (up 0.72%)

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Alex is a Content material Author at Circle, with earlier expertise at tech startups, Fortune 500 companies, and as a contract author and analyst. Pursuits embrace cutting-edge applied sciences in blockchain, power, provide chains, transportation, city residing, and extra and he has been within the crypto group since 2014.