The past week in the cryptocurrency space saw 11 startups raise nearly $60 million for their projects. Most of this money was dedicated to developing better liquid staking solutions and stronger security protocols for smart contracts.
A pioneer in liquid staking derivatives, Helio Protocol, stood out in terms of capital raised. It received a stunning $10 million funding boost from none other than Binance Labs.
Binance Labs has reported that Helio Protocol has accumulated a huge $300 million TVL. Their main operations include creating an overcollateralized lending platform with their decentralized stablecoin HAY. In addition, Helio Protocol offers “multi-chain staking-as-a-service” and “liquid staking derivatives” services through Synclub, which joined up with Helio in July.
The merger of Synclub and Helio is set to bring more liquidity to staking tokens in the form of collateral on the latter’s platform. Already supporting native staking for Binance Coin (BNB), Cosmos (ATOM), Polkadot (DOT), and Tron (TRX), this collaboration will further expand the capabilities of Helio.
Co-founder of Binance Yi He emphasized Binance Labs’ dedication to the expansion of DeFi projects like Helio and emphasized the crucial role the LSDfi sector plays in advancing the DeFi ecosystem as a whole.
Puffer Finance entered the liquid staking space with a bang, raising $5.5 million in a seed funding round co-led by Lightspeed Faction and Lemniscap. Notable investor Brevan Howard’s crypto arm also contributed significantly to this investment.
The Ethereum Shapella upgrade, which switched the network to a proof-of-stake model, was what gave Puffer Finance its momentum. The company is concerned about centralized competitors gaining the upper hand and wants to empower individual stakeholders. For the purpose of shielding home stakers from slashable offenses, it introduced its Secure-Signer tool.
Puffer also makes it possible to participate in the Ethereum network for as little as 2 ether (ETH), which is a lot less expensive than the usual 32 ETH requirement for solo stakers.
The co-founders of Puffer, Amir Forouzani and Jason Vranek, emphasized their goal of democratizing staking and involving a larger audience in creating a robust and censorship-resistant Web3 ecosystem.
Alchemy’s second-quarter 2023 developer report, which focuses on smart contract security, noted increased demand for solutions to strengthen smart contracts. Three startups that received multimillion-dollar funding rounds immediately after this realization stood out.
To support its trio of Detect, Protect, and Manage blockchain security products, Cube3.ai raised $8.2 million in seed funding. In order to stop malicious transactions on the blockchain, these products work together to monitor the network and take action as needed.
To create Cantina, an open marketplace for Web3 security auditors, Spearbit raised $7 million. The funding, led by Framework Ventures, will also go toward growing the company’s software engineering staff.
Finally, with an impressive $8.2 million at a $24 million valuation, SphereX completed its funding round. Aleph, Pillar VC, Fabric Ventures, and Mensch Capital Partners, among others, provided funding for the project. The company’s flagship product, SphereX Protect, has established itself as a strong defense against hacker-used weaknesses in smart contracts.
These startups’ emphasis on liquid staking and smart contract security coincides with the industry’s push for greater robustness and efficiency as the cryptocurrency space continues to develop.