Sovryn, a company aiming to provide individuals all across the world financial independence and self-determination, has just announced that it has raised $5.42 million in a round of investment headed by General Catalyst. Collider Ventures, Bering Waters, Bollinger Investment Group, and Balaji Srinivasan also participated in the round as investors.
This investment is timed with the impending release of Sovryn’s Zero protocol. Zero is a revolutionary new lending product that lets users borrow funds against their Bitcoin holdings at zero percent interest and with no set payback or maturity date. Borrowers are not required to pay interest on the loans ever and may repay them whenever they choose. Registration for Zero’s early access queue has opened.
Indicative of the increased interest among conventional investors in the DeFi and Bitcoin markets, this funding round has closed.
In spite of the recent spectacular market fall, the funding shows that investors have faith in Sovryn’s potential to expand Bitcoin’s functionality beyond that of a simple store of money, and to develop instruments for financial sovereignty. Nearly all members of a decentralized community voted in favor of the funding round.
General Catalyst managing director Kyle Doherty said, “We believe the team at Sovryn has the technical ability and community to build products that will actually fulfil the promise of DeFi by bringing it to the dominant network, Bitcoin. We are philosophically aligned with the goals of the Bitcoin and Sovryn networks to empower people, promote individual freedom, and achieve broader financial inclusion”.
Having been authorized by a community governance vote on the Sovryn platform, this investment round is groundbreaking for both conventional VC and the cryptocurrency industry. Community members with an interest in the Sovryn protocol were given a chance to weigh in on the proposal’s viability by participating in this funding round’s Sovryn Improvement Proposal (SIP) voting. In the Sovryn ecosystem, no one entity can make crucial choices or modifications because of the Bitocracy-style decentralized governance.
As a result of this capital round, the conventional order of investment opportunities has been flipped on its head. For both conventional and crypto startups, venture capitalists are the first investors in, with the public let in only afterwards. In this case, VCs are joining an active market with a thriving investor community.
Sovryn core contributor, Edan Yago, says:
“Sovryn is a user-owned cooperative developing open-source code to enhance the freedom of individuals around the world. There is no corporation, foundation or non-profit behind Sovryn – so it’s remarkable that established funds, like GC, are changing the way they invest in order to support the Sovryn mission”.
Sovryn is the most advanced Bitcoin-native DeFi platform, and it is completely owned and operated by its user base. It’s based on Bitcoin, its principal trading currency is Bitcoin, and it provides fully autonomous and decentralized financial services on a global scale. For organizations and people that want access to financial applications without being subject to governments or financial intermediaries, Sovryn bridges the gap between Bitcoin and the rest of the smart-contract world with a security-first approach. The platform is constructed on the notion that bitcoin will serve as the reserve currency of the future, and as such offers a broad range of financial services, including spot and margin trading, borrowing and lending, and liquidity provision across investment pools.
Sovryn is just getting started, but it’s doing it with a calm assurance that belies its youth. However, it has grown very rapidly since its formal introduction a little over a year ago:
- Total spot traded volume of $1,552,421,305
- Total margin traded volume of $112,131,176
- $322MM+ in total has been borrowed and lent on the platform
- Over $214m in lending activity.
- The total number of individual wallets has grown to almost 50,000+
“Our intention is to help grow the Sovryn ecosystem, actively participate in Bitocracy, and become useful members of the Sovryn community. We think we have much to offer and are excited to get started,” said Doherty. “There is an incredible opportunity to pursue investments that enable and build upon Bitcoin and Satoshi’s original vision. Bitcoin is the longest running cryptocurrency with the largest market cap, and with the appetite for DeFi on other blockchains, Sovryn is fulfilling that appetite on Bitcoin to provide people with financial control over their lives.”
Anthony Pompliano, who has invested in Sovryn before, led a group of investors in a round of funding in March 2021. AscendEX, Gate.io, DeFi Technologies, Cadenza (a BitMEX-affiliated venture fund), Collider Ventures, Blockware Solutions, Monday Capital, and Greenfield One are just a few of these investors.
