Multicoin and Kraken Invest Millions in Crypto Startups

Multicoin Capital led a $17.4M funding round in Eden Network, an Ethereum transaction protocol that launched last month.

Other investors that participated in the round include Alameda Research, Jump Capital, Wintermute, GSR, Defiance Capital, and angel investors Andre Cronje, the founder of Yearn.Finance and Joshua Lim, head of derivatives at Genesis Capital. 

The new funding will be used to help the network improve its infrastructure through research and development as well as hire additional software engineers. 

Eden Network went live in August at the same time as Ethereum’s London hard fork. The network aims to protect traders from malicious Miner Extractable Value, or MEV, which is when miners in the Ethereum Network have the power to select which transactions are included in a block and the order of those transactions. 

According to Eden Network’s website, Eden blocks represent 53.33% of the participating hashrate, which means it represents more than half of the network’s hash power on Ethereum.

“MEV is a big problem. It’s specifically the malicious MEV that’s a problem,” Tushar Jain, managing partner at Multicoin Capital said in an interview with Blockworks.

“If the price of an asset is different between Uniswap and SushiSwap, there is a guaranteed profit to be made by the first trader who can execute the arbitrage,” Jain said in a blog post. “The block producer for each block chooses which transaction is going to be first in that block and can decide who will earn this arbitrage profit. MEV can be defined as the sum of guaranteed on-chain profits that block producers can claim,” Jain added. 

While the future of Ethereum and Eden Network is unclear, Jain said the environment will develop and change quickly. “We don’t know when ETH 2.0 is going to happen or what it will look like. But Eden is designed to be flexible and compatible with any of these future stakes of the world,” he said to blockworks.  

Rocket Dollar’s $8M Series A 

In other news, Rocket Dollar, a self-directed retirement platform, raised $8 million in Series A financing in a round led by Park West Asset Management.

Additional investors include Hyphen Capital, Moneta Venture Capital, Kraken Ventures, and Primetime Partners as well as an existing investor, Sure Ventures, also joined in the round.

The company has over $350 million in customer assets and said it will use the funding to accelerate product development, enhance customer experience and focus on cybersecurity, investment education and content to help investors understand the retirement investing ecosystem. 

Brandon Gath, Managing Partner at Kraken Ventures said in an email to Blockworks, “Traditional retirement accounts, specifically employer sponsored retirement accounts, typically provide limited investment options and lower contribution limits. Millennials and Gen Z in particular have shown a strong interest in investing in a wide range of assets from private companies to real estate to crypto assets. We were attracted to Rocket Dollar because they enable greater empowerment and individual freedom to invest in asset classes with the best returns. Through Rocket Dollar, clients can use Kraken to purchase cryptocurrencies that they can then put towards their retirement. We’re pleased to say that many have already done just that.”

Rocket Dollar helps a range of users gain financial autonomy — from recent college graduates to 60-year-olds looking to maximize their savings, according to Kraken.

“Kraken Ventures believes technology ultimately empowers the investor and Rocket Dollar enables everyone to add crypto — the highest performing asset class of the past decade — to their retirement account,” Gath said in a statement.

This article was updated on Sept. 10, 2021, at 9:11 am ET.

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