Multicoin and Kraken Invest Millions in Crypto Startups

Multicoin Capital led $17.4M round for Eden Network while Kraken Ventures joined in $8M Series A funding for Rocket Dollar.

share

key takeaways

  • Multicoin led the new funding round for Eden Network which will be used to help the network improve its infrastructure through research and development
  • Other investors that participated in the round for Eden Network include Alameda Research, Jump Capital, Wintermute, GSR, Defiance Capital

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.

Are you a UK or EU reader that cant get enough investor-focused content on digital assets?Join us in London on November 15th and 16th for the Digital Asset Summit (DAS) London. Use code ARTICLE for £75 off your ticket. Buy it now.

Tags

Upcoming Events

WED - FRI, OCTOBER 9 - 11, 2024

Pack your bags, anon — we’re heading west! Join us in the beautiful Salt Lake City for the third installment of Permissionless. Come for the alpha, stay for the fresh air. Permissionless III promises unforgettable panels, killer networking opportunities, and mountains […]

MON - WED, MARCH 18 - 20, 2024

Crypto’s premier institutional conference returns to London in March 2024. The DAS: London Experience:  Attend expert-led panel discussions and fireside chats  Hear the latest developments regarding the crypto and digital asset regulatory environment directly from policymakers and experts   Grow your network […]

recent research

Pyth Cover.jpg

Research

Pyth is a low latency pull-based oracle. In a future that looks increasingly high frequency, with various alt L1s and L2s that have significantly shorter block times than Ethereum, and an explosion of “high-frequency” protocols such as oracle or CLOB perp DEXs, Pyth’s low latency oracle product looks much better positioned to capture a significant amount of market share in comparison to competitors.

article-image

Can an ERC-20 token fix science? Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong hopes so

article-image

Roughly $65 billion worth of assets remain on Binance after the exchange agreed to pay, forfeit $4.3 billion Tuesday, Nansen data shows

article-image

The HTX exchange has been hit by a security breach, similar to the recent Poloniex hack

article-image

We have the answers for the usual barrage of questions stuffed with preconceived judgments about Web3, crypto and blockchain

article-image

NFT data will be integrated into CoinGecko APIs in second quarter of 2024, having bought Zash for an undisclosed sum

article-image

Binance and its former CEO have pleaded guilty to federal charges of over $4.3 billion