Katherine Ross

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M&amp;A szn’s still going strong — and this morning’s announcement that Trident and IntoTheBlock are merging is yet another sign of the consolidation we’re seeing.



If you’re not familiar with the two, IntoTheBlock is a financial services platform designed for institutional DeFi investors, and Trident Digital offers services from lending to advisory.&nbsp;



The firms will now become Sentora, and the goal of the new joint entity is to cater to funds, treasuries, and other institutional investors in DeFi. Basically, they want to create an ecosystem focused on the needs of institutions to push into DeFi.&nbsp;



Trident’s Anthony DeMartino will take the helm of Sentora. (If he sounds familiar to you, he was also former head of risk strategies at Coinbase.)



“Through our strategic partnerships with industry leaders, we are developing a suite of products that address the key blockers preventing institutional adoption of DeFi,” DeMartino said.&nbsp;



“The future of finance is decentralized — but not disorganized,” he added. And, honestly, what a fun way to put it.



Meanwhile, IntoTheBlock’s CEO Jesús Rodríguez will take the helm as CTO.&nbsp;



But the merger isn’t the only news they announced. They also raised $25 million in a Series A funding round led by New Form Capital, with Joint Effects and Tribe Capital. Ripple was noted as a strategic ecosystem investor.&nbsp;



&#8220;Institutional capital won’t move into DeFi without strong risk management and compliance frameworks. Sentora provides both — without sacrificing performance,&#8221; New Form’s Alex Marinier noted.



So let’s zoom out.



We’re seeing a rise in these types of M&amp;A deals, in which crypto firms are looking to create a platform that can cater to multiple needs for clients, like institutional investors. We’re also just plain seeing an uptick in M&amp;A activity. That’s a trend I wouldn’t expect to go away anytime soon.



Let’s take a look at some (<a href="https://x.com/blockworksres/status/1919481758183260325">brand-spanking-new</a>) data from Blockworks Research, shall we?



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfwy0RBOW-brdt4fgSNttwVC-m9rUnbQBJdxJVO6LRGBKoXIOtGQpywSmcg0DoI6XI8uOlC4X2HG11Z3Pq5MxFbdJWPa8WD1RPPQYImVh22yJ6jJ6A0HBJISxwdb6XwwFGl0pHG?key=7zUD8Y_viE1QdBy1hh8N1dFR" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">No, literally. This is fresh out the oven as of yesterday afternoon. Yay.</figcaption></figure>



You can see above that finance is one of the top sectors to consolidate. This makes sense because we’re going to see a lot more competition as this space heats up and institutional investors look to find a platform that can meet most of their needs.&nbsp;



Who wants to have multiple platforms when you can find one that fulfills your needs, right? It simplifies it, and projects will cater to what the market’s looking for (see the deal above).&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdMqwDaV-JckDFHj01fpyyQxWJXr41l7D6DVKukfdZJa7Dsb-Wuq0_GzUlIwwoT1cGKobjExxHXFzxLZIadja2rHngqq2iuuaXBCtXyiNwoRrxx70GsTM4GLmp86UHRi0wyVxN6Vw?key=7zUD8Y_viE1QdBy1hh8N1dFR" alt=""/></figure>



As you can see, crypto deal activity is starting to pick up. Just remember: we’re likely going to stay a ways off from those crazy 2021 levels for a while.&nbsp;



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Empire Newsletter

IntoTheBlock and Trident announce merger, raise $25M for new firm

Macauley Peterson

<div id="highlights-block_6234c65660322" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Sushi has fallen out of the top 10 decentralized exchanges by volume, according to Coingecko</li>
 <li>Aave’s total value locked peaked at nearly $20 billion in October 2021</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



As DeFi projects have lost their luster and trading volumes have tanked, two new blue-chip protocols are trying to once again catch the eye of big-money investors.&nbsp;



A new product from the DAO team at Sushi has launched its beta on the Polygon proof-of-stake blockchain. A new set of money Legos for the DeFi space, the project, dubbed Trident, is being billed as a “production framework for building and deploying AMMs.”



Aave V3, meanwhile, has launched on six different chains, enabling cross-chain transactions, among a host of new features.



The two protocols, well-regarded DeFi (decentralized finance) projects that originated from 2020’s “DeFi summer,” have a combined total value locked of around $16 billion — even though their DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) governance tokens have tanked.



SUSHI is down around 88% from its <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/sushi" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">March 2021 peak</a> of $23.05, while AAVE has fallen 76% since a <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/aave" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">May 2021 peak</a> of $631.26, per Coingecko.



As the hype around so-called <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/the-investors-guide-to-defi-2-0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DeFi 2.0</a> upstart projects such as OlympusDAO and Wonderland has faded in recent months, the product launches may signal a shift back to industry stalwarts.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">A refreshed Sushi</h3>



The community of developers and Sushi adherents have been through a rough patch since a management shakeup last year, which saw <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/sushiswap-swaps-out-co-founder-0xmaki/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sushi’s co-founder depart</a> in September and <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/update-cto-resigns-as-sushiswap-struggles-arca-submits-restructuring-proposal/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">its chief technology officer resign</a> in December.



That inevitably led to delays in the progress toward Trident, but the DAO team announced the beta version rollout in <a href="https://sushichef.medium.com/launching-trident-phase-1-4e483fad0ae4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the group&#8217;s blog</a> Wednesday.



This system can be used for “creating any [automated market-maker] anyone would ever need,” according to the blog. Unlike the prior version, Trident allows anyone to create a liquidity pool, much like <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/?s=Uniswap" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Uniswap</a> does. Unlike Uniswap, the pools can have an imbalance of tokens rather than a 50-50 split — a feature of another rival decentralized exchange, <a href="https://balancer.fi/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Balancer</a>.



The full feature set is expected to be made available following the completion of security audits, and Trident will also eventually be pushed out to other chains, such as Ethereum’s mainnet.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Aave adds more Ethereum-compatible chains</h3>



Aave <a href="https://twitter.com/AaveAave/status/1504137636105043971" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">unveiled</a> its third-generation app this week. Aave’s DAO community approved deployments on Polygon, plus Ethereum layer-2s Arbitrum, Optimism, and other layer-1 networks compatible with the Ethereum virtual machine — Fantom, Avalanche and Harmony. Deployment to Ethereum’s mainnet is still in the works.



Among the goals of V3 are “greater capital efficiencies, increased security, and cross-chain functionality,” according to <a href="https://aave.mirror.xyz/2TnHYHQRnNhSG56Y4CcssulFArSVqrFbmAdYfU7Kxp0" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the announcement</a>.



​​“This is a huge milestone for one of the most popular liquidity protocols in DeFi and furthers our mission to bring DeFi to the next hundreds of millions of people,” Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal said in a statement.



A standout is the “Portals” feature, which allows DAO-approved bridging protocols to facilitate cross-chain transactions, so that assets within Aave can readily flow between disparate blockchains without a DeFi user having to withdraw, bridge and redeposit assets in separate transactions.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">&#8220;The cross-chain portal will enable users to port their own liquidity from one network to another, at their discretion. It will allow each iteration of the protocol on the various networks to scale quite quickly with the depth of capitalization,&#8221; Nicolo Stewen, Aave&#8217;s Director of Strategy, told Blockworks.</blockquote>



The app’s “High Efficiency Mode” allows borrowers to obtain greater buying power when using similar assets, such as stablecoins, as collateral.



“Isolation Mode” addresses one of the culprits behind many <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/flash-loan-exploit-whips-cream-finance-for-130-million/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">high-value exploits</a> — most recently the <a href="https://twitter.com/shegenerates/status/1503852338917908488" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$11 million loss</a> on Agave, an Aave fork on the Gnosis Ethereum sidechain — having to do with the listing of new collateral assets that prove to be unsafe. By walling off certain categories of assets, V3 limits risk.



On the security front, Aave&#8217;s V3 code has been <a href="https://github.com/aave/aave-v3-core/tree/master/audits" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">audited by multiple firms</a>, such as Sigma Prime, Trail of Bits, Open Zeppelin, ABDK and PeckShield, and has undergone verification by Certora.



Its open-source code is released under a business license similar to that of Uniswap V3.



As with the predominant V2, Aave V3 will integrate with popular DeFi apps and dashboards, including 1Inch, Debank, DeFisaver, Instadapp, Paraswap, Zapper and Zerion.



“Incredibly excited for what this means for the future of the Aave Protocol and the Aave Community as a whole, both in terms of its scalability and its flexibility as the space continues to evolve,” Stewen <a href="https://twitter.com/coconidodev/status/1504173409743343620" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>.



This story was updated on March 21 at 3:15 a.m. ET with comments from Nicolo Stewen



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