Blockchain startup Vega has secured $5 million in a seed funding round to develop a decentralized protocol for derivatives market trading.
The funding round was led by Pantera Capital, while other participants include Ripple’s venture arm Xpring, Hashed, NGC Ventures, gumi Cryptos Capital, Rockaway Blockchain, KR1, Eden Block, Focus Labs, Greenfield One, Monday Capital, and RSK Ecosystem Fund.
Commenting on the milestone, Barney Mannerings, founder of the company, said: “We support the right to collaborate and trade freely. Privileged institutions and gatekeepers have for too long kept the financial system rigid and rigged in their favor. It is neither desirable nor necessary for market participants to be subject to profiteering, monitoring, and control by those privileged institutions.”
Protocol to make trading efficient
The startup is developing an agnostic protocol to integrate various blockchain protocols, Ethereum being the first.
It will offer traders a secure platform for non-custodial decentralized margin trading in the peer-to-peer markets. According to the company, it will reduce the overhead costs associated with traditional trading techniques. In addition, it's trading optimized side chains will offer 10 to 100 times faster execution of trades.
The Gibraltar-headquartered company is also boosting its layer-2 architecture of blockchain, which overcomes the limitations of Bitcoin and Ethereum’s layer-1 protocols.
The announcement also detailed that the company is currently testing the first version of its protocol and is working on launching its first private testnet. It will also introduce a staking model for the traders using the protocol.
"In Vega, we see a project with the potential to disrupt and transform the financial landscape with decentralized margined products. The team’s vision for the future of finance is a level playing field in which all people can participate. That vision is integral to the blockchain ethos and represents everything we are fighting to enact,” said Paul Veradittakit, partner at Pantera Capital.
